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was a teenager before I realized that the whole world did not, in
fact, celebrate St. Patrick's Day.
I grew up,
the youngest of ten children, in an Irish-American Catholic family
surrounded by a large population of Irish and Irish Americans just
northwest of New York City. I heard tales of the parish dances in
the Bronx where my parents and friends' parents all met. I marched
in St. Patrick's Day parades, and I listened to the Irish-music
show on the Fordham University radio station on Sundays as my father
prepared a post-Mass brunch (eggs in bacon grease — so good,
but it would make your cholesterol rise just looking at it). That
was the Irish I knew — it was a part of me.
We were enthusiastically
American, but the influence of my grandparents' journey from Ireland
to the United States was always there. As I came of age, I learned
more about the sadness and darkness of their journey, and of the
millions like them. I later awoke to the even harsher and troubled
reality of the "other side." It seems, not everyone celebrated
St. Patrick's Day.
The Irishmen
I have known — and still know — are hard-working men:
carpenters, city workers, firemen, policemen, pub owners. They expect
their children to go to college and become a part of the American
success story. Brian Pearson, on first glance, appears to be part
of that same story. In his work clothes, adorned with carpenter
tools, he'll enjoy an after-work drink and looks like almost any
Irish father I ever knew. Yet, Pearson is a little different.
His roots are
in County Tyrone, Ireland, and he gained asylum in the U.S. in 1997.
He's a former member of the Irish Republican Army. He was arrested
in 1976 and jailed for 12 years for his involvement in a bombing
outside a Royal Ulster Constabulary barracks. After he came to the
U.S. he faced deportation until an immigration judge ruled that
he was a political prisoner and that his target was political.
Of course,
for too many Americans and for too long, Ireland has been over-represented
by the potato, the pint of Guinness, and the terrorist. Though I
enjoy the first two, and occasionally to the extreme, growing up
I knew little about the third. I thought one way to educate myself
about the problems facing Northern Ireland was to speak to someone
who was intricately involved. So I looked up Pearson.
Brian Pearson
now lives in Pearl River, New York, an Irish haven in Rockland County
(my birthplace). He is the grand marshal of the St. Patrick's Day
parade in Pearl River — one of the country's largest —
this year. Several law-enforcement groups decided to boycott the
parade because they are offended that a former "terrorist"
is to lead it.
"Very
hurt," is how Pearson describes his sense of the situation,
and he can also reason out the pain of those he offends. But he
doesn't think he has much in common with Osama bin Laden. And he'd
like more people to know why.
Brian Pearson
joined the Provisional IRA in 1974, a fact that begs for a little
history. The north of Ireland was partitioned in 1921, after a fierce
fight for independence from Britain. This left six northern counties
under the control of Britain, and the 26 to the south as an independent
republic. The Irish Republican Army, which was in the thick of the
fight in 1921, split in 1969 into the Provisionals and the Officials.
The former were more popular in the North and were more dogmatic
and dangerous. This band suited Pearson after he witnessed atrocities
against Northern Ireland's Catholics that went largely unpunished.
Prohibited
by the Protestant ruling class from easily attaining higher education
and access to a better-paying job, Pearson attended a trade school
and learned carpentry. He took his tools to Omagh, County Tyrone,
in the north of Ireland, where he was away from home for the first
time. It was there that he observed human-rights violations against
ordinary Catholics on the part of the RUC, Northern Ireland's police
force. The RUC, which disproportionately targeted Catholics, was
repeatedly accused of colluding with the loyalists in the North.
News of the
Bloody Sunday violence of January 31, 1972, when 13 unarmed civilian
protesters in Derry were gunned down by British paratroopers, greatly
affected Pearson. There wasn't much peace in Northern Ireland in
the early '70s; Pearson was often in attendance at the funeral of
an innocent Catholic. It was about all he could stand.
He never had
a political background. He only knew about the violence he witnessed,
and the funerals that followed. Something had to be done. Someone
had to defend the Catholics.
A building
in the town of Clogher, Tyrone, seemed the perfect target for the
Provisional IRA. It was RUC territory. Around it was a barracks,
manned by "men with machine guns," as Pearson remembers
it. It was a "symbol of occupation and intimidation."
Pearson's job was to drive the getaway car, as they say, and with
his lads they delivered "the bomb." The intent, it seems,
was mayhem. There were no injuries. The British had been given a
45-minute warning.
Pearson is
now 50 years old, and does not regret his history with the Provisional
IRA. "I still believe that we have a right to self-determination.
At the time, it was necessary to meet violence with violence,"
he says, understanding that those violent tactics can only go so
far. But he says — and fervently believes — that the "armed
resistance" made possible the current dialogue for peace in
Ireland.
Pearson regrets
that over the years there have been civilian casualties due the
aggressiveness of the Provisional IRA. Their intention, he insists,
was to defend Catholics and to fight for self-rule, which included
targeting members of the British "security forces." This
was a real war for Pearson and his fellow IRA men. Their targets
were the uniforms, and not the civilians — many of whom have
died through the course of this fight. There are people in any group,
says Pearson, that you don't agree with, who may put a civilian
in their sites. But civilian casualties were also "part of
the British propaganda," he says. "Most of the lads were
regular guys, and I would stand with them anywhere."
Brian Pearson
supports the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. It calls for IRA disarmament,
police reform, and political power sharing between Protestants and
Catholics, with stronger connections between the North and the Irish
Republic. He believes Protestant fears that the Catholics will gain
an upper hand in the absence of British protection "will be
undermined with dialogue, declaration of intent," and gradual
change. Pearson bears no ill will toward Protestants or the British.
"They live there too" and should be treated equally, he
says. But only the withdrawal of British governance, he says, will
"decrease the hatred and increase economic activity."
Pearson emphasizes,
too, that the IRA must maintain its part of the agreement, despite
some recent outrages: Young Catholic girls have been harassed on
their way to school by Protestant loyalists; the Orange Order (a
Protestant fraternal order that celebrates the victory of William
of Orange over Catholic King James II in 1690) continues to parade
each July through Catholic neighborhoods.
"The IRA
is being provoked," says Pearson, but he recognizes that sympathy
with the IRA has dwindled significantly over the past 20 years,
and they must prove that they really are focused on peace and equality.
Soft-spoken,
but passionate, I can't help but be impressed with Brian Pearson.
In him is a man and a metaphor for Ireland. He once felt helpless
in the face of an unsympathetic police and an imposing British force;
empowerment at the time came by joining a militant resistance group.
Pearson has
since graduated to a deep understanding of his homeland's complex
problems. But he's not forgetful. He knows the Catholics have been
mistreated and oppressed in Ireland for many centuries, and most
especially in the North in the last century. All he, and the many
like him, can hope for is an admission that wrong was done, and
that there will be assertive attempts to rectify those wrongs in
a practical and peaceful manner.
The IRA of
the 1980s and 1990s exhibited serious and unforgivable flaws. The
defensive body went on the offensive. It bombed hospitals and public
areas in Britain. It assassinated judges. More recently the IRA
has flirted with South American drug dealers. Gerry Adams, the president
of its political arm, Sinn Fein, has exchanged greetings with Castro
in Cuba. Through the years, the groups more left-leaning members
have spoken in Marxist tones. These are all disturbances; some of
them, clearly terrorist acts.
Some say the
IRA's time is passed. Yet there are significant elements of the
organization that retain an original passion for peace, and encourage
a strong-willed yet non-provocative path to this goal. Their dream
of self-government and equal rights for all Irish should not be
scrapped.
Brian Pearson,
once a card-carrying member of the IRA, walks on the sane path toward
peace. There are still pockets of IRA violence, as there is still
Unionist violence, but these acts can be subverted if the leadership
is steadfast about peace. The precedent of the Irish Republic clearly
suggests that peaceful democracy can thrive on this island. The
Celtic Tiger, the so-called economic boom that Ireland has experienced
in the last decade or so, illustrates the work ethic and ability
of the Irish to prosper when given fair opportunities to succeed.
Despite their tragic dirge, centuries old, the Irish are not whiners
— they are workers.
When one reads
about Northern Ireland's Catholics, and listens to their stories
of oppression, and meets someone of the high caliber of Brian Pearson,
one has to ask, If I would not tolerate it, why should anyone else?
If you look close enough, it's not that hard to build a case for
Brian Pearson.
So, there's
a lesson here. Being an American of Irish descent is not only about
Guinness pints and parades and those decadent eggs cooked in bacon
fat. In addition to these luxuries, we have some obligations. If
we are to have an opinion about the politics of Ireland, we must
pay close attention to the details. We must place a constant and
critical eye on the organizations behind which we rally. We must
stop romanticizing the "resistance," about which most
Irish Americans can only discuss in sound bytes. (Thousands of people
have shed blood in this struggle — there is nothing romantic
about that.) And we must, regularly if possible, offer up a prayer,
as well as a pint, to St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, for
the peace which he would have preached.
To the men
and women like Brian Pearson who have fought the valiant fight,
and have made concerted efforts to peacefully proceed, Godspeed
and fair play to you.
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