Decades ago, two Irish newspaper columnists gave 180-degree opposite views of their fellow ethnics. To Pete Hamill, writing in the NY Post, every Irishman was a poet, a revolutionary, a friend of the working man, a fighter for truth and justice. To Jimmy Breslin (NY Daily News), every Irishman was a drunk, a boor, a lout and a bigot.
Absolutely, TB.
Coincidentally, Hamill wrote a beautiful novel a few years back called "Snow in August." It's set in the forties, and it's about a young Irish boy from Brooklyn who befriends a Rabbi from Eastern Europe. If they have it at your library, you may just like it. I did.
And I told you about Breslin. My grandfather was a typesetter and later a union delegate at the Daily News for over thirty years. My grandfather hated his guts (although, to his credit, Breslin did come up to the Bronx for the funeral). Dick Young (the sportswriter) was described in similar terms by my grandfather. But it sounds much nicer in Italian
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And I remember the Gaelic Park incident fairly well. I was just a kid, and that's way up on Broadway by the Yonkers border. But my Dad had a very close Irish friend up on Bainbridge, and I remember him ranting about it even at a young age.
