Ireland used to produce baseball players

It's not quite as tough as missing Thanksgiving, but Opening Day in Ireland is pretty flat experience. It's not as if there's a great buzz in the neighborhood or even in the papers or on TV or anywhere really. Today is just March 31 in Ireland, but it's a special day in America.

At least those few of us who care can watch the games thanks to digital television and broadband. Still it would be great if there was even something of a buzz here about the start of a new baseball season.

I've often wondered if there were a few players from Ireland would that create an interest in baseball here. Hard to say, but it's not that likely to happen. Baseball's no longer dominated by the sons of Irish immigrants as it was in the years before World War I.

Back then some of the biggest names in baseball were sons of immigrants, including John McGraw, "Wee" Willie Keeler and the game's first superstar, Mike "King" Kelly. None of those all-time greats was actually born in Ireland, however.

There have been Major Leaguers born in Ireland, 44 in all, but none recently and none were stars.

The best of the Irish-born players were Jack Doyle from Killorglin, County Kerry and Patsy Donovan {photo} from Queenstown (Cobh), County Cork. Both Doyle and Donovan played for 17 years in the big leagues, with Doyle finishing up in 1905 and Donovan two years later.

Obviously I never saw either of them play, but statistically they were very similar players. Both of them hit just around .300 for their careers and both stole 518 bases. Donovan was an outfielder and Doyle played a few positions, but mostly first base.

The last Irish-born player in the major leagues was Joe Cleary from Cork who pitched in one game in 1945 without distinction.

Just something to wet your whistle while you're waiting for the games to begin in a few hours. For us Met fans, Opening Day is tomorrow night (that's just wrong - the first game should always be a day game) and despite all the bad press about money and Bernie Madoff, Opening Day is all about hope and we're expecting a great run and fun in September.

{Photo: from Vintage Baesball in Ireland}

Bush was a uniter; Obama's a divider

It all started just around the inauguration in 2009. Maybe it was before that. Election Day? I can't quite remember now, but it was around that time. Before Barak Obama became President of the United States the people of this state were united, beautifully so.

There had been some straws in the wind even before the election, but once it was clear that Barack Obama was going to be President the real fight started. Neighbor turned on neighbor, brother on brother.

I had never even heard of Moneygall before Obama came along. Why would I have? I'm sure I've driven through it on my way to Limerick, but 300 people live there. It made no impression. Believe me, I wasn't the only one in Ireland who had never heard of Moneygall before.

When it transpired that Barack Obama is descended from a Falmouth Kearney, who left Moneygall for New York in 1850 suddenly the town (hamlet, more like) started making the news. The instant reaction of most people was, "Where? What did he say? Moneyball? Isn't that a book by Michael Lewis?" Okay, that last one was only me, but you get the picture. Nobody knew nor cared about Moneygall. God be with the days.

Now we have two counties practically ready to go to war over Moneygall. Although the media has repeatedly described Moneygall as being in County Offaly, it apparently could be considered to be in County Tipperary too. I only found this out today, thanks to the Irish Independent.

To my eye it seems that Offaly has the stronger claim, but let's face it the American media is going to be much happier with Tipperary - it's a known quantity - than Offaly. I can already hear it: "How do you pronounce that? Awfully?" Accuracy be damned, Tipperary has a strong hand here.

And then there's Kilkenny. The people of County Kilkenny want in on the action. "Moneygall? Offaly? Tipperary? Show me the ancestors!" they demand. You see, Falmouth's family left little by way of a permanent mark on Moneygall, but going back a bit further there is a definite relative - a grand-grand...uncle - Bishop John Kearney who is entombed in St Canice's Cathedral {photo} in the beautiful city of Kilkenny.

Now it's really getting ugly. You don't have a direct line in Kilkenny, but you have an actual tomb and it's a beautiful spot. Not just beautiful, but lively. The President's people will love Kilkenny and so will the American press.

You see how Obama has divided the people? The desire to claim him as a 'native son' could easily lead to blood, war, ruin. Offaly? Tipperary? Kilkenny? Bad-tempered hurling matches engender less bad feeling.

It was all so much simpler with President Bush. No county, no town or hamlet claimed him or wanted to be associated with him. (I think there was some distant connection, but it's been officially buried.) From Election Day in 2000 until he left office, the people of Ireland were quite content and of one mind in detesting the man.

Didn't matter what he did, they were against it. Every word out of his mouth was greeted with a sneer and every action with a protest. Those were happier times.

Now the country is choosing sides in a three-way battle to make Obama their own. It won't end well. As we all know, the Irish have long memories and this division will take generations to heal.

American founders' slogan abused in Irish voting rights debate

We're having an election. It was supposed to be on March 11, but the Irish government couldn't even hold on that long and now election day looks like it will be February 25. Unfortunately for all those thousands of (mostly young) Irish who have been forced to leave Ireland and seek work elsewhere, the election will not include them. They are ineligible to vote.

I was listening to a news program last week, one that features a weekly slot with American (right wing) talk show host Michael Graham. When Graham innocently asked how Ireland's emigrants would vote in the upcoming election, he was shocked to learn that they have no vote. Graham noted that America allows its citizens abroad to vote by mail and that in his town - near Boston - they recently had a large news item about all the Brazilians voting there in Brazil's election. How could Ireland not offer the same to its citizens?

It's true, however. Ireland is just about the only democracy that doesn't allow its citizens abroad to vote. For Pete's sake it is only two weeks ago that stories about Sudanese emigrants voting in their recent referendum were featured in local papers across America and throughout the world. Sudan! If Sudan can afford - monetarily and politically - to allow its citizens outside the country to vote why can't Ireland? {Photo - Rwandan woman voting at her country's embassy in Sweden.}

There's a lot of focus in Ireland right now on how the foreign media is portraying the country in the current political crisis. Sure the Irish government is making a mess and the media is paying a lot of attention, but we all know that this will blow over. All countries go through some political upheaval at times, but the rule of law and democracy are not threatened. It's a soon-to-be-forgotten media firestorm.

Far more embarrassing, but less widely known is that Ireland disenfranchises those who choose or are compelled to move away.

Many of those who oppose emigrant voting rights are extremely smug. They dismiss the rights of Irish citizens who live outside Ireland. They say that when you leave you have no right to have a say in how the country is run.

Their most repeated argument is that if you don't pay taxes you shouldn't get to vote, equating citizen with taxpayer. What really annoys me is that they misquote and abuse a slogan of the American revolution in making their case. "No representation without taxation" they claim, sometimes even invoking America's founders as they do so.

As all Americans know full well, the slogan is "No taxation without representation," which is a perfectly reasonable argument by any democrat. The other is a perfectly reasonable argument by someone who is arrogant, uncaring and undemocratic with a secure job and no worries about having to leave the country and who doesn't give a fiddler's curse about those who do.

{You can sign an online petition here to protest against this denial of citizens' democratic rights.}

Forced emigration is not a lark

Everyone with an interest in Ireland and/or the Irish should read Niall O'Dowd's column on the Working Abroad Expo, better known here as the Emigration Expo, held in Dublin over the weekend. O'Dowd describes a scene that is incredibly sad, thousands of people hoping to find an opportunity to work in Australia or Canada or just about anywhere.

If you worry that O'Dowd's description is a bit overdone, you can find similar descriptions of the Expo in today's Irish Times. According to Twitter posts I read, people were lined up for more than 100 yards in wind and rain just waiting for the chance to pay their €10 ($13.70) to talk to people who might have some insight on possible leads on jobs outside Ireland.

While these scenes are not surprising given the state of the economy here, what has really surprised me recently is the flippant, disdainful responses of some people in the media when the discussion turns emigration. Some talk about emigration as if it's not much of an issue, that the whole experience will do the emigrants the world of good. "I went to London for two years when I graduated." That sort of thing.

That kind of thing gets my goat. First of all it's not that straight-forward. As O'Dowd's and the Irish Times' reports make clear, many of those who are looking to leave are not young, recent graduates. Many at the Expo were in their 30s, some even in their late 40s. A large percentage of the would be graduates have families.

Even among the young and single, not all have been prepared for this step. They came of age in an era when they were promised that emigration was at an and. They bought into the proposition that you could go abroad for a year or two and return if you so desired. They expected that when they left it would be temporary, just to get experience. And those who never wanted to leave, felt no need to get that experience outside Ireland, would be able to stay and work here forever.

That belief is gone now as many of those who are looking to leave don't want to go and don't expect to return. They're emigrating, not going abroad temporarily. Glib descriptions of the benefits of emigration to Ireland or suggestions that we need to "redefine emigration" and claims that emigration is "not really a problem" reek of indifference and arrogance. Such talk is insensitive in the extreme to those whose lives have been turned upside down, who feel they must leave to avoid unemployment, bankruptcy and despondency.

Sure going abroad for a year when you are 22 can be a big adventure, but leaving your homeland to seek work elsewhere because you were laid off and have no hope of being hired anytime soon is nothing less than traumatic. I can accept that many people feel helpless to do anything about the political or economic situation that's forcing people to leave. That's understandable, but it's unfathomable that even a minority of Irish people can be so dismissive of the difficulties that face these latest emigrants.

Walking away from mortgages will be Irish emigrants' revenge

A couple of recent reports here say the fall in house prices is declining. That's the good news. House prices are still falling, but at least they're not going down as fast as they were.

I know American house prices have also declined, but nationally the price of the average American house is down about 20% from the peak. Here prices are down about 50% and we have another 10% decline to go - at least. {Ireland's experience matches that of Las Vegas, which is appropriate given the way the government and the banks kept doubling down time after time til the bubble finally burst.}

In the area where I live I've seen two "SOLD" signs recently and those are the first in quite a while. That had me believing that maybe we were really near the bottom and that things might get better.

HOWEVER, this past week I came across another report, this one aimed at investors in residential property. The report focuses on Dublin, Cork & Galway so it's not a full national picture, but still the headline figures are chilling. Houses are still overvalued by somewhere between 37% and 43%! That would mean that a house worth €500,000 in 2007 will eventually fall in value to around €150,000*.

Already approximately 40% of Ireland's homeowners are in negative equity. How many more will end up there if houses are still 40% overvalued? It doesn't bear thinking about, although looking away probably won't make it go away.

What does this mean for Ireland's future? It means a generation or more of Irish people are trapped. They can't move to a bigger house as their family expands and they can't move to another part of the country if there is a job there for them. Trapped.

Unlike in America, Irish homeowners can't just walk away from their mortgage. Bankruptcy laws are different and the bank can (& will) pursue you for the loan even if you've handed back the keys. The only way someone can walk away from a mortgage is to walk away from Ireland, which I suspect many will eventually end up doing.

At least that will make a change. In the past, official Ireland was all too relieved when the potentially discontented, underemployed young people left for opportunities abroad. This time, at least, they'll take their free college educations and leave behind a big hole in our already devastated banking system.

For the first time departing emigrants will be able to stick their fingers in the eyes of those whose policies drove them away.

*I'm willing to believe I'm misreading or misunderstanding these reports. If I am please let me know.

Commemorating the Titanic's sinking at the right hour

The parish of Addergoole in County Mayo annually commemorates the sinking of the Titanic and the 11 members of the parish who were lost when the ship sank. Three other people from the parish survived.

The "Addergoole Fourteen" were en route to America when the Titanic struck an iceberg just before midnight on April 14, 1912. It sank a few hours later at approximately 2:20am on the 15th.

The 14 were following the millions of others who'd left Ireland for the New World during the 19th and early 20th century. Actually, two were returning to America and, so, not technically emigrating at the time, but in reality they were all emigrants, all hoping for better things in America than they had in Ireland.

I'm sure the Titanic tragedy affected the whole of the parish at the time and for many, many years afterwards. In 2001 the Addergoole Titanic Society was founded with the aim of preserving the local history of the area's connection to the Titanic. Since 2002, the Society has annually rung the local church bell in the early hours of April 15 – starting at the time the ship was lost, 2:20am.

Or is it?

Actually, the good people of Addergoole are off by a few hours. You see, the Titanic did sink at 2:20am, but that was the ship's time, not the time in Ireland. A ship's time was (is? - don't know if they still do this) determined by the ship's location, specifically it's line of longitude. This concept seems odd to us today, but in the 19th century every town in America (& Britain and probably everywhere) had its own time based on the sun until trains and telegraphs demanded less complexity in time. This is where time zones come from

Getting back to the Titanic, it was 2:20am ship's time and 5:47am GMT (that is, Britain) when the ship went below the waves.

And in Ireland? What time was it in Ireland when the Titanic sank? Well, I'm not 100% sure, but I think the whole of Ireland was 25 minutes behind Britain at the time, which would mean that it was 5:22am in Addergoole when the Titanic went down.

Of course, they didn't have Daylight Savings Time in 1912, which would mean that to mark the exact moment the ship sank on April 15 the Titanic Society should begin ringing the bell at 6:22am. And wouldn't that be a lot better than dragging everyone in the parish out of bed at 2 in the morning?

Ireland's future: everything's riding on bank bail-out plan

Today is the day that the Irish government unveils the details of the bank rescue. This afternoon after the markets close the Minister for Finance will tell the Dáil (Parliament) and the nation exactly how much it is going to cost to save Ireland's banks.

This day has been coming since the end of September 2008 when the government was forced to guarantee all Irish bank obligations. Since then the government has nationalized the scandalously (possibly criminally) badly run Anglo Irish Bank and provided the two big banks with billions. Those were stop-gap measures designed to get us to today.

Today Brian Lenihan {photo} will give us the details on Nama - the government's 'bad bank' where all the banks' property loans are heading - and the additional billions that Allied Irish Bank and Bank of Ireland need to keep going. The rumor is by the end of today the state will be the majority shareholder in AIB and a 40% owner of BoI.

All of this can be pretty dull, but it's crucial. If everything goes according to the government's plan, this will mark the turning point where the economy starts picking up, unemployment stops rising and actually begins to decline and businesses begin to grow and foreign investment begins to come back to Ireland.

If it doesn't go all that well, the Irish taxpayer will be saddled with a massive debt that will take 20 years to pay off. Unemployment will remain high, government services, welfare, other benefits and public sector pay will remain under severe pressure and emigration will really take off. If it's a complete disaster, we'll have all of that, only more so and the state will, for all intents and purposes, no longer be independent, but rather a German vassal.

I'll be tuning in (here, if you're interested) around 11:30am EDT and then switching to CNBC to see how the plan affects the NASDAQ share prices of AIB and BoI. If those share prices head north after the Minister's speech I'll assume us taxpayers have been suckered into overpaying for the banks' garbage loans and their junk shares.

Irish ancestry? Ireland offers discount on college fees

Yesterday in Washington Taoiseach Brian Cowen (Ireland's Prime Minister) announced a new program that will make 500 college places available at reduced fees to the children of the Irish diaspora. This is a tremendous idea, particularly because in a small way it acknowledges the debt this country owes to those 'lost sons and daughters' and their offspring.

Often, far too often actually, the diaspora is treated as if it's the not-too-bright-but-wealthy cousin who you can tap for a few bucks when you find yourself a little short (through no fault of your own, of course). It's about time that changed and Ireland took an active interest in offering a little something back to the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those emigrants who scrimped and saved to send money home to Ireland even when money was tight.

The idea behind the Ireland Homecoming Study Programme (IHSP) is that students will be able "to take advantage of a high-quality educational experience in a leading EU member state while tapping into their Irish heritage." That sounds good.

The fees for the courses at the various institutions have been reduced by 40% for the IHSP and are €3,000 ($4,081) for a semester or €5,950 ($8,130) for a full year. The institutions taking part in this program are all members of the Institutes of Technology Ireland (IOTI) alliance. It's a pilot scheme and I hope it expands to include the alliance's five non-participating members and even the big universities (Trinity College, etc.), although that will probably require some serious pressure from the overseas alumni.

If this program is a success it will be oversubscribed and the number of available places will have to be increased above the current 500. If this program is a success it will be wildly popular and be a great win-win for the students and for Ireland.

The student will get time in Ireland and a decent education at a reduced rate and Ireland will get a new wave of unofficial ambassadors spread out across America, Canada, Australia, etc. These people will be the focal points for future collaborative business ventures and tourism promotions in our networked world.

The IHSP was launched on St. Patrick's Day and the deadline is the 4th of July. You couldn't bookend this better.

You can learn more and apply for the program here.

Too much English from the Irishman in charge at Vancouver

Elsewhere on this site you will find articles celebrating Irishman John Furlong, who is head of the winter Olympics Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC). However, what you may not know is that Furlong and VANOC have been drawing plenty of fire for what many French-Canadians feel was an almost total lack of French at the opening ceremony.

An editorial in yesterday's Toronto Globe and Mail said, "The most watched event in Canadian history was a celebration of the richness of Canadian identity. Among all the wonders of the Olympic opening ceremonies, though, there was a glaring and audible neglect of one of Canada's two official languages." The Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser described it as "conceived, developed and presented in English, with a French song at the end." Oh là là.

Other government officials also noted the lack of French. The premier of Quebec Jean Charest and the Minister of Canadian Heritage James Moore both indicated that they would have preferred more French in the opening ceremony. A Quebec speed skater was annoyed that that two time gold medalist from the 1984 games Gaétan Boucher was not part of the opening ceremony. Others didn't like that a quote from a 19th century French-Canadian poet was translated into English rather than read in the original French.

VANOC has tried to defend itself, but it seems that French-Canadians are generally unimpressed with the fact that there were Quebec-based acrobats and flag bearers in the opening ceremony, that two of the show's producers were from Quebec and that Celine Dion was invited to participate, but declined.

Now the pressure is on Furlong and VANOC to deliver more French for the closing ceremony. The choreography for that event was probably settled long ago, but now Furlong and the rest of his team will have to - as Canadians are used to in hockey - change on the fly and get more French into the line-up by February 28.

Government's message to the young: there's always the emigrant boat

Posted by TheYank at 12/10/2009 10:54 AM EST

Budget day. There's nothing like it in America. Oh, sure there's the always exciting appropriations bill, but that's hacked together publicly over a long time in the two houses so that there's no mystery when it's passed and sent on for the President's signature (or veto).

Here the government drafts the bill in secret. Nobody is supposed to know what's coming before the Minister for Finance rises to tell the nation - via live t.v. and radio - what the coming year will mean in terms of government spending and taxes. For days, weeks really, in advance the media is all of aflutter with speculation and leaks (since no one ever loses their job over these leaks I have to assume they're pretty deliberate) as to what the bill will contain.

This year the speculation was more intense than I've ever known it because the country is in worse shape than it's been for a long, long time. And we're still getting used to that idea. When you're in bad shape economically, but used to being in bad shape economically, you worry less.

Yesterday Minister Brian Lenihan delivered his message: 2010 will be a year of PAIN. Lots of it, unevenly distributed, but in such quantities that almost no one will escape unscathed. Cuts in pay for public sector workers, cuts in social welfare, cuts in spending in all sorts of areas. Cuts, cuts, cuts. Oh yeah, an increase in the price of gasoline and home heating oil/natural gas through a new "carbon tax" (pull the other one).

Amusingly, the government has also cut one tax: the tax on alcohol. So, at least we can drown our sorrows for a few dollars less.

Lots of people are angry today. Really angry. Funny enough the group that I think should be angriest is also the least likely to take revenge on the government: the young. No, not children, but those in their 20s & 30s whom the government has all but told to hit the road. They don't vote, however and probably still won't.

Yup, it's young people who have suffered the most in the current downturn what with their exorbitantly priced houses all too tenuous (well-paid) jobs. Thousands of young builders, IT workers, accountants and brokers & traders have gone from earning good salaries to the unemployment line. It seems likely they'll be there for a while yet. Many won't wait to see how things are going to turn out here.

It's almost like one of those natural phenomenon where some animals migrate to a specific hunting ground every twenty years. Young Irish people are the same as they head out - again - for Britain or America (if they'll have them) or Canada or Australia or New Zealand or continental Europe or ... wherever. And we can't afford to lose these people. All that energy and creativity is what the country sorely needs right now, but they were given no encouragement to remain here in yesterday's budget.

Another holiday tradition to resurface

As I was reading Piaras Mac Éinrí's article on the return of emigration it struck me that if Mac Éinrí is right, and I think he's a little ahead of the game but he will be right soon enough, that another Irish Christmas custom will be revived soon: the emigrants' Christmas visit.

Before the Celtic Tiger this was a phenomenon that everyone here knew or at least understood. RTE would report on it each year in the days before Christmas with clips of tearful, joyful reunions from the airports. The returnees would then embark on a week or two of living like there was no tomorrow, because for too many of them that's how it felt. And then, just like that, the Christmas visit was over and RTE was back at the airports, providing clips of tearful, sorrowful farewells.

The story was so familiar that the Electricity Supply Board ran an ad campaign that featured an emigrant returned for Christmas, even though if you watch the video you'll see nothing that blatantly says (a) it's Christmas or (b) the young man is an emigrant. Still, anyone who came of age here in the 1980s will recognize all the clues. For a lot of those people, even those who returned during the booming 90s, this ad is still very poignant.

Maybe the ESB will run this ad again.

Nama will be a symbol for tomorrow's emigrants

Posted by TheYank at 9/17/2009 10:18 AM EDT


Sorry I've been so silent here the past few days. Maybe you heard we had a fairly serious crash in Dublin between a bus and one of our new(ish) on-street light rail trains?

I nearly missed the Bus-Luas crash story yesterday because I'm completely distracted by the other big story here. Really, the biggest story in Ireland. Nama. Yesterday evening I switched radio stations every time the talk veered away from Nama.

Yesterday the Irish government finally unveiled the plans for bailing out our broken banks. Nama - the National Assets Management Agency - is the plan.

Everyone in Ireland is sick of the sound of it: Nama, Nama, Nama. Sick of hearing about Nama, but equally worried sick about what Nama will mean for them. No one tunes out even when they want to. I'm the same.

Will it work? I have no idea, but like most people here I'm pretty skeptical. Skeptical that the idea is not some form of boondoggle to benefit the governing party's (Fianna Fáil) developer and construction friends; skeptical that anything this government tries could possibly work. Simply skeptical.

Yeah, in truth, I don't think it's going to work for all sorts of reasons. I think the government is paying too much for properties that will be a long, long time (if ever) recovering their value. I think we're being saddled with a debt that will mean a decade (or more) of economic stagnation. And, I think the dusty old "how to" manuals on emigration will be getting a thorough look again. Yup, I think we're about to see a net outflow of people from Ireland. Again.

A lot of young Irish people will soon be looking beyond these shores for an opportunity to work just as generations of Irish have before them. They're not going to stay here to earn low wages - if they can get work - and pay high taxes, both of which are as near as guaranteed thanks to the necessity of having to bail out the banks. Someday in the future thousands of Irish emigrants will think of Nama as a symbol of all that went wrong during the '00s and forced them to leave home.

Already there is a generation of builders, engineers and architects out of work. They're gradually being joined by people who used to work in the banks or other office occupations. Once things pick up in Britain or (whisper, whisper) America, they'll be off.


Have to keep it down about America because very few of those who will be heading west in the next few years will be going with legal visas, etc. Unless of course, that issue gets somehow resolved over the next few months or so.