WATCH: Artist Theo Jansen's Incredible Moving Sculptures Could Be On Their Way To Mars

Theo Jansen's incredible moving sculptures have aaccuired him international fame and the attention of NASA who believe his sculptures could be used on the next mission to Mars.

See below a recent report from the BBC about this unique artist.

THE HUMANISTS ARE COMING..........

Photo: Waterford Humanist Celebrant Dr Teresa Graham

There’s no denying that Ireland is a country that’s rapidly becoming more secular.

In Census 2016, the second-largest group after Catholic was “no religion”, with just over 10% of respondents ticking the box, a 73.6% increase on 2011.

Our recent same-sex marriage and abortion referenda have reflected the clash between traditional, Catholic values and emerging social mores that seem to favour individual freedoms over religious definitions of morality.

Humanist marriages were recognised as legal in 2012 and increasing numbers of people are turning away from church-led rituals, opting for humanist ceremonies to mark life’s big moments with weddings, naming ceremonies, and memorial funeral services.

Dr Teresa Graham is a humanist celebrant from Tramore, Co Waterford.

A counselling psychologist, she’s relatively new to her humanist work, but is kept very busy travelling the country in her new role: 2017 was her first full year as a celebrant, and in those 52 weeks she presided over 75 weddings, even putting in a cameo in RTÉ’s wedding reality TV show Don’t Tell The Bride, for Kilkenny couple Jennifer and Rob’s unusual Christmas-themed August wedding.

From divorcees who can’t wed in a church to same-sex couples to committed atheists, couples are opting for humanist ceremonies for a wide variety of reasons, says Dr Graham.

“There are those who come from different religious backgrounds, where it would be difficult to decide on a religious ceremony to suit both families,” she says.

We also have wedding tourism since the marriage referendum: I have quite a few same-sex couples who can’t get married in the North of Ireland.

"The demographic varies. Lots of couples are in their early thirties, although I’ve done a ceremony for hippies in their sixties: All the music was the Beatles and it was in a garden on a beautiful summer’s day, with flowery dresses and guitars. That was lovely.”

If there’s one thing religion does well, it’s ritual, which is perhaps why so many lapsed Catholics return to church for weddings, christenings, and funerals; a 2010 Bishops’ Conference survey found 10% of Irish people who describe themselves as Catholic don’t believe in God, while 8% said they “never” attended church apart from attending ceremonies.

Humanist celebrants like Dr Graham use a number of symbolic rituals that couples can choose to mark the solemnity of the occasion in their ceremony, along with music and scripted passages of speech.

“Unity candles are nice,” she says. “A member of each family lights a candle representing the families, and when the couple have taken their vows, they move the flames to a single candle.

"Or you can use the same symbolism by blending two containers of sand, which is a good one for couples who have children from different relationships, who are literally blending their families.”
Tree planting or the ancient Celtic practice of handfasting are also popular options.

It’s not always a bed of roses when the wishes of the couple are pitted against the traditional expectations of family, though, and Dr Graham finds her experience as a counsellor invaluable in negotiating the various needs and expectations of families.

“I’ve had couples cancel because family members wouldn’t attend a non-religious ceremony,” she says.

Some couples come under pressure to include a religious blessing in their ceremony: “My attitude to that is that they can do what they want after I finish up my part, or I can also put a bit in saying the couple want to acknowledge their respect and gratitude for the different traditions that raised them; it’s about allowing a respectful space for people to do what they want to do.”

Dr Graham also conducts naming ceremonies and memorial services, and although these have yet to become as popular as weddings, she says offering consolation to bereaved families is a rewarding element of her work.

“Maybe I shouldn’t really say I enjoy memorial services, but I do,” she says.

“Because the service is so personal and constructed by family members, it seems to be very consoling for the people who are left.”

Humanism is a philosophy rather than a religion, and most humanists are also atheist.
Religious funerals usually hinge on offering consolation to family members through the belief they will be reunited with loved ones in the afterlife; is it challenging to offer solace when death is seen as final?

“There’s the consolation of a life lived and a contribution made, and that’s the basic ethos of humanism for me, leaving the world a little bit better than we found it,” says Dr Graham.

“In a memorial service, this is what you talk about: through the pain, that will be remembered.”
For many people, their first encounter with the broader philosophy of humanism will be at a ceremony; Dr Graham herself became interested and signed up as a member of the Humanist Association of Ireland (HAI) following Michael D Higgins’ presidential inauguration, where humanism was represented as well as several religions.

The HAI is 25 years old this year, and its motto is “compassion, equality, and reason”.

You don’t have to be a member of the HAI to opt for humanist ceremonies.

Philosopher and educator Professor AC Grayling is vice-president of the UK Humanists, an association founded nearly 100 years before its Irish counterpart.

He is involved in UN human rights initiatives, and has written and spoken extensively on humanist philosophy, freedom of speech, and secularism, and against faith schools and sharia law.

He’ll give a guest talk on the ‘Roots and Fruits’ of humanism in Dublin this summer to celebrate 25 years of Irish humanism.

“Humanism is a discussion about ethics, about how we should live and how we should behave,” says Prof Grayling.

“The key point about humanism is that it isn’t a set of do’s and don’ts and thou-shalt-nots, it is an invitation to treat other people with as much sympathy and generosity as we can muster, on the basis of our best understanding of human nature, which is a diverse and complex thing.”

From the Spanish Inquisition to our own history of sectarian violence, religious divides have been the banner under which endless human atrocities have been committed.

Prof Grayling says this is an inevitable result of the abdication of responsibility that comes with a religious mindset, and the antithesis of the humanist approach, which emphasises rational, personal choice rooted in respect for the self and others.

When people don’t think for themselves and instead take a pizza out of the frozen-food-cabinet of ideas, the results for the world are disastrous. What we get are divisions, great cruelty, and harm.

In the 25 years since the HAI was founded, Ireland has undergone enormous change.
The association has been involved with numerous campaigns to further secularise Irish society.

Prof Grayling’s memories of his first visits to Ireland 40 years ago are of a country where the Catholic Church was “incredibly powerful. There were very large families and it was incredibly poor, and the grip of the church was incredibly tight.

"But in recent decades the change in atmosphere and the opening up of freedom that individuals have and the scepticism about the church has been remarkable to notice.”

As the population of the planet grows and our ability to share resources effectively and peacefully is further tested, Prof Grayling says: “We need humanism more than ever.”

“I am responsible for myself; good relationships are at the heart of the good life; we are part of the human family and we share many things in common but there is also much diversity and therefore I must be both understanding and tolerant.

"These are simple things, but very deep and they are at the heart of the humanistic outlook. If people adhered to them, the world would be a vastly better place.”

Source: Ellie O'Byrne, Irish Examiner

The Honeymoon Party? Is This The Latest Wedding Gimmick?

Ever get a wedding invite and the ominous thud of it on the doormat puts you in mind of a jury duty notice or an electricity bill?

No wonder: according to a recent survey by One4All, Irish guests pay an average of €643 on outfits, transport, reception drinks, accommodation and gifts, just to attend a wedding.

UK research by Provident goes one better, noting that guests have to shell out about £1,015 just to be a wedding guest (double for a wedding abroad). And everyone has at least one year where the entire social circle falls like dominoes and a dozen wedding invites come at an alarming clip.

That weddings can be a pricey endeavour for guests isn’t really news, but a recent addition to the entire fandango might be.

Now, though, “honeymoon parties” are being added to the traditional engagement party, hen party weekend and post-wedding BBQ fandango. “What is a honeymoon party?” you may reasonably ask.

It’s an evening event, often happening in a bride’s or bridesmaid’s home, where female guests enjoy the same merriment and libations as in a hen party, except they are invited to bring a gift that the bride can enjoy on her honeymoon.

Honeymoon parties are not replacing the popular hen party; rather, they’re replacing the old kitchen party from decades ago (which, of course, was replaced by the hen party. It’s fine, we’re all confused).

Tradition dictated that “older” married women would teach a young bride about what might happen on their wedding night. Yet the objective of today’s honeymoon party, it would seem, is to ensure that a bride doesn’t have to befall a last-minute dash to Boots for suncream.

Unreal imagination
“Years ago brides would receive gifts for their new kitchen the night before their wedding, but most couples already cohabitate by now,” says Hyde. “Often, brides will receive really thoughtful things like a travel bag, or a hair-care product pack. Sometimes, it’s unreal the imagination that people go to.

“Often mothers, grannies, under-18s and pregnant friends are not invited to the hen – who wants their granny seeing them take a pole-dancing class? – so basically they are invited to this so that everyone feels included and can enjoy the run-up to the wedding.”

Surely, I say, a honeymoon party is just another excuse to shake down guests for yet another gift?
“No one person is being shaken down as there won’t really be an overlap of people there,” says Hyde. “The bridesmaid might have to take a hit.

“I think when you’re in the zone and getting married, there’s a lot of excitement. Besides, a lot of the gifts for honeymoon parties can be under €10. To be fair to a lot of brides, they don’t go in for all the events, or they might keep some of them more low-key.”

Fifty years ago many Irish couples would marry in the morning, enjoy a wedding breakfast with family and friends, and most people would go back to work afterwards.

Fast-forward to the present day, and marriage is nowhere near the massive life step it once was. It’s an institution with a built-in escape hatch (divorce rates in Ireland are remarkably low compared with the US and UK, working out at 0.6 per 1,000 marriages, according to Eurostat, but still).

And yet, the idea of an excessive, lavish wedding with many different components is now entirely acceptable. It helps to feed into the cultural conceit that marriage is somehow an accomplishment, or a sign that you’re doing the whole adulting thing properly.

Kardashianised
While marriage isn’t the institution it once was, weddings – whether you’re a customer care rep from Cork or a legal secretary in Carlow – are now treated with the gravitas and reverence of a medieval royal union.

The entire event has become Kardashianised, and it’s rare to find brides who can withstand the siren-song of it all, especially if everyone else in their social circle has opted in.

During the leaner, post-Celtic Tiger years, a profligate wedding was gauche and tasteless, but such concerns seem to have ebbed away.

Yet once we unlock another level of wedding-related excess – the post-wedding BBQ, the hen party weekend, the weeklong wedding celebration – it’s astonishing how quickly it becomes the new normal.

There are multiple experiences for the bride now,” concedes Hyde. “We’re also starting to see a rise in ‘mother of the bride’ parties, where mums will hold a garden party for her own friends and a generic gift is brought for the mother.

Oftentimes, brides will have a spa weekend with their bridesmaids and then a girlie dinner with a week to go before the big day.

There’s often a ‘postmortem’ event after the honeymoon, where the bridal party can talk about the big day. It certainly wasn’t the way of it when I was getting married. Now most of my clients have a two-day wedding. I think some people do feel the [financial] pressure and it can be a lot of put on someone’s shoulders.”

Yet perhaps Irish brides, and their bridesmaids, have a breaking point. “We don’t have the bridal shower thing happening in Ireland, at least not yet,” says Hyde. “I do know a few people who tried to get them off the ground here and started a bridal shower business, but it didn’t quite happen. I think the honeymoon party is the closest thing we’ll get to that.”

Source: Tanya Sweeney, The Irish Times

Boy George's Family Role in Irish War of Independence Revealed in BBC's Who Do You Think You Are?

Viewers in Ireland may be interested in the subject of this week's episode of the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?

Broadcast at 9pm on BBC 1 on Monday 23rd July the episode features Eighties popstar, Boy George, who was born George Alan O'Dowd, in 1961 in London to Irish parents.

The BBC series of Who Do You Think You Are? - which inspired a new generation of amateur genealogists researching their Family Tree -  is surprisingly now in its 15th series, while a US version is in its 10th season and the Aussie series on season 9.

RTE did produce an Irish strand of the show back in 2008 but it only ran for two seasons, most probably influenced by the small number of Irish celebrity subjects with sufficiently engaging skeletons in their historical family closets.

In this episode Boy George travels to Ireland where he learns for the first time how his great uncle Thomas Bryan had been an active member of the Irish Republican Army, and was charged with treason for his role in an attempted attack on a police truck in Drumcondra, Dublin, in 1921.

The pop star's ancestor was 23 when he became one of a group of men executed at Mountjoy Prison and buried in unmarked graves on unconsecrated ground. They would come to be known as the 'Forgotten Ten'.

Boy George, 57, was deeply troubled to learn how Thomas' widow - the star's great aunt - had been pregnant with Thomas' only child at the time of his arrest, but that the child did not survive.

The Culture Club singer  tells the cameras he is 'overwhelmed' to learn the 'incredible story' of his ancestor's link to such a dark period in Irish history

'I’m proud and I’m sad. I think that is the best way to describe how I feel,' he says.

Following a campaign by the families that lasted some 80 years the Forgotten Ten, which also included Kevin Barry - the first Irish Republican to be killed by the British since the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916 - were exhumed and buried with full state honours in 2001.

George's maternal great grandfather Richard Glynn, who was in the British Army, married his brother’s widow Mary-Jane. Mary-Jane had a daughter, Annie, from her first marriage, who married Thomas.

See the full story on BBC 1, Monday 23rd July 2018 at 9pm.

Meghan Markle's Missing Irish Branch of Family Tree Revealed

Meghan Markle was presented with documents detailing an Irish ancestor during her visit to Dublin with Prince Harry.

The young duchess discovered she is descended from a young Belfast woman named Mary, who married an English soldier in Dublin after a possible "whirlwind romance" almost 200 years ago.

Different spellings of Mary's surname resulted in some genealogists assuming she was born in Co Galway, but a number of documents found during a formal search have now established she was born in the Belfast region.

Fiona Fitzsimons and Helen Moss, genealogists with The Irish Family History Centre in Dublin, compiled the information from her father's side of the family tree. It was given to Meghan during the couple's visit to EPIC, the Irish Emigration Museum.

Marriage records show that Mary McCue (McHugh) was living at Merrion Strand in Dublin when she married Thomas Bird, a private in the 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment of Foot, in Saint Mary's Church of Ireland church in Donnybrook in Dublin on Monday, January 23, 1860

Thomas had served in the army in India in the previous decade and he was living in a barracks near Donnybrook in Dublin at the time of the marriage.

The local papers reported that a hurricane had struck Ireland the previous weekend.

"And it must have been a whirlwind romance," said Ms Fitzsimons.
"Thomas's regiment had only recently returned from India after 10 years. They arrived in Dublin in August, 1859 and were stationed in Beggars Bush Barracks," she said.

Mary's father's name was listed in the marriage register as Francis McCue with an occupation of farmer. The groom's father was listed as a labourer.

In June 1860, the regiment was sent to Malta. Thomas and Mary caught a train from Kingstown, present day Dun Laoghaire, to Queenstown, now Cobh, where they boarded the steam ship Olympus.

On board the voyage to Malta were 573 members of the regiment, including 16 drummers, and 66 women and 67 children.

The regiment was stationed on the Mediterranean island until 1866. The couple had at least two children: Mary, the duchess's great-great-grandmother; and Harriett.

In March 1866, the regiment was sent to Canada. The long journey to New Brunswick in Canada may have taken its toll on Thomas who died in July 1866, aged 36.

In May 1867, Mary married a widower, William White, a soldier in the same regiment. Two years later, the regiment was transferred to Cork but Mary and William decided to remain in Canada.

In the 1871 Canadian census in New Brunswick, Mary White and her two daughters are listed as Irish and Roman Catholic and her husband William as English and a shoemaker who is a member of the Anglican Church.

Mary and William settled on a farm and Mary gave birth to two more children. Their daughter Alexandrine died as a young child. Her baptism listed Mary's surname as McKeg.

Their son William Thomas was born in 1873. The family later moved to New Hampshire in the US.

In 1883, daughter Mary married Charles Merrill in New Hampshire.

Finally, the well-travelled Belfast woman Mary White died of pneumonia, aged in her mid-50s, in New Hampshire on August 28, 1885.

Her son William Thomas died at 17 in Lakeport, New Hampshire, in 1890. His death record states his mother's maiden name was McCue and that she was born in Belfast.

In 1891, when daughter Harriett married, she listed her mother's surname as McCague.

On US census forms in 1930, Harriett stated her mother was born in Northern Ireland.

The genealogists stated: "It is only by searching forward in time, comparing the evidence in later Canadian and US documents, that we found sufficient evidence to say with certainty that Mary McCue's (McHugh's) origins were in Belfast.

"Catholic parish registers start too late for a baptism of Mary McHugh… We found no earlier records for the McHugh/McCue family of Belfast."

Ms Fitzsimons said it was a pleasure researching Mary's story.

"We want to acknowledge Lorna Moloney's work in identifying the family in US records as McCague.

"Often names in official records can be written down by officials as they sound phonetically, which can often lead to different versions of names being recorded." Ms Fitzsimons can be contacted through www.irishfamilyhistorycentre.com.

Ms Moloney, who was not involved in the formal compilation of information, independently did research on Meghan's Irish ancestry links using information available in public records.

She had noted that Mary's daughter in her marriage document had listed her mother as Mary McCague.

Ms Moloney had found a woman with that name who was born in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, in 1829 and there was a certain likelihood it could be the same woman but it was always subject to verification.

Ms Moloney said: "I'm delighted to learn this new information which has now been given to Meghan.

It's a fascinating story."

Source The Irish Independent

How To Apply to Get Married in Ireland

The Story Of the Frenchman Who Gave The Statue of Liberty To The USA

1878 - The Head of The Statue of Liberty at the Paris World Fair 

In the early 1870s, inspired by the abolition of slavery and the Union victory in the American Civil War, French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi seized upon an idea.

He would build a monumental gift for the United States, a gesture of friendship from a country that had helped secure its independence.

When Bartholdi visited the United States to gather support for the project, he identified Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor as the ideal site.

It was right at the mouth of a major port, and was federally owned “land common to all the states.”

The neoclassical statue was designed in the image of Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom, raising a torch and bearing a tabula ansata, representing law.

Hand and Torch of Statue on display in 1875 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia

Head of Statue on display at Paris World Fair 1878

Bartholdi toyed with the idea of having the statue hold a broken chain, but feared such an explicit reference to slavery might be controversial. (The final statue does have a subtle chain at her feet.)

In 1875, the project was announced and fundraising began, led by French politician Édouard René de Laboulaye. Before the statue’s design had been finalized, Bartholdi built the head and torch-bearing right arm and put them on display at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and the Paris World’s Fair to drum up support for the project.

Construction began in Paris in 1877. Bartholdi recruited renowned designer Gustave Eiffel to help with the structural engineering of the statue.

Eiffel devised an innovative and flexible iron skeleton which would allow the statue to shift in the wind without cracking.

Meanwhile in New York, construction of the statue's pedestal was sluggish due to a lack of funds. Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World, held a fundraising drive, promising to publish the names of everyone who donated.

The fund ultimately raised $102,000, mostly from donations of less than a dollar.

In 1885, the statue was disassembled and shipped across the ocean to New York.

Once the pedestal was completed in April 1886, the statue was reassembled by workers dangling from ropes.

Surprisingly (given the safety standards of the time), not a single worker died.

The statue, formally called Liberty Enlightening the World, was ceremonially dedicated on Oct. 28, 1886.

The monument’s signature green color, caused by the oxidization of the copper skin, did not emerge until after 1900.

Source Alex Q. Arbuckle

Illustration of the unveiling of the Statue in Paris to the US Ambassador to France in 1885

Over 1000 Sham Marriages Declared Illegal By Gardai

More than 1,000 marriages between foreign men and women in the Republic have been identified by the Garda as sham marriages of convenience.

The vast majority have been between Asian men and Eastern European women. They have been arranged, at a fee of up to €20,000 each, so the men could secure the right to live and work in Ireland.

All of the “brides” are believed to have left Ireland after fulfilling their part in the illegal marriages.

Many of the “grooms” have remained and are now having their bogus marriages cancelled, their permission to remain in the State revoked and their deportations readied.

The Irish Times has learned while Garda files have been prepared on 1,200 such marriages, the major Garda investigation into the scam is continuing.

Files on each of the 1,200 confirmed sham marriages have been sent to the Irish Nationalisation and Immigration Service, which has the power to revoke immigration status.

Security sources said the number of marriages confirmed as sham is likely to reach several thousand by the time the Garda inquiry, called Operation Vantage, was completed.

Operation Vantage
The most recent series of Garda raids under Operation Vantage occurred late last week when 17 addresses were targeted in co-ordinated searches in Dublin, Waterford and Limerick.

Some 24 officers from the Garda National Immigration Bureau’s Evader Track Unit arrested 13 men who had taken part in sham marriages. They were brought to Cloverhill, Limerick and Mountjoy prisons ahead of their deportations.

The arrested men – from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Mauritius – were being sought for deportation after Garda investigations and surveillance over several months confirmed their marriages were sham.

During the course of the searches for the 13 arrested men, a further 11 men with no immigration status in the Republic were discovered. They have been told to leave the State within a fortnight or be deported.

This strand of Operation Vantage has also identified 26 other men in the State illegally. Some had also engaged in sham marriages. Others were working full-time while on student visas or had otherwise breached the conditions of their visas.

Tightened legislation
The 1,200 marriages now confirmed as sham occurred prior to 2015 when legislation was tightened to clamp down on the problem. The Garda was given enhanced powers to object to planned marriages on the grounds they were believed to be sham.

Garda offices have closely monitored notices of intentions to marry, which must be submitted by all couples, to ensure sham marriages were prevented. Garda sources said they were also determined to catch those who had secured the right to live and work in Ireland by engaging in sham marriages before the clampdown of 2015.

Men from countries such as India, Pakistan, Mauritius and Bangladesh were coming to the Republic and claiming asylum. While waiting, and often having had their applications rejected, they were marrying Eastern European women. Through those marriages, facilitated by Pakistani fixers in Dublin, they were secured the right to live and work in Ireland permanently, thus sidestepping the immigration system.

Source: Conor Lally, The Irish Times

Release The 1926 Census

The Council of Irish Genealogical Organisations (CIGO) is calling on the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar TD, and Heritage Minister, Joseph Madigan TD, to allow the early release of the original 1926 Irish Census returns.

Under the provisions of the Statistics Act 1993, the National Archives of Ireland is currently preparing to release this material in January 2027. However the previous government had committed to an early release date for the 1926 returns

As the first census undertaken by the newly established Free State, it represents a snapshot of Ireland at the end of a very turbulent decade in its history.

The population collectively bore the scars of the Great War, Easter Rising, War of Independence and the Civil War. And all this was followed by significant migration post partition.

Though the 1993 Act introduced a retrospective 100-year embargo on public access to Irish census data compiled since the foundation of the State, previous censuses had been conducted without such restriction.

Significantly both the 1901 and 1911 returns were released after only 60 and 50 years respectively, in 1961.
The 2016 Census notes fewer than 70,000 people then alive aged over 85.

The release of the 1939 National Register for England & Wales by the UK National Archives in 2015 set a precedent which should be followed in Ireland.

It was a success because, on a rolling basis, data for anyone born less than a century before was redacted.

Please join with CIGO to lobby the Taoiseach and the Heritage Minister to follow through on the commitment made in 2012 to release the 1926 Census.

Sign The Petition HERE

TripAdvisor Reveals Ireland's Best Beaches

Inh Beach, County Kerry

TripAdvisor has published its annual round-up of Ireland's best beaches, a list dominated this year by the Wild Atlantic Way.

Inch Beach on the Dingle Peninsula takes the top spot for 2018, followed by a previous winner - Inchydoney strand near Clonakilty, Co. Cork.

Inch was also voted Ireland's favourite beach in our Reader Travel Awards 2018, with one comment describing it simply as "heaven on earth".

TripAdvisor's Top 10 beaches in Ireland

1. Inch Beach, Inch, Co. Kerry
2. Inchydoney Beach, Clonakilty, Co. Cork
3. Dog's Bay Beach, Roundstone, Co. Galway
4. Barleycove Beach, Schull, Co. Cork
5. Coumeenoole Beach, Dingle, Co. Kerry
6. Maghera Beach and Caves, Ardara, Co. Donegal
7. Silver Strand Beach, Malin Beg, Co. Donegal
8. Derrynane Beach, Caherdaniel, Co. Kerry
9. Strandhill Beach, Strandhill, Co. Sligo
10. Banna Strand, Tralee, Co. Kerry

TripAdvisor's Travellers’ Choice awards are determined based on traveller reviews gathered over a 12-month period, the review and booking giant says.

Inch Beach also ranks as the 22nd best in Europe, with Inchydoney 24th - a list topped by the stunning La Concha beach in San Sebastian, Spain.

The Story of Choctaw Indians Who Sent Help to Ireland During The Famine

Photo: 'Kindred Spirits’ Sculpture in Midleton, Cork.

On his St Patrick's Day trip to the USA this year, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar  visited the Indian Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma to thank them for the aid they sent to Ireland during the catalystmic Irish Famine.

In 1847, the Indians of the Choctaw Nation, Oklahoma, donated $170 to Ireland during the famine that killed approximately 2 million people and caused the Irish population to fall by 25%.

$170 may seem like small change by today’s numbers, but in 1847 this donation amounted to many thousands of euro and made a difference.

What makes this gift especially impressive is the fact that the Choctaw were themselves living in poverty and had been recently relocated from their own land in what became known as the 'Trail of Tears'.

But the suffering of the Irish moved the tribe, and so the Choctaw, who firmly believe in charity, dug deep into their pockets to help a foreign nation across the sea.

The Irish continue to remember the Choctaw to this day.

In 1992, Lord Mayor’s Mansion in Dublin unveiled a plaque reading, “Their humanity calls us to remember the millions of human beings throughout our world today who die of hunger and hunger-related illness in a world of plenty” to honor the tribe.

In 2015, a monument honoring the Choctaw Nation called 'Kindred Spirits’ was unveiled in Cork.
The monument features nine steel eagle feathers towering 20 feet into the air arranged in the shape of a bowl.

On his website, the sculptor of the monument, Alex Pentek, wrote about the symbolism of the bowl of feathers, saying:

“By creating an empty bowl symbolic of the Great Irish Famine formed from the seemingly fragile and rounded shaped eagle feathers used in the Choctaw ceremonial dress, it is my aim to communicate the tenderness and warmth of the Choctaw Nation who provided food to the hungry when they themselves were recovering from their own tragic recent past.”

The monument can be found in Bailic Park, Midleton, Cork.

I Only Saw My Long Birth Cert When I Was Nearly 50

Former Minister Joan Burton

‘WHAT’S YOUR NAME and where do you come from?’ These are daily parts of Irish conversations.

For adopted people like myself growing up in the 1950s and 60s the answers had to be ambiguous and complex.

There was a double identity. One was the adopted identity and there was also a kind of secret identity, the original or birth family of which you knew nothing and had no right to such information.

How did people know they were adopted?
In most cases they were told at home but many were told nothing and often found out at family occasions such as funerals or weddings. Of course, the public authorities knew and created a special short form birth certificate that adopted people could use as I did to register for college and for marriage.

The long form birth cert that contained the adoption information was kept strictly under lock and key with no right of access to the adopted person.

I only saw mine when I was close to 50 years of age.

When I was getting married I asked St Patricks Guild to pass on a letter to my birth mother to tell how I was and my wedding plans. Months later I got the letter back with a note saying they didn’t do that kind of thing.

Upsetting
That refusal to convey a simple message upset me a lot but I realised it was just one of the hallmarks of psychological cruelty so characteristic of the adoption societies.

I had attempted again and again from the time of my adoptive mother’s early death from cancer to get basic tracing information from St Patrick’s Guild. Each time I sat in their little waiting room under a picture of the baby Jesus and each time the answer was a blunt NO.

One incident I remember well was in 1993 when I had become a TD and Minister of State.

A woman came to me about her fruitless search for her birth records. This woman was married with grown up children.

She told me she had been to St Patrick’s Guild where she had been told a mess of conflicting stories about different possible mothers.

Eventually she found out she had been informally fostered so that there was in fact no legal barrier to her getting full information.

Months of battle
Even then it still took months of battle with the Archdiocese to get her information. I met one senior priest who remarked frostily to me that people like the woman I was representing were only interested in getting money.

At this stage we need to proceed with some essential legal changes that have stalled so far.
First and foremost, there has to be a clearly stated right of full access to records and knowledge of their original identity.

That is a human rights issue and has been recognised internationally as such by a UN Convention and is also implicit in the European Convention on Human Rights.

I have one fear about all this that I mentioned in an interview with Jason O’Toole in a Hot Press interview a few months back.

We have made immense strides in the past few years on Marriage Equality, Gender Recognition and now Abortion Rights.

Are adopted people to be last in the queue to have their basic rights accepted and enshrined in law?

Reform
I think there have been too many barriers to reforms in this area. I had to endure endless delays whenever I argued for reform in government.

The draft 2015 Bill is on the Seanad Order Paper and needs to get priority.

It has a number of cumbersome features and some serious flaws that have to be amended in Committee to fully satisfy the demands and rights of adopted people.

In the spirit of justice and compassion that inspired the Repeal referendum I make this plea: Let’s do this now.

Joan Burton is Labour TD for Dublin West and a former Tanaiste.
Source The Journal.