Eamon Loingsigh's Posts - The Wild Geese2024-03-29T09:59:18ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsighhttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/68528392?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blog/feed?user=22xbkx2praw5t&xn_auth=noFamous Irish Gangster - Pegleg Lonergantag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-04-08:6442157:BlogPost:875402014-04-08T17:30:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<p><strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84704959?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84704959?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="289"></img></a> Brooklyn, 1925</strong> - On Christmas night just south of the Gowanus Canal at 154 20th Street, the bodies of three young men were found at a ramshackle saloon known as The Adonis Social Club. One of them had been dragged outside, evidenced by the long blood streaks on the sidewalk, and left in the gutter.…</p>
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<p><strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84704959?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="289" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84704959?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="289" class="align-right"/></a>Brooklyn, 1925</strong> - On Christmas night just south of the Gowanus Canal at 154 20th Street, the bodies of three young men were found at a ramshackle saloon known as The Adonis Social Club. One of them had been dragged outside, evidenced by the long blood streaks on the sidewalk, and left in the gutter.</p>
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<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><em><strong>Mugshot of Richard Lonergan (right)</strong></em></dd>
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<p>The three young men were well known Irish gangsters from the northern part of the Brooklyn waterfront up toward the bridges. It took an Irish detective from the Poplar Street Station (located at the abutment to the Brooklyn Bridge) to identify them. They were Aaron "Abe" Harms, Cornelius "Needles" Ferry and twenty four year-old Richard "Pegleg" Lonergan, leader of Irishtown's old White Hand Gang. Lonergan, the newspapers reported, still had a "fresh toothpick" lodged in the corner of his mouth.</p>
<p>James Hart, another Whitehander, was found at the Cumberland Street Hospital not far from the Adonis Social Club with a gunshot wound to the leg. Per Det. Brosnan's request, two other Irish gangsters were arrested for questioning and said to have been at the Italian club during the shooting. They were Patrick "Happy" Maloney and Joseph "Ragtime" Howard.</p>
<p>A "hat check girl," a female "entertainer" and another female guest were taken into custody also. Although all three had noticeable Irish surnames, they were working at the Adonis Social Club at the time, or were a guest. The only Italians arrested that were at the scene of the triple murder were the following, Sylvester Agoglia, bartender Anthony Desso and one Alphonse Capone.</p>
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<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/capone-mug.jpg"><img class="wp-image-1086 size-medium align-right" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/capone-mug.jpg?w=300" alt="Capone mug" width="300" height="165"/></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><em><strong>Al Capone <em><strong>(right)</strong></em>, arrested for the murder of three White Hand members.</strong></em></dd>
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<p>Rumors had it that the Whitehanders, led by Lonergan, commented to the girls to "come back with white men, for chrissake." One can only wonder if it was the girls that brought the Irish gangsters to the Italian neighborhood, but one thing was for sure, since the death of former leader Dinny Meehan in 1920, then of "Wild Bill" Lovett in 1923, the White Hand Gang was loosing territory to the Italians. Lonergan, it's been said, wanted a final stand off to the death.</p>
<p>At the Lonergan wake on Dec. 30, which was held at the tenement where the Lonergans lived on Johnson Street, two other members of the White Hand Gang were arrested for threatening reporters not to take pictures. They were Matthew "Matty" Martin and Frank Gervasio.</p>
<p>Eventually Capone was let go by police for lack of witnesses (even though the bar was full, no shots were heard. Even by the upstairs residents). But it was this event that brought full circle what started seven years earlier when a young Capone was forced from his hometown of Brooklyn in 1918 to Chicago because, as the famous Irishtown native Willie Sutton said, "the Irish mob played too rough."</p>
<p>Richard Lonergan was born into royal gang blood. His mother was Mary Brady, most likely the sister of Lower East Side Irish gang leader Yake Brady (or Yakey Yake Brady). Mary married John Lonergan, who was a failed bare-knuckle prize fighter and mid-level tough for the Yake Brady Gang. Together, they had 15 children. They might have had more, if Mary hadn't murdered John after he punched their daughter Anna in the face one day in 1922.</p>
<p>Anna was known as the "Queen of the Irishtown Docks." By all accounts, she was beautiful and was quickly courted by none other than William "Wild Bill" Lovett, who had gained a strong reputation after killing Dinny Meehan and a few others. The</p>
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<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/bill-lovett.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-806 align-right" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/bill-lovett.jpg" alt="William "Wild Bill" Lovett" width="171" height="295"/></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><em><strong>William "Wild Bill" Lovett (right)</strong></em></dd>
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<p>Lovetts and the Lonergans were family friends before both families moved to Brooklyn from the Lower East Side.</p>
<p>When Richie (his family called him "Richie," not Pegleg), was eight years old, his mother Mary sent him for a loaf of bread, so the story goes. Along the way, the boy was run over by a trolley which severed his leg at the knee. Soon enough, Richie had his own gang of young teenagers and after Lovett decided to join his Jay Street Gang with Dinny Meehan's White Hand Gang umbrella organization, Lonergan soon followed suit.</p>
<p>Richie quickly gained a reputation as a brisk fist fighter, wooden leg or not. He was arrested a number of times for fighting and drinking and at one point, while working at his bicycle shop, killed an Italian boy who was attempting to force Richie to sell drugs out of it. Richie was arrested, but soon let go for the usual reason: no witnesses.</p>
<p>It was right around this time that Al Capone's wife, Mary "Mae" Coughlin (an Irish girl) gave birth to their son, Sonny. Capone was by this time considered the future of Italian organized crime. As a safety precaution, since the White Hand Gang was regularly threatening to kill him, Johnny Torrio and Frankie Yale decided to send Scarface Al to Chicago. Not only because big money was available there, but it was safer as he was not as well-known among the wild Irish like he was in Brooklyn. So, it was the White Hand Gang that forced Al Capone out of Brooklyn. But as we know, he gets his revenge.</p>
<p>After Meehan was murdered in 1920, a war for the seat of power within the White Hand Gang broke out. Lovett fled to Chicago, leaving Richie temporarily in charge of the gang. Over a period of eight months, close to 15 bodies were found of the followers of Lovett/Lonergan and the followers of the dead Meehan.</p>
<p>After Lovett came back, Richie naturally stood aside for his elder's experience, but in 1923, Lovett quit the gang for suburban life with Anna Lonergan, moving to New Jersey. Eventually Lovett was murdered that same year, and the gang was in Lonergan's hands.</p>
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<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/wild-bill-spot1.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1139 align-right" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/wild-bill-spot1.jpg?w=300" alt="Lovett, dead on the floor on a Bridge Street saloon. " width="300" height="225"/></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><em><strong>Lovett <em><strong>(right)</strong></em>, dead on the floor</strong></em></dd>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><em><strong>on a Bridge Street saloon.</strong></em></dd>
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<p>Although Richie was now the leader, the White Hand Gang was a shell of its former self. Many things had changed and it was the Italian groups that had best organized the rumrunning and illegal importation of liquor during Prohibition that weakened the old Irish grip on power along the docks of Brooklyn. The Italians thought big, while Richie and the Irishers still had a street-by-street mentality. From the Navy Yard down to Red Hook, the gang still ran the tribute racket of longshoremen, but the Albany lawmakers and the googoo Protestants who believed in Progressivism were changing the way politics treated the poor, giving them more opportunities instead of ignoring them altogether (which strengthened the street gang lifestyle).</p>
<p>The White Hand Gang was in disarray and many within it still didn't see Richie as the true leader. This disorganization was used and encouraged by the Italians. Richie, a known alcoholic, was angered at the declining state of the gang he had been a member of since he was only 15 years old. Now 24 and the leader, he wanted a final showdown.</p>
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<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/bk-fog.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-773 align-right" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/bk-fog.jpg?w=231" alt="The piers under the Brooklyn Bridge. " width="231" height="300"/></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><em><strong>The piers under the Brooklyn Bridge<em><strong> (right)</strong></em>.</strong></em></dd>
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<p>Speculatively, when Richie "Pegleg" Lonergan learned about the three Irish girls working at the Italian place that Al Capone was going to be in, Richie gathered five or six of his men, made sure they were armed, and headed for death at the Adonis Social Club.</p>
<p>Al Capone, as we know, went back to Chicago after his son's surgery in Brooklyn and made it into the history books. Richie Lonergan into Cavalry Cemetery.</p>
<p>In the historical novel <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em>, Richie Lonergan is a 15 year old who is courted by gang leader Dinny Meehan. Meehan uses the fact that Lovett, Richie's childhood friend, has already submitted to give tribute to his gang and offers to help the Lonergan family open a bicycle shop. The young Lonergan refuses, then leaves.</p>
<p>On the way out of the saloon at the White Hand Gang's headquarters, one of Dinny's dock bosses pokes fun at the teenage<br/> Lonergan, who stops and stares the man down, then challenges him to a fight. The man weighs sixty pounds more than the kid, but Richie is not concerned. Within minutes, the entire gang surrounds the two in the ancient fighter's circle and places bets on who they think will win, and this is how Richie "Pegleg" Lonergan joined the White Hand Gang.</p>
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<p><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/final-diddicoy-cover.jpg?w=196&width=125" width="125" class="align-right"/></p>
<p><span class="font-size-1"><em>Note: Richie "Pegleg" Lonergan is a character in the historical novel Light of the Diddicoy. Get your copy here <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Light-Diddicoy-Eamon-Loingsigh/dp/0988400898/ref=tmm_pap_title_0">http://www.amazon.com/Light-Diddicoy-Eamon-Loingsigh/dp/0988400898/ref=tmm_pap_title_0</a></em></span></p>
<p></p>Big Momentum - Light of the Diddicoytag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-04-02:6442157:BlogPost:867742014-04-02T18:56:54.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<p><em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em>, the historical novel about Brooklyn's <a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/empire-stores.jpg"><img alt="Empire Stores" class="size-medium wp-image-1356 alignright align-right" height="300" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/empire-stores.jpg?w=225" width="225"></img></a> waterfront gangs as told by a 14 year-old Irish emigrant, is continuing to surprise the book industry and gain momentum. New interest is popping up in different areas, including Europe as the…</p>
<p><em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em>, the historical novel about Brooklyn's <a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/empire-stores.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1356 alignright align-right" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/empire-stores.jpg?w=225" alt="Empire Stores" width="225" height="300"/></a>waterfront gangs as told by a 14 year-old Irish emigrant, is continuing to surprise the book industry and gain momentum. New interest is popping up in different areas, including Europe as the<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Light-Diddicoy-Eamon-Loingsigh/dp/0988400898/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1396450450&sr=8-1"> Amazon.co.uk</a> release happened recently. Dublin continues to be a hotspot and, surprisingly, London as well.</p>
<p>Thanks to you, our readers, this book is breaking new ground and turning heads all over the place. Recently, Declan Burke, who runs the most popular Crime blog, called <em>Crime Always Pays</em>, recently featured <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em> <a href="http://crimealwayspays.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-trilogy-grows-up-in-brooklyn.html">here</a>. Apparently, we all thought <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em> was just a "Historical Novel," but a whole new genre has picked it up and called this book its own in the Crime/Thriller/Mystery circles. Who knew?</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Also recently, a film crew followed me around the locations in Brooklyn where the book takes place, such as 25 Bridge Street, which was the White Hand Gang's headquarters under the Manhattan Bridge and the historic Empire Stores warehousing units (see picture above) in-between the bridges where ships <a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/wbai-at-rockys.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1354 alignleft align-right" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/wbai-at-rockys.jpg?w=149" alt="WBAI at Rocky's" width="149" height="300"/></a>brought in coffee and tobacco that were unloaded by the gang's longshoremen and housed up in those iron-shutter windows. Earlier in the day, <em>WBAI Radio-NYC</em> host John McDonough interviewed me down at <em>Rocky Sullivan's</em> in Red Hook about the book and the Irish Republican and New York history featured in it. Afterward, the camera crew and many others followed us to sell copies of the book at <em>Spoonbill & Sugartown Booksellers</em> up on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg.</p>
<p>Finally, we are closing in on readings at the <a href="https://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-events/irelands-great-hunger-museum-open-to-the-public/">Ireland's Great Hunger Museum</a> in Quinnipiac and in Hartford, CT, Oceanside, New York (where I was born!) as well as a few in the Mid-Atlantic regions and in Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida.</p>
<p>But first, I am honored to be reading with Terry Golway, an established writer and Kean University professor, historian and author of the great non-fiction book that was recently released called <em><strong>Machine Made</strong></em> which redefines Tammany Hall's role in New York City politics. <a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/golway-loingsigh.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1357 alignright align-right" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/golway-loingsigh.jpg?w=231" alt="Golway & Loingsigh" width="231" height="300"/></a></p>
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<p>For more information about <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em>, or to request interviews and schedule readings/appearances, please contact Three Rooms Press at info@threeroomspress.com.</p>
<p>Get your copy at a local bookstore, or go <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Light-Diddicoy-Eamon-Loingsigh/dp/0988400898/ref=tmm_pap_title_0">here</a> at amazon or <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/light-of-the-diddicoy-eamon-loingsigh/1116651880?ean=9780988400894">here</a> at Barnes & Noble.</p>
<p> </p>News & Info for 'Light of the Diddicoy'tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-03-27:6442157:BlogPost:857252014-03-27T18:30:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<h2 class="entry-title"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/quinn-loingsigh-kilkenny1.jpg" style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal;" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/quinn-loingsigh-kilkenny1.jpg?w=300&h=198&width=350" width="350"></img></a></h2>
<div class="entry-content"><div class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_1294"><p class="wp-caption-text" style="text-align: left;">Well, there has been non-stop action the past couple of weeks. <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em> has been released to the public and we are getting feedback…</p>
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<div class="entry-content"><div id="attachment_1294" class="wp-caption alignright"><p class="wp-caption-text" style="text-align: left;">Well, there has been non-stop action the past couple of weeks. <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em> has been released to the public and we are getting feedback from people all over the country receiving their pre-ordered copies from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0988400898/ref=s9_psimh_gw_p14_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1MX2BMSY8K1DADH8ADA8&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200382&pf_rd_i=507846">Amazon</a> and <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/light-of-the-diddicoy-eamon-loingsigh/1116651880?ean=9780988400894">Barnes & Noble</a>. On March 25, all e-books and Kindle versions will be out as well.</p>
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<p class="wp-caption-text"><span class="font-size-1"><strong><em>On the left is Peter Quinn, quite possibly the most decorated and recognized Irish-American writer alive today. On the right is Irish Consular General to New York Noel Kilkenny holding Light of the Diddicoy. And then myself in the middle. (photo by Vera Hoar)</em></strong></span></p>
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<p>Bookstores everywhere are carrying it too. Here in New York City, copies have been placed “face out” in the front of huge bookstores like <a href="http://www.strandbooks.com/">The Strand</a>, <a href="http://www.mcnallyjackson.com/book/9780988400894">McNally Jackson</a>, <a href="http://bookcourt.com/">Book Court</a> and <a href="http://www.spoonbillbooks.com/">Spoonbill & Sugartown</a>. <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/light-of-the-diddicoy-eamon-loingsigh/1116651880?ean=9780988400894">Barnes & Noble</a>, <a href="http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Light-Diddicoy/Eamon-Loingsigh/9780988400894?id=5953474468219">Books-A-Million</a> and other national chains are carrying it in your neighborhood too and even at<a href="http://www.moesbooks.com/">Moe’s Bookstore</a> in Berkeley, California and Seattle, Michigan and all over the Mid-Atlantic.</p>
<div class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/keith-tracy.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/keith-tracy.jpg?w=393&width=300" width="300" class="align-right"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text" style="text-align: right;"></p>
<p class="wp-caption-text" style="text-align: right;"><strong><span class="font-size-1"><em>This copy (right) just arrived at Tracy & Keith Kellogg-Brodeur’s home in Wilmington, NC.</em></span></strong></p>
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<p>Sales have been impressive for a book whose author does not have an established name (yet!). All over the country we are hearing that copies are being bought. If you have been following the progress of <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em> for a while, now is the time to consider spending a bit (less than $16 everywhere) to get your copy. It does not take long and the links on this page will take you right there. Go to your local bookstore and support them and if they don’t have it, ask them to order for you. I don’t enjoy this side of the business, asking for you to go to the store and buy a copy of the book, so I won’t spend much time doing it. But, the hour has arrived. Please, if you would, consider reaching out for a copy. Do it. Thank you.</p>
<p>I was lucky enough to have taken part in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade as we all braved the cold weather. Tuesday night, I had the pleasure of reading at the Irish American Writers & Artists Inc. Salon at <em>The Cell Theatre</em>. As a member, I was very excited to meet some pretty wonderful people. Larry Kirwin, lead singer of the Irish trad-rock band <em>Black 47</em> and an officer in the IAW&A was there the night after performing on the <em>Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon</em>! Mr. Kirwin gave a rousing and supportive speech. Also in attendance was Honor Molloy, the playwright and author of the award winning book <strong><em>Smarty Girl: Dublin Savage</em></strong>. </p>
<p><span>Recent book deals from Carmel Harrington and Kathleen Donohoe show that the Irish are still a very valued ethnic writing group.</span></p>
<p><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/st-pats-parade.jpg?w=630&h=473" target="_blank"><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/st-pats-parade.jpg?w=630&h=473&width=750" width="750" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-1">The 2014 St. Patrick’s Day Parade from the corner of 5th Avenue and 44th Street.</span></strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The next night, I was lucky enough to attend the Irish Heritage and Culture bash at City Hall in New York City. Two great Irishmen were honored that night and I was lucky enough to have shared the stage with them, if only for a moment. The proceedings were handled with such care and grace that one has to remember that the Irish hold a very dear place in the heart of all New Yorkers. Especially this time of year! St. Patrick’s Day was celebrated with music, dance and corn beef, cabbage and, of course, potatoes.</p>
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<div id="attachment_1298" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/signing.jpg"><img class="wp-image-1298 align-right" alt="signing" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/signing.jpg?w=300&h=224" width="300" height="224"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text" style="text-align: right;"><span class="font-size-1"><strong><em>Here I am signing copies at the big launch in Greenwich Village, just a few blocks west of the saloon my family owned from 1906-1978. (photo Marie Flaherty)</em></strong></span></p>
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<p>After that, I jumped on the train for a reading of <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em> at<em>Jimmy’s No. 43</em>, a hip spot for poets and authors on the Lower East Side of the city at the <a href="http://guerrillalit.wordpress.com/"><em>Guerrilla Lit Reading Series</em></a>. I can tell I am getting better at my readings. Not only from the reaction of the crowds, but for the fact that I don’t really get nervous any longer! I always try to make my reading as entertaining as possible (I mean let’s face it, readings can be boring), so I read from Chapter 6, which was about an Irish “tenement wake” in Brooklyn circa 1915. The crowd listened intently as I read and I actually got some “oohs” and “aaacchhhs!” when I read the part about the dead gangster boy’s mother drinking his blood. It was great!!!</p>
<p>Tomorrow (Saturday March 22) is the next big gig, however. If any of you can make it, please do! We will be hitting multiple spots in Brooklyn while a <br/> film crew (doing a documentary on me) will be following. First we are at the famous Irish bar Rocky Sullivan’s where I will be doing a live broadcast for <a href="https://www.wbai.org/">WBAI Radio-NYC</a> with host John McDonough. Afterward we will go to the gang’s headquarters in Irishtown at 25 Bridge Street, then over to the Empire Stores between the Bridges. Finally, we will be selling books at Spoonbill & Sugartown bookstore in Williamsburg. It should be a blast and hopefully we’ll sell loads of books.</p>
<p>Again though, if you would, go to your local bookstore and order a copy of <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em>. If they don’t have it, ask them to order it. Otherwise, use the links below to order online. Now is the time!</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Amazon</strong></span> - <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Light-Diddicoy-Eamon-Loingsigh/dp/0988400898/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395944844&sr=1-1&keywords=light+of+the+diddicoy">http://www.amazon.com/Light-Diddicoy-Eamon-Loingsigh/dp/0988400898/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395944844&sr=1-1&keywords=light+of+the+diddicoy</a></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Barnes & Noble</strong></span> - <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/light-of-the-diddicoy-eamon-loingsigh/1116651880?ean=9780988400894">http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/light-of-the-diddicoy-eamon-loingsigh/1116651880?ean=9780988400894</a></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Publisher</strong></span> - <a href="http://threeroomspress.com/authors/eamon-loingsigh/">http://threeroomspress.com/authors/eamon-loingsigh/</a></p>
<p>Also, here is a link to a reading of Chapter 6 - <a href="https://soundcloud.com/eamon-loingsigh/ch-6-mcgowans-wake">https://soundcloud.com/eamon-loingsigh/ch-6-mcgowans-wake</a></p>
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<p><span class="font-size-1"><em>Originally published at artofneed, Blog for the Auld Irishtown trilogy here:</em><font size="2"> </font></span><em style="font-size: 8pt;"><a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com">http://artofneed.wordpress.com</a></em></p>
</div>News & Reviews for 'Light of the Diddicoy'tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-03-09:6442157:BlogPost:822082014-03-09T17:00:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<div class="mceTemp"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/march-12-flyer-2.jpeg" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/march-12-flyer-2.jpeg?w=590&width=750" width="750"></img></a> <span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">T</span>hree quick things, </strong>then on to the reviews. First things first, the Kindle version of Light of the Diddicoy is now available! Yay. If you're interested, …</span></div>
<div class="mceTemp"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/march-12-flyer-2.jpeg" target="_blank"><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/march-12-flyer-2.jpeg?w=590&width=750" width="750" class="align-full"/></a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2"><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">T</span>hree quick things, </strong>then on to the reviews. First things first, the Kindle version of Light of the Diddicoy is now available! Yay. If you're interested, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Light-Diddicoy-Eamon-Loingsigh/dp/0988400898/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394318820&sr=8-1&keywords=Light+of+the+Diddicoy" target="_blank">it can be purchased here</a>.</span></div>
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<p><em><strong><span class="font-size-1">John Duddy (right) will be reading from Light of the Diddicoy Wednesday night, 3/12/14 at Le Poisson Rouge.</span></strong></em></p>
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<p>Secondly, as many of you already know, March 12 is the release party for Light of the Diddicoy along with famous playwright and fellow Three Rooms Press author Richard Vetere's book <em><strong>The Writers Afterlife</strong></em>. There will be many famous people on stage with both Richard and myself, including journalist & author TJ English, author of <em><strong>Paddy Whacked</strong></em> and <strong><em>The Westies</em></strong>. Also, we will have what Irish Central calls the third most handsome Irishman, John Duddy, who was a former Middle Weight Champion boxer of Northern Ireland and current actor in Colin Broderick's very interesting play, <strong><em>Father Who</em></strong>. Also in attendance will be John McDonough of WBAI Radio-NYC, host of <em><strong>Radio Free Eireann</strong></em> and beautiful actress Christiane Seidel of <em><strong>Boardwalk Empire </strong></em>along with many, many more. If you're in town, don't hesitate to come, IT'S FREE!</p>
<p>Finally, on March 7, I read at the <a href="http://www.direreader.com"><em><strong>Dire Reading Series</strong></em></a> at <em>Out of the Blue Art Gallery</em> in Boston and had a great time and sold quite a few copies of Light of the Diddicoy!<a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/march-12-flyer-2.jpeg"><br/></a></p>
<p>Well, the word is certainly getting out and I feel blessed that it's a good word. Quite a few reviews have come out and it seems people are enjoying <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em>. As previously mentioned, the Irish Echo & Wild Geese both had very positive things to say and the piece written about why Light of the Diddicoy was written, according to its webmaster/raconteur at LitKicks, received lots of traffic.</p>
<p>The voice of the Irish in New York, Cahir O'Doherty of <a href="http://www.irishcentral.com"><em><strong>Irish Central</strong></em></a>, the website version of the <em>Irish Voice</em> and <em>Irish America Magazine</em>, had rave reviews, stating:</p>
<p><em>"A vivid portrait of the hardscrabble world of Irish gangs along the Brooklyn waterfront from Greenpoint to Red Hook in the early 20th century, the author captures the still emerging metropolis and its characters through the eyes of wide eyed Irish immigrant Liam Garrity."</em></p>
<p>Read more: <a href="http://www.irishcentral.com/news/entertainment/A-look-at-books-From-New-York-gangs-to-rural-Limerick-and-modern-cooking.html#ixzz2vPkPNqt8">http://www.irishcentral.com/news/entertainment/A-look-at-books-From-New-York-gangs-to-rural-Limerick-and-modern-cooking.html#ixzz2vPkPNqt8</a> <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com"><br/></a></p>
<p>On top of that, <a href="https://www.forewordreviews.com"><em><strong>ForeWord</strong></em></a>, a distributor/publishing trade magazine, said the following:</p>
<p><em>"Loingsigh’s book looks at a fascinating lifestyle drawn from his extensive research and his own family history. The plot builds and climaxes well, with tension maintained. Though the drama is constant, it allows moments of appropriate reflection."</em></p>
<p>Here's a link to read the review in its entirety:<br/> <a href="https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/light-of-the-diddicoy/">https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/light-of-the-diddicoy/</a></p>
<p>Finally, <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com">Kirkus Reviews</a> also says of <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em>:</p>
<p><em>"Loingsigh’s narrative owes much to historical accounts and family lore; he easily evokes the poverty, pain and hard labor that made up the working experience of the immigrant class in early 20th-century New York, giving the story a grimy verisimilitude."</em></p>
<p>Read it here: <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/eamon-loingsigh/light-of-the-diddicoy/">https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/eamon-loingsigh/light-of-the-diddicoy/</a></p>
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<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/tj1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/tj1.jpg?w=590&width=750" width="750" class="align-center"/></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><span class="font-size-1"><em>Author & TV personality TJ English will highlight the night and will be doing introductions as well.</em></span></dd>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Go to artofneed, Blog for the Auld Irishtown trilogy here:</span></dd>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2"><a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2014/03/08/news-reviews/">http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2014/03/08/news-reviews/</a></span></dd>
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</div>Gangs of Brooklyntag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-02-18:6442157:BlogPost:782752014-02-18T16:00:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84704082?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84704082?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></img></a> I</span>n 1876, the <i>New York Times</i> described the conditions</strong> across the East River before the Brooklyn Bridge connected the two cities.</p>
<blockquote><p>“Desperate outrages by organized gangs of ruffians have been of frequent occurrence in Brooklyn.”</p>
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<p>The words…</p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84704082?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84704082?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"/></a>I</span>n 1876, the <i>New York Times</i> described the conditions</strong> across the East River before the Brooklyn Bridge connected the two cities.</p>
<blockquote><p>“Desperate outrages by organized gangs of ruffians have been of frequent occurrence in Brooklyn.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The words “gangs” and “Brooklyn” go hand in hand, though you wouldn’t really know it since the Manhattan gangs, particularly from the Five Points section, have traditionally gotten all the press over the years. In reality, street and dock gangs flourished in Brooklyn in the 19th and early 20th centuries and even outlasted their more popular brothers just a ferry-ride away.</p>
<p>The most famous gangster of all time, in fact, called his home Navy Street just outside of Brooklyn’s Irishtown in what we now call the DUMBO, Vinegar Hill, Navy Yard area. Al Capone, or “Scarface Al” <a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/capone-mug.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1086 alignright align-right" alt="Capone mug" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/capone-mug.jpg?w=300" width="300" height="165"/></a>was a young man in a Camorra Italian territory when the approach to the Manhattan Bridge was being built in the neighborhood. Eventually becoming a rising star and the Italian mob’s most important youngster, he was forced out of Brooklyn by the famed Irish dock gang called “The White Hand.” Settling in Chicago, he made his name there instead of in his own hometown.</p>
<p>Without the world knowing it, Brooklyn has always had the best gangs. And I am here to prove it. For the first time, we have a comprehensive listing of Brooklyn’s gangs unearthing the meanest, rowdiest, drunken, fist-fighting corner loafers, bounty jumpers, bank robbers, highway robbers, political bullies, dock wallopers, pierhouse rats... the most rugged young larrikins of forced tribute and street level insurance the world has not remembered. Until now. With monikers like Joe Grapes, Scabby McCloskey, Pegleg Lonergan, Goose McCue, Pickles Laydon, Skinny Wilson, Yeller Kelly and my own personal favorite, Cute Charlie Red Donnelly.</p>
<p><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/final-diddicoy-cover.jpg?w=196" target="_blank"><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/final-diddicoy-cover.jpg?w=196&width=196" width="196" class="align-left"/></a></p>
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<p><span class="font-size-1"><em><strong>Due for publication in mid-March 2014, "Light of the Diddicoy" is the struggle of a 14 year-old Irish immigrant and member of Brooklyn's White Hand Gang.</strong></em></span></p>
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<p>During genealogical searches into my own family’s history in Brooklyn’s Irishtown and other neighborhoods, and my research for the historical novel "<b><i>Light of the Diddicoy"</i></b> (<i>Three Rooms Press, March 2014</i>), I found a plethora of heretofore barely known and wholly forgotten gangs that resided in the same neighborhoods and streets that still exist today. In the same warehouses, soap and cardboard box factories that have been converted to condos and in the same brownstones and rowhouses that are now peopled by artists and hipsters.</p>
<p>Because this topic, <b><i>Gangs of Brooklyn</i></b>, is so big, I had no choice but to concentrate on the times just after The Great Hunger in Ireland until the beginning of Prohibition, which was right around the time when the dominance of Irish-American street gangs sharply decreased, from around 1845-1919. And also to concentrate on the waterfront neighborhoods from Greenpoint down to Red Hook where the vast majority of Famine Irish settled in Brooklyn.</p>
<p>There are way too many gangs to list here. I had no choice but to leave out many of them such as the White House Gang, Kelsey’s Alley Gang, Forty Acre Gang, Black Coat Gang, Butcher Cart Gang, Red Onion Gang and the Frankie Byrne Gang as well as many more.</p>
<p>But to get started, we’ll give a quick background and then begin at the beginning, which is to say The Great Hunger, when so many desperately poor tenant farming Irish were forced to the waterfront neighborhoods of Brooklyn, which was detailed in a previous post called <b><i>The Brooklyn Irish</i></b>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>'Young Dublin' and the Scalpeens of Brooklyn</strong></span></p>
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<blockquote><p><span class="font-size-1"><strong>The Great Hunger in Ireland (1845-1852) forced over a million to emigrate to places like Brooklyn where in 1855 there were suddenly close to 60,000 new, destitute and starving immigrants.</strong></span></p>
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<p>Jackson Hollow was a farm owned by the old Brooklyn Schenck family, but afterwards became an area that the heirs of Samuel Jackson fought over. Described differently in different articles, it is generally known as the area currently south of the Navy Yard bordered by Gates Avenue to Flushing Avenue (North to South), then Grand Avenue and Schenck (East to West).</p>
<p>From a February 24, 1858 article in the <i>New York Times</i>, Jackson Hollow’s history was described, “Ten years earlier in 1848... there was an extensive colony of Irish people who had settled on the vacant lots of Fort Greene, which... from the number of pigs and dogs there, was known as ‘Young Dublin.’”</p>
<p>The article then rudely describes how the police made a concerted attack upon this “pigdem” which “rooted” them out. The refugees then moved to Jackson’s Hollow, an area consisting of empty lots and hills at this time. And where eventually, just like in Ireland, they were made to pay rent for squatting there. “Nine out of ten of these shanties have only one room... which does not average over twelve feet square” and “the cradle is seldom empty.”</p>
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<p><span class="font-size-1"><strong>This is what essentially a "scalpeen" was, the most rudimentary shelter that could exist. This sketch could have easily been in Ireland during The Great Hunger, or in Brooklyn's Young Dublin or Jackson's Hollow immediately afterward.</strong></span></p>
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<p>Because of lack of employment, or an inability to get work due to their being Irish or Catholic or both, finding work was difficult for men, and if they did find work, there was only part-time available. The mothers and children often were found around City Hall begging for coal.</p>
<p>After the 1840s, Jackson Hollow was known as “one of the worst of Brooklyn’s numerous shanty towns,” according to a May 9th, 1885 <i>Brooklyn Daily Eagle</i> article that looked back to the 1850s and 1860s. These shanties literally were made of tarps or brush that covered a hole in the ground for its numerous squatters. In Ireland during The Great Hunger, these holes in the earth, created after being evicted during the Famine, were called “Scalpeens.” And the similarities are no stretch in imagination. This underlies the intense poverty of the time. In a Dec. 18, 1863 article in the <i>Brooklyn Daily Eagle</i>, it was described thusly “Lying in the very heart of the city, and given over to hogs and cows, and to the squatter sovereigns who have erected wretched shanties upon it.”</p>
<p>From these humiliating and loathsome origins came the murderous Brooklyn gangs. Alienated in Ireland, their family members dying by the plenty, evicted from their homes, sent as human cargo on coffin ships, only to land in a strange place called “Brooklyn” with no chance to work, hatred for their foreign language and their religion and above all else, starved. Is there any wonder why these Irish immigrants gathered together along ethnic communal lines to beg, borrow and, without blame; steal?</p>
<p><strong>The gangs listed below can be sorted through</strong> <strong>by neighborhood. If you do a “Command-F”</strong> <strong>search you can look directly for the </strong><b>neighborhood</b> <strong>you are interested in.</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/homicide.jpg?w=225" target="_blank"><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/homicide.jpg?w=225&width=225" width="225" class="align-right"/></a></p>
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<p><strong><span class="font-size-3">Jackson Hollow Gang</span></strong></p>
<p>(1840s-1901)<b><i> </i></b>One of the most prevalent and certainly long-lasting gangs in Brooklyn. The area formerly known as “Jackson Hollow” was the gang’s home turf. An 1858 article in the <i>New York Times, </i>which was<i> </i>essentially<i> </i>a crude census of the “inmates” of the squatters in the area was described thusly, “Upon Grand Avenue, North of Myrtle Avenue, there are 44 shanties having 230 inmates... Between DeKalb and Lafayette Avenues, 20 shanties having 90 inmates... A total of 340 shanties having 1,427 inhabitants of the Hollow... How this large number contrive to subsist at all is a wonder.” It had many gangs, but one in particular dominated from their original arrival in the 1840s due to The Great Hunger in Ireland to the turn of the century when they were still committing crimes in Brooklyn, the <b><i>Jackson Hollow Gang</i></b>... In July of 1876, the <b><i>Jackson Hollow Gang</i></b> made a big splash in all the New York dailies, including the <i>New York Times</i>, when on the corner of Steuben and Myrtle avenue, they killed on Officer Scott of the Fourth Brooklyn Precinct. When Officer Scott told “a gang of rowdies” to disburse, they verbally abused him and then crushed his skull with a brick thrown at him. Still in operation during the elections of November, 1901 where the gang was planning to perform robberies while the police were busy at the poll stations. One of the gang members William “Solly” Ryan, who was a very well known boxer, beat up and bit officer John Egan at the corner of Bedford Avenue and Fulton Street. A second officer arrived and helped subdue, then arrest Ryan. The gang was described as “an organization composed of the most desperate criminals in the city. Hardly a day passes that some outrage is not traced to the agency of these ruffians. Scott is not the first policeman who has been sent to an untimely grave by this band of outlaws.”</p>
<p><b>Neighborhoods they roamed</b><b>: </b>Clinton Hill, Downtown, Irishtown, Navy Yard, Fort Greene, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Williamsburg.</p>
<p><b>Some of the gang members were</b>: James McQuaid, George W. Sanders, Edward Wheelihan, John Hurley, Edward Hill, Christopher Callahan, James O’Neill, John Conlon, Philip Craddock, Thomas McGuire, Peter McCabe, James Connolly, Thomas Baldwin, John Connors, John Gallagher, William Phalen.</p>
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<blockquote><p><span class="font-size-1"><strong>Brooklyn waterfront area (right)</strong></span></p>
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<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Tillary Street Gang</b> </span></p>
<p>(1849-1881) Originated in the late 1840s, was a politically motivated gang within the Brooklyn Republican Party representing the newly arrived Irish, the gang was described as “the hardest gang in the neighborhood of City Hall.” In the area from Tillary Street to Hudson Avenue in Irishtown, “no policemen dared to patrol that beat alone.” Known for political intimidation, some members were also charged with robbery. First appearing in the newspapers in 1849 at City Hall during a Republican nominations meetings, the Tillary Street Gang, described as “mostly Irishmen” stormed the front row and “had evidently prepared themselves for a row.” Twenty years later in 1869 we find them again amidst a riot between them and another gang in front of a saloon on the corner of Johnson and Navy streets where one James Dunnigan was shot and killed. In 1870, a 19 year-old member of this gang snuck into a lodging at night and when confronted by the occupant, shot at him, then fled. When police went to the young gangster’s home, his mother complained to them about not being able to control him. In 1876, a gang member shot at saloon-keeper Philip Duffy, missing him. After being arrested at a local rookery where the Tillary Street Gang hung out, the gang member was released as Duffy refused to press charges. In 1881, the Tillary Street Gang crowded around the polling places in Brooklyn, which the reporter stated were intimidating pollers that supported Democrat “Boss” McLaughlin. A few years earlier, a Tillary Street Gang member broke up a Fourth Ward Republican Association meeting by storming to the podium and shaking his fist in the face of the association’s president. The meeting was quickly adjourned.</p>
<p><b>Neighborhoods they roamed</b><b>:</b> Irishtown, Fulton Street Landing (DUMBO), Navy Yard</p>
<p><b>Some of the gang members were</b>: James Curry, Robert Berry, Pat Foley, Thomas Howard, James & Mathew Carberry, John Kilroy, Thomas Kilmead.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>North Fifth Street Gang</b></span></p>
<p>(1860s) A gang that centered its operations around bounty jumping during the Civil War. Members would accept money to go to war so that a richer boy wouldn’t have to, then go AWOL with the money in their pocket.</p>
<p><b>Neighborhoods they roamed</b><b>:</b> North Williamsburg</p>
<p><b>Some of the gang members were</b>: “Punch” Devlin, Jack McCormack a.k.a. “McAlpine.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Pete Rogers’ Gang</b></span></p>
<p>(1860s) Were involved in the robbery and bounty jumping business during the Civil War. A clever, expert burglar, Rogers had a crew that followed him. After robbing a bakery on Union Avenue, Rogers disappeared until he was implicated in a New Jersey robbery, for which he escaped and was never heard from again.</p>
<p><b>Neighborhoods they roamed</b><b>:</b> Williamsburg</p>
<p><b>Some of the gang members were</b>: Pete Rogers, “Matches” Read, Charley McGarvey</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>The Velvet Caps of Irishtown</b></span></p>
<p>(1860s-1870s) Not too much is known about this gang, but what is known can be attributed to Michael J. Shay, a.k.a. <b><i>The Gas Drip Bard</i></b>, who often wrote into the<i> Brooklyn Standard Union</i>’s Old-Timers‘ section. He described The Velvet Caps of Irishtown as famous for wearing skin tight pants, like real “dudes” of the era, with blue shirts and caps made of velvet, obviously. In a 1924 article, he wrote about “The Seige of Irishtown” when the Marines were sent into Irishtown in 1873 through the Navy Yard in order to put a stop to the illegal distilleries that made Irish “poteen” and was sold without Uncle Sam’s gaining his tax from it. “Whiskey was the prevailing beverage down there, water was mainly used to wash with,” The Gas Drip Bard proclaimed. So when the <b><i>Velvet Caps of Irishtown</i></b>, a local gang close to the distillery owners, found out the Marines were on the way, the gang took a large still and attempted to throw it into the East River until the siege was over. The Marines caught up to them however and a terrible fight ensued for which they had neither the weapons or the numbers the Marines did. The Gas Drip Bard was there when it happened, he says in the 1924 article. No doubt a young and impressionable youth at that time, however. He then repeated the poem written by one Johnny Manning, a previous Irishtown bard and “the leading literary genius of Irishtown in those good old days.” Here’s an excerpt:</p>
<blockquote><p>“The first place that was taken was in Little Water Street,<br/> The Dutchmen with their axes were a fearful crowd of beats,<br/>
They dragged a still out carelessly and threw it on the ground,<br/>
Saying ‘Soldiers, watch those Velvet Caps, they’re the boys of Irishtown.’”<br/>
(The “Dutchmen” were the Marines under Revenue Officer Silas B. Dutcher)</p>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Neighborhoods they roamed</b><b>:</b> Irishtown</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Battle Row Gang</b></span> </p>
<p>(1871 -1890) This gang, according to an 1875 article in the <i>Brooklyn Daily Eagle</i> was “composed of the scum of the Fourteenth Ward (Williamsburg).” They were known mostly as “fighters and rowdies” who hung out at “Crow” McGoldrick’s saloon on Union Avenue and North First Street.The Battle Row Gang became famous in the area when Henry Rogers in July of 1871 killed an officer Donohoe and became the first person in many years to suffer the death penalty in Kings County by hanging. In June of that year, two opposing elements of this gang had a horrendous fight where “pistols, knives, fists and slungshots were freely used and the battle raged furiously and unrestrained” for thirty minutes. It started in what we now call Highland Park when one gang pushed a trolley on its side while filled with their opponents. One dying member, Patrick Cash, was asked to name his assailants, to which he replied “I’d die with the name of the fellow in my throat, before I’d give him away.” In 1879, two members of the Battle Row Gang were charged with many thefts from chicken farms in Queens. After stealing them, they sold them to butchers in their Williamsburg neighborhood.</p>
<p><b>Neighborhoods they roamed</b><b>:</b> Williamsburg, Bushwick, Queens,</p>
<p><b>Some of the gang members were</b>: Patrick Cash, “Buck” Doolan, The Powell family, Richard Brien, Edward Kane, Patrick Head, John Pieman, George Fleming, William & James Carberry, John Dougherty, Johnny Reynolds, John Donohoe, Nellie Larkin, Patrick O’Mahony, Patrick Carney.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>North Sixth Street Gang</b> </span></p>
<p>(1870s) Former Forty Thieves gang leader “Skinny” Wilson was one of the leaders of this gang. Some of the elder gang members were also one time members of the Battle Row Gang. They were notorious for burglary and highway robbery. Leaders often spent long stints in Sing Sing, which led to a lot of turnover.</p>
<p><b>Neighborhoods they roamed</b><b>:</b> North Williamsburg,</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Some of the gang members were</b>: “Skinny” Wilson, “Goose” McCue, “Sugar” Van Wagner, Jack Dunne, Jim Kirwin.</p>
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<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Atlantic Avenue Gang</b> </span></p>
<p>(1870s) A gang that was “about as hard a looking set of young desperadoes as one could meet in a day’s travel.” Members of this gang were arrested in 1875 for mugging a man on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Boerum Street.</p>
<p><b>Neighborhoods they roamed</b><b>:</b> Cobble Hill</p>
<p><b>Some of the gang members were</b>: James Harrigan, Thomas Hays, Thomas Thornton, Charles Nesel.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Myrtle Avenue Gang</b> </span></p>
<p>(1872-1885) Known as simple hooligans who were charged with assaulting many police officers and drunken rowdyism. In 1883 In 1885 one member interrupted a Civil War Veterans picnic at the old High Ground Park (no longer exists) at the corner of Myrtle and Throop. He was “put out” three times, the third time he punched the officer who clubbed and arrested him. The gang assaulted another police officer also that year by throwing paving stones and fighting him while “working the growler” and getting themselves drunk and loud by singing old songs. At one point the gang split in two, the “Dusters” supported by the much bigger Jackson Hollow Gang, and the “Barkers,” who clashed at a saloon at 254 Myrtle Avenue.</p>
<p><b>Neighborhoods they roamed</b><b>:</b> Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick,</p>
<p><b>Some of the gang members were</b>: Joe Grapes, Paddy Burns, Scabby McCloskey, Patrick Lally, Pierce Keating, Maggie McGrath, Dan Callahan, John McCann, John March.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Patchen Avenue Gang</b> </span></p>
<p>(1876-1881) Burglars & bank robbers. This is not necessarily a Brooklyn gang, though it’s most famous leader “Red” Leary was famously apprehended there by the Pinkerton Agency. In 1876, this gang successfully robbed the Northhampton Bank in Northhampton, Massachusetts of $1.6 million. In 1879, Leary was arrested and by 1881, the rest were rounded up by Robert Pinkerton, son of Allan Pinkerton who created the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.</p>
<p><b>Neighborhoods they roamed</b><b>: </b>Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick, Fort Hamilton</p>
<p><b>Some of the gang members were</b>: “Shang” Draper, “Red” Leary, Robert “Hustling Bob” Scott, Gilbert Yost, Thomas Dunlap, Billy Porter.</p>
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<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>The Kettle Gang</b></span></p>
<p>(1877-1886) These “youthful highwaymen” in Williamsburg once roamed in an area known as “Pickleville” and were called the<b><i> Kettle Gang</i></b>. They got their name from the empty kettles or growlers they carried with them as they sat outside small businesses to beg, annoy and threaten people for enough money to fill their kettles up with beer. This practice, according to the <i>New York Herald</i> in 1885, eventually became known as “working the growler.” In September of 1877, two men were involved in a prize-fight inside a shanty that the gang occupied. August Baxter of Melrose Street and “Wopper” Seidler of Bushwick Avenue were both arrested. A crowd of gangsters and their followers attempted to wrest the two boxers away from police at Bushwick Avenue. There were multiple complaints of this gang mistreating women over the years. In 1879, a man was knifed in a robbery at Bridge and Tillary streets. Police blamed the <b><i>Kettle Gang</i></b>. In 1881, three men were raided in their hangout because they “disturbed the whole neighborhood by their orgies.” Which probably meant they were drunk and disorderly, instead of naked and copulating. The <b><i>Kettle Gang</i></b> also ran around the <b>Wallabout Bay</b> waterfront area and the <b>Upper East Side</b> of Manhattan where they were known to have long feuds with the police, including throwing rocks and paving stones at them from building tops, known as “Irish confetti.” In 1886, two <b><i>Kettle Gang</i></b> members were arrested for offering a Polish man employment, then choked and robbed him.</p>
<p><b>Neighborhoods they roamed</b><b>: </b>Williamsburg, Bushwick, Irishtown, Wallabout Bay waterfront, Upper East Side-Manhattan</p>
<p><b>Some of the gang members were</b>: “Pop” Reilly, “Crook” Connorton, “Snow” McLaughlin, “Rake” Kelly, “Buck” Walsh, “Brock” Harrington, Thomas “Fat Farley” White, Charles Kleka, James McGarra, John Seitz, Robert Garrity, Henry Frank, Andreas Brennis, John Somerendyke, Andrew Wheeler, Edward McGuire, Joseph Betts, Adam Scharf.</p>
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<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Meeker Avenue Gang</b> </span></p>
<p>(1870s) Their hang out was Sullivan’s Saloon, which was located at the corner of Meeker and Graham Avenues. Members of this gang were also in the North Sixth Street Gang after being driven out of Sullivan’s Saloon, although in 1875, the <i>Brooklyn Daily Eagle</i> reported this gang forced entry into a saloon to get free beer. Some of the elder gang members were once in the Battle Row Gang. One member was charged and convicted for stealing a pair of shoes valued at $2. In 1873, the gang invaded a saloon at 333 Devoe Street and trashed it, taking the owner and his wife as hostage when the police showed up. An Officer Ward’s face and cheek was grazed by a bullet from the gang.</p>
<p><b>Neighborhoods they roamed</b><b>:</b> Greenpoint, Bushwick</p>
<p><b>Some of the gang members were</b>: James Carmen, Daniel Powers, James Kiernan, Abe Gibson, Thomas Brady, Tom McDonald, Jim McGuire</p>
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<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Gang of the Green</b></span></p>
<p>(1885-1892) - The “green” referred to in this gang was the “open space between Bushwick and Greenpoint,” The <i>New York Herald</i> reported. An off-shoot of the infamous <b><i>Battle Row Gang</i></b>, this was a small-time gang known for highway robbery, drunken revelry, fighting with police and muggings who had a headquarters on Union Avenue. In 1885, a gang member simply known as “Bender” attempted to rob a taxi of its cash box. In September of 1886, on the corner of Union and North Second Street at a bar called<i> Fagin & McDonald</i>, one of the owners was challenged to a fight outside by a patron. A donnybrook ensued and five men were arrested. In June of 1891, a drunken gangster brawled with a police officer, kicking him multiple times in the head before eventually being subdued. In November, another gang member robbed two Chinese men who owned a laundry store at 337 Second Street. One of the gang members was stabbed in the neck with a pen-knife, then arrested. After sentencing, the judge said to him, “I know... that you are a member of the notorious Gang of the Green. I want to say that every time a member of your gang is convicted before me, I will give him a long sentence. I consider it my duty to do all that I can to break up the gang.” The next month, another gang member was arrested at the corner of Graham and Driggs for a stabbing. In 1892, a gangster kicked several teeth out of a policemen’s head while being arrested for “assaulting his mother.” In 1896, businessmen and reporters blamed the gang for a riot and ruining seven trolley cars by blocking the tracks, throwing rocks and shooting at the trolley cars. In reality, the violence was spurned by a union strike which didn’t stop the trolley company from hiring scabs to continue service. The gang had been broken up by this time, but the trolley owners had no problem equating unions with the behavior of gangs.</p>
<p><b>Neighborhoods they roamed</b><b>: </b>North Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick</p>
<p><b>Some of the gang members were</b>: Bender, Charles McDonough, Felix Farmer, James McDonald, Frank Bradley, Jerry Quirk, Timothy Hubbard, Edward Powell, Edward Stillman, George Kennedy, William Mannion.</p>
<div class="mceTemp"><dl class="wp-caption alignleft">
<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/short-tails.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1091 align-right" alt="short tails" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/short-tails.jpg?w=254" width="254" height="300"/></a></dt>
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<blockquote><p><span class="font-size-1"><strong><em>This is an 1887 photo of Manhattan's "Short Tails" gang, similar to the dock rats of Brooklyn (right).</em></strong></span></p>
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<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Rainmakers Gang</b></span> </p>
<p>(1894 - 1904) - A gang that lived under the docks along the waterfront of North 1st and North 4th streets and in tenement basements. Known as “dock rats,” they stole from factories, barges, railroad freight yards, brawled with police and assaulted and robbed local Jews by throwing bricks and cobblestones at them (hence the moniker “Rainmakers”), then demanding money. In 1900, two members were arrested for asking for a drink at a saloon owned by Samuel Goldstein, then grabbing the whiskey bottle from him. In 1903, this gang was blamed for starting a fire at 288 Wythe Avenue, beating a patrolman and mugging residents for “beer money.” In 1904, the gang started a riot with local “Hebrews” at the corner of Wallabout Street and Harrison Avenue. At the signal, the gang through paving stones and other missiles at “defenseless” Jews. Other local Jews returned the favor and a riot ensued.</p>
<p><b>Neighborhoods they roamed</b><b>: </b>North Williamsburg, Greenpoint</p>
<p><b>Some of the gang members were</b>: Peter “Captain” Mulholland, John Sullivan, James Quinn, Thomas Powers, Michael Moylan, Robert Molloy, Patrick Murray, John Cunningham, John Kiernan, Francis Enright, Harry Fisher, Thomas Sanders, Charles Samm, John Woods, Henry Lehman, John Ricker.</p>
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<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>The Dump Gang</b> </span></p>
<p>(1890s) In March of 1894, seventeen of the gang members were arrested after a raid by police underneath a pier at the garbage dump on the waterfront where they lived during the winter. The officer told a judge they “lived like water rats.” By covering up holes in the pier with canvas and using coal fires, they stayed warm. The leader, “whose proud boast it is that he never worked and never will” along with the others were sentenced at the Tombs Police Court. For food or alcohol, they begged and filled up soda bottles with cheap whiskey or beer growlers. They often stole things like rope from ships along the East River and traded it in for cash. In 1898, a man was beaten to death and had his eyes gouged by this gang.</p>
<p><b>Neighborhoods they roamed</b><b>:</b> Newtown Creek, Greenpoint and Long Island City, Queens, Lower East Side-Manhattan.</p>
<p><b>Some of the gang members were</b>: “Nigger” Jack, “Yeller” Kelly, Patrick Corcoran, William & Dennis Young</p>
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<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/homicide-2.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-1088 align-right" alt="homicide 2" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/homicide-2.jpg?w=300" width="300" height="197"/></a></dt>
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<blockquote><p><span class="font-size-1"><strong>An Italian homicide victim from the White Hand Gang era (right).</strong></span></p>
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<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>The White Hand Gang</b> </span></p>
<p>(1905-1925) The most infamous gang of Brooklyn acted as an umbrella organization for other Irish-American gangs that paid tribute to it, including the Jay Street Gang, Red Onion Gang and the Frankie Byrne Gang and others. Known as a dockland gang, they forced longshoremen and local factories, warehouses, ships and pier houses to pay them "tribute." They were also known for "ginzo hunting" and their hatred of Italians was legendary as they even named their gang in reaction to the Italian "Black Hand."</p>
<p><b>Neighborhoods they roamed</b><b>:</b> Irishtown (headquarters), DUMBO, Navy Yard, Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Red Hook.</p>
<p><b>Some of the gang members were</b>: “Wild” Bill Lovett, “Pegleg” Lonergan, Dinny Meehan, “The Swede” Finnigan, “Cute Charlie, Red” Donnelly, “Non” Connors, Matty Martin, Tim & James Quilty, Petey Behan, Harry Reynolds, Garry Barry, Philip Large, Mickey Kane, Eddie MaGuire, Eddie Lynch.</p>
<div class="mceTemp"><dl class="wp-caption alignleft" id="attachment_1094">
<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/wild-bill-spot.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1094 align-right" alt="wild-bill-spot" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/wild-bill-spot.jpg?w=300" width="300" height="225"/></a></dt>
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<blockquote><p><span class="font-size-1"><strong>Wild Bill Lovett dead on arrival, 1923 (right).</strong></span></p>
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<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>The Jay Street Gang</b> </span></p>
<p>(1904-1914) Originally an Irishtown gang from the 1870s who were a collection of “vulgar bruisers,” according to the <i>Brooklyn Daily Union</i> in June, 1871. “Wild” Bill Lovett was a young leader in the 1910s. Although he was small, he was a ferocious fist-fighter who commanded a group of about 20 young longshoremen along the Brooklyn waterfront in the mid 1910s. They forced other laborers to pay “tribute” to them after a day’s hard working, or forced them to pay for the right to work. They also were known to shake down gambling joints or warehouses and ship captains. Eventually Lovett (although never charged) probably killed Dinny Meehan, the leader of the much bigger White Hand Gang, who Lovett was more than likely paying tribute to. Lovett then took over the White Handers after going on the lam for a while in Chicago. Some doubt whether he ever accepted Meehan as a leader in the first place, though most believe the Jay Street Gang was one of the many Brooklyn waterfront gangs that lived under the White Hand umbrella.</p>
<p><b>Neighborhoods they roamed</b><b>:</b> Irishtown (headquarters), DUMBO, Navy Yard, Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant.</p>
<p><b>Some of the gang members were</b>:“Wild” Bill Lovett, John Lonergan, Richie “Pegleg” Lonergan, “Dago” Tom Montague, “Cute” Charlie “Red” Donnelly, “Pickles” Laydon, Jim Healy, Arthur & Charlie Johnson, Belle Marion, Daniel Hustis, Charles Stanton.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-1"><em><strong>Originally published at artofneed, blog for the Auld Irishtown trilogy:<br/> <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/gangs-of-brooklyn/">http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/gangs-of-brooklyn/</a></strong></em></span></p>Read Along with Mr. Malachy McCourttag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-01-24:6442157:BlogPost:740392014-01-24T15:00:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<h2 class="entry-title"></h2>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84703329?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84703329?profile=original" width="750"></img></a> W</span>ell, if you are wondering</strong> what “Light of the Diddicoy” reads like, here is a master storyteller to relate it to you. Mr. Malachy McCourt reads from Chapter 12 called “The Runner.” Below is the actual text, if you would like to read along:…</p>
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<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84703329?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84703329?profile=original" width="750" class="align-full"/></a>W</span>ell, if you are wondering</strong> what “Light of the Diddicoy” reads like, here is a master storyteller to relate it to you. Mr. Malachy McCourt reads from Chapter 12 called “The Runner.” Below is the actual text, if you would like to read along:</p>
<div class="entry-content"><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgMtTmV_Xdc"> </a><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/PgMtTmV_Xdc?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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<div class="entry-content"><p> </p>
<p>Loaded with moon-faced Italians, Sackett, Degraw and Union Streets in Red Hook are dangerous places for a kid like me to wander among. So I don’t complain about not being sent to Red Hook as I avoid all Italians at any cost since they eat their own babies, Vincent Maher tells me, and if you cross them they’ll chop up your mother ten years later (because they have the memory of elephants) and make meatballs out of her and serve her up with pasta and red sauce down in Bay Ridge because, “they’re all a bunch o’ pagan Catholics, fookin’ animals,” Vincent says.</p>
<div id="attachment_1077" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84703392?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="350" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84703392?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="350" class="align-right"/></a><br/><p class="wp-caption-text" style="text-align: right;"><em><strong>(Right: Manhattan Bridge under construction over Brooklyn’s “Irishtown” where the White Hand Gang had its headquarters.)</strong></em></p>
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<p>In the Navy Yard, men build ships paid for by the government contracts and this is wartime, so business is good. England is buying and as far as the manufacturers in Brooklyn are concerned, there should always be wars. All day and night long steam hammers slam down on hot iron slabs in the Navy Yard foundries. And you can hear the pound of them all the way over at 25 Bridge Street (the White Hand Gang’s saloon and headquarters), even making ripples in Ragtime Howard’s whiskey glass. When I yell up to Red Donnelly to ask if he needs any messages sent, he just waves his hat in the air revealing his red hair and fat head atop a barge where he directs cranes and bellows at his boyos.</p>
<p>The floating piers and pier houses at the terminals under the bridges like Jay Street and Fulton Street have industrial freight tracks dug into the Belgian brick that runs along the waterfront. Cargo is hauled from ships to floating piers to railcars that amble in</p>
<p>their clicking and their clacking through the neighborhood and pull up at warehousing units where the train cars butt against the platforms and where men with suit and tie and hats of all sort unload them by hand or by bale hook in the morning sun. It is there, under the bridges, that Cinders Connolly always shakes my hand and speaks to me like a man, smiling humbly as he is known to and with a mean set of crooked teeth and scabbing knuckles.</p>
<p>The terminals at Atlantic and Baltic take in shipments that mostly go onto automobile trucks to be driven over the bridges to Manhattan or east toward Queens or Long Island and wherever else, as it’s New York’s piers and the piers only that all goods are shipped since it is well before roads connect the cities to the farms and also before planes are to fill the skies. And everyone knows that it’s New York that is the center of the industrial world, now surpassing even old London town with the completion of the Erie Canal years ago.</p>
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<div id="attachment_1075" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/2146-new-york-old-days-boy-preparatory-drawing.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1075 align-right" alt="2146 new york old days boy preparatory drawing" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/2146-new-york-old-days-boy-preparatory-drawing.jpg?w=221&h=300" width="221" height="300"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text" style="text-align: right;"><em><strong>(Right: Sketch of 1916 Brooklyn-Irish mugshot by Guy Denning )<span class="font-size-1">(<a href="http://guydenning.org/" rel="nofollow">http://guydenning.org</a>)</span></strong></em></p>
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<p>At Baltic Street, Gibney “The Lark” speaks with me in a serious tone and I never seem to realize that it’s all a front as Big Dick Morrissey comes behind me and picks me up. Spinning me upside down, he dumps me in a garbage can so everyone can have a laugh. But when he’s not looking, I punch him in the stomach as hard as I can, though I’m never able to knock the wind from him.</p>
<p>“See, ya don’ wanna go to Red Hook anyhow,” Vincent says. “Il Maschio is down there. That’s trouble. Real trouble.”</p>
<p>It interests me greatly though, Red Hook, and so I ask around about it. In fact, asking questions becomes what I am known for and it is more than once I am told to “shaddup.” But because I have the hunger for knowing things, I never take it the wrong way. Beat McGarry tells me it’s the incumbent Irish that have run Red Hook for many years, but is now overflowing with immigrant Italians. Frankie Yale knows the value of the area and so he often sends in Il Maschio to remind the pier house supers and the stevedoring managers that it’s only a matter of time until the Italian Black Hand takes over.</p>
<p>“Who is Il Maschio?” I ask, but nobody knows. No one. If he’s a man or a group of men, no one can answer me since it, or they, slink in the shadows and when the clean-shaven Irish show up he, or they, vanish like they never existed, or he never existed. Maybe like they exist everywhere, or he does maybe.</p>
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<div class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/bk-bridge-worker.jpg"><img class="wp-image align-right" id="i-1067" alt="Image" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/bk-bridge-worker.jpg?w=487&h=348" width="487" height="348" name="i-1067"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text" style="text-align: right;"><em><strong>(Right: A Brooklyn Bridge worker peers through the darkness.)</strong></em></p>
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<p>“What’s the Black Hand and what does Frankie Yale have to do with black hands and Il Maschio” I ask Cinders Connolly, but he won’t say.</p>
<p>“What does Il Maschio mean in Italian?” No one’s sure, but Dago Tom tells me it means “the mail.”</p>
<p>“Like sending letters, like?” I ask. “The postal service?”</p>
<p>“No, like ‘man.’ Or ‘boy.’ ‘Male,’ ya know? <em>Male</em>?”</p>
<p>“Oh, that kind of male,” I say.</p>
<p>Somewhere I learn that Il Maschio is Frankie Yale’s wing of Italian thugs, or thug, who work on the docks and believe in something called “the SicilIan Code” and that if they can’t reach your mother, they’ll kidnap your child for ransom. And if you talk to the police or anyone else, the child will end up in a barrel at the bottom of the Gowanus Canal. And I learn too that Il Maschio only appears when the Irish fight amongst themselves, which happens often or when the dock boss is sent to Sing Sing or the workhouse, which also happens often. And since I can’t get straight answers about Italians, and I’m filled with strange stories I sense that there is mystery around their ways, even if they are Catholics like us. They are a mysterious people and since they show up only when we are fighting among ourselves, I sense that they must be in cahoots with the pookas from the stories of my childhood. But then, I am starting to get to the age where the validity of the old stories become questionable and that only confuses me more. <a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/newsie.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image alignright align-right" id="i-1070" alt="Image" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/newsie.jpg?w=487" width="487" height="350" name="i-1070"/></a></p>
<p>I think of my father and his quips, and though he was speaking of the British being preoccupied with the German, he used to say, “With your enemy’s turmoil come opportunities,” and so it is in Brooklyn with the Italians. Before being sent up to Sing Sing, McGowen had long been charged with controlling Red Hook for Dinny Meehan (White Hand Gang leader). But a couple months after McGowen was sent up, Dinny came under great pressure to take the area by force as it had been coming under the influence of Il Maschio in McGowen’s absence, since that’s when the Whitehanders are most vulnerable.</p>
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<h2 class="entry-title"><a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2014/01/22/malachy-mccourt-reads-from-diddicoy-text-included/" target="_blank">Originally posted at artofneed, Blog for the Auld Irishtown trilogy.</a><a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com"><span> </span></a></h2>
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</div>Barrow St. Theatre - Malachy McCourt & 'Light of the Diddicoy'tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-01-19:6442157:BlogPost:734242014-01-19T19:30:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<p><img alt="Image" class="size-full wp-image alignleft align-right" height="320" id="i-998" name="i-998" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/me-malachy.jpg?w=391" width="391"></img></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">W</span>hat an incredible evening.</strong> I am really finding myself to be quite possibly the luckiest writer on the circuit. After arriving in the city, I hung around Greenwich Village and visited the old haunts of my grandparents and great-grandparents at 463 Hudson Street, the saloon that was in my family from 1906 to the late 1970s. A bit nervous about the reading, I had a few drinks…</p>
<p><img class="size-full wp-image alignleft align-right" id="i-998" alt="Image" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/me-malachy.jpg?w=391" width="391" height="320" name="i-998"/></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">W</span>hat an incredible evening.</strong> I am really finding myself to be quite possibly the luckiest writer on the circuit. After arriving in the city, I hung around Greenwich Village and visited the old haunts of my grandparents and great-grandparents at 463 Hudson Street, the saloon that was in my family from 1906 to the late 1970s. A bit nervous about the reading, I had a few drinks while listening to some city workers and off-duty firemen grumble and bluff with thick accents and hearty laughs.</p>
<p>It’s called Barrow Street Pub now and it’s just a few blocks down from the Barrow Street Theatre where the reading was to take place. The bar is close to the water on Hudson and Barrow where the old longshoremen of New York City used to hand over their paychecks to my great-grandfather behind the bar back during the times when <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em> takes place, 1915 and 1916. Later in the week, the longshoremen’s wives would come to the bar for the rest of the money. My great-grandfather Thomas Lynch, his wife Honora Lynch (nee Kelly) and their six children resided in traditional fashion, upstairs from the saloon.</p>
<p>I often visit the old place, which is still kind of rough around the edges. As mentioned, I had a few butterflies to kill and felt a little better after a drink or two and some texting with close friends and family.</p>
<p>When I walked into the Barrow Street Theatre an hour before the reading was to start, I saw Malachy McCourt up on stage with his cane. His command of the English language still at its peak and the charm of an old storyteller has settled in him nicely. I climbed up to be with him and after listening to him, the butterflies had disappeared entirely.</p>
<p>“Do you ever get nervous, Malachy? Before going on stage?” I asked.</p>
<p>“Well Eamon, no matther what happens, time will still pass. All these people here,” he pointed at the crowd while speaking in his wonderful brogue. “They’re here for a good time, my bhoy. Are they not? Life will end whether we want it to or not, so we all just need a little joy, don’t we?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, we sure do,” said I.</p>
<p>I couldn’t have asked a better man for advice as he has seen and done just about everything a man of the stage could do during his time. On and off Broadway, Hollywood movie roles, a regular on Johnny Carson, a saloon owner himself and author of the rollickingly hilarious <strong><i>A Monk Swimming</i></strong>, one of my all-time favorite books told in his own voice, which is to say the oral tradition of the Irish.</p>
<div class="mceTemp" style="text-align: center;"><dl class="wp-caption alignright" id="">
<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/sany0051.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/sany0051.jpg?w=630&width=750" width="750" class="align-full"/></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><span class="font-size-1"><strong><em>Maybe one day I'll earn the right to have eyebrows like Malachy McCourt.</em></strong></span></dd>
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<p>Just as I was to be called to the podium, Mr. McCourt and I began conversing on the story of the surname and adjective “Lynch.”</p>
<p>“Americans want to own everything,” Malachy says with a smile. “They can’t have Lynch though. I’ve often heard of Americans telling the story of some chap in Lynchburg, Virginia having originated the term “Lynch” as in hanging from a tree. ‘Tis not the case, Eamon.”</p>
<p>It was here that I ached to interrupt him and tell the story myself as I am well aware of the ancient version. But realizing it’d be better to hear him say it, I kept my gob shut and my ears opened.</p>
<p>“It comes from a Mayor named Lynch in County Galway who was forced the hang his own son, which was the penalty for murder for which his son had most certainly committed. I heard this story as a young boy in Limerick and it always stuck with me, Eamon.”</p>
<p>I only smiled and confirmed that I too knew the story, having read it on the wall of the lobby of Lynches Castle in County Galway years ago (Lynches Castle is now a bank, or was at least when I was there).</p>
<p><img class="size-full wp-image alignright align-right" id="i-1003" alt="Image" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/three-rooms-press.jpg?w=215" width="215" height="215" name="i-1003"/></p>
<p>After the show, I was humbled by the compliments that came pouring in, but a good literary friend who runs a blog and knows quite a few things about book publicizing said that he was glad to see <strong><i>Light of the Diddicoy</i></strong> getting the right kind attention.</p>
<p>And for that, I must thank Peter Carlaftes and Kat Georges of <b><i>Three Rooms Press</i></b>. I can’t seem to put into words the appreciation I have for all they have done for <strong><i>Light of the Diddicoy</i></strong>. “I see too many people doing it the wrong way,” the friend said. “You guys are really doing a great job getting the word out in a positive and dignified manner.”</p>
<p>Mr. Malachy McCourt as well, I must thank too. He has been a wonderful supporter both on <em>WBAI Radio-NYC</em> with me earlier in the week and reading from the book at the Barrow Street Theatre.</p>
<p>Also, I need to truly thank Richard Vetere and Israel Horovitz, because if it wasn’t for them the 200-seat theatre would hardly have been as filled as it was.</p>
<p>Mr. Vetere’s book, The Writers Afterlife (also from Three Rooms Press) is a smart and fun read, from what I’ve heard so far.</p>
<p>Thanks also to everyone who came and supported us and bought me Guinness at the old <i>Lions Head</i> bar (now called A <i>Kettle of Fish</i>) at the after party.</p>
<div class="mceTemp" style="text-align: center;"><dl class="wp-caption alignright" id="">
<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/israel-richard.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/israel-richard.jpg?w=650&width=750" width="750" class="align-full"/></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><span class="font-size-1"><em><strong>Isreal Horovitz also read from fellow Three Rooms Press author Richard Vetere's new book The Writers Afterlife.</strong></em></span></dd>
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<p></p>WBAI Radio - 'Light of the Diddicoy'tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-01-13:6442157:BlogPost:723652014-01-13T17:00:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<p><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84703290?profile=original" width="300"></img></p>
<p>Today, I (Eamon Loingsigh), Malachy McCourt and the publishing team at Three Rooms Press will be on WBAI Radio-NYC at 2 pm! (Eastern Standard Time, 1 Central). </p>
<p>The topic is being an Irish immigrant in New York City. Malachy McCourt compares and contrasts his own experiences as a young Irish immigrant in New York City during the 1950s to the descriptions of the young Liam Garrity in 1910s.</p>
<p>Check it out and give it a listen, should be fun! …</p>
<p></p>
<p><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84703290?profile=original" width="300" class="align-right"/></p>
<p>Today, I (Eamon Loingsigh), Malachy McCourt and the publishing team at Three Rooms Press will be on WBAI Radio-NYC at 2 pm! (Eastern Standard Time, 1 Central). </p>
<p>The topic is being an Irish immigrant in New York City. Malachy McCourt compares and contrasts his own experiences as a young Irish immigrant in New York City during the 1950s to the descriptions of the young Liam Garrity in 1910s.</p>
<p>Check it out and give it a listen, should be fun! </p>
<p><a href="http://www.wbai.org/listen.php">http://www.wbai.org/listen.php</a></p>Malachy McCourt to Reads from 'Light of the Diddicoy'!tag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-12-19:6442157:BlogPost:690702013-12-19T17:00:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84702613?profile=original" style="font-size: 13px;" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84702613?profile=original" width="600"></img></a></p>
<p>Hello Folks! If you're in New York City on January 16th, come and see the famous writer and Irish/New York City personality <strong>Malachy McCourt</strong> (brother of <strong>Frank McCourt</strong> who wrote <em><strong>Angela's Ashes</strong></em>) read from <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em>!…</p>
<p></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84702613?profile=original" target="_self" style="font-size: 13px;"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84702613?profile=original" width="600" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<p>Hello Folks! If you're in New York City on January 16th, come and see the famous writer and Irish/New York City personality <strong>Malachy McCourt</strong> (brother of <strong>Frank McCourt</strong> who wrote <em><strong>Angela's Ashes</strong></em>) read from <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em>!</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;">It'll be a grand time! It's going to be at the famous</span> <em style="font-size: 13px;">Barrow Street Theatre</em><span style="font-size: 13px;">. </span></p>November Update: 'Light of the Diddicoy'tag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-11-20:6442157:BlogPost:633992013-11-20T13:30:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<p><img class="align-left" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/final-diddicoy-cover.jpg?w=196&width=196" width="196"></img></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I just wanted to take a quick break while we are in the middle of the group of “Irishtown” historical blogs to update a few things about the publication of </span><em style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> come March of next year.…</span></p>
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<p><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/final-diddicoy-cover.jpg?w=196&width=196" width="196" class="align-left"/></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I just wanted to take a quick break while we are in the middle of the group of “Irishtown” historical blogs to update a few things about the publication of </span><em style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> come March of next year.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">(Also, I provided a quick description for the recent blogs about Brooklyn's Irishtown. Look for that at the bottom of this blog).</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">First of all, if you’ve joined in while we’re still this far ahead of publication, I just wanted to thank you from the deepest part of me! Our email list has been growing exponentially and is now over 3,000! If you’d like to join now, there’s a link above called “Join Email List" (if you go to the blog site).</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong><em>Light of the Diddicoy also got a facelift recently with its new cover art (left)! We believe this cover will grab the attention of readers quickly and, going by reactions, it seems everyone agrees.</em></strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Working closely with <a href="http://threeroomspress.com">Three Rooms Press</a>, <em><b>Light of the Diddicoy</b></em>’s publisher and <a href="http://www.overtheriverpr.com">Over the River PR</a>, we are now beginning to set up readings for March, April and May of next year. Very exciting! We have gotten very positive and encouraging responses from places like the <a href="http://brooklynhistory.org">Brooklyn Historical Society</a>, <a href="http://www.iamwa.com">The Irish American Writers & Artists Inc</a>., <a href="http://www.irishartscenter.org">The Irish Arts Center</a>, <em>Cornelia Street Cafe</em> in Greenwich Village, <em>PJ Clarke’s</em> on the Upper East Side, <em>Guerrilla Lit Series</em> in The Bowery, <em>Dire Reading Series</em> in Cambridge, MA and many, many more. It’s still too early to put up a schedule, but we’ll have one soon.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">We’ve received many positive responses about book reviews, come March. I shouldn’t name the websites, periodicals, and persons that have already given excellent feedback, but rest assured </span><em style="font-size: 10pt;"><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> will be covered in many, if not all, of the most prestigious and sought-after reviewers, newspapers, magazines and websites.</span>As mentioned previously, <a href="http://threeroomspress.com">Three Rooms Press</a> has really been pushing hard and w</span></p>
<p><img class="size-full wp-image-466 alignright align-right" alt="Three Rooms Press" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/three-rooms-press.jpg" width="225" height="225" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"/></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2"><em>Perseus Distributors</em> too have promoted advance review copies and have done an amazing job letting all the major and smaller bookstores around the country and publishing trade magazines know about <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em>. It certainly seems, from the feedback we're getting, that all the major bookstores are showing interest in a book that combines the history of New York City with Irish and irish-Americanism and the gangs of the Brooklyn waterfront. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the craziest things that has happened lately is the fact that more people in Ireland have “Liked” the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/artofneed"><em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em> Facebook</a> page than Americans. I have read that the Irish, per capita, read more than any other country, but WOW! It has forced us to consider a great problem for a publisher to have about making distribution in Europe a higher priority.</span></p>
<p><em style="text-align: right; font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em><span style="text-align: right; font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> was very lucky to have quickly grabbed the attention of </span><a href="http://www.newyorkpaddy.com" style="text-align: right; font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Peter Quinn</a><span style="text-align: right; font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">, who has already had incredible successes in the same genre of Historical Fiction. Mr. Quinn’s fascinating book </span><em style="text-align: right; font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong><a class="zem_slink" title="Banished Children of Eve" href="http://www.amazon.com/Banished-Children-Eve-Peter-Quinn/dp/0241002435%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzemanta-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0241002435" target="_blank" rel="amazon">Banished Children of Eve</a></strong></em><span style="text-align: right; font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> about the “Five Points” section of Manhattan during the 1860s and the subsequent Draft Riots won the </span><a href="http://www.beforecolumbusfoundation.com" style="text-align: right; font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">American Book Award</a><span style="text-align: right; font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> in 1995. Mr. Quinn said of </span><em style="text-align: right; font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em><span style="text-align: right; font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">:</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">~<em>A rich and rollicking tale of immigrant struggle... Loingsigh’s vision is epic and unflinching.</em></span></p>
<div class="mceTemp"><dl class="wp-caption alignleft" id="attachment_855">
<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/tj.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-855 align-right" alt="TJ" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/tj.jpg?w=300" width="300" height="150"/></a></span></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2"><em><strong>TJ English (right) is a veteran in the Irish-American New York community. His work over the years provided a springboard for the writing of Light of the Diddicoy.</strong></em></span></dd>
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<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Recently, <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em> was endorsed by <a href="http://www.tj-english.com">TJ English</a>, the famous author/journalist of <em><strong>Paddy Whacked</strong></em>, <em><strong>The Westies</strong></em> and President of the Irish American Writers & Artists Inc. after he read it, stating:</span><br/> <span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">~<em>Gangsters and dock wallopers along the Brooklyn waterfront intermingle with dirty cops, labor rabble rousers and the unwashed masses of an Irish immigrant class bursting with pluck and vitality... Historical Fiction at its best.</em></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Author <a href="http://www.alphiemccourt.com">Alphie McCourt</a> (<em><strong>A Long Stone’s Throw</strong></em>), a member of the famous Irish/Brooklyn McCourt family (Malachy & Pulitzer Prize-winning Frank McCourt) said of <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em>:</span><br/> <span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">~<em>Eamon Loingsigh is a poet with a pickaxe-and a scalpel attached to the working end. In Light of the Diddicoy, he depicts the Brooklyn Waterfront of the early Twentieth century, and the Irish who controlled it, with hammer-blow prose and spare dialogue.</em></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Quite a few more blurbs are expected as well, so keep your eyes peeled!</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">If you haven’t opened your eyes to <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em>, or if your friends haven’t heard of it yet, it’s time to find out! Come St. Patrick’s Day, 2014, the journey begins!</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Blogs about Irishtown</strong>: After three years of research on the <a class="zem_slink" title="White Hand Gang" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Hand_Gang" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">White Hand Gang</a>, its members and everything that surrounded them circa 1915/1916, I found that a lot of their actions and quotes to police and newspapers all seemed to center around the past. Many of them had arrived in Brooklyn due to The Great Hunger in Ireland in the 1840s and 1850s. Still very close to their <a class="zem_slink" title="History of Ireland" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ireland" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Irish history</a> of fiercely defended communal groups which were separate from the Anglo-American, these boys were still angered at the REASON for their being born in a foreign land. Irishtown, also known as Vinegar Hill, felt itself outside of the Anglo-American law and all of the actions and words of the <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/07/10/the-white-hand-gang/">White Hand Gang</a> members continued this “communality” and “outsider” feeling, even as Irishtown was flooded with Jews and Italians and other immigrants, two bridges connecting their neighborhood to Manhattan were built and the Brooklyn waterfront was built into one of the most densely populated and industrialized collection of neighborhoods in the world by 1915/1916.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">In short, these gangsters of the waterfront racket were still fascinated and often referred to their neighborhood as “Old Irishtown.” Spoken with an Irish accent, as does the narrator of the book Liam Garrity and referencing things like “Auld Lang Syne” and the song “Auld Triangle,” the name of the trilogy (<em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em> is the first book) is called <em><strong>Auld Irishtown</strong></em>.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">These boys and young men existentially fought to keep the honor of their old neighborhood, even as time clicked on and the inevitability of change was taking place.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Check out the initial blog in the Irishtown collection here <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/03/30/brooklyns-irishtown/">Finding Brooklyn's Irishtown</a>. The second is <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/801/">Code of Silence</a>, which compares Brooklyn’s Irishtown to Manhattan’s Five Points and the most recent in the Irishtown collection is <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/the-brooklyn-irish/">The Brooklyn Irish</a>, which breaks down the number of Irish-born in the 1855 census and beyond.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Eamon</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><strong>This was originally posted at artofneed, Blog for the Auld Irishtown trilogy here: <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/november-update/">http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/november-update/</a></strong></em></span></p>
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<p></p>The Brooklyn Irishtag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-11-04:6442157:BlogPost:606402013-11-04T20:30:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<p><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/thp-mersey.gif?w=300" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/thp-mersey.gif?w=300&width=300" width="300"></img></a></p>
<p><span class="font-size-1"><em>Originally posted at artofneed, Blog for the Auld Irishtown trilogy here: <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/the-brooklyn-irish/" target="_blank">http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/the-brooklyn-irish/</a></em></span></p>
<p>Although Irishtown had been known as Brooklyn’s most recognizable, infamous waterfront neighborhood for…</p>
<p><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/thp-mersey.gif?w=300" target="_blank"><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/thp-mersey.gif?w=300&width=300" width="300" class="align-left"/></a></p>
<p><span class="font-size-1"><em>Originally posted at artofneed, Blog for the Auld Irishtown trilogy here: <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/the-brooklyn-irish/" target="_blank">http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/the-brooklyn-irish/</a></em></span></p>
<p>Although Irishtown had been known as Brooklyn’s most recognizable, infamous waterfront neighborhood for Irish immigrants in the mid 1800s, it was the city’s long waterfront property that stretched both north and south of Irishtown that was heavily settled by the Famine Irish. In truth, Irishtown could only be seen as the capital amidst the long stretch of Brooklyn waterfront neighborhoods facing the East River and Manhattan.</p>
<p>By the census year of 1855, the Irish already made up the largest foreign-born group in New York. This constituted a dramatic shift in the ethnic landscape of Brooklyn. In just ten years, the amount of Irish-born inhabitants had jumped from a minimal amount, to 56,753. Out of a total population in Brooklyn of 205,250, its newly arrived Irish-born inhabitants made up about 27.5%.</p>
<p>The impact of such a large amount of immigrants in a short period of time may be difficult to imagine, but it must be remembered that these newly-arrived were not only all from one ethnic background, but they were also terribly destitute, bony from intense starvation, malnourished, disease-ridden, uneducated and untrained people that came from an outdated medieval agrarian community. On top of all of this, at least half of them did not speak English and instead spoke Gaelic and were landing in a culture that was traditionally hostile to their form of religion: Catholicism</p>
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<div class="mceTemp"><dl class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_827">
<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/digging-for-potato-during-famine.png"><img class=" wp-image-827 align-right" alt="digging for potato during famine" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/digging-for-potato-during-famine.png?w=201" width="201" height="300"/></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-1"><em><strong>Famous sketch (right) from the 1840s of an Irish mother digging with her children desperately to yield a crop in time to save their lives.</strong></em></span></dd>
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<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29" target="_blank">Great Hunger</a> in Ireland of 1845-1852, or what is commonly, if not erroneously called the “Potato Famine,” caused over 1.5 million (if not more) Irish tenant farmers to flee for lack of food.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">“Few newcomers had the resources to go beyond New York and therefore stayed for negative reasons,” said Ronald H. Bayor and Thomas J. Meaghan in their book, <i>The <a href="http://www.amazon.com/New-York-Irish-Ronald-Bayor/dp/0801857643%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzemanta-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0801857643" target="_blank">New York Irish</a></i>. “Most... had no other options... The best capitalized Irish immigrants were those who did not linger in New York, but went elsewhere, making New York and other harbor cities somewhat atypical of the rest of <a href="http://www.irishamerica.com" target="_blank">Irish America</a>.”</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The waterfront neighborhoods of antebellum Brooklyn was such a place. These neighborhoods of mostly English Protestants and old Dutch aristocracy were quickly overwhelmed by these Catholic “invaders” crippled by diseases, starving and with a legacy of rebelliousness, secrecy, violence and faction fighting within their fiercely communal cooperations. In short, these great numbers of Brooklyn immigrants were in no way interested in assimilating into the incumbent Anglo-Protestant culture.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Since 1825 and the opening of the Erie Canal, Brooklyn had begun to boom as the New York Ports along the Hudson and <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=40.80399,-73.8251343&spn=0.1,0.1&q=40.80399,-73.8251343%20(East%20River)&t=h" target="_blank">East Rivers</a> now had access to the great and rising cities in the midwest and beyond.</span></p>
<p></p>
<div class="mceTemp"><dl class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_828">
<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/1855-bk.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-828 align-right" alt="A color drawing from 1855 looking west toward Brooklyn's Navy Yard. Just beyond it in the area that looks shaded was "Irishtown." The New York Times described it in an 1866 editorial thusly, "Here homeless and vagabond children, ragged and dirty, wander about."" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/1855-bk.jpg?w=300" width="300" height="190"/></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><span class="font-size-1"><em><strong>A color drawing (right) from 1855 looking west toward Brooklyn's Navy Yard. Just beyond it in the area that looks shaded was "Irishtown." The New York Times described it in an 1866 editorial thusly, "Here homeless and vagabond children, ragged and dirty, wander about."</strong></em></span></dd>
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<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Soon, New York become the busiest port city in the world. There was labor work to be had in Brooklyn, in the manufacturing and loading and unloading of goods to be sent around the country and around the world.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Brooklyn was broken down into wards at that time, and although much of the population lived along the waterfront, there were plenty of other neighborhoods inland that were heavily populated by the English and Dutch before the Great Hunger. But the newly arrived Irish immigrants did not go inland, they stayed along the waterfront where the labor and longshoremen jobs were.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">One neighborhood in particular gained fame, though it is not as much known today as it was then: </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Irishtown.</span></p>
<p></p>
<div class="mceTemp"><dl class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_832">
<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/fifth-ward.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-832 align-right" alt="Fifth Ward" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/fifth-ward.jpg?w=300" width="300" height="227"/></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><span class="font-size-1"><em><strong>The Fifth Ward from an 1855 Fire Insurance Map (right), where Brooklyn's Irishtown is located by the Navy Yard. It was called Vinegar Hill (from the 1798 rebellion in Ireland) even before the Great Hunger.</strong></em></span></dd>
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<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Located in the old Fifth Ward, Brooklyn’s Irishtown never gained the kind of infamous popularity that Manhattan’s Five Points garnered (as I previously wrote about in <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/801/">Code of Silence</a>), it was nonetheless the center of the immigrant, working class slums and the brawling, closed-off culture of the wild Irish.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Located on one side next to Brooklyn’s Navy Yard that built ships and on the other side with the ferry companies connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan across the East River, Irishtown was centrally located.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Although Irishtown was the face of Brooklyn’s Irish community, it did not even have the distinction of having the most amount of Irish-born (which exclude American born of Irish stock) in it during the 1855 census. The dock and pier neighborhoods of Brooklyn were not just in the Fifth Ward, they were spread from the waterfront in Williamsburg north of Wallabout Bay all the way down to Red Hook and the <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=40.673,-73.997&spn=0.01,0.01&q=40.673,-73.997%20(Gowanus%20Canal)&t=h" target="_blank">Gowanus Canal</a>.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">During this time, there are three other wards that outnumber Irishtown in total Irish-born of the 1855 census. Cobble Hill, the <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=40.7033333333,-73.995&spn=0.1,0.1&q=40.7033333333,-73.995%20(Fulton%20Ferry%2C%20Brooklyn)&t=h" target="_blank">Fulton Ferry Landing</a> and southeast of the Navy Yard, north of Fort Greene Park. The brownstones of Brooklyn Heights are still considered mansions for the rich Brooklyn landowners at this time, but later will be divided and subdivided for the working class Irish.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The densest area of Irish-born is obviously from the Navy Yard, both inland and on the water to the Fulton Ferry Landing, but surprising numbers existed in the north along the Williamsburg waterfront and south in Cobble Hill, Red Hook and the Gowanus Canal. In fact, 47.7% of the total population of Red Hook in 1855 is Irish-born.</span></p>
<p></p>
<table cellspacing="0">
<tbody><tr><td valign="top"><p><strong style="color: #008000;">*<em>Census for the State of New York for 1855</em> (Ward#, area, Irish-born residents)</strong></p>
<p></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><ul>
<li><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Ward 1 (Brooklyn Heights 2,227)</strong></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Ward 2 (now known as DUMBO 2,967) </strong></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Ward 3 (East of Brooklyn Heights 1,964) </strong></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Ward 4 (south of DUMBO 2,440) </strong></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Ward 5 (Irishtown 5,629) </strong></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Ward 6 (Fulton Ferry Landing 6,463) </strong></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Ward 7 (Southeast of Navy Yard, north of Fort Greene Park 6,471) </strong></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Ward 8 (Gowanus 1,717) </strong></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Ward 10 (East of Cobble Hill 6,690) </strong></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Ward 11 (West of Ft. Greene Park, south of Irishtown 4,985) </strong></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Ward 12 (Red Hook 3,332) </strong></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Ward 13 (East of Navy Yard where current Williamsburg Bridge is 2,036) </strong></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Ward 14 (North of Williamsburg Bridge along waterfront 4,314) </strong></span></li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><p></p>
<p><strong style="color: #008000;">In these wards, Irish-born constituted 32% of Brooklyn’s total population</strong></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">In fact it is Brooklyn’s most famous Irish-American toughs, the White Hand Gang that originated not in Irishtown, but in and around Warren Street in Cobble Hill and Red Hook at the beginning of the 20th Century.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">So, it is right to assume that masses of Famine Irish landed and settled around the more famous neighborhood of Brooklyn’s Irishtown, but it is the general waterfront area from Williamsburg down to Gowanus, in the pier neighborhoods of the fastest growing port and industrial areas of the city where the majority of them settled. In fact, of the 56,753 Irish-born in Brooklyn in 1855, about 51,000 of them lived in the waterfront neighborhoods.</span></p>
<p></p>
<div class="mceTemp"><dl class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_835">
<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/0002989.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-835 align-right" alt="0002989" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/0002989.jpg?w=300" width="300" height="187"/></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><span class="font-size-1"><em><strong>Long before Ellis Island took in immigrants, Southern Manhattan's Battery Park did. After disembarking there, many Irish immigrants took the ferry to Brooklyn or moved from the slums of Manhattan to the Brooklyn waterfront for the jobs on the docks and piers there.</strong></em></span></dd>
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<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">And they just kept coming, well after the famine ended. With connections in Brooklyn, Irish-born brought their extended families and friends to New York over the coming years, funding new passages to the city helping keep the Brooklyn working class Irish poor for many years to come.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">By 1860, Brooklyn was the largest city in America with 279,122 residents, a large portion of which were either Irish-born or of Irish stock as it is still some years ahead of the considerable amounts of Jewish and Italian immigration to Brooklyn later in the century.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">By the census of 1875, the population of Irish-born in Brooklyn jumps to 83,069. In 1880, the U.S. census, which counted both place of birth and parents’ birth place as well, estimated that one-third of all New Yorkers were of Irish parentage. By 1890 as Brooklyn neighborhoods were expanding east and south, the amount of people with Irish stock is at 196,372.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-1" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><strong>Eamon Loingsigh is the author of the upcoming historical novel "Light of the Diddicoy" (Three Rooms Press). Come "Like" the Facebook page too <a href="http://facebook.com/artofneed" target="_blank">http://facebook.com/artofneed</a> </strong></em></span></p>
<p></p>Irishtown's Code of Silencetag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-10-20:6442157:BlogPost:578422013-10-20T16:30:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<p><i><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84701870?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84701870?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="425"></img></a></i></p>
<p><i>This was originally posted at artofneed, Blog for the Auld Irishtown trilogy <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/801/" target="_blank">here</a>.</i></p>
<p><i>The history of …</i></p>
<p><i><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84701870?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="425" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84701870?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="425" class="align-left"/></a></i></p>
<p><i>This was originally posted at artofneed, Blog for the Auld Irishtown trilogy <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/801/" target="_blank">here</a>.</i></p>
<p><i>The history of <a class="zem_slink" title="New York City" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=40.6641666667,-73.9386111111&spn=0.1,0.1&q=40.6641666667,-73.9386111111%20(New%20York%20City)&t=h" target="_blank" rel="geolocation">New York City</a> is a very popular topic these days. On Facebook, pages dedicated to old photos have hundreds, sometimes thousands of “Likes.” </i>Along with my own personal interest and others', I chose the topic for the <b><i>Auld Irishtown</i></b><i> trilogy, a 14 year-old Irish immigrant that gets mixed up in with the White Hand Gang of Brooklyn's Irishtown circa 1916. </i></p>
<p><i>Over the next few weeks, I'll be putting up regular posts about the true history of Brooklyn's, Irishtown, which was a major destination for the mass of Irish immigrants sent abroad due to the Great Hunger of the 1840s. Although Manhattan's Five Points is the more famous NYC neighborhood, we'll compare and contrast the two throughout this series, for they had one major difference between them: The Code of Silence that existed in Irishtown. Which is the topic of this first installment. Hope you enjoy.</i></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>The Code of Silence</strong></span></p>
<p><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/5th-ward.png?w=300&width=350" width="350" class="align-right"/></p>
<p>“That alley was the most turbulent spot in Irishtown,” so said a man who called himself the Gas Drip Bard in an 1899 edition of the <i>Brooklyn Daily Eagle</i> about a dangerous place off Gold Street in the mid 1800s. “It would be worth a policeman’s life to enter there after dark, or for that matter in the daylight.”</p>
<p></p>
<div class="mceTemp"><dl class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_803">
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><p><em><span class="font-size-1"><strong>The old Fifth Ward (right) was where Irishtown was located. In this photo circa 1916, it is right of the Manhattan Bridge, left of the Navy Yard.</strong></span></em></p>
</dd>
</dl>
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<p></p>
<p>Irishtown was located in the old Fifth Ward of Brooklyn. Along the waterfront west of the Navy Yard, east of where the Manhattan Bridge now reaches into the sky. And although it was not as well known as Manhattan’s Five Points of mid 19th Century New York fame, it was equally as notorious and filled to the limit with the same desperate, Famine Irish.</p>
<p>In fact, according to the <i>Census for the State of New York for 1855</i>, in an equally dense area, Irishtown had 5,629 <a class="zem_slink" title="Ireland" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=53.3333333333,-8.0&spn=10.0,10.0&q=53.3333333333,-8.0%20(Ireland)&t=h" target="_blank" rel="geolocation">Irish-born</a> among its total population of 16,000. Five Points, according to Tyler Anbinder, Manhattan historian and author of a book on the infamous Five Points, “(had) about 7,200 that were Irish-born” out of a total 14,000 in 1855.</p>
<p><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/five-points.jpg?w=300&width=300" target="_blank"><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/five-points.jpg?w=300&width=350" width="350" class="align-left"/></a></p>
<div class="mceTemp"><dl class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_804">
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><p><em><strong><span class="font-size-1">Five Points (left), known worldwide as the most dangerous neighborhood in New York, was the Miley Cyrus of slums, whereas Irishtown was the JD Salinger of them.</span></strong></em></p>
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<p></p>
<p>But if Five Points was known far and wide, even internationally for being disease-ridden, filled with prostitution and gambling rings and murderers and gangs... Brooklyn’s Irishtown was known for, well, keeping its secrets.</p>
<p>So desperate were they to keep the law and outsiders away, Irishtown residents took to the rooftops in the early 1870s to hurl streetwise chimney bricks and paving stones at police and federal agents. After many years of attempting to stop the plethora of untaxed, illegal whiskey distilleries in Irishtown, the city was forced to summon the <a class="zem_slink" title="United States Marine Corps" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">United States Marines</a> through the Navy Yard in an early morning raid in July, 1873.</p>
<p>“A code of silence was observed in Irishtown,” explained New York’s most famous bank robber and Irishtown native Willie Sutton (born 1901) in his biography. “More faithfully than Omerta is observed by the mafia... It wasn’t only the gangs that were at war with the police, everybody was. If a man was arrested, his whole family would run alongside the paddy wagon screaming... All the police ever got out of him was the exercise. Nobody ever talked in Irishtown.”</p>
<p></p>
<div class="mceTemp"><dl class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_805">
<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/hudson-ave.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/hudson-ave.jpg?w=300&width=350" width="350" class="align-right"/></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><p><em><strong><span class="font-size-1">Here is a photo of what is left of Irishtown/Vinegar Hill. Most of it has been torn down and rebuilt by now, sadly.</span></strong></em></p>
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<p></p>
<p>These were not rioters in Irishtown, as there were in Five Points ten years earlier during the civil war draft. These were men and women and children that banded together to keep the law out. A commune, almost. But protected violently.</p>
<p>That morning in 1873 has been described in some detail in multiple periodicals of the time. Other articles were written years afterward commemorating what was seen as a symbolic event in Irishtown’s need to keep the police out. When the government is forced to summon the likes of the Marines to put order in a neighborhood, well, that’s pretty remarkable.</p>
<p>For this reason, the code of silence, Irishtown has not received the recognition that Five Points has. There was even a gang that named itself the <a class="zem_slink" title="Five Points Gang" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Points_Gang" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Five Points Gang</a> (Italian gang of Mulberry Street after the area had been mostly razed). In 2002, an entire movie by Martin Scorcese was based on Five Points.</p>
<p>Like so many Brooklynites have been in the position of doing, Irishtown looked upon the Five Points area with a bit of jealousy, but also with a lowered eye since it seemed everyone over there was out for themselves. To the people of Irishtown, Five Pointers were so selfish that they had no sense of community. Isn’t it the point to keep the coppers out? What it shared in ethnic inhabitants, it contrasted entirely in character.</p>
<p>Many years later in 1923, a gangster in the <a class="zem_slink" title="White Hand Gang" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Hand_Gang" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">White Hand Gang</a> named “Wild” <a class="zem_slink" title="Bill Lovett" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Lovett" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Bill Lovett</a> was shot multiple times on Front Street in Irishtown. Instead of looking to the law for justice, he was quoted as saying, "I got mine. Don't ask any questions. Don't try to pump me. It's give and take. When we get it, we take it and say nothing."</p>
<p>Not long afterward, another Irish native named Eddie Hughes, originally suspected of shooting of Lovett, was murdered. But with no witnesses (as usual), no one could be charged.</p>
<p>By that time, of course, refusal to speak with the police was tradition. A tradition in Irishtown that reached back to the old country. Into the depth of their sensibilities, and the reason the Famine Irish ended up in Irishtown. <em>Because</em> of law.</p>
<p></p>
<div class="mceTemp"><dl class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_811">
<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84701960?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="350" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84701960?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="350" class="align-right"/></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><p><em><span class="font-size-1"><strong>A gripping look (right) at a family refusing eviction at the hands of the British police during the famine. A very stirring scenario for most Irish-Americans where the walls were often ripped down and the thatch roof set alight so they couldn't return.</strong></span></em></p>
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<p></p>
<p>Back in Ireland in the 1840s, a blight on the staple of the Irish diet, the potato, was used by the British government as a way to remove the tenant farmers from their lands and replace them with a cash crop in cattle. (This argument has gained steam over the years and there are many Irish and <a class="zem_slink" title="Irish American" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_American" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Irish-Americans</a> that are dedicated to changing the description of this event from “Famine” to “Genocide,” but let’s stick to the topic here).</p>
<p>The Irish tenant farmer had a tradition of refusing to pay rent. Supported by their secret societies and more interested in their own factions than any foreign occupiers, the Irish were a rebellious lot that made the British colonial landlords boil in anger due their tenants’ refusal to go along with their laws.</p>
<p>Along came the blight and with a half-hearted and smarmy policy toward it, allowed, often paid for these Irish peasants to be sent in “coffin ships” to places like <a class="zem_slink" title="Brooklyn" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=40.6247222222,-73.9522222222&spn=0.1,0.1&q=40.6247222222,-73.9522222222%20(Brooklyn)&t=h" target="_blank" rel="geolocation">Brooklyn, New York</a>. At least, those who survived long enough to board the ships. And, those who survived the long journeys.</p>
<p>Over a million died of starvation. Two million more emigrated from a very small island nation. If we were able to go back in time and ask those survivors of the Great Hunger what they felt about law? As it was law, in their eyes, that was manipulated to create such a horrific scenario, well, what do you think they’d say about it?</p>
<p></p>
<div class="mceTemp"><dl class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_806">
<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/bill-lovett.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/bill-lovett.jpg?width=175" width="175" class="align-right"/></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd"><p><em><strong><span class="font-size-1">Seen here in 1922, Wild Bill Lovett (right) was no believer in the American dream. He wanted to only to be known as the king of his neighborhood and the dock rackets along the heavily industrialized Brooklyn waterfront.</span></strong></em></p>
</dd>
</dl>
</div>
<p></p>
<p>In 1923, Wild Bill Lovett, an Irish <a class="zem_slink" title="United States" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.8833333333,-77.0166666667&spn=10.0,10.0&q=38.8833333333,-77.0166666667%20(United%20States)&t=h" target="_blank" rel="geolocation">American</a> himself, was merely lending his life to the Irish tradition of the code of silence. He was happy to live and die knowing that the police and the Anglo-American laws they enforced had no say in it. Later that same year he did die, in fact, hatcheted in the skull and shot in the neck by, you might’ve guessed it by now, unknown assailants.</p>
<p>Silence was Irishtown’s way of keeping their own traditions. Making their own stories outside of the over-arching Anglo-American culture. The conflicts and the faction fighting in their lives were kept within their own borders of Bridge Street and the wall at the Navy Yard.</p>
<p>Like the famous Irish revolutionary Michael Collins said in the movie, “There is one weapon that the British cannot take away from us: we can ignore them.”</p>
<p>Maybe later we’ll talk about Brehon Law, a civil code based on honor that Ireland lived by before the British outlawed it.</p>
<p>Until then, however, look for another post in a few days about Auld Irishtown.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-1"><em><strong>Eamon Loingsigh</strong> is the author of the upcoming historical novel, <strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong> (Three Rooms Press). It is the first in the <strong>Auld Irishtown</strong> trilogy. Also on Facebook here: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/artofneed">https://www.facebook.com/artofneed</a></em></span></p>
<p></p>Book Review: 'Over P.J. Clarke's Bar'tag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-10-10:6442157:BlogPost:560112013-10-10T13:00:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<h2 class="entry-title"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Over-P-J-Clarkes-Bar/dp/1620871971/ref=as_sl_pc_ss_til?tag=thewildgeeset-20&linkCode=w01&linkId=LB35OAYHE2WKBPQJ&creativeASIN=1620871971" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/pjs-book-cover1.jpg?w=640&width=300" width="300"></img></a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Over-P-J-Clarkes-Bar/dp/1620871971/ref=as_sl_pc_ss_til?tag=thewildgeeset-20&linkCode=w01&linkId=LB35OAYHE2WKBPQJ&creativeASIN=1620871971" target="_blank">Over P.J. Clarke’s Bar…</a></h2>
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<h2 class="entry-title"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Over-P-J-Clarkes-Bar/dp/1620871971/ref=as_sl_pc_ss_til?tag=thewildgeeset-20&linkCode=w01&linkId=LB35OAYHE2WKBPQJ&creativeASIN=1620871971" target="_blank"><img width="300" class="align-left" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/pjs-book-cover1.jpg?w=640&width=300"/></a><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Over-P-J-Clarkes-Bar/dp/1620871971/ref=as_sl_pc_ss_til?tag=thewildgeeset-20&linkCode=w01&linkId=LB35OAYHE2WKBPQJ&creativeASIN=1620871971" target="_blank">Over P.J. Clarke’s Bar</a></h2>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-5">T</span>he best way to learn about history is to ask an elder.</strong> Sure you can consult the internet or the library, but there is not a more authentic and traditional way than to simply listen and breathe in the story from someone who was there. Especially over a drink or two.</p>
<div class="entry-content"><p>In the book <b><i>Over P.J. Clarke’s Bar: Tales from <a title="New York City" class="zem_slink" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=40.6641666667,-73.9386111111&spn=0.1,0.1&q=40.6641666667,-73.9386111111%20(New%20York%20City)&t=h" target="_blank" rel="geolocation">New York City’s</a> Famous Saloon</i></b> by Helen Marie Clarke, you get just that. Written in a conversational tone with an eye for history and the impact on family through the lens, or behind the bar of one of the oldest continuously running bar in New York, Clarke has spun an ancestral yarn on an establishment that has witnessed, within the fray, New York’s history from 1884 to the present.</p>
<p>Mrs. Clarke, who is the grandniece of Patrick “Paddy” Clarke, who took over the saloon in 1912, calmly describes how times changed around the old saloon on 3rd Avenue and 55th Street as if she’s waiting for your Guinness to settle. With the gentle nature of an Irish storyteller, she hands you the ugly truths and the good ol’ times in the same sweet tone.</p>
<p>The saloon originally opened in 1884. Paddy Clarke emigrated from <a title="County Leitrim" class="zem_slink" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=54.117,-8.0&spn=1.0,1.0&q=54.117,-8.0%20(County%20Leitrim)&t=h" target="_blank" rel="geolocation">County Leitrim, Ireland</a> in 1902 and eventually saved up enough money (possibly with the help of a beer sponsor) and opened as <i>P.J. Clarke’s</i> in 1912.</p>
<p>Paddy was a typical <a title="Irish American" class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_American" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Irish immigrant</a> of the era and believed sincerely in Irish freedom back home. He hung photos of Ireland’s dead patriots on his walls alongside Abraham Lincoln in a time when Ireland was still under the thumb of the British Empire. Mrs. Clarke goes on to explain conversations she had with Paddy when she was a child and speaks with a tone of pride how he hung a picture of Ireland’s Proclamation of Independence from the <a title="Easter Rising" class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">1916 Easter Rising</a>.</p>
<p>These are the seeds of the traditional New York City <a title="Public houses in Ireland" class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_houses_in_Ireland" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Irish pub</a>. The seeds that we so often forget about and the seeds that so many of the young have never heard about. Mrs. Clarke does a great service to describe her grand uncle’s connection to the old country. She also describes how her father and uncles had a very hard time talking about Ireland. Another very important trait of the immigrant Irish as the history of Ireland and its people was seen and felt as the greatest of tragedies. From hundreds of years of oppression, forced emigration and starvation, in her grand uncle’s and her father’s generation, it was just too emotional to speak of.</p>
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<p>My own great-grandfather owned a similar saloon on Hudson Street in Greenwich Village on the other side of Manhattan. It opened in 1906 and was also a supporter of Irish freedom. So, as Mrs. Clarke reminisces about Paddy’s pride in Irish freedom, it brings this reader back to the stories told in my own childhood of the <a title="Irish Americans in New York City" class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Americans_in_New_York_City" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Irish in New York</a>.</p>
<p>Throughout the history of New York, from two world wars, the Great Depression, the unrest of the 1960s, the city’s recession in the 1970s, <a title="P. J. Clarke's" class="zem_slink" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=40.7590138889,-73.9680944444&spn=0.01,0.01&q=40.7590138889,-73.9680944444%20(P.%20J.%20Clarke%27s)&t=h" target="_blank" rel="geolocation">PJ Clarke’s</a> stood strong and served up good times.</p>
<p>Famous visitors regularly have come to PJ Clarke’s, from Rocky Marciano, to Jacqueline Kennedy, Richard Harris, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe to<a title="Ernest Borgnine" class="zem_slink" href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/ernest_borgnine" target="_blank" rel="rottentomatoes">Ernest Borgnine</a> and, according to some recent reading of my own, <a title="Malachy McCourt" class="zem_slink" href="http://www.malachymccourt.com/" target="_blank" rel="homepage">Malachy McCourt</a> (<b><i>A Monk Swimming</i></b>) was a famous drinker at PJ Clarke’s as well.</p>
<p>Today, there is some angst toward the treatment of women in the New York saloons of the old days. And it was true that most women and girls were not allowed inside them. And if they were, they were required to enter through a back entrance. Mrs. Clarke, realizing this treatment, describes the reasons.</p>
<p><img width="231" class="align-left" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/richard-harris.jpg?w=640&width=231"/></p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjKJnsMwHk0">Richard Harris</a> (left), one of my favorite actors, once said, “We walked into P.J. Clarke’s, I said, ‘Vinny, my usual.’ And he lined up six double vodkas.”</em></p>
<p>“Uncle Paddy’s ‘no women at the bar’ was simply reflective of the culture at the time.”</p>
<p>Since women almost never walked the streets of New York without a male accompanying her, walking into a saloon was just not traditionally acceptable at the time. Mostly because women who did actually patron saloons were prostitutes, as some New York establishments had back rooms and upstairs accommodations for sexual transactions, which the house benefited. In truth, most New Yorkers would have seen a woman sitting in PJ Clarke’s as a “lady of the night.”<br/> However, Mrs. Clarke always had access to it from the time she was a young child. Her father and brothers, in New York fashion, lived above the bar with their uncle Paddy for many years.But Mrs. Clarke’s tone becomes sorrowful when she mentions that PJ Clarke’s had a policy of ‘no women’ longer than most other New York bars. And in the 1960s, PJ Clarke’s was visited by feminists and protestors that forced it to change.</p>
<p>Through good times and bad, PJ Clarke’s has stood. And oh by the <a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/outside-pjs.jpg" target="_blank"><img width="259" class="align-right" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/outside-pjs.jpg?w=300&h=225&width=259"/></a>way, if you happen to be in the city, come by for a drink.</p>
<p>It’s still open, 915 Third Avenue.</p>
<p><b><i>Eamon Loingsigh’s historical novel "Light of the Diddicoy" about the Brooklyn-Irish White Hand Gang (Three Rooms Press) is due for publication <a title="Saint Patrick's Day" class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick%27s_Day" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">St. Patrick’s Day</a>, 2014. </i></b></p>
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</div>Childhood of 'The Troubles'tag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-09-17:6442157:BlogPost:494852013-09-17T14:00:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
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<p style="text-align: left;"><b>Review: "That’s That", by Colin Broderick<br></br></b> reviewed by Eamon Loingsigh<b> </b></p>
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<p><span>Innocently, children ask for things contrary to the idiosyncratic rules of adults. When answered a flat “no” without explanation, a mysterious void can be felt in the mind. </span></p>
<p>Not as innocently, teenagers demand things…</p>
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<p style="text-align: left;"><b>Review: "That’s That", by Colin Broderick<br/></b> reviewed by Eamon Loingsigh<b> </b></p>
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<p><span>Innocently, children ask for things contrary to the idiosyncratic rules of adults. When answered a flat “no” without explanation, a mysterious void can be felt in the mind. </span></p>
<p>Not as innocently, teenagers demand things they know are against rules. When a dictatorial “no” is again without explanation given, the resultant behavior is often hostile. </p>
<p><span>In the Irish writer Colin Broderick’s new memoir, <b><i>That’s That</i></b>, an entire childhood of black-and-white, bare-boned answers leads to the rage that all Catholics felt in the North of Ireland during the 1970s/1980s. The wounds run deep in the psyche of Broderick, who was born there the same year the Irish Civil Rights movement was crushed by the Royal Ulster Constabulary and British-Loyalist paramilitaries supporting the Protestants of the Northern counties. </span></p>
<p><span>The <i>Troubles</i> had begun, and Mr. Broderick’s childhood becomes the metaphor for the Catholic experience in the Northern counties during a time in Irish history riddled with segregation of peoples by faith and a bloody tit-for-tat war where one side was supported by a world power and the other by martyrs and rebels with a history filled with loss, starvation and invasion. </span></p>
<p><span>Mr. Broderick’s memoir is a kind of hot-tempered, <i>Absurdist</i> biography, one that may put you in mind of Frank McCourt, if he had written his memoir in his younger, more volatile years. Tension-filled scenes of despotic inequality are evoked in matter-of-fact prose, as the title suggests, saving more descriptive language for the opportune, climactic moments. </span></p>
<p><span><b>"That’s That"</b> is Mr. Broderick’s second memoir. Like his first — <strong>"</strong><b>Orangutan"</b> (2009) — it culls from his country’s literary, political and embattled history. Ireland’s first great “deceit,” he observes, is it’s beautifully lush green landscape, “buried beneath that verdant lawn is her pain; underneath, there is blood.” </span></p>
<p><span>By telling the story of one lad’s childhood in the North of Ireland during the era, Mr. Broderick is able to express the collective experience of the oppressed Catholic community during the most violent times in Ireland since the War of Independence and its Civil War of the 1920s. An often bloody era when Protestant minister Ian Paisley barbed on the streets of Belfast with</span> <span>Sinn Féin</span> <span>leader Gerry Adams, long before President Bill Clinton’s intervention and the subsequent Good Friday Agreement of 1998. </span></p>
<p><span>Mr. Broderick came of age in a farming town called Altamuskin, in the northern county of Tyrone (one of the six counties governed by Britain, though located in Ireland). Immersed in the stratified community, he refers to other Catholics of Tyrone in the old tradition of Northern Irish warriors as his “clan.” Lucky for the reader and the story, Mr. Broderick, although Catholic, was not of a family that actively fought. In this regard, the reader is given the perspective of one side of the <i>Troubles</i> without his being involved in the war (although he was tempted to join the IRA as a teen). </span></p>
<p><span>His “clan” grew up within mixed communities where only Catholics were stopped at checkpoints and amid widespread gerrymandering that benefited the Protestants and a law upheld by Ireland’s ancient enemy, Britain, which all too regularly sided with the Unionist Protestants. </span></p>
<p><span>“Protestants and Catholics lived alongside one another, but we remained very much apart... Even the Protestant farmers operated in a class all their own,” as they had all the most fertile soils in the North, while “the Catholic farmers had land on the sides of mountains and the middle of wet bog land.” </span></p>
<p><span>Broderick goes even farther, accurately describing the sectarian lives and deep divide between two groups that share the same community in the North of Ireland, “It was understood that the Catholics would support Catholic business and the Protestants would likewise stick to their own... Any sign of interaction with the opposing religion could be seen as a threat to local morale or even to the safety of local lives.”</span></p>
<p><span>The book’s story simmers throughout Broderick’s younger years, though the makings of its later boil is foreshadowed in repeated news reports of murders, assassinations and bombings that his father watches from the living room television in their home. </span></p>
<p><span>The division and obvious inequality felt in the Broderick household and by the Catholics of Northern Ireland is notable through these reports, such as that of the Catholic hunger strikers that starved to death in protest within the English prison Longkesh, “It was understood that each one of them had been sentenced by a court system that we as Catholics refused to recognize. The entire system was British-run. There was quite simply nothing just about the rule of law for a Catholic in the North of Ireland. The Brits were in the position of judge and jury.” </span></p>
<p><span>At bottom, Broderick’s story is about what happens to the psyche of a child when coming of age in a war zone where one group of people are treated as terrorists, the opposing the oppressor. </span></p>
<p><span>To add to his feeling of injustice and subjugation is his mother’s trenchant demands. As a boy, he accepts her flat commands without appeal, but as a young teenager he finds it enraging to be told “no,” and, like the laws of the foreign British police force and local Unionist Protestants, she doesn’t say why, only stating bluntly, “and that’s that.” </span></p>
<p><span>Toward his late teens, he looks to do what so many Irish man or woman has traditionally longed to do after turning legal age: Emigrate.</span></p>
<p><span>At eighteen, he becomes obsessed with leaving Ireland and eventually joins Irish squatters, in particular, the Tyrone clan in the North of London. For the first time in his life he is out from his mother’s autocracy and the tyranny of selective British law and check points, the threat of indiscriminate internment and the sectarian violence of the region. </span></p>
<p><span>Mr. Broderick is an appreciable writer. His prose is sensate and builds upon itself through experience. When describing his first drink (Mr. Broderick is a self-described alcoholic), “Before the first pint was drained I could feel its warm, slippery tentacles creeping up the walls of my insides and wrapping themselves around the pleasure zones in my brain and running at will throughout my body, caressing the very places where I had been hurting my entire life, throwing open the windows of my heart and letting the great breeze of possibility rush in. I knew right there and then that I would never stop.” </span></p>
<p><span>The book moves in chronological order, from birth to the age of twenty, and sweeps us into the dark, rainy, turbulent world of Northern Ireland during the <i>Troubles</i>. Several scenes, aptly enough, involve the many forms of oppression of the day. Whether it be his mother’s demand for order, a teacher’s yelping at him, the purity demanded by Irish Catholicism, the terrible weather, British law on Irish soil or even in-fighting between the Catholic clans of counties Tyrone and Armagh. </span></p>
<p><span>The natural resultant behavior is rage, which, for Mr. Broderick, comes in the form of fist-fighting and binge drinking. </span></p>
<p><span>Mr. Broderick is well-suited for the memoir, as he sticks closer to the realities of a Northern Ireland childhood rather than embellishing with a literary wand. Sticking strictly to his perspective of each situation in present-tense gives the reader a true feeling about his upbringing. </span></p>
<p><span>Yet, a reader can’t help but to wonder what his thoughts are as an adult now that he has had time to process his sectarian childhood. </span></p>
<p><span>When he is lucky enough to go and see a whale that has wandered under a bridge a few towns away, we find out how happy he was as a young boy to have seen such a spectacle. But his uncle, who drove him and a few other children there, is harassed and embarrassed at a British checkpoint on the way. </span></p>
<p><span>How does the author feel about this memory of his initially being confronted by the enemy, we don’t know. What does it have to do with the big picture of a childhood of Northern Ireland, we can only assume it as a debilitating, oppressive feeling. </span></p>
<p><span>David Shields says good memoirs use “the frame of nonfiction as a trampoline to bounce into really serious epistemological questions.” <i>(from: <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/books/index.ssf/2013/03/seattle_writer_david_shields_c.html">http://www.oregonlive.com/books/index.ssf/2013/03/seattle_writer_david_shields_c.html</a>)</i></span></p>
<p><span>Although Mr. Broderick often stumbles into the bigger questions of the psyche, his ability to acutely describe the experiences of growing up Catholic in Northern Ireland during the <i>Troubles</i> are revealing and begs the world take notice of all people that live under dictatorial regimes or occupation.</span></p>
<p><span>Yet Mr. Broderick’s use of culminated experiences to reach a corporeal and kinesthetic conclusion with selective personal expositions, gives the reader a full-bodied exposure to a childhood filled with sectarian violence and war. </span></p>
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<p><span><a href="http://thenewwildgeese.com/profile/EamonLoingsigh">Eamon Loingsigh</a></span><span><b>’s historical novel</b> <strong>"Light of the Diddicoy"</strong><b>, about the Brooklyn, Irish-American White Hand Gang is due out St. Patrick’s Day 2014. Visit</b> <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/"><span>http://artofneed.wordpress.com</span></a> <b>to learn more.</b></span></p>
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<p><span><b>Related Reading:</b></span></p>
<p><a href="http://thenewwildgeese.com/profiles/blogs/colin-broderick-s-that-s-that-tyrone-born-author-discusses-growin" target="_self">'That's That': Colin Broderick Discusses Being a Kid Amid 'The Troubles'</a></p>
<p></p>Irish Influence on English Languagetag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-09-12:6442157:BlogPost:475732013-09-12T19:30:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<div class="navigation" id="nav-above"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/daniel-cassidy.jpg" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/daniel-cassidy.jpg?w=450&h=246&width=300" width="300"></img></a><div class="nav-previous"><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">This was originally posted on <em><strong>artofneed</strong></em>, Blog for the <em><strong>Auld Irishtown</strong></em> trilogy: <br></br> <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com">http://artofneed.wordpress.com…</a></span></div>
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<div id="nav-above" class="navigation"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/daniel-cassidy.jpg" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/daniel-cassidy.jpg?w=450&h=246&width=300" width="300"/></a><div class="nav-previous"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">This was originally posted on <em><strong>artofneed</strong></em>, Blog for the <em><strong>Auld Irishtown</strong></em> trilogy: <br/> <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com">http://artofneed.wordpress.com</a></span></div>
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<div id="post-739" class="post-739 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-uncategorized tag-brooklyns-irishtown tag-diddicoy tag-irish-gangs tag-irish-gangster tag-irish-gangsters tag-irish-town tag-irishtown"><div class="entry-content"><p>It is well known that for many, many years, the Irish in America were seen as second class. They were laborers, house maids and lived barely above the status of slaves. Often, because of their Catholicism, they were treated worse.</p>
<div id="attachment_744" class="wp-caption alignright"><p class="wp-caption-text"><em><strong><a class="zem_slink" title="Daniel Cassidy" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Cassidy" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank">Daniel Cassidy</a> (above), author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1904859607/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=thewildgeeset-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=1904859607&adid=0Q78058JSPAEMH3FY2NN" target="_blank">“How the Irish Invented Slang”</a> at a bar in <a class="zem_slink" title="New York City" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=40.6641666667,-73.9386111111&spn=0.1,0.1&q=40.6641666667,-73.9386111111%20(New%20York%20City)&t=h" rel="geolocation" target="_blank">New York City</a>.</strong></em></p>
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<p><a class="zem_slink" title="Irish American" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_American" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank">Irish-Americans</a> have come a long way since then, but there are still some things that have yet to be fully unearthed within the Hibernian/Gaelic culture separate from the Anglo-Saxon/English culture. Of course, there are not many things more relevant when talking about culture than language, for which the Irish has a long and successful history, whether oral or with the pen.</p>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1904859607/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=thewildgeeset-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=1904859607&adid=0Q78058JSPAEMH3FY2NN" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/irish-slang-book-cover.jpg?w=640&width=150" width="150"/></a><br />
<p> </p>
<p>In 2007, a book supported by a left-leaning publisher (CounterPunch) did much to open the flood gates to the great influences the Irish had on the <a class="zem_slink" title="American English" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_English" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank">English language in the United States</a>. And with this Irish pride came the old Anglo-American discriminations that were once so powerful in the form of the Know-Nothing Party, policies against hiring Irish at the workplace and the Nativist burning of Catholic churches in America.</p>
<p>When Daniel Cassidy’s <strong>"<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1904859607/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=thewildgeeset-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=1904859607&adid=0Q78058JSPAEMH3FY2NN" target="_blank">How the Irish Invented Slang: The Secret Language of the Crossroads</a>" </strong>came out, the research behind it was called “casual, off the cuff.” And that there was “no scholarship or real evidence at all in it.”</p>
<p>It’s premise was called “baloney,” yet in the end, we have found the only baloney was the lack of research into the influence <a class="zem_slink" title="Gaelic Ireland" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_Ireland" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank">Gaelic-Irish</a>had on the English language by the supposed diligent dictionary-makers like Oxford and the Anglophile American versions such as Merriam-Webster.</p>
<p>“Daniel Cassidy flings down the gauntlet to all those compilers of dictionaries who fled to the safe haven of ‘origin unknown’ when confronted with the challenge of American slang,” said Joseph Lee, Professor of Irish Studies at New York University.</p>
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<div id="attachment_743" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/peter-quinn.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-743 align-right" alt="peter quinn" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/peter-quinn.jpg?w=640" width="129" height="129"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text"><em><strong>Peter Quinn (right) is an Irish-American Historian, author of “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0670850764/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=thewildgeeset-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0670850764&adid=0SY6RK5DVB3Y7YABKTCG" target="_blank">Banished Children of Eve</a>” and was an advisor to Martin Scorsese on the film, “Gangs of New York.”</strong></em></p>
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<p>“He has brought back to life that which was considered dead and settled,” said Historian <a href="http://www.newyorkpaddy.com/">Peter Quinn</a>.</p>
<p>“Imagine old, sunken roads re-surfaced on our maps,” Publisher Alexander Cockburn said.</p>
<p>Even as the cloistered British professors and American Anglophiles tried disassembling Cassidy’s evidence, the research ended up becoming a breakthrough that stifled the English language protectorates. These Oxfordonians would much rather avoid admitting any influence on the English language such as slang that came from the tenant farmers in Ireland that were exiled to American cities like Boston, Philadelphia and New York where, on the city streets, the secretive slang of rebels and thieves reached up into daily usage.</p>
<p>When the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1904859607/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=thewildgeeset-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=1904859607&adid=0Q78058JSPAEMH3FY2NN" target="_blank">"How the Irish Invented Slang"</a>won the 2007 American Book Award for nonfictional, it was settled. Although some research still needed to be done to have multiple sources, it was established that the <a class="zem_slink" title="Irish language" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank">Irish language</a> had had a profound and previously undocumented influence on the English language.</p>
<p>Unearthed by Cassidy’s studying of a <i>Foclóir Póca</i>, or <a class="zem_slink" title="Hiberno-English" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-English" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank">Irish-English</a><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/focloir-poca.jpg" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/focloir-poca.jpg?w=640&width=150" width="150"/></a> pocket dictionary along with the skills produced by studying the language and history of the Irish in his position at the head of the Irish Studies program at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_College_of_California">New College of California</a>, Cassidy uncovered lingual gems such as the word “crony.”</p>
<p>Previously, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary speculated that the word<i>crony</i> came from Greek etymology, but Cassidy points out that it comes from the Irish<i>comh-rhogna</i> (pronounced <i>co-rony</i>) which means “fellow favorites,” used often in and around Tammany Hall and the poker tables of the port cities where the Irish traditionally worked as longshoremen and laborers.</p>
<p>The perfect translation from the Irish to the English seems obvious for words like “crony,” even to those who have never studies linguistics. Combine that with the old cultural discrimination and refusal of all things Irish by British and Anglo-American rule makers, and today’s culture of empowered political correctness and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1904859607/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=thewildgeeset-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=1904859607&adid=0Q78058JSPAEMH3FY2NN" target="_blank">"How the Irish Invented Slang"</a> became a wonderful controversy for all those who questioned HL Mencken, author of <b><i>The American Language</i></b>, when he said the Irish had contributed very few words, “Perhaps speakeasy, shillelagh and smithereens exhaust the list.”</p>
<p>Mr. Cassidy’s work was groundbreaking (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4za9Rl8Qrc">Here he is talking about his book</a>). But it didn’t all come from research and study, it also came from his own family. His growing up in an Irish Catholic home in New York City had a lot to do with it too. In fact, much of his research at the New College of the University of California had to with genealogy. For Cassidy, whose lineage was traced back to the <a class="zem_slink" title="Great Famine (Ireland)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank">Irish Famine</a> of the 1840/1850s and subsequent emigration to America, it was personal.</p>
<p>“Even growing up around it, little shards of the language stayed alive in our mouths and came out as slang,” Cassidy told the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/nyregion/08irish.html?_r=0">New York Times</a> (NYTimes review linked).</p>
<p>As a child, he was nicknamed “Glom.” When he asked why Glom, his family responded, “because you’re always grabbing other people’s stuff.” (<a href="http://video.on.nytimes.com/video/2007/11/05/nyregion/1194817099927/daniel-cassidy-on-slang.html">Here he is talking about being called Glom</a>)</p>
<p>Glom or glaum in English translates as “glam” in the Irish and means “to grab, to clutch, to grasp.” Which now is obsolete in English, but was once used regularly, as in this April 15, 1912 <i><a class="zem_slink" title="San Francisco" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=37.7833333333,-122.416666667&spn=0.1,0.1&q=37.7833333333,-122.416666667%20(San%20Francisco)&t=h" rel="geolocation" target="_blank">San Francisco</a> Bulletin</i> article, “It may have been the Easter season… but tis a fact, ‘Chic’ Hartley actually broke through his shell yesterday and glommed a couple of hits.”</p>
<p>In researching "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0988400898/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=thewildgeeset-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0988400898&adid=0T60JP2ERE26P8P5CWCB" target="_blank">Light of the Diddicoy</a>," the first book in the <b><i>Auld Irishtown</i></b> trilogy, I uncovered many fascinating things about my own Irish background and how separate and different a culture Irish-Americans truly had from the incumbent Anglo-Americans. But nothing was as astonishing to me as the influence of the Irish language on American street slang. It opened my mind to the voice of the narrator of my book, Liam Garrity, and had a profound affect on the <i>way</i> his story needed to be told, the words that he would have used circa 1915/1916 and the underscoring of the underground nature, or anti-establishment and anti <a class="zem_slink" title="Anglo-Saxons" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxons" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank">Anglo-Saxon culture</a> of Irish-Americans.</p>
<p>In fact, I found some of the words in Cassidy’s work being used by real gang members of the era in the many newspaper articles and police reports I sifted through. Finding out that these words, which were so embedded in the American city street language had Irish origins, for me, was amazing:</p>
<p><br/> <b>Stool pigeon</b> English – “a police informer,” Irish (<i>steall beidean</i>) – “a falsely accusing informer”<br/> <b>Growler</b> English – “a can used to carry fresh beer home from a saloon,” very popular in New York, Irish (<i>gearr-ol ur</i>) – “a fresh quick drink,.”<br/> <b>Spalpeen</b> English – “a common workman, scamp” Irish (<i>spailpín</i>) – “itinerant farm worker, scamp”<br/> <b>Dude</b> English – “a dapper dandy,” Irish (<i>dud</i>) – “a foolish looking fellow,” which explains how the poor Irish immigrants saw the rich Americans. “Dude” is still in affect today, however it means “a regular guy,” which falls between the variants.<br/> <b>Shanty</b> (Irish <i>seantigh</i>) “an old house”<br/> <b>Ballyrag</b> (Irish <i>bollaireacht</i>) “a boaster, a bully”<br/> <b>Slugger</b> (Irish <i>slacaire</i>) “to beat or hit hard,” think: Babe Ruth, 1920s<br/> <b>Racket</b> (Irish <i>raic ard</i>) “a loud uproar”<br/> <b>Helter Skelter</b> (Irish <i>Ailteoir seaoilte</i>) “an uncontrolled wild prankster”<br/> <b>Ground Sweat</b> (Irish <i>grian suite</i>) “a grave”</p>
<p></p>
<p>There are so many more that I simply cannot name them all, although I left a list of a few below to interest you.</p>
<p>The fact remains today that, even as we continue to confront old and outdated discriminations on many fronts, we still have so much more work to do. Even though it is 2013, we still have women in the working place making less than men, African-Americans grossly outnumbering whites in prisons and American Hispanics still not being accepted within the culture.</p>
<p>After winning the American Book Award, Mr. Cassidy died of cancer. It was a great loss, but what hurts even more is that his work has not been taken up by another university and no scholarship or funding has been secured by Irish-American organizations to continue this valuable research.</p>
<p>“It’s unfortunate,” Peter Quinn explained in an email to me. “But as far as I know no one has continued with Danny’s explorations. Danny was the first to say that his work was meant as a beginning rather than an end. He was eager to s<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">tart a group project but died before it could get underway.”</span></p>
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Baloney – <i>Béal Ánna, </i>“silly, foolish talk”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Boss – <i>Bás, </i>“boss, best, very good”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Brag – <i>Bréag,</i> “a lie, exaggeration, deception”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Cop – <i>Ceap, </i>“a protector or chief.” The verb “ceap” has meanings including to catch or intercept.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Daddy – <i>Daidí</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Gab – <i>Gab, “</i>a chattering mouth”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Goon – <i>Guan</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Hick – <i>Aitheach, </i>meaning a peasant, a churl</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Jazz – <i>Teas, </i>meaning heat, passion, excitement</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Lucre – <i>Luach Áir,</i> “reward of gold</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Shack – <i>Teach,</i> “house”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Eighty-six (as in remove, like from a menu) – <i>Eiteachas aiocht</i> “denial, refuse”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Slob – <i>Slab, </i>“dirty or slovenly person”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Smashing – <i>‘s maith sin, </i>meaning “it is good”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">So long – <i>Slán</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Buddy – <i>Bodach</i>, “a clown, churl”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Drag (as in race) – <i>De raig</i>, “sudden acceleration”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Poker – <i>Poca</i>, “pocket game”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Jack (as in money) – <i>Tiach</i>, “a small purse, money”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Finagle – Fionna aclai “an ingenious invention, contrivance”</span></li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>'Longing Eyebrows' for Seamus Heaneytag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-08-30:6442157:BlogPost:441302013-08-30T14:30:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84700278?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84700278?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="400"></img></a> <strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">I,</span> for one, can’t wait.</strong> When the time longs into my soul and the creak in my knees cause gentle steps, I’ll grow long my eyebrows. I’ll let them loose on my face as I chase away the last days of my living.…</p>
<p></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84700278?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="400" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84700278?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="400" class="align-left"/></a><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">I,</span> for one, can’t wait.</strong> When the time longs into my soul and the creak in my knees cause gentle steps, I’ll grow long my eyebrows. I’ll let them loose on my face as I chase away the last days of my living.</p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Now I stand though. I have son and daughters rearing up on me. Smiling as they gain to overtake me.</span></p>
<p>Today is the day a great poet died. And nothing’s warmer in the throat than the poet that you have long smiled with in word. From the long life he gently stepped and with such great care. So thoughtful that it was oft he was for granted taken.</p>
<p>‘Til now.</p>
<p>The sound of the subway sizzling in a whoosh through the long tunnels brings me back to my grandfather too. Another man of the gentle hand who so gives me the light of hope for my long eyebrowed salute to this life. He held my hand in the traincar for he knew the surroundings were new on me. Dark colors around, spray paint clicking sounds splayed upon each wall and passing train, <i>ca-click-ca-click-ca-click</i> went swooshing through my cotton-wool brain.</p>
<p>My grandfather rarely talked. By trade, he was a listener. And there had been in this life nothing that once he had not heard sung by the throats of men whetted with liquor in the old west of Manhattan saloon in our family.</p>
<p>“Who are the Mets playing today?” asked I.</p>
<p>“The Astros.”</p>
<p>“Houston Astros?”</p>
<p>He nodded in smile at me, tapped the top of my hand on my knee.</p>
<p>“Jose Cruz is on the Astros. I like his stance.”</p>
<p>“Really? How so?”</p>
<p>“Uh, he just has a, uh, it looks cool.”</p>
<p>“Cool?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, like it’s a fluid motion.”</p>
<p>“A fluid motion? That’s a wonderful way of explaining it.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, it’s just a fluid way of swinging. Like he has an artistic way of swinging and I can imagine him hitting the ball square while, um, before he has even swung yet. Do you know what I mean?”</p>
<p>“I do, I do. Much better now, I understand.”</p>
<p>The lights flick on and off and we speed through the click of the black tunnels as he smiles from above. His dear hands and the touch which became so familiar to me, I couldn’t see then, but was the touch of a poet who’d never once been named so. He’d not written much words in his long years and his work was that of hearing the spirits sway in his mind like the Latin prayers of his own youth, sweeping in Mass along the echo of another era long since left.</p>
<p>I have a picture of him when he was yet a young soul. It’s dated 1919.</p>
<div id="attachment_732" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/1919-pic.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/1919-pic.jpg?w=231&h=300&width=300" width="300" class="align-right"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text">My grandfather on the right with his eldest sister’s hands on his shoulder.</p>
</div>
<p>I look upon it now and remember that train ride in 1979, when I was that age.</p>
<p>“Haven’t you ever seen him play before?” I asked.</p>
<p>“I suppose I have, but never quite saw him as I do now.”</p>
<p>It was an afternoon game, warm on the skin. We sat in the sun and I looked over the expanse of the place and with the smell of the wind and the green of the grass on my nose, my mind was set on a pace. The grass now so welcome a smell with the clickety-clack of rust out of the way, yet the Met fans did not see it in such a way.</p>
<p>“Ya bum!”</p>
<p>“Ya’re a friggin’ louse! Go back to da minors!”</p>
<p>And when Jose Cruz hit a long shot that swooped across my eyes in the sky, headed down with a reaching carry, I stood up with the rest of the crowd but for another reason. I was taken by the swing of him while the color of the blue and white uniforms, the yellow and orange uniforms, the green of the grass, the colorado of the infield left the place, overcome with a whooshing, resounding “BOOOOO!”</p>
<p>Darkening my thoughts, he stood by me and looked down, seeing too the color of my face leaving it. The sadness of the whole world rising in the chant of disgust and blasting down into me like a wave smacking my eyes and face.</p>
<p>“What a beautiful swing!” he yelled in my ears above the mad crowd.</p>
<p>I kept my mouth closed and looked up at him with the smile of a child once understood. He who was a lifelong Brooklyn Dodgers fan turned New York Mets fan found my little thoughts truer than any loyalty to his team.</p>
<p>I had never heard him raise his voice before. And I never heard him raise his voice again. The only time worth doing so, was then, I suppose.</p>
<p>“In the gloom you cannot trace a wrinkle on their beeswax brow,” he said, after the crowd laid down their insults and we all sat back in our stadium pews.</p>
<p>I listened, then looked away. A few pitches later when the urgency of the words left us, I asked what he meant by them.</p>
<p>He smiled, “Could mean anything. That’s the beauty of poetry and of religion. It means what you make of it.”</p>
<p>“Can you say it again, I don’t remember it perfectly.”</p>
<p>“In the gloom you cannot trace a wrinkle on their beeswax brow.”</p>
<p>“Who is ‘they’?”</p>
<p>“Poor women in a city church.”</p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>“You can think about it long, but it only means what you make of it.”</p>
<p>The distant thud of ball in catcher’s mitt fell far away. The anger of the crowd too, many years away. Here I sit writing as I may of the death of a great poet that in my childhood found a way to open my thoughts to the many, many things they can possibly convey.</p>
<p>“What is the name of that person who wrote that?” I asked my grandfather.</p>
<p>He smiled and looked down at me again, tapping his familiar hand on the top of my own, “Seamus Heaney.”</p>
<p><em>Eamon Loingsigh, 8/30/13</em></p>
<p></p>
<p><strong>Related Reading:</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://thenewwildgeese.com/profiles/blogs/the-follower-seamus-heaney?xg_source=activity" target="_self">The Follower - Seamus Heaney</a></p>
<p><a href="http://thenewwildgeese.com/profiles/blogs/from-the-frontier-of-writing-seamus-heaney?xg_source=activity" target="_self">From the Frontier of Writing - Seamus Heaney</a></p>
<p><a href="http://thenewwildgeese.com/video/seamus-heaney-reads-st-kevin-and-the-blackbird" target="_self">Video: Seamus Heaney Reads 'St. Kevin and the Blackbird'</a></p>
<p><a href="http://thenewwildgeese.com/video/seamus-heaney-digging" target="_self">Video: Seamus Heaney 'Digging'</a></p>
<p><a href="http://thenewwildgeese.com/profiles/blogs/condolence-page-for-seamus-heaney-sign-and-add-comments-here" target="_self">Condolence Page for Seamus Heaney: Sign and Add Your Comments</a></p>
<p></p>'Light of the Diddicoy' Updatetag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-08-28:6442157:BlogPost:431632013-08-28T13:30:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<p><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/cover-lotd.jpg?w=294&h=300" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/cover-lotd.jpg?w=294&h=300&width=196" width="196"></img></a></p>
<h2 class="entry-title"><span class="font-size-2">Originally posted at artofneed, Blog for the Auld Irishtown trilogy here: <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/691/">http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/691/</a></span></h2>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"><strong>August Update</strong></span><br></br> <span class="font-size-2"><strong>Eamon…</strong></span></p>
<p><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/cover-lotd.jpg?w=294&h=300" target="_blank"><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/cover-lotd.jpg?w=294&h=300&width=196" width="196" class="align-left"/></a></p>
<h2 class="entry-title"><span class="font-size-2">Originally posted at artofneed, Blog for the Auld Irishtown trilogy here: <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/691/">http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/691/</a></span></h2>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"><strong>August Update</strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-2"><strong>Eamon Loingsigh</strong></span></p>
<div class="entry-content"><p>Well, I just wanted to give an update on where we are with <a href="http://http//www.amazon.com/Light-Diddicoy-Eamon-Loingsigh/dp/0988400898"><em>Light of the Diddicoy</em></a> (pre order now, if you like), the first book in the <em><strong>Auld Irishtown</strong></em> trilogy. I’d like to plan on sending these at least once per month until the big day, March 14, 2014.</p>
<p>For all those people that are giving this a book a chance, I just wanted to give a great big ‘THANK YOU.’ It is truly amazing what has been going on. I’ve basically been plucked from nowhereville, to having a publisher with a huge distributor, a public relations company and riding the wave of a previous author who has already proven himself as a success writer.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.threeroomspress.com/%E2%80%8E">Three Rooms Press</a> has invested in this project, and for that I amtruly humbled and owe a great debt of gratitude. I have always thought of myself as being true to my word, so hopefully I will get a chance to show my gratitude in the future with Three Rooms Press. I have always been skeptical of the motives of publishers, but TRP has literally undermined that notion with their <em>actions</em>, the best way to show intentions.</p>
<img class="size-full wp-image-466 alignright align-right" alt="Three Rooms Press" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/three-rooms-press.jpg?w=640" width="225" height="225"/><br/>
<p>Here are a couple reasons why I feel this way:</p>
<p>I was very surprised when it was announced that they had hired <a href="http://www.perseusdistribution.com/%E2%80%8E">Perseus</a> as the distributor for my book. Perseus is a top distributor in the industry with connections to every library, bookstore, website, anywhere you can think of a place you would want your book to get noticed, Perseus is there.</p>
<div id="attachment_720" class="wp-caption alignright"><p class="wp-caption-text"><em>Mr. Vetere’s (below) new book, The Writers Afterlife, is also due out in March of 2014.</em></p>
</div>
<a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/vetere.jpg?w=640" target="_blank"><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/vetere.jpg?w=640&width=258" width="258" class="align-left"/></a><br/>
<p>Second, a public relations company was hired in a two-for-one deal for both <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em> and<strong><a class="zem_slink" title="Richard Vetere" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Vetere" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Richard Vetere</a></strong>‘s next book, <em><strong>The Writers Afterlife</strong></em>. So, not only do I get signed on to a public relations company, but on the back of a proven author, playwright and screen writer who has worked with some of my all time favorites like <a class="zem_slink" title="Francis Ford Coppola" href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/francis_ford_coppola" target="_blank" rel="rottentomatoes">Francis Ford Coppola</a>, <a class="zem_slink" title="Martin Scorsese" href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/martin_scorsese" target="_blank" rel="rottentomatoes">Martin Scorsese</a>, <a class="zem_slink" title="Walter Matthau" href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/walter_matthau" target="_blank" rel="rottentomatoes">Walter Matthau</a>, <a class="zem_slink" title="Ed Harris" href="http://musicbrainz.org/artist/d6caaed6-1128-4c9e-a7cd-2df8c973a70d.html" target="_blank" rel="musicbrainz">Ed Harris</a>and has even been reviewed by <a class="zem_slink" title="Michiko Kakutani" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michiko_Kakutani" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Michiko Kakutani</a> in the NY Times Book Review!</p>
<p>Somewhere above 200 galley copies (advanced review copies) of the book are going to be sent out everywhere and if I’m lucky, it’ll get reviewed by the big kids on the block and picked up by major bookstores and hopefully book readings all over the place, including Ireland! In short, getting the word out!</p>
<div id="attachment_722" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/guy.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-722 align-right" alt="guy" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/guy.jpg?w=640" width="224" height="224"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text"><em><a class="zem_slink" title="Guy Denning" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Denning" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Guy Denning</a> (right) is an English artist (with Irish roots) who lives in France and regularly has shows in Paris galleries.</em></p>
</div>
<p>Many of you already know that <a href="http://www.guydenning.org/%E2%80%8E">Guy Denning</a>, a very popular artist living in France, did the cover art for <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em>. Well, I was finally able to see what the artwork looks like on the book and let me tell you, it is amazing. I was planning on keeping the artwork a secret for another month or two, but it’s already up on amazon.com, so I posted it above. There have been loads of compliments and I am very proud of the work Mr. Denning created. He latched onto this project even before I had a publisher and read a rough draft copy of the book when he decided to do the artwork. How many artists would do such a thing is that? so I have a big debt of gratitude to Mr. Denning as well for seeing into the future (I guess that’s what artists do though).</p>
<p>On the back cover, where other authors write about the book in a “blurb,” there is a 19th Century Brooklyn street map surrounding the Brooklyn waterfront close to the Navy Yard and Vinegar Hill, where the book takes place.</p>
<p>It’s all like a dream coming true. I am very excited and I hope you are too.</p>
<p>The email list for this blog has recently taken a big leap and we are now close to 3,000. Many of you requested to be added, others are family members and friends that will watch this project grow and, hopefully, on <a class="zem_slink" title="Saint Patrick's Day" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick%27s_Day" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">St. Patrick’s Day</a> next year when the book is released, see it blossom into its own beauty.</p>
<p>Thank you so much,</p>
<p><em>Eamon</em></p>
<p></p>
</div>An American Writing in Hiberniantag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-08-18:6442157:BlogPost:406532013-08-18T02:30:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<h2 class="entry-title"><span class="font-size-2">by Eamon Loingsigh</span></h2>
<div class="entry-meta"><span class="font-size-2">Originally published at artofneed, blog for the Auld Irishtown trilogy </span><br></br> <span class="font-size-2"><a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/08/07/an-american-writing-in-hibernian/">http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/08/07/an-american-writing-in-hibernian/…</a></span></div>
<div class="entry-content"><p></p>
<p></p>
</div>
<h2 class="entry-title"><span class="font-size-2">by Eamon Loingsigh</span></h2>
<div class="entry-meta"><span class="font-size-2">Originally published at artofneed, blog for the Auld Irishtown trilogy </span><br/> <span class="font-size-2"><a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/08/07/an-american-writing-in-hibernian/">http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/08/07/an-american-writing-in-hibernian/</a></span></div>
<div class="entry-content"><p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"><strong><em>“The Irish accent has</em></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-2"><strong><em>beaten its French counterpart<br/> as the world’s </em><em>sexiest.”</em></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-2">~The Telegraph (British newspaper)</span></p>
<p>I was so immersed in the story of Liam Garrity, <a class="zem_slink" title="Dinny Meehan" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinny_Meehan" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Dinny Meehan</a> and the <a class="zem_slink" title="White Hand Gang" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Hand_Gang" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">White Hand Gang</a>, that my personal life was suffering. I was missing appointments, forgetting important topics at work and lost in thought among the demands of everyday life. The first draft of<em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em> was complete, but it lacked the immersion I felt within my imagination. What existed in my mind didn’t come through well enough on paper. The complete and overwhelming realities of the life of a 14 year-old farm boy from Ireland suddenly thrust into the rough-cobbled neighborhoods of Brooklyn’s waterfront gangs was missing the link that brings together a writer’s imagination and the reader’s perception of the story.</p>
<p>What I needed was something tangible that would bring the reader directly into the tensions Liam, the immigrant protagonist faced while forced to work as a longshoreman, then going homeless, being brought into a gang where fist-fighting was a measure of one’s worth and the terrible decision between family and survival.</p>
<p>As all writers do, I consulted some of the greatest works that did to me what I wanted to do for my readers. Bring her/him into a life where decision-making was entirely influenced by survival. A young Irishman in the big American city.</p>
<p>There are many works that influenced the voice of Liam Garrity in <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em>, but in the end I needed to come up with my own voice for him. And after the first edit of the rough draft, I was keenly aware that I’d really only put together a written outline of the story at that point. It was filled with information that was not essential to the flow of the story. The most important part was yet to come: The Voice.</p>
<p>I decided to strip down the informational aspects of the story, what I called the “explanation” of it, and replace it only with direct “experiences.” I even named the edit, “X-for-X.”</p>
<p>That was the first part of the edit, which left out some details of the characters’ backgrounds and a better understanding of the background of the gang, but with two other books (it’s a trilogy, remember) and with loads of “experiences” still in store for young Liam, I felt safe that eventually they’ll get covered.</p>
<p>The next part was something I’ve always been interested in. My entire life I have been fascinated with accents, dialects, speech impediments and the sentence structure of those who speak my first language, as their second language: English.</p>
<p>Although many books influenced Light of the Diddicoy (I simply <a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/clockwork_orange.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-675 alignright align-right" alt="Clockwork_orange" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/clockwork_orange.jpg?w=640" width="170" height="250"/></a>cannot start naming them all off), I found <em><strong><a class="zem_slink" title="A Clockwork Orange" href="http://www.amazon.com/Clockwork-Orange-Anthony-Burgess/dp/0434098000%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzemanta-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0434098000" target="_blank" rel="amazon">A Clockwork Orange</a></strong></em> to be a brilliant story that had an powerful effect on me (I even dressed up like ‘Alexander the Large’ for Halloween one year), due mostly to Anthony Burgess’s amazing ability to put together Russian-inspired words with English street slang and rhyming slang that he called “Nadsat.” The first-person narration made me feel as though I was within the story myself. Although I identified with Alex’s (narrator) mischievous nature, the fact that the language was so new and experimental made me feel like I was actually a part of the story, even though I read it thirty years after its original publication.</p>
<p>Other books and stories that experimented with language also electrified my imagination. But, wanting to keep the story of Liam as the universal struggle of the immigrant, particularly the <a class="zem_slink" title="Irish American" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_American" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Irish immigrant</a>, I decided to study the Irish language. Then I narrowed it down again to <a class="zem_slink" title="Hiberno-English" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-English" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Hiberno-English</a>, and then pared it down again to the Hiberno-English of the nineteen-teens.</p>
<p>There are all kinds of derivative accents and dialects in <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em> including the Brooklyn accent as opposed to the other New York borough accents, a Kilkenny dialect (Paddy Keenan), <a class="zem_slink" title="Irish Travellers" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Irish-traveler</a>’s (Tommy Tuohey), a Dubliner’s (Patrolman Brosnan) and even Cockney-Irish (Sadie Meehan) and a Jewish-German (Abe Harms) accent. But the most important dialect is the storyteller himself, Liam Garrity, who grew up on a farm in<a class="zem_slink" title="County Clare" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=52.8333333333,-9.0&spn=1.0,1.0&q=52.8333333333,-9.0%20(County%20Clare)&t=h" target="_blank" rel="geolocation">County Clare</a> and lived in Brooklyn the rest of his long life.</p>
<p>Hiberno-English, of course, is the language of a country that had learned a foreigner’s tongue due to conquest. Strict respect to English grammatical rules was not a priority, though many of the grammatical rules of <a class="zem_slink" title="Irish language" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Irish-Gaelic</a> often apply to an Irish person’s use of the <a class="zem_slink" title="English language" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">English language</a>.</p>
<p>I won’t go into great detail of the idiosyncrasies and syntax of Hiberno-English, but some of the most easily recognizable traits are fun to look at. One of the first things I learned that made me both laugh and think about why I had never noticed it before, was the fact that the Irish rarely ever use the word “yes” or “no” in English. There simply were not words for these two opposing adverbs in Irish. Therefore, you’ll find when an Irish person is asked a simple yes-or-no question, like:</p>
<p>“Are you fond of apples?” He or she may reply simply, “I am.”</p>
<p>“Do you hate Americans?” You might ask her/him.</p>
<p>“I don’t, but the Brits can go feck themselves altogedder.”</p>
<p>Which brings me to another fun point, reflexive pronouns such as “herself” and “himself” within the Irish vernacular. You can see it in this example of one girl asking another if she went somewhere, with a hint of jealousy behind it.</p>
<p>“Did you bring yourself to the show then?”</p>
<p>Instead of those from England or the <a class="zem_slink" title="United States" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.8833333333,-77.0166666667&spn=10.0,10.0&q=38.8833333333,-77.0166666667%20(United%20States)&t=h" target="_blank" rel="geolocation">United States</a> who might ask, “Did you get to go?” (because I couldn’t go).</p>
<p>The use of a reflexive pronoun here indicates an influence from the Irish-Gaelic grammar.</p>
<p>And of course, you have ’tis.</p>
<p>“Beatiful day ’tisn’t.”</p>
<p>“’tis, ’tis.”</p>
<div id="attachment_676" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/colin-farrell.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-676 align-right" alt="colin-farrell" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/colin-farrell.jpg?w=300&h=187" width="300" height="187"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text"><strong><em>Colin Farrell, right, whose Irish accent and handsome face make him one of the sexiest men in the world. He might do well as Dinny Meehan too in a film adaptation, I’d think.</em></strong></p>
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<p>The lilt, or brogue of the Irish is the accent that is so recognizable. It was recently voted in a poll of over 5,000 women worldwide to be the sexiest (I had to pull the quote above from an British newspaper for good measure).</p>
<p>This is no surprise. Americans and the world-over love everything Irish. Especially the beer and whiskey on St. Patrick’s Day, which is when Liam Garrity and his West of Ireland dialect makes his big debut as the narrator in the first book of the <em><strong>Auld Irishtown</strong></em> trilogy, <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em>.</p>
</div>Brooklyn's Irish-American White Hand Gangtag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-07-11:6442157:BlogPost:301422013-07-11T13:30:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<p><em><span class="font-size-2">Originally posted at artofneed Blog for the Auld Irishtown trilogy: </span></em></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"><a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/07/10/the-white-hand-gang/">http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/07/10/the-white-hand-gang/</a></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84699372?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84699372?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="400"></img></a> There has been…</span></p>
<p><em><span class="font-size-2">Originally posted at artofneed Blog for the Auld Irishtown trilogy: </span></em></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"><a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/07/10/the-white-hand-gang/">http://artofneed.wordpress.com/2013/07/10/the-white-hand-gang/</a></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84699372?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="400" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84699372?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="400" class="align-left"/></a>There has been some confusion about the gang that is featured in the Auld Irishtown trilogy. And rightfully so as there is a lot of misinformation available on the internet. So, I thought this might be a good time to give a quick history and an outline on what and who the <a title="White Hand Gang" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Hand_Gang" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">White Hand Gang</a> was.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">There were a number of gangs along the waterfront in Brooklyn during the early 1900s. The <a title="Swamp Angels" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swamp_Angels" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Swamp Angels</a>, who were based on the Lower East Side and were mostly eradicated by the year 1900, often operated as <a title="East River" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=40.80399,-73.8251343&spn=0.1,0.1&q=40.80399,-73.8251343%20(East%20River)&t=h" target="_blank" rel="geolocation">East River</a> pirates on the Brooklyn side. The Red Onion Gang hung out around Warren Street and the Atlantic and Baltic terminals and <a title="Dinny Meehan" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinny_Meehan" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Dinny Meehan</a> was an original member of this collection of fist-fighting youths.The Jay Street Gang were based, obviously, on Jay Street underneath the Manhattan Bridge. And the Navy Street Gang were known as Camorra Italians by the Navy Yard.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">This loose collection of gangs that often fought against each other and the many other nameless gangs of the time are the origins of the White Hand Gang.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">If you look on Wikipedia, you’ll see an outline of what the gang was, but I would be careful in taking that information to the bank. Some of the so-called facts on that page cannot be verified and are based on a few trashy biographical fictions that took extreme liberties with the truth. Namely, a book by William Balsamo and George Carpozi Jr. called “Crime Incorporated.” In this book, the Irish-American White Hand Gang’s existence is only part of a fictionalized Mafia rise via the author’s convenient imagination. Entire characters and scenarios are literally made up in order to sensationalize the Italian rise in New York and a war between the Irish and Italians, which never truly existed, ended with the Irish getting beaten. Some of it is based on true stories and actual people, but some of it can never be confirmed through research.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">In real life, the White Hand Gang existed as did many street and dock gangs of the time, for multiple reasons. What made them different was their ability to continue to exist as a street gang long after the era of street gangs had ended. The only way this could have occurred is due to a few factors.</span></p>
<ol>
<li><span class="font-size-2">They had a very strict code of silence, way more powerful than the Italian Omerta, according to some. They never gave information to the police and kept disputes among themselves to be settled outside of the law.</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-2">They lived in Brooklyn, not Manhattan, which means essentially that because Manhattan was considered the real New York City (to some) where international investors and the owning class lived, the police and laws were more strictly enforced, whereas the Brooklyn waterfront was much more of a working class, factory town.</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-2">Many of the White Hand Gang members came from Manhattan originally because they sought to continue living in the “old way,” instead of pretending to be legitimate while running illegal operations undercover. So, many of them already knew how to run a street gang due to their experiences and traditions in old Manhattan.</span></li>
</ol>
<p><span class="font-size-2">One of the earliest mentions I ever found of the White Hand Gang was from 1905, where four teenagers (17 & 18 years of age) with Irish-American surnames, were arrested for “beating up badly” three other boys on the corner of Hoyt and Warren streets. One of the boys, John Gibney, was arrested for tearing a gas pipe from a saloon wall and lighting it with a match inside a <a title="Sands Street (BMT station)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sands_Street_%28BMT_station%29" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Sands Street</a> saloon, which caused a great fireball. Another was arrested earlier in the week for being drunk and disorderly.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">In 1906, Dinny Meehan and a few others were arrested for setting off firecrackers by a bum who had passed out on the platform of an elevated track and causing general havoc.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">One member of the White Hand Gang was arrested in 1908 for stealing through a “coal hole” in the sidewalk, gaining access to the basement of a tenement, then breaking into rooms and taking objects of limited value and selling them at a local pawn shop. He was caught because he was covered in coal soot.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84699457?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="300" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84699457?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-right"/></a><em><strong>At right -- A typical street scene in Brooklyn during the pre-Prohibition era. A look from underneath an Elevated Train track, or "El" down a long street with tenements on either side and bustling human traffic of many immigrants from many ethnic backgrounds.</strong></em></span></p>
<p></p>
<p>By most accounts, they were just a collection of jobless, restless teens during the years before 1910, although they had much higher aspirations. The reason they named the gang the “White Hand,” was to counter the Italian “Black Hand” rise. Black Hand, of course, was only a description of the methods Italians used, such as kidnapping for ransom, but the many newspapers of the time thought it was an actual gang. In any case, the Irish-Americans in the dock neighborhood and slums from the Navy Yard all the way down to Red Hook, which were traditionally Irish-held areas since the Potato Famine of the 1840s and 1850s, didn’t want the Italians to move up from their strongholds of Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst and Coney Island and take over the rackets.</p>
<p>This is where Dinny Meehan’s legend is made. None of the plethora of Irish-American gangs in the area wanted to work with another gang from another street. No matter if the majority of all gang members were Irish-American, each gang defended their street like tribal and communal warriors. It would take a great communicator to bring all the Irish-American gangs together to fight against the rise of Italian influence.</p>
<p>Dinny Meehan was such a man. Originally from the Warren Street Red Onion Gang, Meehan eventually became known as the leader of the White Hand Gang and in 1912 when he was 23 years old, his status as leader was cemented when he was exonerated in a sensational trial against him and three of his minions for killing one Christie Maroney, a yegg, bartender and safe cracker who refused to pay tribute to the White Hand Gang before being shot between the eyes at a Sands Street saloon.</p>
<p>At the trial’s conclusion when the verdict was to be read “a large squad of policemen and many detectives and reserves” were summoned as the judge and police felt that if Meehan were to be convicted, a riot would break out at the Kings County Court. The courtroom was packed with young, experienced Irish-American thugs and their girlfriends and Italian leaders like <a title="Frankie Yale" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_Yale" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Frankie Yale</a> and Johnny Torrio watched too, hoping he would be convicted.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">When the jury decided there wasn’t enough proof or witnesses and Meehan was released, the courtroom and the street outside erupted in cheers and Dinny Meehan was made into a legend, for it is bucking and flaunting the system that has always transformed an Irish-American into a legend in the slums of Brooklyn and beyond.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">From that point forward, the White Hand Gang ruled with an iron fist and with extraordinary unity, which as mentioned before was always so difficult for the Irish-American gangs to succeed at. Their power was so fierce and all encompassing in Brooklyn that a young <a title="Al Capone" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Al Capone</a> was sent to Chicago, as many sources confirm, because the White Hand Gang had him on a short list of those that needed to be killed. In reality, it was one of a few reasons for Capone’s moving to Chicago, but it was certainly true that the White Hand Gang was as powerful, if not more powerful, than the Mafia in Brooklyn at the time and Capone was too hot of a prospect for the Italians to risk.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">So, to Chicago went Al.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84699438?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="224" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84699438?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="224" class="align-right"/></a><em><strong>At right -- Men working at the Empire Stores, which was a collection of warehousing units primarily for tobacco and coffee. It still exists today, though only as a shell. But I have heard of plans to renovate them.</strong></em></span></p>
<p></p>
<div class="mceTemp"><dl id="attachment_665">
<dt><span class="font-size-2">Under Meehan, the dockboss at each terminal paid tribute to him at 25 Bridge Street. Every laborer that was used to unload or load a ship or truck or freight rail had to first report to Dinny Meehan under the Manhattan Bridge. If a factory or warehouse in the neighborhood (like the Empire Stores warehousing units) refused to pay tribute, Meehan and the boys would steal from it. If a ship captain didn’t pay tribute, people like “Cinders” Connolly, one of Meehan’s men, would set it ablaze and loosen its ties to the pier bollards, letting it burn in the East River where all would watch. If a gang member talked too much, he’d be found in his bed with a gunshot to his face or with his hands tied behind his back in the New York Harbor. The gang was also hired as “starkers,” a term that is basically outdated today, which meant that, for example, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) might hire the White Hand Gang to kill or maim a New York Dock Company employee who refused to pay their union dues. Or, by contrast, the New York Dock Company might hire the gang to kill a particularly obnoxious ILA man.</span></dt>
</dl>
</div>
<p><span class="font-size-2">In any case, with Meehan as the leader, things were organized. Everyone knew who to go to when they needed a job or needed someone killed. Everyone knew what the rules were and the penalty for breaking them.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">But, as Irish lore tells us, a leader of men will always be taken down from within, by his own followers. </span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84699521?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="171" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84699521?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="171" class="align-right"/></a><em><strong>At right -- Wild Bill Lovett in a mug shot. He was a wily man who was a decorated World War I veteran and murderer. His mother wanted him to become a priest in the Irish tradition, but having grown up on Catherine Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan where the Yake Brady Gang taught him how to survive, it was too late for young Bill to turn his morals around.</strong></em></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">“Wild” Bill Lovett was five years younger than Dinny Meehan, and at the beginning of Prohibition in 1920, he started spreading ideas about getting in on the up-and-coming bootlegging and illegal distillery boom (an Irishtown tradition). He was a talented gangster with a wild temper when drunk, very intelligent sober. On top of that, he was a decorated veteran of the First World War. Something that gave him a powerful status of his own among the longshoremen gangsters, laborers and factory workers along the Brooklyn waterfront.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">Suddenly, the White Hand Gang that had enjoyed so much success and underground notoriety under Dinny Meehan from 1912 to early 1920 had two heads.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">In the afternoon of March 31, 1920, among great changes in the underworld’s environment where many older-generation gangsters and organized criminals were being murdered and replaced with new, young turks, Dinny Meehan was shot multiple times while in bed with his wife Sadie, who was wounded in the shoulder. No one was charged for Meehan’s murder, but most everyone knew it was Wild Bill Lovett that either carried it out, or ordered it.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84699558?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="197" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84699558?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="197" class="align-right"/></a><em><strong>At right -- Richard "Pegleg" Lonergan, was run over by a trolley when he was eight years old and lost half a leg. He became heir to the White Hand Gang throne when his younger sister Anna married the gang's leader, Bill Lovett. After Lovett was murdered, "Richie" took over what was left of the dock gang.</strong></em></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">From that point forward, chaos reigned within the White Hand Gang. Factions still loyal to Meehan attempted to murder Lovett many times and lower level Whitehanders made hits against each other in a tit-for-tat civil war. When Richard “Pegleg” Lonergan joined forces with Bill Lovett, his childhood friend from the Lower East Side, while at the same time the Meehan-faction’s chosen successor, Garry Barry had his throat slit with a razor in 1922, Lovett finally wrested control.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">Although Lovett was on top, he soon wanted out after he married Anna Lonergan, Pegleg’s sister. The Lovett’s moved to Ridgefield Park, New Jersey and power was left to the volatile Pegleg Lonergan. But one night in November 1923, Lovett couldn’t resist and got drunk with his old buddies down in Brooklyn and by the end of the night, he was shot in the neck and bludgeoned to death and Pegleg Lonergan was now king of the dock gang.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">During Lovett’s reign, however, the gang’s income had greatly decreased. The ILA had made great offers to care and protect the wages of the working man, Italians had taken complete control of the bootlegging racket, the police had tightened their grip in the area and the gang had been splintering due to Lovett’s drinking habits and lack of discipline. By the time the twenty two year-old Pegleg Lonergan took it over in late 1923, the White Hand Gang was a shell of what it was during the Meehan era of the mid-late 19-teens. No longer did the gang have the respect of the stevedoring companies, the ship owners, the factories and manufacturing plants or the immigrant longshoremen who had traditionally gone to the gang’s headquarters at 25 Bridge Street to pay the “boss” a stipend in order to get a day’s work in. They were essentially back to the way they were before 1912.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">Then, on Christmas night, 1925, Lonergan and two of his followers were shot dead in an Italian hangout called the Adonis Social Club. Two others were wounded. Rumor has it that Al Capone was there. And it is true that he was arrested and questioned for the triple murder, since he was in town for his son’s surgery. The fiercest Italian criminal of all time, who was once banished from Brooklyn by the Irish-American White Hand Gang, had now exacted his revenge and essentially put the gang into the history books.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">After Lonergan’s murder, the gang became even less prominent and one gang leader after another took the helm only to get promptly murdered.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">In December of 1927, a man named Eddie Lynch, a member of the “old Lovett gang” was shot because, as the article stated, he was trying to get the old gang back together again and name himself the leader.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">In January of 1928, John “Non” Connors was shot and killed at a bar on Warren and Bond streets by Helen Finnegan. Connors was said to be the gang’s leader, but Ms. Finnegan exerted her own revenge as Connors had killed her brother, James “The Swede” Finnegan a year earlier.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">On November 5, 1928, a man named Eddie McGuire had apparently won leadership of the gang with a roll of the dice and immediately afterward was shot and killed. Of all the White Hand Gang’s leaders, his term was the shortest: Five minutes, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">On January 28, 1930 Red Donnelly, a 50 year old man and veteran of the Meehan era took control and was then killed in a pierhouse on the Columbia Line Pier, shot in the back.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">Later in 1930, a man named Jimmy Murray, an old Lovett lieutenant was shot and left for dead after he named himself leader of the Whitehanders.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">Finally, in 1931, Matty Martin, who had married Anna Lonergan-Lovett a few years after Bill Lovett’s murder, was killed after he thought he was owed the leadership of the gang and took control of what was by then nothing more than a collection of drunks and drug addicts. He was found slumped over a stoop off Dekalb and was killed, according to reports, due to the declining income of the gang.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">By the late 1930s, it was only Anna Lonergan that was still talking about the White Hand Gang’s heyday in Brooklyn, though she never spoke nicely of Dinny Meehan since he was an enemy of her first husband, Lovett. To this day, Bill Lovett is considered the most famous leader of the gang. Richie “Pegleg” Lonergan will always be known as having the coolest White Hand Gang moniker and additionally is known for being killed by Al Capone.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">But it was Dinny Meehan that made the White Hand Gang what it was. He was the most organized of the three main leaders (Meehan, Lovett, Lonergan) and certainly the most consistent. He did what so many other gang leaders failed in doing: Bringing the wild Irish “bhoys” to work as one. And his death in 1920 signaled the beginning of the end of the White Hand Gang.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"> </span></p>NYC Turn-of-the-Century Gangs (Irish and Others)tag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-06-20:6442157:BlogPost:268902013-06-20T02:00:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<div class="entry-content"><div class="wp-caption alignright"><img alt="Gangs" class="size-full align-right" height="159" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/gophergang.jpg?w=640" width="220"></img><p>Originally posted at <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com" target="_blank">ArtOfNeed blog</a> for the Auld Irishtown Trilogy</p>
<h2 class="entry-title"><span class="font-size-2">By Eamon Loingsigh</span></h2>
<p>Well, I’ve finally turned in the manuscript and in a month or so, I’ll hear back from Three Rooms Press concerning any edits considered.</p>
</div>
<p><span class="font-size-2">The last few weeks, I tried to…</span></p>
</div>
<div class="entry-content"><div class="wp-caption alignright"><img class="size-full align-right" alt="Gangs" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/gophergang.jpg?w=640" width="220" height="159"/><p>Originally posted at <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com" target="_blank">ArtOfNeed blog</a> for the Auld Irishtown Trilogy</p>
<h2 class="entry-title"><span class="font-size-2">By Eamon Loingsigh</span></h2>
<p>Well, I’ve finally turned in the manuscript and in a month or so, I’ll hear back from Three Rooms Press concerning any edits considered.</p>
</div>
<p><span class="font-size-2">The last few weeks, I tried to take a wider view of the book and ask some important questions. One of the questions I asked, and what has always weighed on my mind … Why were there gangs anyway? Why do they still exist today?</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">Over a period of three and a half years of research, my conclusion is really no different than any sociologist or anthropologist or any other person with a sense of awareness: Poverty.</span></p>
<p><strong>Above, The Gopher Gang circa 1910 with Owney Madden in the back row, middle. He moved to New York in 1902 and immediately joined a gang. He survived the lifestyle and eventually became a millionaire, but his life was diifferent than most.</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">This has always fascinated me, and I think it fascinates a lot of people too. When the social safety net is non-existent, law is not evenly distributed, alcoholism and drug use, over population and a lack of education persist while there is a general shortage of resources as compared to an over abundance of labor available, groups of people will band together to feed their families. And they will do whatever it takes to feed their mothers, brothers, sisters and the families of their closest, most trusted gang members.</p>
<div id="attachment_646" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/monk-eastman.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-646 align-right" alt="Monk Eastman" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/monk-eastman.jpg?w=640" width="220" height="265"/></a></div>
<p>In 1917, during a physical, Monk Eastman was asked what wars he had already served in since he had so many knife and gun wounds on his body, “Oh! A lot of little wars around New York.”</p>
<p>There were literally wars happening everywhere in New York and other major cities. Gangs were such a nuisance at the time that there were specific police units that were created to combat against them, like the Strong Arm Squad.</p>
<p>But the police were no match for the gangs of the 1890s and early 1900s Manhattan and Brooklyn. The problem was much bigger than any cop with a blackjack could handle.</p>
<p>Territories were bordered by street names and any gang or gang member that dared cross into a neighborhood that wasn’t their own risked violence.</p>
<p>In Manhattan, street gangs flourished from all the symptoms that creates gangs. There were so many gangs and gangsters that any small business owner didn’t dare open a shop without first paying respect to the local gang.</p>
<p><strong>Monk Eastman, right, was 5’6″ and was as tough as any man in the world. In Michael Walsh’s popular book based on the life of Owney Madden, Eastman takes him under his wing and teaches him the ropes. Soon Eastman is beaten so badly that he almost dies in a tenement bed, alone.</strong> </p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Paolo Vaccarelli an Italian immigrant also known as Paul Kelly (used this moniker to get into boxing matches when he was young since the incumbent Irish dominated the prize fight racket) paid homage to the Civil War era when he ran a gang called The Five Points Gang. They ruled the area that once was the Five Points in the Lower-mid Manhattan area around what we know now as the Restaurant district “Little Italy” and into Chinatown.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">If you were to walk through the incredibly over-populated <a class="zem_slink" title="Lower East Side" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=40.7172222222,-73.9897222222&spn=0.01,0.01&q=40.7172222222,-73.9897222222%20(Lower%20East%20Side)&t=h" target="_blank" rel="geolocation">Lower East Side</a> of the era, you would run across a few members of the Yake Brady Gang, based on the northern end of Cherry Street. Yake Brady himself was probably the brother of Mary Brady, who married a boxer named John Lonergan. Together they had, according to most accounts, fifteen children. Within that brood was the famous one-legged <a class="zem_slink" title="White Hand Gang" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Hand_Gang" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">White Hand Gang</a> member of Brooklyn, <a class="zem_slink" title="Richard Lonergan" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lonergan" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Richard “Pegleg” Lonergan</a> and the queen of the Brooklyn waterfront, Anna Lonergan.</p>
<p>Also on the Lower East Side were the Swamp Angels, who were known as river pirates along the docks and piers of East Manhattan and Brooklyn. They were based in a horrible set of rowhouses called Gotham Court that dated back to the Civil War. Utilizing the New York sewage system that ran from below Gotham Court to the waterfront, they would steal through them in the middle of the night, take valuable goods of ships tied to the piers and sell them inland.</p>
<p><img class="size-full wp-image-650 align-right" alt="Babbitt Soap Factory" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/babbitt-soap-factory.jpg?w=640" width="176" height="130"/></p>
<p>Sometimes the gangs were named after the factories in their neighborhoods, like the Gas House Gang, named for the humungous gas house tanks on 20th Street and 1st Avenue. The Potashes, which were led by Red Shay Meehan (relation to Dinny Meehan? Who knows), were named after the Babbitt soap factory on Washington and Rector streets.</p>
<p><strong>The Babbitt Soap Factory, right, employed many people, but there were a lot more in the neighborhood that needed jobs. Although there were lots of factories and manufacturing jobs in the city, the population well outnumbered the jobs. A flourishing reason for the creation of gangs.</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">On the West End of Manhattan were a plethora of low-going gangs, including the ever popular <a class="zem_slink" title="Hudson Dusters" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Dusters" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Hudson Dusters</a>. They were known as cocaine sniffing wild boys who fought with other gangs for dominance. Members include Goo-Goo Knox, Honey Stewart and Kid Yorke. So tough, they were employed by Tammany Hall as muscle during elections.</p>
<p>The Boodle Gang was another survivor of earlier days. In the 1850s, they raided butcher carts and food wagons that ran through their neighborhood, among other rogue forays.</p>
<p>The Gopher Gang, which fought the Hudson Dusters for supremacy of Hell’s Kitchen and the West Side Manhattan, was led by Owney Madden. Working with Tanner Smith’s gang The Marginals and the Pearl Buttons and the Fashion Plates, they eventually took over the area after Monk Eastman all but disappeared and the Five Points Gang leader Paul Kelly tried a more legitimate lifestyle as a labor leader in the International Longshoreman’s Association (hardly legitimate, but a step above street gangs at least).</p>
<p>Another phenomena was the New York Jewish gangs. Though they weren’t consi</p>
<p>dered gangs like the Irish gangs. They were a little less organized. If the Italians stuck to family loyalties and moral codes like Camorra or the Cosa Nostra, and the Irish were fist-fighting, street-level racketeers, Jewish thugs were out for themselves in the organized crime racket. </p>
<p>The <a class="zem_slink" title="Labor Slugger Wars" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Slugger_Wars" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Labor Slugger Wars</a>, a little known yet wildly interesting collection of tit-for-tat battles among barely legitimate groups of Jewish gangsters is a perfect platform to analyze their lifestyles. Young men with great monikers like “Dopey” Benny </p>
<p><img class="size-medium wp-image-648 align-right" alt="dopeybennyfeinmug" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/dopeybennyfeinmug.jpg?w=450&h=257" width="300" height="171"/></p>
<p>Fein, Joe “The Greaser” Rosensweig, <a class="zem_slink" title="Jacob Orgen" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Orgen" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Jacob “Little Augie” Orgen</a> and <a class="zem_slink" title="Nathan Kaplan" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Kaplan" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">“Kid Dropper” Nathan Kaplan</a> fought for the right to be hired by the unions or companies to kill or maim employees, labor organizers or anyone that presented a problem.</p>
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<p>These wars also determined who would provide scabs, or replacement workers when a union strike took place in the Garment District for instance, or a bunch of longshoremen on the docks. It was a duplicitous lifestyle, to say the least, as they were often hired by both sides of competing organizations to get back at the other. They literally benefited from wars, which is still common today, though somehow considered legitimate (see Halliburton and other war mongering companies).<span style="text-align: right;"> </span></p>
<div id="attachment_647" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/al-smith.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-647 align-right" alt="Al Smith" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/al-smith.jpg?w=640" width="250" height="290"/></a><p><strong>“Dopey” Benny Fein‘s mug shot, right. He, along with many other Jewish immigrant gangsters fought for the right to provide strike-breakers and other nefarious doings in New York City.</strong></p>
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<p>In summary, gangs were rampant during the Gay Nineties and the early 1900s, and the decline of gangs in the nineteen-teens was due, in part, by the Progressive Era politicians, humanitarians and organizers in New York many years earlier. People like Jacob Riis, the famous photographer and, of course, Al Smith.</p>
<p>Smith grew up working as a youngster in the Lower East Side Fulton Fish Market. Mostly uneducated as a youth, he learned the value of a good work ethic from his father, who died on his way to a polling station to vote. His thick New York City accent didn’t bode well in Albany after he was elected to represent his district there, but through hard work and an extreme amount of charm, he worked his way (almost) to the top. Eventually becoming mayor of New York City, but failing in his bid to represent the Democrats in the 1928 Presidential Election.</p>
<p>Smith represented a new politician. One that wanted to provide for the poor. Give them the chance to succeed too. In Albany, he passed many laws and in my estimation, he and those that followed his lead are more responsible for doing away with gangs than any Strong Arm police squad could ever have done.</p>
<p><strong>Al Smith with his wife, right, at a baseball game. He brought empathy and street-level toughness to Albany and eventually passed laws that helped the poor.</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Although Prohibition (which Smith was against, of course) allowed organized crime to flourish in the 1920s, by the 1930s and 1940s, street gangs had all but been eradicated due to a social safety net to help the poor get on their feet, feed their children even if they didn’t have a job yet and cast a caring eye toward the downtrodden, particularly after the passing of the New Deal by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. <span style="color: #008000;"><strong>EL</strong></span></p>England's Role in Ireland's Greatest Tragedytag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-06-01:6442157:BlogPost:238782013-06-01T17:00:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<h4 class="title">"The Famine Plot," reviewed by Eamon Loingsigh (originally from bookslut.com).</h4>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84699165?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84699165?profile=original" width="220"></img></a></p>
<p>Outside of Ennis, in County Clare in the west of Ireland, the wind kicks upon the hills under the same gray sky where once starved children, women and old men were buried callously, if not left by the ditches. Where the weakest of the agrarian poor were communally laid…</p>
<h4 class="title">"The Famine Plot," reviewed by Eamon Loingsigh (originally from bookslut.com).</h4>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84699165?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84699165?profile=original" class="align-left" width="220"/></a></p>
<p>Outside of Ennis, in County Clare in the west of Ireland, the wind kicks upon the hills under the same gray sky where once starved children, women and old men were buried callously, if not left by the ditches. Where the weakest of the agrarian poor were communally laid in what are now mere humps of turf. Paupers' graves that for over 160 years have not been fully honored by truth nor been properly acknowledged. Even if two million of them perished of starvation and common disease, over a million more died jumping desperately into coffin ships. The facts had never made a difference as to the truth of their demise, such as numbers as stiflingly affecting as up to twenty-five percent of a country's population dead or dispersed.</p>
<p>Now finally comes <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0230109527/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=thewildgeeset-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0230109527&adid=1ZQAAGCMVJFYWTJW7FNK" target="_self">The Famine Plot: England's Role in Ireland's Greatest Tragedy</a></em>. This seminal work and its stance on Ireland's most titanic event, written by its most famous historian, Tim Pat Coogan, has been bantered about for many years: A formal condemnation or blame on English policy and policymakers for the Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1852 and the "extermination" of so many poor by starvation, disease and emigration.</p>
<p>It has traditionally been with great difficulty for this story to be told, even though the Irish are known as epic storytellers. My grandfather, a gentle man of little emotion, tried but had such a hard time recounting the oral stories that were passed to him from his grandparents and parents that he found it necessary to turn away from me as he continued. In my family's longshoreman saloon in Greenwich Village around the turn of the century and in our home where the cause of Irish freedom was still debated in my childhood and where copies of Coogan's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312294166/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0312294166&linkCode=as2&tag=artandlies-20">biographical work on the Irish Republican Army</a> sat at my grandfather's table from my earliest memories, I heard story after story of the Famine. Passionate stories, angry stories, and irrefutable facts to support the emotion behind it. Yet in my formal education in the United States, I never heard a mention until I reached university level.</p>
<p>For too long, there has been much gray over the past like the gray skies over the paupers' graves in the hills of western Ireland. It seems Coogan's greatest contribution to this calamitous event is to sum up the condemnation for us. To focus in on the intention of those with the ability to help the sufferers, rather than to allow history to remember it as an act of nature. Not to fan the flames of war or rally the revolutionaries, but to explain discreetly, truthfully, and in an Irish voice, why today there is still an open wound.</p>
<p>For all those Americans with surnames such as Connolly, Donnelly, or Kennedy; Australians with Fin, Finnigan, and Flanigan; and Canadians with O'Hara, O'Neill, and O'Leary, the reasons for their original arrival has too often been shaded in gray. But the fear, the death, and the struggle endured by those families of the Great Hunger, condemned to a fate worse than stray dogs, were not gray at all. Ignored by governments, they were forced into the slums of the New York docks in stitched rags or settled in South Boston and other places (and many others died in the Port of Quebec). They recovered quickly, and then went to work and helped build through toil and hope the great cities we know today. Much of their own memories of Ireland were of a sad place where sad things happened. Unnerved, uneducated, traumatized, disenfranchised, these Famine Irish, as they were known, often found more struggle and racism in their new homes.</p>
<p>In time, the frame of their story would be obscured by the politics of the ruling classes. And in telling their own tragic story, the reasons for their arrival in new lands were all too often dis-remembered in guilt, clouded by an oral tradition and a need to not dwell on the past while instead planning for the future.</p>
<p>In <em>The Famine Plot</em>, Coogan explains that it wasn't until 1916 that Ireland began its true push for freedom and to govern and to express itself of its own history. But during the Eamon de Valera era, much of the academic class in Ireland was still heavily influenced by London and the soft-spoken, non-Republican Dublin professors that did not want to add their voice to the violence occurring in the north.</p>
<p>Coogan's work is not the first on the topic, though it is the brightest and most obviously damning. There have been many works. Of note is Cecil Woodham-Smith's 1962 affective work, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014014515X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=014014515X&linkCode=as2&tag=artandlies-20">The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849</a></em> (also on my grandfather's table), which outlined blame particularly on the English civil servant Sir Charles Trevelyan who administered "relief" during the Famine, but fell short of condemnation, stating instead that Britain's record was simply "hard to defend." But even that was too much for most academics, who criticized Woodham-Smith's work for being biased.</p>
<p>Many works have followed, but not quite with the effect of Coogan's sharp pen. In the opening chapters, <em>The Famine Plot </em>outlines the brewing of a catastrophic event. Religious oppression after Henry VIII's abdication from the Catholic Church, the outlawing of education for Catholics; English landlords that spent their rent profits in London; failed rebellions including that of 1798; and a tradition of English racism for the Celt as being a lazy, popish, tribal, and feckless people. By the year 1800, after hundreds of years of invasions and oppression from their English neighbors, Ireland was brought under the umbrella of the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Act of Union like Scotland and Wales. But as Coogan rightly specifies, even important English Parliamentarians on the eve of disaster admitted that Ireland was not governed like a kingdom, but instead was only occupied by colonial soldiers that protected English businesses to extract Ireland's natural resources. There was little governing of the people, especially outside of the Dublin Pale. In reality, the majority of Irish families, supposedly benefiting from the wealth of Great Britain's economy, were solely dependent on the harvest of one crop: the potato.</p>
<p>However, Coogan saves his best argument for the most pertinent players during the Famine. Taking apart the philosophies of these royal English policymakers and their economic and religious treatises that prevail still today, he points directly to the heart of the matter. Breaking it up with the precision, with the gentle heart of an Irishman and putting it back together with the coolness of an historical analyst, he begins with providence. </p>
<p>"Providence, the divine will, was declared to have a large bearing on the subject, as it generally does when the rich debate the poor, or the strong confront the weak. It was an era in which in America the indigenous Americans were going down before a similar doctrine: Manifest Destiny," he writes.</p>
<p>In this religious invocation by English political economists, God divinely chooses who shall live and who shall die and governments are not to intervene against His will. That God rarely chose them for death and instead chooses the most vulnerable of the peoples was certainly convenient for the powerful. The effect of policymakers interpreting God's will and pointing it at the poor would, as we find out, be a large factor in causing Ireland to never again reach the population levels of the 1841 census.</p>
<p>After providence, Coogan points to laissez-faire capitalism as affecting how English colonial rule could justify standing by while a famine raged next door. Years before the Famine, English economists decided that raising cattle in the Irish land would be much more fiscally productive than depending on the feckless Irish to pay rent on it. A plan was needed to exchange the Irish people for cattle. English policy during this time was smitten with the ideas of Adam Smith, the Scottish economist and "moralist" who famously outlined the philosophy of capitalism in <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0857080776/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0857080776&linkCode=as2&tag=artandlies-20">Wealth of Nations</a></em>. The notion that "greed is good," as director Oliver Stone sarcastically underscored in the movie <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0038Z5T4Q/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0038Z5T4Q&linkCode=as2&tag=artandlies-20">Wall Street</a></em>, was the prevailing economic philosophy then, as it is now. As is documented, even Smith was shocked at the perversions that accompany power within capitalism when he witnessed his own countrymen rape the Virginia tobacco fields and garner outlandish profits on the backs of free labor from African slaves without government regulation. In Ireland, the perversions of an economic doctrine guiding morality would justify extermination.</p>
<p>The interpretations of God's providence coupled with laissez-faire capitalism doesn't explain by itself how so many people could have been allowed to perish by hunger, and this is where Coogan takes his boldest step.</p>
<p>In recent years, on numerous blogs, Facebook, and in general conversation, there has been great cynicism toward the use of the term "famine" to describe what actually happened. As Coogan points out succinctly, a famine occurs when there is no food to be eaten, which was only true of the potato. But Ireland under Britain's colonial rule exported grain, corn, cattle, and many other foodstuffs on a regular basis. "Ireland had no shortage of food," Coogan writes. The London political economists of the time, however, termed these exports from Irish lands "cash crops," which effectively meant they were the lawful property of the business community and not to be allocated for relief. With evidence such as this, the debate in Coogan's book turns the description of the Great Hunger from "famine" to "extermination" and even "genocide."</p>
<p>Early on, in chapter three to be exact, Coogan outlines his thesis when he quotes the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. One of those terms of genocide in particular rings with a great clarity here: "Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."</p>
<p>Coogan's intent here is not to say that England caused the blight of the potato. That was a matter of nature, of course. Instead he points directly to allowing its people for which it was responsible within the terms of the Act of Union, the Kingdom of Great Britain, to be so vulnerable as to be completely dependent on one crop. Furthermore, the deliberate attempt to utilize a natural disaster to "inflict conditions that bring about its physical destruction" is another powerful and ringing interpretation of the United Nations charter.</p>
<p>Here, Coogan levels his stare adroitly on the prevailing economic philosophy and the political economists in London at the time when he uses a famous quotation from the Irish Nationalist John Mitchel, who described the situation at the time as "God sent the blight, but the British sent the Famine." <em>The Famine Plot</em> then describes Trevelyan's followers in London as imposing an absurdity when they enforced, sometimes with soldiers and ships, the policy that "Ireland's property should pay for Ireland's poverty," therefore expunging responsibility from London's colonial lap with no more than a stroke of a pen and fatally placing care for the Famine in the metaphor of the economic market's cold "invisible hand."</p>
<p>To impose an illogical, calamitous condition such as Irish taxes needed to pay for Irish relief, Coogan states, is the perfect analogy to the idiom "extracting blood from a stone." The taxes levied on Anglo landlords in Ireland were high, but when the poor could not pay their rent, they were evicted. Often by force, these starving families were sent to the countryside while their homes were destroyed to make way for cattle grazing. The consequence of eviction was devastating, and the poor were often too weak to travel and so desperate that they tried eating the grass, like cattle. In enforcing this policy, Coogan declares, genocide can be interpreted.</p>
<p>At the time, even some Englishmen agreed that "famine" could not be a truly intellectual description. As Coogan underscores, one English parliamentarian resigned in indignation feeling as though he is "an unfit agent of a policy which must be one of extermination."</p>
<p>This policy of extermination went on to include the "work scheme," such as road building, which didn't pay a laborer enough even to fill his own belly, never mind the rest of his family. Also, the Poor Law Extension Act of 1847 that "effectively undid much of the benefits of the soup kitchens and brought an incalculable amount of suffering and death upon the starving." The Workhouse, which became only a place for the sick to die, at one point, only allowed "fit" people within its gated doors. This meant that those considered too weak, such as children, the elderly, and women, were turned away, often by force.</p>
<p>All of this in the name of improving the economy and allowing God's divine will to take shape was well within Trevelyan and many of his peers' direct plans when he described the Famine as a "mechanism for reducing surplus population." Trevelyan is also quoted as saying, "The greatest evil... is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the Irish people." And finally, "The judgment of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson."</p>
<p>There are many ways to describe what happened. Famine, genocide, and extermination are only a few. But Coogan does well in outlining the motivations and the actions of those responsible under the Act of Union. But the legacy of the Great Hunger still survives today. Nothing can bring back the dead or the dispersed, but some things can be acknowledged. In 1997, British Prime Minister Tony Blair gave a halfhearted, politically motivated apologia in order to help talks between his government and the IRA. But still today there are stains that remain on British officialdom. Particularly its chivalric code and order. Sir Charles Trevelyan, at this very moment, is still honored as Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, a distinction awarded to him during the middle stages of Ireland's greatest tragedy in 1848. The means of removing him from the Order is outlined by Queen Victoria's 1847 process for revocation due to, "felony, or any infamous crime derogatory to his honour as a knight or gentleman." Though he is long dead, Trevelyan is still credited as being a Knight Commander of the Bath, even as modern history has uncovered the horrific intentions his quotations reveal or, at the very least, his indefensible failure or lack of willingness to properly manage funds for one of the most devastating colonial catastrophes ever recorded. For him to remain honored as a gentleman is an open wound for Ireland and its great diaspora.</p>
<p>The effect of the Famine on the world has been long lasting and is still quite alive today. The symbol of hunger has persisted in Irish politics and the "hunger strike," which has a pre-Famine Celtic history called, in Irish, the <em>troscadh</em>. Pádraig Pearse, the poet executed by the British for being a leader of the 1916 Easter Rising mentions it in his famous poem "The Rebel," when he turns red in shame and anger for his people who "have gone in want, while others have been full." This symbolized hunger was utilized as an allusion much more directly when in 1920 Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, died in a British prison after seventy-four days on a hunger strike. In 1981 ten IRA prisoners, including Bobby Sands, also died on a hunger strike that radicalized the nationalist movement of the time.</p>
<p>Today, as Coogan prepared for an American tour, the barriers that were propped against him seem to reveal that there may still be discontent over the interpretation of his book and his previous works. It took multiple attempts for Coogan to procure a visa for the American tour, and as he explained on his blog, "Somebody somewhere it appears did not want me to visit the United States to publicise my book on the Famine. It was suggested to me that some securicrats in the U.S. embassy had decided to do a good turn for their buddies in the British 'Spookdom' by blocking my attempts to enter the United States on a Book Tour."</p>
<p>But with the intervention of New York Senator Charles Schumer and a raucous Irish-American community that was outraged by the terrible treatment of an esteemed author, Coogan was eventually granted a ten-year non-immigrant visa.</p>
<p>Maybe the most glaring reminder today of the Great Hunger of 1845-1852 is the cold, factual daily evidence of the Irish surname in foreign lands. Although emigration from Ireland continued in the nineteenth century after the Famine and through much of the twentieth century, what comes to mind when an Irish surname is attached to a cockney accent, or an Australian twang, or the drawl of the Southern United States is the curtain of history that remains mostly veiled. With <em>The Famine Plot</em>, we now have a platform in which to understand the intentions of the policies and the policymakers of an occupying force that helped exacerbate a blight on potato crops that had no business devastating an entire European country, sending the weakest and most vulnerable into shallow graves, onto ships bound for inhospitable countries with purpose and intention as its means. And with this book, my grandfather, who has since passed, raises his chin high in my memory now that the reasons for our family's arrival is described in terms that are grounded in reality, not politics.</p>
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<p><a target="_self" href="http://thewildgeese.com/profiles/blogs/focus-on-the-great-hunger"><img width="750" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84698336?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"/></a></p>Lusitania, 1915tag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-05-22:6442157:BlogPost:226822013-05-22T15:00:00.000ZEamon Loingsighhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/EamonLoingsigh
<p><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/lusitania.jpg"><img alt="Lusitania" class="wp-image-484 aligncenter align-center" height="150" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/lusitania.jpg?w=300" width="600"></img></a></p>
<p><em>This is reposted from Eamon Loingsigh's blog, which you can find here:</em><em> <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com" target="_blank">http://artofneed.wordpress.com</a></em></p>
<p><br></br> The panoramic photo above is actually from 1907 at the Chelsea piers of Manhattan, well before the outbreak of World War I. On this day (actually yesterday) in 1915, it was sunk by a German U-Boat off the coast…</p>
<p><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/lusitania.jpg"><img class="wp-image-484 aligncenter align-center" alt="Lusitania" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/lusitania.jpg?w=300" width="600" height="150"/></a></p>
<p><em>This is reposted from Eamon Loingsigh's blog, which you can find here:</em><em> <a href="http://artofneed.wordpress.com" target="_blank">http://artofneed.wordpress.com</a></em></p>
<p><br/> The panoramic photo above is actually from 1907 at the Chelsea piers of Manhattan, well before the outbreak of World War I. On this day (actually yesterday) in 1915, it was sunk by a German U-Boat off the coast of <a class="zem_slink" title="Kinsale" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=51.7075,-8.5305556&spn=1.0,1.0&q=51.7075,-8.5305556%20(Kinsale)&t=h" target="_blank" rel="geolocation">Kinsale, Ireland</a> just months before <strong>Liam Garrity</strong>, protagonist of <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em> (first book in the <em><strong>Auld Irishtown</strong></em> trilogy), was to set out for New York in a similar Atlantic crossing.</p>
<p>There are all kinds of connections between the <strong><a class="zem_slink" title="White Hand Gang" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Hand_Gang" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">White Hand Gang</a></strong>, <strong>Liam Garrity</strong>, and the sinking of the <a class="zem_slink" title="RMS Lusitania" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=51.4166666667,-8.55&spn=0.01,0.01&q=51.4166666667,-8.55%20(RMS%20Lusitania)&t=h" target="_blank" rel="geolocation">RMS Lusitania</a> in 1915. Here are a few:</p>
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<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/owney-madden.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/owney-madden.jpg?width=220" width="220" class="align-right"/></a></dt>
<dd><blockquote><p><em><strong>At right, Owney "The Killer" Madden, who was also described as "that banty little rooster" eventually became known as a big shot in the crime world and owner of the Cotton Club in Harlem.</strong></em></p>
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<p><strong>Thomas F. "Tanner" Smith</strong>, was an early 20th Century gangster along the Chelsea piers. As a young man, he became leader of a gang called the <strong>Marginals</strong>. Also known as the <strong>Irish Paddy Gang</strong> that was closely linked with the infamous 10th Street murderer, <a class="zem_slink" title="Owney Madden" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owney_Madden" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Owney Madden</a> and the <strong>Gopher Gang</strong> in Hell's Kitchen.</p>
<p>Although <a class="zem_slink" title="Tanner Smith" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanner_Smith" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Tanner Smith</a> had a less than Irish-sounding surname and Madden was actually born in England (of Irish parents), these were two of the last remaining Irish street-level gang leaders in Manhattan. Their downfall from street-level gangster was precipitated by the <a class="zem_slink" title="New York City" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=40.6641666667,-73.9386111111&spn=0.1,0.1&q=40.6641666667,-73.9386111111%20(New%20York%20City)&t=h" target="_blank" rel="geolocation">NYC</a> <strong>Strong Arm Squad</strong> combined with some (mostly Jewish) gangsters who were leaders of the <a class="zem_slink" title="Labor Slugger Wars" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Slugger_Wars" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Labor Slugger Wars</a> and their willingness to turn over on their comrades for shorter jail terms.</p>
<p>I'm getting further away from the Lusitania, but I must digress a bit more before closing the circle.</p>
<p>Tanner (which means "bold, intrepid" in the <a class="zem_slink" title="Irish language" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Irish language</a>) and Madden, leader of the Gophers (which means "alliance" in the Irish) were great allies during the 1900s and early 1910s and together they kept the docks of Manhattan in the hands of the Irish, even as things were changing quickly.</p>
<p>Eventually, Madden was sent to prison, but later became a famous half-legitimate mobster/businessman (Cotton Club owner). Tanner got into all kinds of trouble, but eventually settled on boss stevedore at the Chelsea docks before being shot in the back while playing cards.</p>
<p>In <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em>, Tanner Smith is an ally of <a class="zem_slink" title="Dinny Meehan" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinny_Meehan" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Dinny Meehan</a>, leader of the <strong>White Hand Gang</strong> of the Brooklyn waterfront. Meehan was born in a saloon over Hudson Street in Manhattan and was raised on the street by Smith before moving to Brooklyn in 1900 as an 11-year old.</p>
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<div class="mceTemp"><dl class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_491">
<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/becker-storng-arm-squad.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-491 align-right" alt="Becker Storng Arm Squad" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/becker-storng-arm-squad.jpg?w=218" width="218" height="300"/></a></dt>
<dd><blockquote><p><em><strong>At right, Charles Becker, probably the most famously known member of New York's Strong Arm Squad that was put into place specifically to combat against street gangs (before Murder Inc.). Becker was eventually executed for murdering a gangster on his own, which gives you an idea of how the police were seen in Progressive Era New York City.</strong></em></p>
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<p><span class="font-size-2">When Tanner is down and out and Dinny's White Hand Gang is on the up-and-up, Dinny tries to help out his old buddy by hiring him to kill a Chelsea/Hell's Kitchen International Longshoreman's Association (ILA) recruiter, Thos Carmody (in real life, this man's name was Frank Madden, but the surname of this minor character had to be changed due to causing confusion). The devastating consequence of this attempted murder-for-hire is not resolved until the third book of the Auld Irishtown trilogy.</span></p>
<p>Okay, anyhow, back to the Lusitania! (I get started on writing about the era and just can't stop myself, sorry).</p>
<p>In October of 1915, four months after the sinking of the Lusitania, <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em> opens with <strong>Liam Garrity</strong> leaving Ireland for New York. It is a terrible time for traveling across the Atlantic as the German Imperial Navy had established dominance over the sea lanes via their U-Boat fleet.</p>
<p>It is a sign of desperation that a 14-year old is sent during war-time to America. The type of desperation that has always embodied the emigration of the Irish.</p>
<p>Symbolism is very important in the first and third chapters of <em><strong>Light of the</strong><strong> Diddicoy</strong></em>, and the dangers of the Atlantic crossing is set up as a horrifying experience set in the hull of an outdated ship (RMS Teutonic) via the steerage class.</p>
<p>Garrity has never traveled before and is alone, save the ninety or so other Irish third-class citizens who are jammed together in a callous dorm in the stern of the ship. English stewards round them up cruelly and the sound of the choppy English accent sets Garrity's fears alight.</p>
<p>After the ship has begun moving, Garrity's imagination takes over. He can't see anything outside, so his ears play tricks on him. He believes he hears wild men somewhere in the distance, but which is only the men of the fireman's castle "feeding the old bitch" coal to keep her devilish fires going.</p>
<p>He then hears what he believes are the sounds of U-Boats under the ship, but then admits he wouldn't know what the sound U-Boats would make anyhow.</p>
<div class="mceTemp"><dl class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_492">
<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/lusitania-sinking.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-492 align-right" alt="Lusitania sinking" src="http://artofneed.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/lusitania-sinking.jpg?w=300" width="300" height="209"/></a></dt>
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<p>His fears of being torpedoed take him over while the ship heads into an Atlantic storm. Everyone in steerage is sent flying across floor as the ship bobs and "gesticulates" in the ocean, and Garrity thinks of the old sea-faring songs that romanticizes the death of Irish peasants during the Atlantic crossing. These are reminiscences of the casket ships that had starved Irish within their hulls during the <a class="zem_slink" title="Great Famine (Ireland)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Great Hunger</a> (Potato Famine), though we are set in the heart of the late Industrial Age of iron-casked ships.</p>
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<div class="mceTemp" style="text-align: right;"><blockquote><p><em><strong>At right, The Lusitania sinking off the Head of Kinsale, Ireland, 1915.</strong></em></p>
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<p>Garrity cannot stop thinking of the Lusitania and other ships that were sunk and that fate must be calling him, as so many other Irish had been called, for a death in the Atlantic. Sucked in by the "great vaginal drink" that is the sea.</p>
<p>Anyhow, when I saw the 98th anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania, which took place just months before the beginning of <em><strong>Light of the Diddicoy</strong></em>, I thought we could put together some connections about the era. I feel sad that World War I and Progressive Era New York is not as popularly remembered as others, though maybe it's an opportunity for this book to thrive.</p>
<p><em>Eamon</em></p>
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