An Irish Journey
Marching with Brian Pearson, from past to peace.

By Elizabeth Fitton, NRO
March 15, 2002, 3:35 p.m.

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.