FOR OBVIOUS historic and geographic reasons, Ireland has had more than her fair share of emigrants. There are few, if any, Irish families who do not have relatives living abroad.
The theme of emigration is at the very core of our cultural expression ever since Colmcille’s self-imposed exile to Iona and each generation seems to have at least one classic emigrant narrative. Pádraic Ó Conaire’s Deroaíocht, Michéal MacGahbhann’s Rothaí Mor an tSaoil, Donal MacAmhlaigh’s Dialann Deoraí, Patrick MacGill’s Children Of The Dead End, John Healy’s Nineteen Acres, and Brian Friel’s Philadelphia Here I Come spring to mind.
Niall O’Dowd’s recently published An Irish Voice is the most recent such narrative and could lay claim to being not only the first emigrant classic of the 21st century, but also to opening up a whole new chapter in the experience of our exiles.
From almost the first sentence, O’Dowd strikes a confident note unusual in the emigrant narrative. He immediately brings his reader into the White House, “the seat of power in the most powerful of all nations”, on March 17 2009, when he and a select number of Irish-Americans meet the first black president of the United States, Barack Obama:
“...here we were, one group who came as slaves, and so many of the others in coffin ships. This is our night to celebrate with this young African President man who has capsized the stars.”
In the first few chapters, O’Dowd describes his experience of the presidential campaign that elected Obama to the White House, first as a Hillary Clinton campaigner for the Democratic nomination, and then as a Obama supporter for the presidency itself.
When he finally describes his leaving of Ireland and the early years in America, he does not shy away from the acute loneliness, the sorrow – exacerbated by his father’s death at home – the harsh realities, the pit falls, the sense of near desperation that are part and parcel of the emigrant experience.
However the confident note struck in the first chapters is never fully absent, giving the book a positiveness that is rarely, if ever, present in these narrations.
This confidence re-asserts itself with O’Dowd’s entry into journalism. He saw an opportunity and, imbued with the ‘Can Do’ ethos of American life, went for it. From an investment of less than a thousand dollars he was to build the biggest Irish newspaper in the US and to give the emigrants, especially the ‘Illegals’, a voice there they never had.
As the newspaper The Irish Voice grew, O’Dowd’s influence became stronger and he was able to lobby for and eventually help achieve legal status for thousands of his compatriots.
It is, however, when O’Dowd gets himself involved in the North of Ireland peace process that the book really takes off and the confident note becomes almost strident.
As soon as he makes the personal commitment to try to win American input into the affairs of the North, the pace of the book picks up and reads almost like a thriller with midnight phone calls to the White House, codes, secret meetings, and passwords. Given the dangers he and his team placed themselves in, it is a fascinating and ultimately triumphant tale.
An Irish Voice is an important book on several levels. Not only does it rightly celebrate O’Dowd’s considerable achievements as a journalist, a campaigner, and an Irishman, it is also a beacon of light and hope at a time when the prevalent climate is dark and depressing. The book is, in fact, a welcome breath of fresh air, not to say, an inspiration.
