It was, as one reporter put it, a home game for the Irish. The Italians made up just a small portion of the almost seventy-six thousand attendees, making it obvious that the connection between the American Irish and the “Old Country” is as strong as ever.
In the sweltering heat, the team (made up of many English players of Irish ancestry) took the lead early with the only goal of the match. Green white and gold Irish flags fluttered, and chants of “You’ll never beat the Irish,” rang out. It was a day to be proud. The Irish had done the impossible, they had beaten Italy in the first round of the World Cup, held in Giants Stadium in New Jersey.
You don’t expect to win if you’re Irish. Our history is full of “almosts,” of victories just within our grasp snatched away with terrible consequences. This result was a dream. A win that couldn’t be taken away. Or could it?
As we sang and beat on our bodhrans and cheered on the boys in green, 3,000 miles away, in a small village in Northern Ireland, the dream became a nightmare.
Sometime during the second half of the game, two gunmen walked into O’Toole’s pub in Loughinisland, County Down, and opened fire on a group of 25 soccer fans, their faces lifted to the television screen dreaming of an Irish victory. When the shooting stopped six men were dead.
They were ordinary people, those who died, ordinary people gathered to watch a game of football, they weren’t plotting a rebellion. They were fathers and brothers and sons, young men who left young wives to explain to children that it’s not just the rebels who get shot in Northern Ireland.
One of those who died, Barney Green, was an old man of 87.
I didn’t know him but I know other old men of the North. Old men who purse their lips and sigh, careful of how and who they talk to, who have watched their sons and daughters emigrate, to “get away from this place.” Old men who must suffer, roadblocks, and British army helicopters buzzing their houses and landing in their fields. Old men who have to make detours of 20 miles to get the vet for a sick cow because the road had been closed off. Old men who must be tired of offering it all up to a God who appears to be on holiday.
At 87, Barney Green was nine years old when the 1916 Rising took place. The Rebellion that was to be the beginning of the end of British rule in the 26 counties of Ireland. Freedom that was bought at a price. The six remaining counties, Barney’s county, we left to the British.
During Barney’s lifetime the Catholic population suffered incredible discrimination under their Unionist rulers. He must have had hopes that the Civil Rights movement of the late ’60s would change things. Perhaps he was hopeful again with the dissolution of the Stormont government. And when the British army landed 25 years ago to “protect” the minority population. Did he dare to be hopeful when the Joint Declaration was signed?
I didn’t know Barney Green. But I know old men in Northern Ireland, old men who purse their lips and wait. And I cannot but feel that we have let them down.
As you will see on the contents page this editorial was to be about the backlash on immigrants. It’s an issue, as an immigrant and former illegal, that I feel strongly about. I know their fear and I feel their pain. And I would ask California Governor Pete Wilson, Irish American that he is, to remember the discrimination the Irish, perhaps his ancestors, suffered at the hands of the nativist Know Nothings.
Given the history of this country, I know that in time the Mexicans, too, will weave their way into the fabric of America. But time is running out in Northern Ireland. The momentum of the Peace Declaration is ebbing. We must do all that we can to focus on the problem. If just a portion of those who shouted “You’ll never beat the Irish,” shifted their attention Northwards, things would change. In the meantime we as a country have nothing to cheer about.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the July/August 1994 issue of Irish America. ♦
Leave a Reply