Sidewalks - Kerry Wins These Irish Votes

by Tom Deignan

KATE Fitzgerald and Niall Mooney, both U.S. citizens currently living in Ireland, represent two different aspects of the Irish American experience.

Fitzgerald’s mother was born in San Diego, California. Her mom met a Co. Kerry man while they were both attending college in San Francisco. 

The family moved back to Ireland in 1996 when Fitzgerald’s father decided to start up a company in the Gaeltacht (Irish speaking area) of West Cork.

Mooney, meanwhile, was actually born in Galway but moved to America in the 1990s to work.

“I loved it and became a citizen,” Mooney told the Irish Voice this week.

But like Fitzgerald, Mooney ended up back in Ireland. The duo did maintain strong ties to the U.S. So, when the election of 2004 showed up on the radar screen, both went out of their way to vote.

And both are strong supporters of John Kerry. Or, depending how you see it, deeply opposed to the policies of President Bush.

Either way, as the election winds down, and as polls are analyzed from every possible angle, little attention has been paid to people in Ireland who are eligible to vote in the U.S. election. Judging by the available information, Democrats have done a solid job drumming up votes for Kerry.

Both parties have voter registration machines in Ireland. However, Democrats Abroad in Ireland told the Irish Voice this week that they believe they have signed on nearly 1,000 new voters. Kate Fitzgerald and Niall Mooney are among them.

Those interviewed by the Irish Voice said it was a combination of Irish and American issues which motivated them.

“I voted for John Kerry because America is on the wrong track. Like it or not September 11 happened on George Bush’s watch and I believe there was not enough done to prevent it,” Mooney said.

“My gut told me that in the run up to September 11 that something was going to happen mainly because Mr. Bush was systematically undoing all the work Bill Clinton had done in the Middle East,” he added. Mooney said he hopes to return to the U.S. some day. And he confides that he was torn between his American and Irish Catholic identities.

Mooney says he by and large agrees with Bush on the abortion issue. “I am a Catholic,” Mooney said. But Mooney added that Bush’s support for the death penalty more or less cancels out his pro-life stance on abortion.

“I do not agree with John Kerry on everything but I am willing to give him a chance,” Mooney said.

Living in Ireland, meanwhile, made Kate Fitzgerald’s pro-Kerry stance easier.

“Both my parents and I have noticed that seeing U.S. issues from overseas has really broadened our perspective on them. It’s very easy when living in the U.S. to get a very isolated view on the way America is seen abroad and how U.S. foreign policy affects the world,” said Fitzgerald, now studying international relations in Dublin City University.

Rebecca Woolf, who heads up the Democratic efforts to drum up votes in Ireland, said most of the Kerry supporters she has met were moved by what she termed the Bush administration’s mishandling of the Iraq war and general arrogance abroad.

This is in line with most opinion polls in Ireland. It appears that U.S. citizens who have decided to return home are more Irish than they are American, at least when it comes to politics.

The Irish Voice attempted to contact GOP Ireland, the arm of the Republican Party that searches for votes in Ireland. But repeated attempts to contact chairman James Young were not successful.

Gloria Frankel, an Irish American who lived for a long time in New York and Boston, is not surprised by this. She can’t believe anyone watching the election from Ireland would vote for Bush.

“I cannot think of a single reason for voting for Bush,” said Frankel, whose grandfather was an Irish immigrant and who is currently living in Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary.

“How anyone who had watched the Bush/Kerry debates could consider for a moment voting for Bush defies belief.”

Frankel cannot be accused of being a political junkie. “The last, and only, time I voted in an American election was in New York City in 1954,” she said. 

Frankel, Mooney, Fitzgerald and many other voters living in Ireland will see if their pro-Kerry votes will make a difference come next week.

(Contact Sidewalks at tdeignan@irishvoice.com