LETTERS

Thanks for Coverage

I WOULD like to thank the Irish Voice and Tom Deignan for the article “New Outrage Over Irish Remains” in the February 21-27 issue regarding the plight of the human remains of the Famine era Irish immigrants found on Staten Island.

Staten Island groups such as Friends of Abandoned Cemeteries, Ancient Order of Hibernians, Columcille Cultural Center, Staten Island Cemetery Associa-tion and other supporters have been diligently working for the past 15 months with the state of New York authorities to ensure the proper reinterrment of the immigrant remains.

Time is once again running out for the victims of the Great Hunger. One hundred and fifty years have passed since they were unceremoniously buried in a mass grave on Staten Island. Their horrific final resting place ultimately became a municipal parking lot.

Now most of them have been removed and are being held in storage boxes. Some still remain under the municipal parking lot.

We must fight to return to them the dignity that was taken away so long ago and which continues to elude them even today. We must provide a proper reburial.

Without a show of support, our ancestors may very well be reburied back into the municipal parking lot soon to turn courthouse complex by the state authorities.

We plead with you to take a few minutes. Help us by writing a letter of support to Friends of Abandoned Cemeteries, Staten Island, 115 Lathrop Avenue, Staten Island, New York 10314 or email SICemetery@aol.com. Your name and address must be included.

Lynn A. Rogers
Executive Director
Friends of Abandoned Cemeteries, Inc.
Staten Island, New York

Accepting Unionists

THE euphoria of slaying our Anglophobia dragon in Croke Park was rightly savored when we beat the English rugby team on Saturday, February 24.

However, let’s not lose the run of ourselves. That was the easy part.

While a bit of “Brit bashing” banter has always been part of our identity, we have reserved our real racist hatred for our nearest neighbors, the Unionist people.

We perceive Unionists as usurpers of part of our ancient tribal territory, and our deepest tribal wish is to subsume, subjugate, colonize, expel or exterminate them in order to achieve our dream of a “united Ireland.”

We steadfastly refuse to accept that they have exactly the same right to self-determination as we have. We casually dismiss Unionists’ real sense of siege and glibly demonize them as “sectarian bigots.”

In our mind’s eye we have reduced the whole Unionist people to nothing more than a mere obstacle on our road to a “united Ireland.”

Confronting our dysfunctional attitude to Unionists is a much greater challenge. Maybe our first small step in befriending our Unionist comrades would be to stop shoving our nationalist anthem down their throats at home rugby games.

Dick Keane
Glenageary, Co. Dublin
Ireland

Something About Spain

WE hope John Spain keeps writing in the Irish Voice, even though his bogeymen the IRA and Sinn Fein may have softened to the point where his attacks/comments on them may have to be revisited.

There are those who agree with John and those who don’t. So I thought I would write something up, where both sides could take part and not have to write in as being for or against John.

The object would be how you read the following piece. If you think well of John then read the whole article. If you somehow object to John (“The Spin”) Spain then read only every other line (odd numbers).

It is something we can do to agree, no matter what angle we see John’s writing from.

1. John Spain has always been out
2. front on Irish issues with his pen
3. of his mind, he creates this image
4. of his great ability to inform people
5. about how stupid he sees others
6. of their interpretation of their facts
7. and how they mean nothing to him
8. because of this great in-telligence
9. that any concern is absent of facts
10. that could come to effect his views
11. on his ability to judge others minds
12. his infallibility, a God gift to himself
13. to rid them of such inapt nonsense
14. that is indeed something he earns
15. in the wake of this grand stupidity
16. which he alone sees no ties about
17. where he ranks high above others
18. on anything that concerning Ireland
19. or for that matter anything at all
20. so we should have a honor for him
21. thus hanging from some high place
22. a plaque that shows our high love
23. John Spain, it’s an overdue justice.

Bill Ashe
Corona, California

America the Beautiful

NIALL O’Dowd’s article “Anti-U.S. Feelings Rise” in the February 13-20 issue is a classic piece of sentimentalism, defeatism and the sky-is-falling syndrome. Not one note of optimism.

He accedes completely to the left wing mainstream media’s pathological obsession blame America first. He moans on about the loss of America’s popularity in Ireland, Britain and Europe due, of course, to Bush.

Well, we are in good company. The Pope and the Catholic Church are none too popular in those places either. I wonder if Mr. O’Dowd has any concern about that?

If the measure of successful leadership and governance is popularity, then slavery would still exist in America today. Abraham Lincoln was the most despised politician in the U.S. and Europe for causing 600,000 deaths in a Civil War to free the slaves.

The majority of people back then said it was not worth it. What is the opinion of America’s blacks and whites today?

There is a saying which goes, lose sight of the big picture and the tree becomes the forest.

A singular military action, mostly in the Sunni triangle, not in all of Iraq, has been deceitfully portrayed by the left wing mainstream media in hair-raising superlatives and fear mongering statements as a global catastrophe of monumental proportions. It is no such thing.

Let’s not accept the tree of military action as a forest of monumental catastrophe as Mr. O’Dowd has done.

Mr. O’Dowd says in his 28 years here he never saw America held in as low esteem. He obviously missed the Vietnam era when our soldiers were spat upon at airports on returning by fellow Americans, if I can call them that, Hanoi Jane being one of the ring leaders. How low is that?

Mr. O’Dowd, who owes his success to America, should stop moaning for some fantasy of an ideal America that doesn’t exist and start being thankful for the good and wonderful America that we have here and now.

Thanks is due also to our brave men and women soldiers who have fought and died in the past, present and will again in the future. They above all have given us this incredible America where you can be all that you want to be. God bless each and every one of them.

Praise America first and to hell with the begrudgers.
John Rogers
Voorhees, New Jersey