A St. Patrick’s Wish List

Is it just us or does it seem like only six months or so since last St. Patrick’s Day? Of course, the older you get the more time flies, because each passing year is a smaller percentage of your life — or so the experts assure us.

Some things never change, of course, even as Father Time accelerates for us all. Here’s a wish list of events this St. Patrick’s Day that we hope will either never change or do so awfully soon.

The first wish is that New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade chairman John Dunleavy heads off to the sunset in Florida and retires from his position. The parade has been damaged badly during his tenure and that of his late lamented partner Jim Barker. 

Let’s hope that the new man, almost certain to be Dr. John Lahey of Quinnipiac College, will have a different outlook and introduce a minimum of democracy to the parade institutions. That was something that died under the regimes of Frances Beirne and then Dunleavy.

Another wish — a well earned retirement too for the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization, which started life as a very worthy welfare group for young Irish immigrants with AIDS and ended up as a harsh, barely Irish, single focus organization with as little interest in compromise as the parade committee.

The names are now unrecognizable in the ILGO leadership. Most have a once a year association with an Irish issue — the parade. 

In addition, they have never given the slightest inkling that they look on the annual standoff as anything other than an attempt to create screaming media headlines for their cause.

You don’t have to be anti-Irish Catholic or anti-gay to understand that this dispute, which defines both groups of people for millions of Americans, has been harmful to the parade and the gays. Yet, like a warring couple they actually seem to need each other to stay relevant.

For Governor George Pataki, a St. Patrick’s wish for a change of heart that his administration will stop trying to chase down Irish and other undocumented who dare to seek driver’s licenses so they can work. Recently a court overruled Pataki on this issue but he immediately had his minions appeal.

I will always remember that incredible day when Pataki opened the Irish Famine Memorial in Battery Park City. Now he is in danger of tarnishing that legacy with his anti-Irish immigrant move. 

Come on George, we know you are not one of those nativists who want to keep immigrants out. Tell your people to drop their appeal and give hope again to a generation of Irish immigrants, just like your grandmother Agnes Lynch.

For President George W. Bush, a special wish that his outspoken statements on immigration reform will turn into reality. He has mentioned the issue several times, including on Inauguration Day and genuinely seems sympathetic to the plight of the undocumented.

It will take all his muscle and strength to get reform through Congress, but it would change the lives of so many of our immigrant community for good if it succeeds.

For Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, the final recognition that without him peace will never come to Northern Ireland. His critics love to try to tear him down, but he has done more for Irish peace in one day than they have done in their lives.

For Democratic Unionist leader Reverend Ian Paisley, a deathbed conversion to the Belfast Agreement and to finding a way that he and Adams can enter government together. There have been intriguing hints that the old bigot is seeing the light.

For Jimmy Breslin, a wish that he would unretire. The New York columnist is the greatest newspaper writer in America today and his retirement has left a glaring gap.

For Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, the authors of 102 Minutes, the best-selling inside story of the World Trade Center disaster, a movie deal so the rest of the world can see the heroism they discovered on that day from so many ordinary people.

Finally, for all those 70 million Irish on this St. Patrick’s Day — a wish that they never forget where they came from and what their ancestors went though — famine, attempted genocide and other dreadful trials — so that the Irish worldwide could stand tall. Remember them this week.