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CHATHAM, MA, USA – I write from the deck of my oldest, best friend’s beautiful home on Cape Cod where we have been for a glorious couple of nights. It’s been ages since I was “down the Cape” – to put it in the Boston vernacular – a picturesque peninsula where thousands of Irish people spent memorable J-1 summers working as nannies, dishing up breakfasts in busy restaurants or utilising their accents to maximise tips from thirsty tourists in bars in quaint towns like Dennis, Harwich and Yarmouth.
There appeared to be far fewer Irish university students on Cape Cod this June. I am not sure exactly why that is the case. In my view, it’s a shame and I have no doubt that the women and men who have regaled me with cherished tales of summers that were formative for them at multiple levels would concur. Maybe next year will see a reversion to normal.
Prior to travelling to the Cape, we spent several days in the wonderful city of my birth. Strolling around the harbour and looking back and forth between Logan Airport and the city skyline on one stunning afternoon, I said to my wife, “It just doesn’t get better than this.”
Ireland is now my home, but Boston will eternally hold a singular place in my heart, despite all of the changes, for good and for ill, I spot on visits back.
By way of example, we all tend to complain bitterly about the price of eating and drinking out in Ireland. Yet anyone who has been in the United States recently, perhaps particularly the northeast, would attest that it could be a lot worse.
My experience over the past ten days is that a relaxing and enjoyable lunch for two adults and one child costing less than $100 (€91) is a rare commodity in Massachusetts. It wasn’t always this way, and I really cannot fathom how residents who don’t earn extremely high salaries manage to live here.
We crossed the Atlantic for a special celebration: the wedding of our dear friends, Jim Kennedy and Kathleen Joyce, two proud Irish Americans. Jim and I have known each other since we were little kids; Kathleen and I did our undergraduate and law degrees together at the College of the Holy Cross and Suffolk University Law School.
Their careers are in government and politics. Jim is chief legal counsel to the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Kathleen is the chairwoman of the Boston Licencing Board.
As such, a number of the state’s leading elected officials were in attendance and it was nice for this political animal to bend ears and take the temperature.
Far more importantly, though, it was a joyous occasion for two of the finest people I have ever come across and a tremendous privilege to be present at the festivities with a crew of my closest pals. It was a day that we often joked would never arrive for Jim, who was formerly a resolute bachelor. But Kathleen, unsurprisingly to those acquainted with her, captured his heart. For us romantics, it was lovely to see two individuals approaching their 50th birthdays take the plunge for the first time. It is never too late. Trite, but true.
I have expressed my fears for America and its future for myriad reasons previously in this space. It was, then, hugely refreshing to meet a young immigrant to the US from the Dominican Republic who drove us in an Uber from my boyhood home just south of Boston to the city centre. He made it clear that this was a sideline gig and that he had both a short- and a long-term plan for achieving his American Dream.
He mentioned at the outset that his journeys to the Dominican Republic had ceased for the moment and he was working every hour God gave him.
The immediate objective is to buy a food truck and sell the kind of delicious meat and fish dishes he grew up with in the Caribbean. Simultaneously, already a qualified electrician and carpenter, he is focused on acquiring property, improving it and selling it on at a profit to ensure that his children can access educational opportunities and that he and his wife will have a secure, and potentially early, retirement.
As he sketched out his vision, all I could think of was what a compelling rebuke his was to some on the political right in the US who allege that immigrants, especially those from nations to the south, are almost invariably freeloaders. In their estimation, these newcomers are determined to live on social welfare benefits and refuse to assimilate or learn the English language.
That plenty with this bigoted, pessimistic disposition are Irish Americans, for whom immigration to a new land is a not so distant reality, is galling.
When we disembarked, my wife and I wished him the very best of luck. He thanked us and replied, “There is no Plan B. I will get there.” I pray that he does.
In this vein, yet on a profoundly depressing note, I was having a few beers in an Irish pub in Hyannis when a man around my age walked in sporting a provocative t-shirt. It read as follows: “TRUMP 2024: NO MORE BULLSHIT.”
He indicated that he had worn it deliberately as he sauntered down the main street of Cape Cod’s largest municipality in the expectation that someone would challenge him on it.
It perplexes me why someone would be so purposefully belligerent. That said, and even allowing for the fact that I am relaying an anecdote, this Trump die-hard is far from alone.
And what is truly baffling to me is that so many of them are struggling economically, the sort of citizens and voters who Donald Trump, deep down, cares not an iota about. I only hope that some of them will eventually wake up to the prescient words delivered in an epic rant by another Bostonian, Kenny Casey, the lead singer of the Dropkick Murphys.
“You’re being duped by the greatest swindler in the history of the world. You’re being duped by a bunch of grifters and billionaires who don’t give a shit about you or your family. They care about their tax breaks and the money they put in their pocket.”
Amen is all I can say to that.
These are just a handful of my dozens of musings about America in 2023 at the tail end of what has been a fantastic trip. In sum, it’s a country of infinite contradictions, contrasts and possibilities; it’s a country I love dearly; and it’s a country where, sadly, I don’t believe I could live anymore.
Larry Donnelly is a Boston lawyer, a Law Lecturer at the University of Galway and a political columnist with TheJournal.ie.
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A let them eat cake moment by Humphreys
“Homes are not for HOUSING people, if everyone could have a home then they’d have NO VALUE” – HH.
“The 32,000 hidden HOMELESS people? Someone please think of the HOUSE PRICES for crying out loud” – HH.
“Things could always be worse” says Heather Humphreys.
Things could always be better too or have we forgotten?
I was reading that an 18 year old caught driving at 160 kph didn’t even get a driving ban. The judicial system in this country is a joke. Why bother obeying any traffic laws. A small fine will see you OK. I honestly don’t know how judges completely overlook the seriousness of an offence when a solicitor who is unsworn, can give evidence on behalf of his client, which doesn’t have to be ( and usually isn’t) true.
@Patrick MC Dermott: What do you expect from Judges who have been appointed by Politican’s your old buddies in FFG.
@David Murray: They are not my buddies! I disown evey one of them.
What do they expect with the lack of rental accommodation when they refuse to acknowledge the elephant in the room?
Air BnB.
Keep voting ffg and all the issues will remain, you may think it’s OK because we own property,, but greed and fear is what ffg are based on , be brave the next time you vote add a little spice in your life
Those people in sleeping bags in doorways are not homeless, theyre just urban camping or else a doorway is categorised as a home maybe? Thanks HH, there was me thinking they were homeless. So no homeless crisis,problem solved .
Stephen donnelly really starting to look like a villain in a marvel movie….
@bruce banner: Haha…a cone headed Thanos.
No, they are not living on the streets but euphemistically “living on hard concrete” seriously.
That’s great was will they raise they’re children in bedsits so while working 40 hour weeks to no avail. The solution is bring more people into the country that’ll solve it definitely help with demand anyway.
Out with the blueshrts.
She needs to start looking after our own homeless not other countries who come here
Should she not mention that the numbers in Emergency Accommodation is approximately 45,000 people when you include 30,000 IPAS applicants.
Arguably one of the biggest decisions affecting Ireland is the EU Migration Pact and amazingly barely a whisper of news about it here on The Journal, why is that I wonder, it’s high relevant to this news story for example.
HH is correct and just stating facts, many people and families are declared homeless and accomadated in hotels and other places at the States expense. In fact many hope to jump the housing que by declaring homelessness. As for those actually on the streets, it’s not everybody that is homeless.
She’s right though
@Dave F Sov: People don’t seem to read the article, or if they do they ignore what was actually said and replace it with what they want to see. She was asked about homelessness and the amount of families that are homeless, and it’s a disgrace alright. But she quite rightly pointed out that homeless doesn’t necessarily mean on the street. ALL homeless people are offered emergency accommodation, and families with kids are prioritised. When you read the comment sections here and elsewhere you’d think they were all sleeping on the street. Again the homeless situation is a disgrace in Ireland but getting angry about fake things is a waste of time and energy. Focus on the facts.
@Gearoid MacEachaidh: but they are on the streets. A lot of families are pushed out of b&bs , hostels etc during the day, only being allowed to sleep there in the evening.
@Gearoid MacEachaidh: yes indeed she should.focus on the facts
This same woman claimed there was now over 2000 extra Garda on the streets recently
When Ben Scallan drilled down into it ,she was beaten into submission of the paltry figure of just 16 ACTUAL extra Garda
So yes focus on the FACTS INDEED
@Aidan Butler: they are not sleeping on the streets. That’s what I said.
@Chris: you sure that was her and not Helen McEntee? Either way nothing at all to do with this story or my comment
@Gearoid MacEachaidh: But they are on the streets. Imagine being up all night with a sick child & then turfed out to shelter from the rain all day until you are all allowed back inside your emergency accomodation.
This one is absolutely disgusting.This one would love to hang poor people.
,i live alone have no family,worked until i got a virus in 2019,went into the brain,ive ended up wit 5 autoimmunes GP and Consultant wrote letter 4new foam mattress and a recliner chair,I applied,give all my details,I pay the credit union 75 a week,I can’t survive since this inflation,I had 1300 in the credit union,and 214 in my bank account,I put in a price for 500 for a mattress,I could have went for a lot dearer,the recliner was 350,I got 500 put into my account,I didn’t get the letter until the day after,I ordered the mattress,in the letter 150 for a mattress and 350 for the chair,so I appealed it,told the 1300,i can buy 1,car insurance 590 last week,the house needs work doing,she saying once of payment to help,it would have all went into house,I’d ave receipts,did anyone get it
Weres the orange man John Mulligan.He should be in here backing the blueshrts up.I think his slipping up
Give that bass drum plenty of a pounding passing the chapel there pat Hazzard.
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