These series of articles were slated for inclusion in the Rockland's Senior Center "Voices" but due to rework or content they appear not to have been included in 2010's publication.
Article #1.
Awakening – and an ever evolving awareness. How mysterious it all has been that I fear thinking it otherwise.
In an early morning of August 1956 I was awakened in a manner that left me drained and my mind in a boggled chaotic state, wondering what befell and what might further befall. The timing, being within two months of my marriage with arrangements already made, sent my mind spinning out of control. Standing over me in my $8 Park Slope rented room, were two plainclothes detectives from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Landlord O’Neill, in his seventies, no doubt facilitated their entry. One or both of the detectives kept repeating, “You jumped ship,” to which I instinctively and sleepily responded with, “I did.” When commanded to get dressed I came to my senses and explained that I had a card that they might wish to see. I told them, “Maybe what you are looking for is my Green Card.” “Where is it?” I directed them to my trousers within which was my wallet and card. Upon viewing the card, they were gone with a muttered apology. There was no reading of the much-touted rights at that time.
It was, after all, the Red Scare era, when Soviet spies using Irish surnames would roam around Prospect Park hiding secrets for subsequent relay to fellow travelers. I recall reading of such an agent, using the surname of Collins, being exposed. I've come to feel that “Irish,” being a vein to be tapped, having multiple uses. One such use being the forging of Irish passports to hoodwink foreign entities. A technique employed to great effect. We learned of such a use being exercised again recently to eradicate a human being.
The Irish in America who express concern for their ancestral homeland brethren are deemed an annoyance. Painting them as terrorist supporters keeps them in their place. When that special relationship is at play, Mother England can do as she will as in Empire days. It is a tradition we help to maintain. Surely aware folks can come to a similar conclusion. Given the depths of British roots within the fabric of a colony lost to breakaway sons and bolstered by hatred of the Church of Rome, it makes for a very powerful connection indeed. The gusher in the Gulf is a bit of a bother in that, when giving voice on the catastrophe, care needs to be taken so as not to offend one another. Words that are of a contradictory nature are employed to excite fervor for freedom in other lands but not for a people whose contributions led to this land that we now call home. The Crown's Lord Mountjoy declared in the British parliament at the close of the American Revolution, “America was lost by the Irish immigrants.” A similar sentiment was expressed by King George III upon hearing of the success of the Irish Brigade under the leadership of Lafayette. “Cursed,” said he, “be the laws that deprived me of such subjects.”
Article #2.
A Soccer Icon
By Denis Riney
On weekends during the 1960’s I would drive to Queens to see immigrants playing the game that they loved. The fields on which they played could be described as dust-bowls with not a trace of grass as protection for their sliding tackles. This German-American League that embraced ethnics of many hues would be the precursor of that which was to become the Cosmos. The Cosmos in turn attracted the greats of the game I got to see up close and in action, such as Pele, Beckenbauer, George Best, Gordon Banks, and Randy Horton of Jamaica. I met Pele prior to his signing on as a Cosmo player. I met him yet again in a Jersey City restaurant. Upon leaving there, he gave me the opportunity to snap a picture; it is a print of my sons with him. At my urging I also got my wife in the picture. It is a print I naturally treasure. Later I obtained his signature on the print in his Giants Stadium locker room when he was a Cosmo player.
I assisted soccer photographer Carlo Ziliani for the joy of being in ballparks. We captured those soccer “moments in time” action-photos which would subsequentially appear in Italian and German newspapers. Carlo, exhausted, having had a long afternoon covering the Santos versus Juventus game in Jersey Stadium, asked me to cover the teams post-game get together in a Jersey City restaurant. Pele, was the main attraction for all the pictures being taken that evening. It left my wife to question why I was concentrating on his table and not taking pictures of the Italian side. I reminded her that the players on the Italian side were at Pele's table eager to have a photo taken with “The King,” (a term to convey his prowess as a soccer player.) My son, Barry, then about nine, got caught up in the excitement of seeing the Italian players eager to have their picture taken with Pele. With camera in hand I looked about, but Pele was nowhere in sight. I felt dejected feeling I had lost a chance to have a picture of such a significant sports figure and especially so with my children. As I left the restaurant, I spied Pele talking to a Long Island sports reporter at the entrance to his bus. He appeared to be the last member of his team to board. Not wishing to intrude, I positioned myself and my family a respectable distance away. When he had satisfied the reporter’s questions, Pele cast his eyes our way and beckoned. He had the sensitivity to know what we wanted. He was the best soccer player ever, a real class act; a gentleman whom I would capture in action at numerous Cosmo games, in stadiums since rebuilt (Yankee, Shea and Giants’.)
During those pre-Cosmo dust-bowl days I would observe ethnic behaviors exhibited as the soccer players battled each weekend in New York and New Jersey. I came to the conclusion that no one group was any better or worse than another. Well, I'll modify that a mite. Games involving German teams started on the dot. The Irish fielded a team called Shamrocks who were a skill level below that of German-Hungarians, Ukrainians, Italian, Greek-Americans, Hellenic, Croatians, Dalmatinac, and Blue Star (Jewish), teams. Irish immigrants generally favored the Gaelic games of hurling and football which were a big draw in the Bronx.
Article #3
ST. PATRICK - RC
By Denis Riney
Next year, 2011, the Saint Patrick's Day parade will mark its 250th year of parading on the streets of New York City. A tradition going back to the 1760’s, I want to counter some of the distortions that abound about the Irish. I will admit the skillful tailoring of a reality that is employed to great effect, to build up a Saxon motherland. Such is an England which had its beginning in 864. As Saint Patrick was being taken as a slave to Ireland an amalgam of Teutonic Jutes, Angles and Saxons were descending on Britain, Four centuries later incorporating myths of the Celts these arrivals would have a country of her own which they named Angles, now England. An example of a Celtic symbol that was incorporated is the Stone of Scone, a stone used in crowning kings. It was returned to its rightful owner, Scotland, within recent years.
The slicing and dicing as to what constitutes Irish is troubling to those of us who are aware. One notion has our people arriving here for the first time as casualties of the mid-1800’s famine. England had occupied Erin for over 800 years. It would logically follow that all things Irish were fully utilized within a British Empire framework. Evidence of Irish forests that once were flourishing are now to be found in peat bogs. Irish soldiers serving the Empire’s cause so very well were branded the “Fighting Irish.” History has shown the gallantry of the Irish in service to countries they consider home, as was evidenced by their many sacrifices on 9/11.
The arrival of Roman Catholics in the 1600s is another means worthy of a mention. Charles Calvert a convert to Catholicism was surprisingly granted his Maryland colony in the early to mid 1600’s. He brought fellow co-religionists from England, Wales and Ireland to his new colony. He already had been granted a colony in Newfoundland which he found unsuitable to his health. Lord Baltimore's Maryland colony would be regarded as offering greater freedom than was previously known. This would change in time. With the Revolution won, Catholics had to flee for their lives down the Ohio River. The inhabitants of Virginia who bore hostile intent against the Catholic colony nearby were determined to divide and destroy it. Those Reformists had such a hatred of papists. The painting of the Pope as the anti-Christ and to this day the preaching at Bob Jones University, excites people still. Ian Paisley of the northeastern corner of Ireland always has such friends as Mr. Jones throughout the commonwealth to support an Irish status quo. England's use of the Harp, the symbol they use for Ireland which in tandem with The Thistle for Scotland, The Leak for Wales, and the Rose for England ensures their much utilized symbol is secure and not subject to ridicle by a United Ireland. Control over a carved out piece of the island of Ireland keeps everything hunky-dory for them.
Article #4
ZACHARIAH RINEY
By Denis Riney
After the Revolution was won many Irish families fled Maryland and headed down the Ohio River to the safety of states that lay beyond. Zachariah Riney fled to Kentucky and purchased land abutting the Hanks family farm. The Hanks were Abraham Lincoln’s mother’s family. Zachariah would later build a school at Pottinger's Creek and was young Abe's first teacher. The extent of Lincoln's schooling was supposed to be only months long. I think being in close proximity to the Hanks and with young Abraham's visits with his grandparents, additional contact with Zachariah may have been possible. Back then, children would be required to help in harvesting their farms and had to forgo schooling. Records on Riney were lost, according to an Elizabethtown, Ky. librarian, whom I met in the 1980s. This uncaring oversight being likely, at a time when another frenzied situation arose as a consequence of the assassination of President Lincoln.
I view George Washington and then Abraham Lincoln as being the greatest of leaders ever, possessing extraordinary courage to persevere. This quote by George Washington, speaking of Ireland’s support for America during the revolution, is one that is a surprise to many. “Ireland, thou friend of my country’s most friendless days, much injured, much enduring land, accept this poor tribute from one who esteems thy worth and mourns thy desolation.”
THE END
