DORCHESTER, Mass. Mike Doyle’s Kinvarra Pub in this gritty Boston neighborhood is the sort of “third space” that sociologists say is essential to bringing community and a sense of belonging to urban residents. “You can tell them sociologists they got that one on the nosey,” said pub regular Ernie Sullivan with a laugh.
The Kinvarra
The parochial character of this particular watering hole doesn’t mean its customers aren’t up on world affairs, however. “Oh yeah, we watch the news every so often,” says Sullivan. “Sometimes when we’re changing the channel from the Bruins to the Red Sox in the spring Mike will hit the wrong number and we’ll get CNN.”
London Mayor Ken Livingstone
It was just such a fortuitous slip of the remote control that alerted the Kinvarra’s patrons, who are overwhelmingly Irish-American, to London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s recent apology for his city’s role in fostering slavery, and the suggestion that he might be amenable to the payment of reparations for the suffering endured by its victims. Livingstone has similarly apologized to Palestinian Arabs for their expulsion from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank by Israelis in 1967, and to the French for several sarcastic remarks he has made about mime Marcel Marceau at cocktail parties over the years.
Marcel Marceau: Apology accepted.
“That’s the right thing to do,” says Sean “Butchie” McGrath. “But what about me?” he asks. “Where do I go to get me reparations?” he asks, and his friends chime in that they’d like to share in the bounty as well.
“As long as you’re handing them out, we’d all like reparations.”
Why, this reporter asks, does a crowd of American citizens think that they’re entitled to receive compensation from the Mayor of London?
Oliver Freakin’ Cromwell
“Oliver Freakin’ Cromwell,” Butchie McGrath replies without hesitation. “Cromwell invaded Ireland in the 17th century, and killed me great-great-great-great-great grandfather Liam,” he says as his eyes grow misty with tears. “I lost the paperwork on it,” he adds, “so they’d have to take my word on it.”
“If that Cromwell guy ever shows his face in here, I’m going to pop him one!”
McGrath and his friends suffer from what pathologists have come to refer to as “Irish Alzheimer’s”, a variant of the degenerative disease characterized by loss of memory. “They forget everything–car keys, social security number, children’s birthdays–except the grudges,” says Dr. Philip Mainwaring of Massachusetts General Hospital. “It’s hereditary, and there is no known cure.”
“You might plunk him down in front of a Notre Dame football game to ease the pain.”
While Livingstone has been eager to apologize for just about any historical wrong, he has hesitated to commit himself on Anglo-Irish affairs, and some say ethnic and religious prejudice is the reason. “If he apologizes for Cromwell, he’ll have to apologize for the Potato Famine,” says Anthony Waugh, an expert in Anglo-Irish history at Oxford University, referring to a 19th century catastrophe in which more than a million Irish died from hunger while absentee English landlords exported food from their plantations in Ireland. “There aren’t enough crisps and chips (potato chips and French fries) in England to pay off that debt.”
Copyright 2007, Con Chapman
