Rape, Ireland’s New Legacy
The closing half of the twentieth century has been an awkward time for Ireland. A nation still only 70 years old, it has had more than its share of growing pains as it stumbles into maturity. Eamon de Valera’s age of innocence in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s has erupted in recent years, as a country formerly under the firm hand of the Catholic Church comes to terms with modern-day social issues such as divorce, homosexuality, drug abuse and abortion, as well as a hobbled economy caught between agriculture and industry.
In the past few months rape has been a major concern in Ireland, with new and shocking cases popping up on a regular basis. While most agree that rape is by no means a new phenomenon to the Irish, they do feel that it has only recently come to the public light, similar to the awareness of sexual abuse that has arisen in the U.S. following the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings.
The case which has caused the biggest uproar was the result of a recent rape trial in Kilkenny.
An 18-year-old girl, Lavinia Kerwick, went public with her appeal for justice when a judge let her rapist walk free without a sentence, even after the young man in question admitted to the crime.
The incident happened after a local dance in the Kilkenny countryside, when 18-year-old William Conroy, who was courting Kerwick, raped her while walking her home. In court, the young man admitted that he raped her and apologized. Justice Feargus Flood, suspended Conroy’s sentence, and Kerwick went public with her name in a plea for justice, prompting thousands to take to street protests in Limerick and elsewhere in the country.
Such was the uproar to the case that a government minister even proposed a scheme, which is unlikely to ever become law, whereby the government could intervene to adjust a too-lenient judicial sentence.
Other cases have arisen, including the recent arrest of a 42-year-old man in the infamous “X” case, in which a 14-year-old alleged rape victim was barred by the Irish government from going to England to have an abortion. On top of these, there have been many other cases recently, one involving popular country and western singer Big Tom and an alleged mistress, and another involving a religious brother charged with the abuse of young boys, which has left one thing certain: Ireland is no more invulnerable to modern tragedy than any other country. Indeed, such incidents have touched every facet of society: the clergy and lay persons; in the big cities and down the country.
For NY Irish, A Field of Dreams?
In the last issue this column wrote about the problems faced by the New York Gaelic Athletic Association, the governing body of Irish sport in the tri-state area. The NYGAA has been homeless for almost three years, as contract disputes have shut them out of the decades-old home of the Irish, the Bronx’s Gaelic Park.
From the despair of the NYGAA’s situation however has come new hope in the form of a bold plan to purchase a 57-acre site in upstate Briarcliff Manor, New York, as an all-inclusive cultural, social, educational and athletic home for the tri-state Irish.
The plan is certainly an ambitious one, as a nine-member committee of local businessmen, led by executive banker Ed Sheeran, (a former New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade grand marshal), aim to buy the grounds of the private King’s College for $14 million.
Sheeran’s group has devised a way whereby using tax-exempt status and floating tax-free bonds on the open market, the vast majority of the money can be raised from sources outside of the actual Irish community.
Sheeran says that all he needs is $700,000 seed money donated in the form of long-term loans from the Irish community, and the deal can be set by Christmas.
It certainly sounds like a crazy dream, but Sheeran knows his banking, and the group are confident they can pull it off. The College’s officials, at press time, say they are “very close” to signing a contract with the Irish group, who are going under the name “Tara Circle,” referring to the ancient home of the kings of Ireland, Tara Hill, and symbolically “encircling” all of the tri-State area’s Irish-American groups.
The grounds of the College (which is relocating to an even larger site upstate) comes complete with over 200 dorm rooms which can be converted to residential or hotel rooms, a swimming pool, three athletic fields, auditoriums, lecture halls, a dancehall, etc.
The Tara Circle group says that there is ample facilities for all of the Irish community’s needs, and judging from the number of checks that have poured in already (Tara Circle has already collected almost $100,000 in donations from the area’s Irish groups and individuals), the idea seems to be long overdue.
H-Block Escapee Caught in Tangle of U.S. Courts: California Man Wins Bail, But Remains in Jail
By 1992, 37-year-old Jimmy Smyth had been enjoying a quiet new life in San Francisco, far away from the troubles of his youth in Belfast. He had been living in California for eight years, where he had built up a successful painting business, became well-known in the Bay Area’s tight-knit Irish community, and had been married to an American citizen.
But on June 3 all that ended when FBI agents raided his home and took him away on passport fraud charges. 450 miles south, at the exact same time, FBI agents also raided the home of 32-year-old Kevin Keohane, whom feds say is actually Kevin Barry-Aart, another Belfast man who, along with Smyth and 36 others, were part of a massive 1983 escape from Northern Ireland’s Maze prison (better known as the “H-Blocks”).
Federal agents charge that, after the escape, Smyth and Aart settled in California under the false names and passport numbers of Kevin and Patrick Keohane, twin brothers who were born in California and had died in 1968 and 1970, respectively.
Smyth, whose case has already gone before several court hearings, has readily admitted his identity, while Keohane, who has not yet had the opportunity to go to trial, has not yet publicly admitted his identity. British extradition warrants have been served on both men.
With the same degree of attention generated as by the Joe Doherty case, the Irish community in California and elsewhere has rallied round Smyth’s cause, as he has always protested his innocence in his 1978 IRA conviction, and claims he was part of the roundup of nationalist people in Belfast during the tense years leading up to the hunger strikes. As for Barry-Aart, he was convicted on an IRA murder charge as a result of the now-discredited testimony of the infamous “supergrass” trials of Christopher Black.
At press time, Smyth has already won three bail decisions, but, in a scenario similar to what Doherty’s defense went through, the U.S. government has repeatedly appealed his bail with emergency stay motions. The judge who first heard his case in San Francisco, Barbara Caulfield, said that Smyth’s case was a classic example of the “special circumstances” political exemption status as outlined by the 1986 U.S./U.K. Extradition Treaty, but yet the Bush administration has pressed on with its attempts to send the two men back to prison in Northern Ireland.
The California Irish community, including many prominent politicians such as U.S. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, have vouched their support, and several of them have put up their houses to meet the $1.5 million bail set by Judge Caulfield. At this point, Smyth has the political and popular support, the bail money and three judicial rulings under his belt. His supporters say all he needs now is for the federal government to get off his back.
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