Blazes Boylan

Just seven days into the New Year, the Irish community in New York and in the entire country were shocked by the news of the first major legal battle wonby Irish Republicans in America for as long as anyone could remember. On that day a federal judge admitted that Bronx resident Sean Mackin, 33, would suffer certain persecution if he was deported back to his native Northern Ireland because of his Irish Republican background. Mackin’s deportation order was dismissed, and his wife Philomena and daughter Jennifer were granted political asylum.

For the 60 or 70 Mackin supporters who were packed in the courtroom and out in the hallway of the Federal Plaza building in lower Manhattan, the news was a welcome shock.

Mackin had been fighting the U.S. government deportation order since 1985. Even though Mackin seemed to be a model candidate for political asylum in the U.S., the U.S. government’s hostility towards Irish Republicans has been well-documented over the years.

Mackin, who has never been convicted of a crime in any country, was nonetheless a target of harassment in his native Belfast.

This was hardly surprising considering his and his family’s tradition of being outspoken on Republican issues and politics. He was arrested and hassled by security forces repeatedly, so he and his wife and daughter fled as undocumented aliens to the U.S., where Sean has been working as a plumber since 1983.

Perhaps the most important testimony throughout the hearings came from the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Because a cache of RUC files had somehow been leaked to Loyalist hit men, the RUC said that, if Mackin were to return to the North, they would have to warn him that his life was in danger.

Mackin’s former attorney in Belfast, Pat Finucane, had already been assassinated by Loyalist hit men, and Mackin himself had been sent an anonymous death threat which included a copy of his security file photo.

The State Department fought hard on the case, as did the British government, who sent over lobbyists and witnesses to the court. Just as in the case of another Belfast man in the U.S., Joe Doherty, Mackin supporters charged that the U.S. was more than willing to toe the British government line regarding Republicans and Northern Ireland.

Richard Harvey and Gerry Koogh, Mackin’s attorneys, fought long and hard for little more than plumbing renovations in their home from Mackin. Their victory could set important precedents for political asylum trials in the future. For Mackin and his family (he also has two young sons who were born in New York and are American citizens), the judge’s decision allows them to continue their new lives in the U.S.

One of the foremost spokesmen among the Irish in America, 84-year-old Paul O’Dwyer, has stepped down from his position as New York City’s Commissioner to the United Nations.

And in typical O’Dwyer fashion, he did not go gently into the night, but rather he went out with a bang.

“The U.N. has failed to live up to its expectations,” said O’Dwyer in his resignation speech at New York’s City Hall.

“It (the U.N.) cannot continue to buckle under to the powerful nations and ignore the violations of basic rights of indigenous people.”

The Northern Irish, Haitian and Kurdish people are just three of the groups which O’Dwyer says the U.N. has failed by allowing itself to be manipulated by more powerful bodies, in particular the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

O’Dwyer said that his position at the U.N. inhibited his ability to speak out on such issues, so he felt he had to resign.

“Unless the Charter of the U.N. is revised, not only to reform the Security Council in accordance with world political realities, but also to give the voiceless and forgotten people in territories that have denied them an opportunity to have their grievances investigated…the suffering and the killing will go on.” 

O’Dwyer has always spoken out for persecuted people, since the day he emigrated to the U.S., shortly after the Irish Civil War. Aside from being perhaps the leading Irish Republican figure in America over the years, he was also a tough political leader. His brother Bill was the mayor of New York during World War II, and Paul himself is a former president of the New York City Council.

However, his U.N. resignation speech was by no means a signal that he was heading out to pasture, warned O’Dwyer. He has returned to his law practice, and promises to maintain his dedication to justice, in particular with regard to the situation in Northern Ireland.

Undoubtedly we have not heard the last from the man.

It had been almost 30 years since an Irish American was elected mayor of San Francisco, dating back to 1963, when Jack Shelley won the job. With the decline of influence from the Irish inner-city political machines, it was thought that a person with strong Irish ties would never again win in the city by the Bay.

But in December, Frank Jordan, the city’s former police chief, was victorious in one of the biggest upsets the city has ever seen. Starting out his campaign as a rank outsider who was given only a long-shot of success, Jordan managed to galvanize tremendous amounts of grassroots support and pull it off.

In particular, Jordan said he owed much of his support to the city’s Irish community, whom he said were “like family.”

“I could not have done it without the Irish-American community,” Jordan told the San Francisco ‘Gael.’ “I’m very proud of all the help I got from the Irish community. There is a real closeness there.”

Homelessness, deteriorating city services and voter dissatisfaction with government were big points of attack for the Jordan campaign against incumbent Art Agnos. Agnos had infuriated Irish voters in the city by not having any high-ranking Irish officials in his administration, and Jordan duly capitalized on this.

Jordan, a first-generation Irish American whose parents immigrated from County Cork, is a popular and well liked figure among the city’s Irish and is a regular visitor to that city’s Irish Cultural Center.

1991 was a great year for The Commitments, the Hollywood film which told the story of a young soul band growing up on the testy streets of Dublin’s Northside.

The Alan Parker-directed picture was a huge hit with the critics and at the box office, and the soundtrack, on which the fictional band reworked old soul classics such as “Mustang Sally” and “Midnight Hour,” was on the top ten lists around the world.

But 1992 started off on a bad foot for the movie when American soul legend James Brown slapped a $3 million lawsuit on the film’s makers, saying that they had “stolen his persona” by including a clip of a Brown video as well as adopting his motto, “I’m Black and I’m Proud,” without permission. This, despite the fact that Brown says he liked the film “very much.”

Said Brown: “I thought it had a lot to say. I thought it was a great concept and it was well-produced and well-handled. I wish them a lot of luck, but my attorney is not happy about the way they went about it, without getting the legal authorization.” Brown’s attorney said that the motivation behind the suit was principle rather than money.

In October the film making company, 20th Century Fox, reportedly offered a settlement of $3,000 to Brown, which Brown’s lawyer called “insulting.” The film is due to be released on video soon, but Brown’s lawyer said he was going to attempt to stop distribution.

Meanwhile, the film was included in more than a few of the critics’ ‘best of 1991’ lists, and it was nominated for a Golden Globe award for best picture. The trial with Brown is expected to be in the courts by late spring.

 

 

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the February 1992 issue of Irish America. ♦