*Sagas Of The Irish-American Diaspora- Albany-Style- William Kennedy's "Flaming Corsage"e

Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for Albany-cycle author William Kennedy.

Book Review

Flaming Corsage, William Kennedy, Viking Press, New York, 1996

Recently, in reviewing an early William Kennedy Albany-cycle novel, “Ironweed” I mentioned that he was my kind of writer. I will let what I stated there stand on that score here. Here is what I said:

“William Kennedy is, at least in his Albany stories, my kind of writer. He writes about the trials and tribulations of the Irish diaspora as it penetrated the rough and tumble of American urban WASP-run society, for good or evil. I know these people, my people, their follies and foibles like the back of my hand. Check. Kennedy writes, as here with the main characters Fran Phelan and Helen Archer two down at the heels sorts, about that pervasive hold that Catholicism has even on its most debased sons and daughters, saint and sinner alike. I know those characteristics all too well. Check. He writes about that place in class society where the working class meets the lumpen-proletariat-the thieves, grifters, drifters and con men- the human dust. I know that place well, much better than I would ever let on. Check. He writes about the sorrows and dangers of the effects alcohol on working class families. I know that place too. Check. And so on. Oh, by the way, did I mention that he also, at some point, was an editor of some sort associated with the late Hunter S. Thompson down in Puerto Rico. I know that mad man’s work well. He remains something of a muse for me. Check.”

That said, this little novel from an earlier time in the Albany cycle than "Ironweed", the period between the well-known and written about “robber baron” age (Edith Wharton, Henry James, etc.) in American and the end of the Victorian period just before World War I is the saga of an upwardly mobile son of a “bogtrotter’ Irishman and a daughter of a member of the central committee of Waspdom, Albany version. That the pair are congenially mated yet-ill-fated may speak to the problems of cross-class transformations, or to the unpredictable predilections of WASP maidens.

In any case as the tone of the novel is set from the first page by reference to the star-crossed lovers theme of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Mikado” (one of the few times in recorded history that that pair has been the source of a front piece quotation, I am sure). Kennedy, here keeps the dramatic tension up by going back and forth between times from early int he period until late as the tragedy behind the convoluted story unfolds. Katrina, the central female character, gives portent of the new age for women to be heralded at the end of this period by women's suffrage, although her appetites and melancholia prevent her from partaking of that freedom. I might add that Fran Phelan, the main character of “Ironweed” makes a cameo appearance here, and I am sure that as I read more in this cycle other references to the story will reappear. Needless to say, now that Mr. Kennedy has my attention I will be devouring the rest of the Albany cycle , as quickly as I can get my hands on copies of the other works.

* From The Archives-From The Partisan Defense Committee-DEFEND ROISIN McALISKEY!

Click on the title to link to the Partisan Defense Committee Web site.

THE FOLLOWING IS PASSED ON FROM THE PARTISAN DEFENCE COMMITTEE. I WOULD ONLY ADD THAT THE STRUGGLE IN THE NORTH OF IRELAND STILL CONTINUES. THIS RECENT PATCH-QUILT GOVERNMENTAL ARRANGEMENT FEATURING PAISLEY AND MCGUINESS IS HARDLY THE HISTORIC LAST ANSWER TO THIS SEEMINGLY INTRACTABLE PROBLEM. ONE THING THAT WILL HELP IS TO GET THE BRITISH TROOPS OUT. THAT IS A LONG-STANDING CALL AND APPLIES TODAY JUST AS MUCH AS IT HAS OVER THE PAST THIRTY-PLUS YEARS. CHOCKY AR LA

Defend Roisin McAliskey!

(CIass-Struggle Defense Notes)

The following protest letter, addressed to British Labour government Home Secretary John Reid, was issued by the Partisan Defence Committee in Britain on May 26,

We are writing to protest the outrageous arrest on 21 May of Roisin McAliskey, on the basis of a European arrest warrant, which has all the signs of a frame-up, for alleged involvement in the 1996 IRA mortar attack on a British Army base at Osnabruck in Germany. The German prosecutors have revived their demand, first raised in 1996, for her extradition "for attempted murder in conjunction with the initiation of explosives," according to their lawyer Stephen Ritchie (Irish Times, 22 May) although no-one was even injured at Osnabruck.

Pregnant and ill, McAliskey was dragged through the British prison system and brutally treated in both Holloway and Betmarsh prisons during 1996-98, even though there never was a shred of evidence linking her to the Osnabruck events. In January 1998 then Home Secretary Jack Straw ruled that she was too ill to be extradited and in July 2000 the Crown Prosecution Service admitted there was not enough evidence to justify trying her.

The McAliskey family have not only been targeted over the years by the British state as part of its continuing repression of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland but former MP {Member of Parliament} Bernadette McAliskey (Roisin's mother) has also been the target of a murderous attack by Loyalist paramilitaries. As the Irish Post reported in 1996: "Many believe that the charges against Roisin McAliskey are a politically motivated bid to silence her mother's criticism of the peace process" (14 December 1996).

The renewed persecution of Roisin McAliskey, a mother of two children, based on an eight-month-old arrest warrant, illustrates the brutal oppression of Catholics that is inherent in the Orange statelet, including under Tony Blair's imperialist "peace process" that is premised on the British Army's presence. It is indicative of the British system of capitalist injustice that it systematically colludes with Loyalist paramilitaries and frames up Irish people, as it does Muslims under the racist "war on terror."

We demand: No extradition of Roisin McAliskey! Drop the Charges!

CHOCKY AR LA (OUR TIME WILL COME)

BOOK REVIEW

THREE PLAYS: JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK, THE SHADOW OF A GUNMAN’ THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS, SEAN O’CASY, ST. MARTIN’S PRESS, NEW YORK, 1981

The history of Ireland is replete with ‘times of troubles’, no question about that. The particular ‘ time of troubles’ that the master Anglo- Irish socialist playwright Sean O’Casey takes on in these three classic and best known of his plays is the time from the Easter Uprising in 1916 to the time of the lesser known Civil War battles between Free Staters and die-hard Republicans in 1921-22. Needless to say they were all classified as tragedies by O’Casey. What qualified O’Casey to do much more than provide yeoman’s cultural service to this period? Well, for one he helped organize the famous James Connolly-led Irish Citizen’s Army that took part in the heroic Easter Uprising in 1916. For another, O’Casey was a true son of the Dublin tenements where the action of the three plays takes place. He KNEW the ‘shawlie’ environment and the language of despair, duplicity and treachery that is the lot of the desperately poor. Finally, as an Anglo- Irishman he had that very fine ear for the English language that we have come to cherish from the long line of Irish poets and playwrights who have graced our culture. That said, please read about this period in Irish history but also please read these plays if you want to put that history in proper perspective- in short, to understand why the hell the British had to go. Below are capsule summaries of the three plays.

Juno and the Paycock- the Boyles, the central characters in this play, have benefited from the creation of the Free State but at a cost, namely the incapacity of their son. Their daughter has seemingly better prospects, but that will remain to be seen. The device that holds this play together is the hope of good fortune that allegedly is coming under the terms of a relative of Captain Boyle’s will. The ebb and flow of events around that fortune drives the drama as does the fickleness of the tenement crowd who gather to ‘benefit’ from it. There is also a very lively and, from this distance, seemingly stereotyped camaraderie between the Captain and his ‘boyo’ Joxer.

The Shadow of a Gunman- the gun has always played, and continues to play, an important part in the Irish liberation struggle. That premise was no different in 1920 than it is today. Whether the gun alone, in the absence of a socialist political program, can create the Workers Republic that O’Casey strove for is a separate question. What is interesting here is what happens, literally, when by mistake and misdirection, a couple of free-floating Irish males of indeterminate character and politics are assumed to be gunmen but are not. It is not giving anything in the play away to state that the real heroine of this action is a woman, Minnie, who in her own patriotic republican way takes the situation as good coin. The Minnies of this world may not lead the revolution but you sure as hell cannot have one without them (and their preparedness to sacrifice).

The Plough and the Stars- There was a time when to even say the words 'plough and stars' brought a little tear to this reviewer’s eye. Well he is a big boy now but the question posed here between duty to the liberation struggle in 1916 and its consequences on the one hand and, for lack of a better word, romance on the other is still one to br reckoned with. That it had such tragic consequences for the young tenement couple Jack and Nora only underlines the problem of love and war in real life, as on the stage.

SINN FEIN AND THE POLICE QUESTION IN THE NORTH

ENGLAND AND THEIR TROOPS OUT OF THE NORTH-NO CONFIDENCE IN THE NORTHERN IRISH POLICE FORCE!

The recent decision by Sinn Fein to give political support to the current police forces in Northern Ireland should cause every militant some anger. One does not have to a partisan of Republican Sinn Fein to realize that Sinn Fein (and its adjunct, the Irish Republican Army) has moved a long way away from the dreams that reinvigorated the organization in the 'time of troubles' starting in 1969. Of course for non-nationalist militants that anger should be tempered by the realization that nationalists forces in the age of imperialism cannot resolve the the national question in an equtible way. Damn, it is always at someone’s expense, and in this case it is at the expense of the historic interests of the long suffering Catholic minority in the North.

Of course, any serious commentator on the struggle in the North could have seen this capitulation coming a mile away. That slippery slope started with the 1998 Peace Accords and Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness have been backsliding ever since. Yes, we are in a post-9/11 world where political struggle against oppression by national minorities in Europe have real problems attached to it. But that does not mean that an organization had to give up its political program for the sake of-what is it, exactly? More on this later. By the way- whatever happen to the historic demand- British Troops Out of the North? Last I looked they were still there, as well as the British-imposed bureaucracy.