Author: Ruth Swift

On August 3rd, 1916, Roger Casement was executed for his part in the 1916 Rising. 

See After The Rising for more information.

Born in 1864 in Dublin, Roger Casement received a knighthood for his services to the British consulate, having campaigned tirelessly to expose the cruelty inflicted on native workers in the Belgian Congo in 1904, and again in Brazil from 1911-1912. Casement had become a member of the Gaelic League in 1904, and began to write nationalist articles under the pseudonym ‘Seán Bhean Bhocht’. He retired from the British consular service in 1913, joining the Irish Volunteers. Based on his previous experience, Casement was dispatched to Germany to recruit a Brigade from Irish prisoners of war. He returned to Ireland in a German U-boat but  was captured in Kerry on Good Friday in 1916. Casement was imprisoned in Pentonville Gaol in London, where he was tried on charges of High Treason. He was executed on 3 August 1916, the only leader of the Rising to be executed outside of Ireland. He was 52 years old.

After The Rising

Article by Kevin Cullen – Boston Globe Staff- July 20, 2016

GWEEDORE, Ireland — Joe Coyle used to catch the bus to Dublin on Monday mornings at 4 a.m.

“We were all miserable, every one on that bus,” he said.

Like the others, he worked all week in Dublin, as a media designer, then got back on the bus Fridays for the nearly four-hour slog back up to dear old Donegal. When Mount Errigal came into view, at least on summer nights when the light lasted long, Coyle felt at home again.

But Sundays brought that dread. The bus loomed.

Coyle’s life, and that of his wife and three kids, changed dramatically last year when he moved into the Aislann, an innovation office building here that is part of a 95-acre business park, heavily subsidized by Udaras an Gaeltachta, the agency responsible for developing the Irish-speaking regions of Ireland.

“All I need is a small office with a computer, a phone, and broadband,” said Coyle. “Why work in Dublin when I can work here, in one of the most beautiful places in the world?”

That is essentially the pitch of Udaras an Gaeltacht and Michael Heaney, the director of enterprise, employment, and property for the agency.

“Twenty years ago, you’d go to a company and it was all about roads and electricity,” said Heaney. “Now it’s all about broadband. And the broadband is good.”

Coyle is paying a token fee — about $1,000 a year — to rent his office space in the Aislann, a modern, state of the art building with a library and a child care facility on the first floor.

This part of west Donegal was renowned for being remote, wild, a place where few Irish and fewer tourists ventured, in part because of its location, in part because throughout the Troubles, the security along the border with Northern Ireland was so onerous.

Photo- TIM JARVIS

The region is a hotbed of traditional music. At Leo’s, the music flows as freely as the Guinness.

But the peace process brought down those checkpoints, making the border irrelevant, and broadband has made its remote location almost irrelevant. Its wild beauty is drawing more tourists, and its relatively recent technological accessibility is drawing in more jobs, boosting the number of Irish speakers.

Since the Irish state’s founding in 1922, the government has tried various schemes to maintain and increase the population of the Gaeltacht, which is spread across seven of the Irish Republic’s 26 counties: Donegal, Galway, Mayo, Kerry, Cork, Meath, and Waterford.

The Gaeltacht regions tend to be some of the most picturesque, and isolated, in Ireland. About 75 percent of the 92,000 people who reside in the Gaeltacht live within five miles of the sea, and West Donegal is no exception, where the Atlantic provides a dramatic backdrop from virtually everywhere. The pristine beaches are perfect for walking. The uncrowded roads are perfect for cycling. Glenveagh, Ireland’s biggest national park with its spectacular castle and gardens, is a short drive away.

Donegal Airport is run by Anne Bonner, who everybody knows as Packie’s sister. Packie Bonner was the revered goalkeeper for Ireland’s national soccer team that had a good run in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Underscoring the Gweedore region’s ties to Scotland, and especially Glasgow, where so many locals worked and lived, there are daily flights to Dublin and Glasgow. There are extra flights on Saturdays, when many locals fly to Glasgow to see their beloved Glasgow Celtic soccer team play. Watching a Celtic game in a pub around here is the second best thing to being in Celtic Park in the Parkhead section of Glasgow.

Photo- DONNCHADH O BAOILL

The Gaoth Dobhair business park.

“I was born in Glasgow. About a third of our office was,” says Donnchadh O Baoill, who works in the local Udaras na Gaeltachta office. “Most people here didn’t have the money to go to America, so they went to Scotland. Glasgow was the biggest Irish-speaking area in the world. My father died in the mines in Scotland. My mother’s family had eight, and five went to Scotland. My mother came back here to work in a doll factory. I was 2 when we came back.”

The Gaoth Dobhair (that’s Gweedore in Irish) business park dates back to 1966, during the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising, and was a tribute to the efforts of the Rising’s leaders to promote the Irish language. By 1970, there were 200 people working there, and employment peaked in 1998, with 1,388 people working there.

“Nobody believed it could be done,” said O Baoill. “This used to be called the back country.”

But jobs drifted east, and many left for countries where the labor was cheaper, especially in Eastern Europe and Asia.

The theory is that bringing jobs back to the Irish-speaking region will bring back Irish speakers, and it is working. Now, the business park has 21 companies that employ 432 people.

Everyone who comes back cites the same two things: the rustic beauty of the area, and the quality of life.

Sarah McDevitt was producing magazines in Edinburgh, then Belfast, when she realized she could move back here, where her husband grew up.

“With broadband, I can work anywhere,” she said. “This is quite simply a better place to raise a family. When I look up at Errigal, I know I made the right decision.”

Inside another office at the Aislann, Patrick Harkin was trading e-mails with a construction manager in Boston. Harkin’s company, Meastoiri Domhanda International Framers, manages commercial framing projects all over the United States.

“I’m from here, but it was my wife, who is from California, and my kids, who really pushed me to move back here, to live in the Gaeltacht,” says Harkin. “The decision had everything to do with growing up in the Gaeltacht. You can be a child longer here. The innocence lasts longer.”

Eamonn Gallagher, the company’s founder, spent 10 years working in the construction business in New England before he realized he could come home and do everything from here.

He said they analyze multi-million dollar wood framing projects for companies working in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. They use FaceTime and Skype for meetings with overseas clients.

And then everyone drives home, to seaside cottages or homes in the shadow of Errigal, Donegal’s highest peak. Gweedore has the seemingly oxymoronic distinction of being the most densely populated rural area in Europe, but that implies something it is not. The rolling hills that sit at the foot of Errigal are dotted with homes that make the landscape look like a postcard.

O Baoill said the economic development will feed a cultural revival, which is deeply rooted in the language. Traditional music and theater here have roots that go back centuries.

The cultural side is about to get a huge boost with the restoration of Amharclann Ghaoth Dobhair, the local theater. It was opened in 1962 by the great actress Siobhan McKenna and was the first place that great traditional musicians from the local area, including Altan and Clannad, had their first gigs.

The restoration plan is well underway and they hope to have it ready for Christmas. The theater, which saw its last performance in 2007, is part of a plan to bring more tourists to the area.

The region is a hotbed of traditional music. At Leo’s, the music flows as freely as the Guinness. The walls are lined with the photos of local music legends, Moyà Brennan and her younger sister, Enya, not to mention Mairead Ní Mhaonaigh, the great fiddler, singer and leader of Altan. In the village of Bunbeg, the Monday night session at Hiudai Beag’s pub rivals any in Ireland. (It’s also a B&B.)

Heaney believes more tourists will translate into more businesses taking up residence. They feed off each other. With that in mind, Udaras na Gaeltachta has retained a Boston-based company, the Moynihan Group, to serve as its representative in the US.

“The key issue is to get people here,” Heaney said. “Once they come here, they fall in love with the land, the language and the people.”

James Moran can attest to that. A local native, he spent years working in the United Kingdom, and was working for a mobile phone company in Manchester, England, last year when he persuaded the company’s principal owners — an Indian, a Pakistani, and a Bangladeshi — to visit here with him. They marveled at the countryside as they landed at the seaside airport. They sat in local cafes, listening to the locals prattle on in Irish.

“On the way back to the airport, one of them said, ‘I think we have found a home.’ They liked the welcome, the family-centered attitude here. That people wanted to live here for the quality of life. They said, ‘Content employees are good employees.’ ”

That company is relocating to Gweedore in July, bringing with them 130 jobs for locals.

And everybody in Gweedore can’t wait to hear Irish spoken with a Bangladeshi accent.

Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeCullen.

Photo- CHRIS HILL

Slieve League, Sliabh Liag

On May 12th, 1916 two more leaders of the rising, James Connolly, and Sean MacDiarmada were executed for their involvement in the rising. See After the Rising for more information.

After the Rising

On May 8th, 1916 four more leaders of the rising, Eamonn-Ceannt, Con Colbert, Sean Heuston, and Michael Malin were executed for their involvement in the rising. See After the Rising for more information.

After the Rising

 

On May 5th, 1916, John MacBride, was executed for his involvement in the rising. See After the Rising for more information.

John MacBride originally trained as a doctor, but changed profession in favor of work with a chemist. In 1896, MacBride travelled to America promoting the Irish Republican Brotherhood before travelling to South Africa where he raised the Irish Transvaal Brigade during the Second Boer War. MacBride married Irish nationalist Maude Gonne in 1903 and although he was not a member of the Irish Volunteers, at the beginning of the Rising, MacBride offered his services to Thomas MacDonagh. He was at Jacob’s biscuit factory when that post was surrendered on Sunday, 30 April 1916. John MacBride was executed on 5 May 1916. He was 51 years old.

After the Rising

On May 4th, 1916 four more leaders of the rising, Joseph Mary Plunkett, Edward Daly, Michael O’Hanrahan, and  William Pearse were executed for their involvement in the rising. See After the Rising for more information.

 

After the Rising

Take a step back in time and learn more about the streets, people, and places that shaped the course of history during the 1916 Dublin Rising. Walk through Dublin with this video tour created by Google, seeing Dublin as it is today, and join us in commemorating one of the most historic moments in Irish history, during the 100 year anniversary of the 1916 Rising!

Click here to start the tour!

 

Labeling seems to be something we as Americans do more of these days.  I know I am as guilty as anyone but the consequences can be dangerous and lead to inaccurate perceptions which can lead to false realities.  I think that referring to Ireland as a “tax haven” falls into this category.  Aside from the fact that Ireland does not meet the standards of a so-called tax haven, as defined by the OECD, (see here) there remains those who irresponsibly and cavalierly label the country as such.  This issue has yet again raised its head with reports of the massive deal between Pfizer and Allergan and the anticipated move of Pfizer’s operations to Ireland where Allergan is headquartered.  On Monday the Irish Times reported, “A deal, structured as a tax inversion, would see Pfizer move its tax base to Ireland where Allergan is based, allowing the company to avoid US tax bills on more than $128 billion of profits earned overseas.”

The deal has reignited an on-going debate about US companies based in foreign countries for the sole purposes of evading US tax.  Ireland has been front and center as many major US corporations call Ireland their legal home where there is a 12.5% corporate tax rate.  The arguments, however, too often put the focus on other countries’ practices and sets blame on them for offering an unfair advantage. An alternative, that would unfortunately require Congress to come together on something, would be a frank and substantive discussion about the problems with our own tax code and ultimately a comprehensive legislative package to address the effect of corporate taxation on international business. After all, our own corporate rate has been a whopping 35% for some time and Ireland did not set its corporate tax rate yesterday.

American politicians are no strangers to this debate.  In 2004, Congress passed a law (26 U.S. Code § 7874 – Rules relating to expatriated entities and their foreign parents) that, among other things, took aim at corporations engaged in “corporate inversions” – which is basically reincorporating in a foreign country that has a low corporate income tax rate allegedly for the sole purpose of avoiding US tax on that income.  The term “expatriated entity” was born in this law.  President Obama supported the initiative and specifically mentioned Ireland as a target country.

Former US Sen. Carl Levin who was extremely vocal in his characterization of Ireland as a tax haven – supported only by his own “common sense” test, expressed his outrage with Apple, referring to its strategy as “the Holy Grail of tax avoidance” (Washington Post 5/20/13) – using what became known as the “Double Irish” tax.  Sen. Bernie Sanders has added his voice to the mix in his run to win the Democratic nomination for the Presidency, which is no surprise as he considers himself a socialist – although I doubt there are many Americans who can appreciate what true socialism is.

In an effort to preserve its tax rate and appease critics from the US and Europe, Ireland eliminated the so-called “Double Irish” tax, coined as such because companies would establish 2 subsidiaries in Ireland – one that collects profits and another that moves those profits through a separate entity headquartered in a country with a lower rate than Ireland’s.

Although legal, are these tax schemes unfair to America?  There is certainly a strong argument in favor, but in the interests of transparency and honesty, there is also a strong argument that the classification of Ireland as a so-called tax haven is not only false but also grossly unfair.  All too often, politicians and others attribute a company’s presence in Ireland solely to avail of its corporate income tax rate without looking deeper and considering the many other benefits the country has to offer to help business thrive.

To suggest that a 12.5% corporate tax is the sole consideration a company gives in moving to or expanding into Ireland is, in my opinion, either naive or manipulative.  Is the rate attractive? Of course it is, particularly given the fact that the bottom line purpose of a business is to make a profit.

Lest we forget, Ireland offers:

• a highly talented and skilled workforce,
• outstanding and competitive schools and universities (1 of top 10 countries globally),
• competitive cost of living,
• stable labor costs,
• 5 hour flight from the east coast,
• English speaking,
• excellent quality of life,
• proximate gateway to Europe for US companies;
• and yes – competitive corporate tax rate at 12.5%

In none of the recent reporting on either side of the Atlantic that I have read or listened to has there been any discussion of the above referenced benefits or, for example, the R&D and regulatory advantages which are available in Ireland and the EU – particularly for biotech, life sciences and medical device companies.

Also, for anyone to suggest that the US is losing significant jobs to Ireland is inaccurate.  Due to a lack of jobs, Ireland has seen hundreds of thousands (89,000 in 2013 alone) emigrate from its shores since the Great Recession (many in their twenties) in search of work to places like Canada and Australia.

Let’s not forget Northern Ireland which is home to many blue chip American companies – as I made reference to in this blog last year.  AllState, Liberty Mutual, CVS, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, NY Stock Exchange, Intel, Concentrix, and Citi to name but a few.  These companies, however, pay the UK corporate tax rate of 20% and are indeed happy as I learned first hand visiting Liberty Mutual in Belfast last September.

In 2018, there will finally be the devolution of tax powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly from Westminster and the corporate tax rate as proposed is 12.5% – consistent with the south.  Are they the next haven?

Aside from being outright false, the danger here is that Ireland, in the context of business, becomes a euphemism for tax haven.  For all that the emigrants of that country have done for ours and for the incredible business partnerships that have been developed between our countries, it would be shameful for that to happen.  Ireland deserves more than soundbites and labeling.

Original post by Sean Moynihan- INB President