Postal vote for overseas travellers, suggests report
Thursday, April 24th, 2008Postal voting should be enhanced to accommodate those who are temporarily out of the country at election time, says an Oireachtas committee report on electoral procedures.
The report, “The Future of the Electoral Register in Ireland and Related Matters”, was published yesterday. Produced by the Joint Committee on the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, it is aimed at reforming the electoral register. It suggests the need for a single national commission to take over the electoral register from the 34 local authorities currently managing it. It also calls for the use of a PPS number instead of the current system, which is based on household address, as a way of eliminating duplicate registrations, fraud, and confusion over where individuals are registered.
On the issue of voting from outside the country, the report says
Improved measures should be introduced to facilitate people who are out of the country (holidays, work, etc) or where people are sick and cannot physically attend the polling station. Such new enhancements would need to take account of security and anti-fraud measures.
The report calls for legislation to be drafted to “[e]stablish a more comprehensive postal voting for system for people who cannot attend polling stations”.
Currently, the postal vote is reserved for members of the Defence Forces, the Garda Siochana, and Irish diplomats posted overseas, and their spouses. Sick and disabled people who cannot get to the polling station, and students studying away from home may also vote by post.
Why is this of interest to emigrants? Because the development of a postal vote that can be used by overseas travellers may normalise the phenomenon of voting from abroad, while establishing the infrastructure that may at some time in the future be used to allow emigrants to vote.
So it’s a step that would be of interest to those who would support emigrant voting rights, although there is no movement yet toward widening out the franchise beyond those who are ordinarily resident in the state.
See the full report on the Oireachtas website.
Author seeks stories from workers in British construction
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008Ean member and author Ultan Cowley has put out a call for information as he researches his new book.
In his own words:
DID YOU EVER WORK IN BRITISH CONSTRUCTION?
In 2001 I wrote a history of the Irish in British construction, The Men who built Britain, and now I want to publish the stories of those who were there – in their own words.
In Britain almost half a million Irishmen worked in construction. On hydro dams, power stations, oil terminals and motorways. Many lived in camps, often in remote locations, working long hours for Wimpey, Tarmac, or MacAlpine, following the Big Money and sending what they hadn’t ‘subbed’ back home to families in Ireland.
In London, Birmingham, Manchester and elsewhere other Irishmen were working, often on ‘The Lump’, for Irish contractors renewing and expanding the utilities – telephones, water, gas and electricity.
The pub was their labour exchange. Although working in the public eye theirs was a hidden world: of gangers, agents, publicans and landladies whose whims and vagaries set out their everyday existence. They moved between the pubs, the digs, the dancehalls, ‘caffs’ and roadside ‘Stands’ where ‘Skins‘ were hired each day by gangermen who judged them by their boots.
Those who were there remember ‘Tunnel Tigers’, ‘Heavy Diggers’, and ‘McAlpine’s Fusiliers’; ‘Hen Houses’, ‘Cock Lodgers’, and ‘Landladies’ Breakfasts’; ‘Pincher Kiddies’, ‘Long Distance Men’, and ‘Shackling Up’; ‘Dead Men’, ‘Walking Pelters’, and ‘Murphy’s Volunteers’; ‘The Shamrock’, ‘The Galtymore’, ‘The Buffalo’ and ‘The Crown’; exile and isolation and loneliness and despair…
If you were there, and have a tale to tell, please contact Ultan Cowley at
The Potter’s Yard
Rathangan
Duncormick
Co. Wexford
Email: ultan.cowley@gmail.com
“White Cargo” tells of forgotten slave trade involving Irish
Thursday, April 17th, 2008The little-known story of the white slave trade from Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries has been told in a new book. White Cargo by Don Jordan and Michael Walsh has been published by Mainstream Publishing. It tells how British authorities rounded up the impoverished and the criminal and sent them to colonies in the Americas. The Irish were included in the transportations, which involved thousands.
Many children were sent over, and the overwhelming majority died. Many died of disease, while others were cruelly beaten to death for discipline infractions.
Pat Kenny spoke with one of the authors on today’s programme.
See “White Cargo” on the Amazon.co.uk website.
Clinton, Obama campaigns take Irish slants
Thursday, April 17th, 2008The Irish interest in the Democratic primary continues, with several developments of Irish interest from both campaigns in the last week.
Senator Hillary Clinton appeared last week at the first of three Irish-American Presidential Forums. She spoke on a variety of issues, including her belief in the Northern Ireland peace process and her commitment to a strong economic partnership between the US and Ireland.
On immigration, Clinton said she sought comprehensive immigration reform:
“There are an estimated 50,000 undocumented Irish immigrants in the United States,” Clinton said.
She said that as president she would work with the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform and other advocacy groups to put the undocumented on a path to legalization as part of comprehensive reform.
She spoke of her passion for Irish issues, and her plan to dedicate herself to Ireland’s progress in her presidency:
“I was asked if I would commit to visiting Ireland and Northern Ireland during my first term in office. What a hardship,” she said to loud laughter.
“I have visited Northern Ireland six times as first lady and a senator and I am always looking for an excuse to go back. So I will as president travel to Ireland and Northern Ireland to honor the strong and deep relationship between our peoples. We have shared values, common aspirations, a bond that it unbreakable and presidential visits are a special part of reinforcing that bond.”
Read full coverage in the Irish Echo.
Meanwhile, Irish-American supporters of Barack Obama have taken out an ad in the Irish Echo to proclaim their support for the candidate, and to condemn media claims that the ‘white working class’ opposes him. “The Irish American Writers and Artists Association”, a group of 22 Irish-born and Irish-American creative types, say
“We are the descendants of the generations of Irish American working-class women and men who helped build this country, nurse its sick, care for its children, work its mines, fight its wars and police its streets. We wholeheartedly endorse Barack Obama in his quest for the Presidency of the United States.”
Several of the group are quoted in the Irish Echo article as condemning the media’s use of the term “white working class” as a code for racism. The report says:
The signing group, 22 in number, write that “generations of progressive Irish Americans and African Americans” had worked side by side in the struggle to improve conditions for the poor and working class, whatever their color or ethnicity.
“We reiterate our commitment to this struggle in our enthusiastic endorsement of Obama as the surest way to stop the destructive drift in our nation’s foreign and domestic policies, and return dignity, tolerance, compassion and intelligence to the White House. We proudly stand with Barack Obama,” they state.
English, author of “Westies” and “Paddywhacked,” and among those behind the initiative said the signatories believed Obama represented the continuation and culmination of the struggle for civil rights that JFK helped to foster and for which Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy gave their lives.
“We will not sit idly by while the term ‘white working class’ becomes a kind of code for “Irish working class bigotry,'” English said.
See Irish Americans for Obama website.
Stop misleading the undocumented, says Taoiseach
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008The Irish Voice has published a statement from Taoiseach Bertie Ahern on the recent controversy over the campaign on behalf of the undocumented.
The Irish Voice is the New York Irish-American newspaper published by Niall O’Dowd, a leading campaigner in the fight to legalise undocumented immigrants and one of the founders of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform. The ILIR has criticised statements by the Taoiseach last month that those campaigning for the undocumented were “sitting in the bar and talking nonsense”. He also suggested that the Irish-American reformers were seeking ‘amnesty’, a claim the ILIR denies.
In his statement, Taoiseach Ahern says that he will pay tribute to the Irish community in the US in his speech to Congress on April 30. He continues:
In my address, I will also once again emphasize the government’s strong support for the undocumented Irish. In doing so, I will be making a further direct intervention on an issue to which, rightly and very willingly, I have given unprecedented priority during my time in office.
I firmly believe that the government’s record on behalf of the undocumented and all our emigrants in the United States is second to none.
The Taoiseach then outlines Government efforts on behalf of the undocumented, and notes that Congressional contacts have given the Government advice that “it will be exceptionally difficult to build the necessary political support for such a measure during the period of the presidential election campaign. We may not like this advice, but we cannot ignore it or wish it away.”
The Taoiseach notes that no other country has secured a bilateral visa deal with the US that would be open to undocumented citizens.
He adds,
The issue of the undocumented Irish has been a priority for this government not for any selfish reason or for political advantage — because there is little or none — but because we are committed to helping those of our citizens who have found themselves in this unfortunate position.
Mr Ahern concluded his piece by stating, “We will continue to press the case for change and look forward to working with the many organisations in the US who have worked hard on behalf of the undocumented. We should and must work together”.
Read the entire document on the Irish Voice website.
The ILIR has issued a response, which is available on the Irish Voice website.
Repatriation of bodies through Shannon to resume
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008Aer Lingus has reinstated the service of repatriating remains through Shannon Airport from London-Heathrow. The service had ended in January, with the ending of direct flights between the two airports. The move will benefit loved ones in the West of Ireland who for the last few months have had to travel to Dublin or Cork to receive repatriated remains.
London-based funeral directors Patrick Ryan and Daughter said that they will now begin repatriating remains by flying them to Dublin late at night, and then transporting them on the last leg on to Shannon on one of two early-morning transatlantic flights. Patrick Ryan, a native of Cappamore, County Limerick, said that “There is no doubt that the loss of the repatriation service to the West of Ireland did add to the distress of families at a very vulnerable time.” He continued:
“Traditionally many Irish born people living throughout Britain express a wish to be buried in Ireland when they die. And up until the removal of the direct service between Shannon and Heathrow it was fairly common practice to fly remains over from Britain. Indeed, the bodies of Irish people who died elsewhere in Europe were also repatriated through Shannon via Heathrow.”
Councillor Patricia McCarthy, the Mayor of Clare, welcomed the move, adding, “Following this announcement, we in the West of Ireland will continue to lobby for the resumption of direct flights between Shannon and Heathrow in the not-to-distant future.”
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