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Topics - FL/MAYO

#1
I am trying to circumvent going through the whole driving licence process in Ireland when I return next year. Its not possible to exchange a U.S drivers licence for an Irish licence but certain Canadian provinces have exchange agreements between both Ireland and the U.S. I called the Ontario D.L issuing office to see what I would need to get an Ontario licence, they never mentioned that I had to prove I was a resident of Ontario. I am wondering does anyone know of anyone that has tried to do this or if its even possible?
#2
Unreal stuff from this Irish immigration group based in Boston, bullies to put it mildly >:(   

http://www.irishcentral.com/story/news/periscope/young-irish-woman-turned-in-to-us-authorities-by-irish-immigrant-support-group---boston-based-irish-international-immigrant-center-does-the-unspeakable--208627761.html

A Boston-based, Irish government funded immigrant's rights organization has turned a young Irish girl in to U.S. authorities because she worked in a bar in contradiction of her visa terms.

The Irish International Immigrant Center (IIIC) received $253,000 in Irish government funding to help immigrants in 2011. They also received funding from the American Ireland Fund.

In all my years covering the Irish American community I have never seen such a callous act inflicted on a young Irish immigrant by an Irish organization allegedly established to help young immigrants.

They informed on her to the U.S. State Department after tracking an article she wrote for this publication about her life in America where she stated she tried to make ends meet by working in a bar. She is here legally on a year-long J-1 student visa.

In a harshly worded letter that she received yesterday, the IIIC stated that her visa was revoked and demanded that she immediately book passage home and leave the country by mid June.




The letter reads like a missive that immigration authorities would be proud of and the specter of an Irish immigrant rights group (allegedly) playing immigration cop on a vulnerable young woman is a sad one to behold.

The alleged immigrant rights organization made over $1 million processing visas in the last year for Irish students on the J-1 visa which allows recent college students or graduates to work in the U.S. for one year.

Boston Irish sources say the IIIC is known for nasty and bullying letters which are often received by new legal emigrants for very minor transgressions. Apparently because they profit heavily from every emigrant they process they also feel the need to spy on bully and cajole those they think have stepped out of line in order to preserve their cash cow.

Our young intern just happened to be working for us which is why we came across this dreadful betrayal; who knows how many others have stories to tell about the IIIC?

I would urge great caution for any would-be immigrant or present immigrant in approaching this organization.

What they have done to this young woman -- and who knows how many others they have bullied -- is far outside the pale for an Irish organization, especially one funded by the Irish taxpayer. 

The IIIC was formerly run by Sister Lena Deevey, a much acknowledged woman in the Irish American community who recently retired.

An Irish agency acting as immigration enforcers rather than helping immigrants is a new wrinkle for an Irish group. Monitoring Irish American media looking for "offenders" is positively despicable and  McCarthy-like.

Perhaps they can go the whole hog and get an U.S. immigration enforcement  officer on their staff and nab the undocumented as they arrive.

The new IIIC director is Ronnie Miller, and he seemed positively delighted to tell me yesterday how they had caught this awful girl in the dreadful act of working in a bar to make ends meet.

He knows damn well of course because students find it impossible to survive on intern's wages that many have to find a way to supplement their income. The J1 visa is a very flawed vehicle in this regard but the lack of basic humanity in how these people deal with students is appalling to witness.

I asked friend Ronnie if it was decent at this time of great hope for immigration reform -- at a time when President Obama has suspended almost all deportations of young people -- that the IIIC would ruin a young Irish woman's American dream by turning her in, informer-style, to U.S. authorities.
He said he did not want to discuss the matter any further.

An IIC employee, Jude Clarke, a Northern Ireland native like Miller, admitted he had monitored Irish media and saw that the young girl had written she worked in a bar, in addition to interning here at IrishCentral.

Shortly afterwards she received a letter signed by another genius, Ann Marie Byrne, director of the IIIC's Learning Exchange Programs, demanding that she immediately buy a ticket to leave the U.S.
Playing the immigration officer, Byrne demanded the girl be gone from the U.S. by June 19, 2013.

In all my 30 years in the Irish American media, finding an Irish organization that turns in one of its own for a very minor breach of a visa issue is a new low.

It is also unique to find an organization that so cheerfully defends its jackboot tactics and gets substantial Irish government funding while dashing the dreams of young people.

Shame on them, and on the Irish government if it continues to fund this organization which picks on defenseless Irish immigrants and turns them in.

If you would like to contact the IIIC they are at 617 542 7654 or Facebook. For more visit their website, iiicenter.org.

See more: Irish News ,   Irish Immigration Center ,   Irish immigration ,   Boston Local ,   Irish in Boston ,   Irish in New York

Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/story/news/periscope/young-irish-woman-turned-in-to-us-authorities-by-irish-immigrant-support-group---boston-based-irish-international-immigrant-center-does-the-unspeakable--208627761.html#ixzz2U96TMigm
Follow us: @IrishCentral on Twitter | IrishCentral on Facebook
#3
General discussion / Deviated Septum surgery
April 20, 2010, 06:10:49 PM
This Thursday I am scheduled to have surgery to repair a deviated septum, I have been plagued with congestion for years so I finally went to see a specialist last week and he recommended that I get surgery to repair the septum.  I was wondering has anyone else had this surgery and what was the out come in regard to breathing, sleeping, quality of life improvement etc. afterward.
#4
General discussion / Land Transfer in the Republic
October 16, 2009, 02:25:41 PM
What are the tax consequences when a mother transfers a piece of land to a daughter (in the Republic)? My mother in law wants to transfer ownership of a site to my wife but is worried that there might be big tax bill due upon transfer.   
#5
Just wondering do any of our American based posters know of the cheapest way to call Irish mobile phones. Need to be in daily contact with my parents via their mobiles over the next few weeks and it is expensive to call mobiles in the ROI.
#6
Moving on from the one song we all love, how about the one song that you really hate. This is my one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJZ46kmSApo&mode=related&search=

It reminds of every bloody bad bar band and the last f**king slow set of the night. For some reason alot of people love it but I just cringe when I hear it.
#7
This is on the front page of todays WSJ. It was quiet a shock to see a topic on the GAA on the front page of this business paper.


PAGE ONE 
 

Hurling in America
Has a Problem --
Too Few Irishmen
The Lure of the Old Sod
And Immigration Issues
Make for a Player Shortage
By CONOR DOUGHERTY
July 26, 2007; Page A1

For five years straight, the Clan Na nGael sports club in Atlanta sent a team to the North American Hurling Championships. That ended a year ago: Try as it did, Clan Na nGael could muster only 12 players, and it takes at least 13 to make a team.

"We didn't play any competitive games last year," says Jim Whooley, vice chairman of Clan Na nGael. "We just played scrimmage games among ourselves, six on six and five on five."

Hurling -- a centuries-old sport that has elements of field hockey and lacrosse -- has an immigration problem. With the Irish economy booming and the U.S. tightening borders, Irish expatriates are returning home and fewer newcomers are taking their place.


The New York board of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) has lost four of its eight hurling teams in the past three years. In Boston, the Wexford Hurling Club is worried it will soon lose one of its two teams. And ever since the San Jose, Calif., team folded a few years ago, Northern California's two remaining clubs have played each other, and only each other. They settle the local "championship" with a best-of-five competition. Hurling "is becoming extinct," says Tom Flynn, an Irish immigrant who started with a New Jersey team in 1954 and remains involved with the club's management.

To keep going, hurling teams enlist Irish students who come to America for the summer. Hoping to build a new generation of hurlers, they also are setting up youth leagues. And, as part of a recruiting push, they are trying to interest Americans in the sport. "American-born players must become the backbone of our clubs in the long term if the games are to survive out here," says Eamonn Gormley, a San Francisco Web-site developer and GAA member who has been trying to get hurling teams started on college campuses in Northern California.

Turning Americans on to hurling will be tough. To many Americans, hurling is just a slang term for vomiting. Once they learn that it's a sport, they often confuse it with curling, the winter Olympic sport played with brooms.

Grit and Finesse

Perhaps the greatest obstacle is that hurling -- which requires the endurance of soccer, the grit of football and the finesse of hacky sack -- is hard to play. Americans who try the sport quickly find themselves outclassed by Irishmen who have been playing since they were toddlers.

GAELIC SPORT



See three video clips on the centuries-old sport of hurling:
• What Is Hurling?
• Hurling Skills
• Hurling Rules
Source: Gaelic Athletic AssociationA hurling team has 13 or 15 players armed with wooden paddles called hurleys. Players tussle with another team over a baseball-size sphere called a siothar. There are goals at either end of the field, and teams score three points each time the siothar (pronounced "slit-ar") makes it in. A siothar that flies through uprights above the goal scores one point.

The hardest part of the game is learning to handle the hurley, which is like an extended arm, for the 60 minutes of a match. Hurlers can't throw the siothar, and they can carry it in their hands for only a few steps. So players pass the ball with a combination of open-palm slaps, kicks and -- for extra-long shots -- by tossing the siothar in the air and striking it downfield with the hurley.

When the siothar is balanced on top of the hurley, a player can run for as many steps as he likes. But that isn't easy with the opposing team throwing body checks and slashing at the siothar as if they were in a sword fight.

Brian Whitlow, an American graduate student in San Francisco, tried out for a hurling team two years ago after seeing the sport on television. It didn't go well: In practices, he rarely got the ball, and when he did he never made it more than a few steps before the ball was knocked away. After playing in one match, he was benched. He quit halfway through the season.

Mr. Whitlow now has a new strategy: With help from Mr. Gormley, he has organized a club for American players. "The idea is to get an opportunity to play in a match and kind of learn as we go," he says.

Irish games have been played in the U.S. for as long as there have been Irish immigrants. In the summer, Irish expats flock to places like Gaelic Park in New York's Bronx borough, where they cheer from the bleachers and drink beer or Magners cider over ice. The New York board of the Gaelic Athletic Association was formed in 1914, and, by the club's reckoning, it has had a hurling team ever since.

For all that time, the size and strength of U.S.-based hurling teams have been tied informally to U.S. immigration policy and the strength of the Irish economy. Until recently, the New York GAA says, its toughest recruiting period was the late 1960s and early '70s. The Immigration Act of 1965 had reduced the flow of Irish immigration.

Irish Economy

Today, there are two problems: The strong Irish economy is keeping people from emigrating or drawing them back home, while U.S. immigration laws are making life tougher for Irish who are in the U.S. illegally. Ireland's gross domestic product has grown an average of 7.2% annually for the past decade, according to the International Monetary Fund, more than twice the rate of the U.S.

There were 128,000 Irish-born residents of the U.S. in 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, down from 156,000 in 2000. In 1980, there had been about 290,000.

The decline has accelerated in recent years as post-9/11 immigration reforms -- particularly a New York program to verify Social Security numbers for driver's licenses -- have made it tougher for illegal immigrants to live normal lives.

Alan Gleeson, a 28-year-old electrician who hurled in New York until last year, recently returned to County Offaly, in part because his illegal status was making it harder to live in the U.S. "You couldn't get a driver's license, so you were limited to where you could work," he says.

At its height in the 1980s, the New York board of the GAA had about 10 hurling teams. Today there are just four: Offaly, Galway, Tipperary and New Jersey/Kilkenny.

Worries Over Decline

The decline worries John Phelan. A retired accountant, he left Ireland 50 years ago and has been playing or watching hurling at Gaelic Park ever since. The league, he says, is as small as it can be: "If it goes below four, we're a dead duck."

On a recent afternoon, Mr. Phelan and two Irish friends chatted while watching New Jersey/Kilkenny face off against Galway. Before the game, Galway's manager gave his team a profanity-filled speech in which he encouraged his players to "use the timber." (Translation: Don't be gentle with the hurley.)

It would take more than a pep talk. Over the next hour, hurlers from New Jersey/Kilkenny sent shot after shot through the uprights above the goal. Mr. Flynn, the former player who has been involved with the team since the '50s, is confident it will win its third straight championship this year, but he isn't sure how much further the team can go. "The way it's going now," he says, "we will be lucky to get two more years out of hurling in New York."

Write to Conor Dougherty at conor.dougherty@wsj.com