To Bear Witness: A Journey of Healing and Solidarity

Irish Essays

160 161 community for help; local remedies having utterly failed. Yet the physician must believe that the festering wounds of Ulster are not incurable. The body politic in Northern Ireland, the structure of government, has collapsed, and a semblance of order is maintained only by armed force. The symptoms of serious disease abound, and the diagnosis is not difficult. Yet, despite spasmodic efforts, those responsible have not provided any effective therapy. To stay uninvolved, to sit silently by, particularly when my background and present positions presented unique opportunities to serve, would have been a denial of instinct, of conscience and, in my judgment, of professional duty. The bitter legacy of history will not suddenly disappear from Northern Ireland. Ancient differences will not die, and old hatreds will take a long time to fade. But tolerance, and the community of shared interests on which it is built, have been achieved in even more difficult situations. We already know the harm done by inaction and neglect in Northern Ireland. The present policy of permitting a glacial resolution to its problems is merely a sentence of violent death for future generations of Irish children. It displays a fatalisticdespairthatBritainandAmericahaverejected in every other domestic and international problem they have faced. There are historic reasons why a continued American dimension in Northern Ireland is inevitable, and for strong moral and pragmatic reasons that dimension is fully consistent with current U.S. foreign policy. There are ample precedents to justify - and indeed encourage - a strong American political and economic contribution to this struggle for peace and justice. America, more than any other nation, knows that violence and riots are fed by economic and social Irish Essays 1980 My father was a physician who, not incidentally, knew more poetry - and could recite it with more intense passion and feeling - than anyone I have ever met. Undoubtedly, I absorbed his view of the world, if not by osmosis then surely by forced participation, while traveling on medical house calls in the Irish immigrant neighborhoods of the Bronx. Family and clan were all important then, for one turned inward (in that pre-television era) for support, love, entertainment, and solace. When one finally emerged from that beautiful shelter, it was with a broad interestinalmosteveryhumanactivityandwithabelief thattherewerefew,ifany,naturalboundaries.Medicine was not merely a technical science; it was a great art. Politics was patently too important an activity to leave to any “authority.” The purpose of all our education wastowidenandstrengthenourinterests,nottonarrow our talents; specific training for any discipline would come soon enough, but it should never be mistaken for thought. Much of this Irish interest lay latent in my genes and was quickened by romantic tales heard around the kitchen table in my youth. Later, an interest in the history of medicine led me back to Ireland, and a fortuitous academic appointment drew me into close association with medical colleagues there. These experiences gradually led from the lecture theater, through contacts with students and patients, to an awareness of the ills of Ireland. I came to know not only Ireland’s beauty but her terrible torment. I also came to see both love and hatred there. The evils of Ireland cry out to the international 160 161 community for help; local remedies having utterly failed. Yet the physician must believe that the festering wounds of Ulster are not incurable. The body politic in Northern Ireland, the structure of government, has collapsed, and a semblance of order is maintained only by armed force. The symptoms of serious disease abound, and the diagnosis is not difficult. Yet, despite spasmodic efforts, those responsible have not provided any effective therapy. To stay uninvolved, to sit silently by, particularly when my background and present positions presented unique opportunities to serve, would have been a denial of instinct, of conscience and, in my judgment, of professional duty. The bitter legacy of history will not suddenly disappear from Northern Ireland. Ancient differences will not die, and old hatreds will take a long time to fade. But tolerance, and the community of shared interests on which it is built, have been achieved in even more difficult situations. We already know the harm done by inaction and neglect in Northern Ireland. The present policy of permitting a glacial resolution to its problems is merely a sentence of violent death for future generations of Irish children. It displays a fatalisticdespairthatBritainandAmericahaverejected in every other domestic and international problem they have faced. There are historic reasons why a continued...