Letters. The Real Kennedy. THOSE of Irish descent look back with pride on the presidency of John F. Kennedy. Everybody in my family pulled the lever for the first Irish Catholic ever to become president of the U.S.
Kennedy worked hard to achieve his goals, the Peace Corps and putting a man on the moon to name a few. Unfortunately the one blotch on his legacy is Vietnam.
In his Irish Voice letter last week, James Burke asserts that “Kennedy announced the complete withdrawal of U.S. military personnel from Vietnam by 1965.” This, I’m afraid, is an exercise in historical revisionism on the part of Mr. Burke.
I suspect those of us who are Kennedy partisans would always like to paint the prettiest picture of an Irish American icon. However, the reality is quite the opposite in this case.
Robert McNamara, who was secretary of defense during the Kennedy administration and later during the Johnson administration when the war was raging, publicly admitted the mistake and regret of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, but he stated himself that it was never the intention of the Kennedy administration to pull out of Vietnam. This right out of the horse’s mouth, without spin from Oliver Stone.
W. Glenn McNally
Brooklyn, New York Possible Paisley Ban. ON December 2, National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation host, Neil Conan, lamented the victories of what he denominated the “extremists” in the elections held to elect a new Assembly in British-occupied Ireland.
Conan correctly identified one of the “victors,” Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party, as being “extremist,” a rather mild epithet when one considers this man’s rabid anti-Catholic ravings which are worthy of a 16th or 17th century mind.
But to characterize Sinn Fein, the other “victorious” party as “extremist” is manifestly absurd. Sinn Fein’s ultimate goal is re-unification of Ireland’s northern six counties with the 26 counties now known as the Republic of Ireland. That country is democratic without an established church and is not cursed with a mentality that reeks of sectarian bigotry and hatred.
Now a bona fide hater of Catholics is about to become first minister of British-occupied Ireland. He has sworn to end the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.
Ian Paisley is sworn to go against what the other three parties participating in the elections favor. They support the Good Friday Agreement.
Surely, it is now time for British Prime Minister Tony Blair to emulate President John F. Kennedy’s stand on behalf of the human and civil rights of African Americans by applying the necessary political pressure on Paisley to sit down and talk with the representatives of Sinn Fein.
Should Paisley refuse and defy the will of 74% of the electorate of British-occupied Ireland, Blair should ban him and his party from holding any public office whatsoever.
William Gartland
Rio, Wisconsin Irish Can Definitely Apply IT is difficult to ignore the ridiculous and bigoted comments of Tom Lawler’s letter “Not Such Good Friends,” in last week’s issue.
He indicates that he is American, yet would have us believe that Irish immigrants to the U.S. were discriminated against in a systematic way, or that such discrimination was widespread. Nothing is further from the truth.
Mr. Lawler gives no documentation or sources for his claim that Irish immigrants were “forced to live in filthy, rat infected tenements and were given the most menial jobs,” or that they “were used as cannon fodder in war,” or “were sent into abominably unsafe coal mines and factories where many died.” He even demands “reparation” for some ancestors for being “exploited and abused.”
If any of those things did happen, they surely did not happen to Irish immigrants to the U.S. in any intentional or systematic way, and only in rare circumstances. He would be hard pressed to find even a handful of the millions of Irish who emigrated here who did not find a warm welcome and an opportunity for a better life beyond their imagination.
Very few Irish immigrants would have any regrets, and do appreciate the gift that America gave them. Few Irish would believe that they were “victims.”
An excellent and detailed study of the myth has been made by Richard Jensen, professor of history emeritus, University of Illinois, Chicago, and published in the Journal Of Social History, (issue 36.2, 2002, pages 405-429, “No Irish Need Apply: A Myth of Victimization.”) That study is available on the Internet and easily found in a Google search under “No Irish Need Apply.”
In summary, Professor Jensen found and documents that, “The Irish American community harbors a deeply held belief that it was the victim of systematic job discrimination in America, and that the discrimination was done publicly in highly humiliating fashion through signs that announced, ‘Help Wanted: No Irish Need Apply.’
“The fact that Irish vividly ‘remember’ NINA signs is a curious historical puzzle. There are no contemporary or retrospective accounts of the specific sign at a specific location. No particular business enterprise is named as a culprit. No historian, archivist, or museum curator has ever located one; no photograph or drawing exists.” (It is pointed out in notes, that there are modern fakes, made by novelty sign makers for the “Irish” market and sold as novelties at fairs and shops.)
Professor Jensen did an electronic search of all the text of the several hundred thousand pages of magazine, books and newspapers at the Library of Congress, Cornell University and others, as well as the complete run of The New York Times and The Nation and turned up only several vague mentions of any such sign.
The myth seems to have originated in England in the early 1800s, when an English comic song writer, John F. Poole, wrote a parody, “No Irish Need Apply.” It was about a maid looking for a job in London who reads an ad in London Times, and sings about Irish pride.
In 1862, the song made its appearance in a song sheet in the U.S., and the words had been changed to a newly arrived Irish country boy. It is said that after a few rounds of singing and drinking, the sign could easily be seem by all. It may even have been a remote cause of the Draft Riots of 1863 by Irish immigrants.
There is one other point to be made about Mr. Lawler and his letter. He claims to be a gentleman, but his distorted anti-Semitic and anti-Israel comments are not only incorrect but have no place in the Irish Voice or anywhere else. Anti-Semites are not gentlemen.
Patrick McVeigh
Floral Park, New York Don’t Dropkick Boston! AS a New England subscriber, I’ve always been disappointed by the heavy slant in the Irish Voice towards New York issues and news. I’d love to see more news and social pages on Boston, for example.
However, I continue to be amazed at the lack of coverage of Boston’s Dropkick Murphys, who should see as much ink in the Voice as Bono (not possible!) While Black 47 and others are mentioned every few issues, I cannot remember seeing anything on the Murphys, who have taken Irish American punk to a whole new level and have gone beyond an Irish-only audience to the masses.
This is a group that has headlined prominent festivals, performed during a Boston Bruins game, and even opened up for the Sex Pistols, and they are never mentioned.
I continue to love reading your paper, but sometimes have to scratch my head at some of the great Irish American things you’re missing by giving Boston second-class coverage.
Matt Lordan
Nashua, New Hampshire
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