The surrender of St Brigid's
And so it is that a small church on the east side of Manhattan, a famine church built by Irish shipwrights, is in danger of being knocked to the ground.
Certain stories have to be told over and over again. This is not just the story of one small New York church -- it's also the story of the west of Ireland, of Wood Quay, of what the Irish government want to do to by putting the M3 down the Tara-Skyrne valley, of what we have become, no matter where we happen to be.
Saint Brigid's church was built in the late 1840s by immigrants who had come to the city's Lower East Side. They arrived in coffin ships to what was one of the roughest areas of the world. The shipwrights, under the guidance of the Tipperary-born architect Patrick C Keeley, carved out a number of incredible tableaus, including the image of their faces in giant pieces of ship lumber. The gothic aspect of the church is haunting and the overall architecture makes it one of the most fascinating in the city.
For years it was an Irish church, welcoming German and Italian immigrants until finally becoming a focal point of the Latino community in New York.
It was the sort of church that could make you smile, with colourful doorways and intricate carvings. There was a sense when you entered that others had been there before. A history.
The church has been vacant since 2001 when a huge crack was found in the structure. The Catholic church shut Saint Brigid's down. The official explanation is that the church is unsafe and that it will cost too much to restore, but anybody who knows greed knows that God can spell it in any language.
The church is considered one of the most desirable properties in the city of New York. One block long, opposite Tompkins Square Park, in one of the trendiest neighbourhoods in the whole city, it is worth millions. Still, the Catholic church went ahead with an order to demolish it. It is only by the work of a small committee of locals that the order was challenged and recently has taken up wider interests, artists, non-profit groups, and the tireless locals. They are waiting to see if the Catholic church once again goes against its parishioners and sells the property for the development of condos.
It would be fascinating for Bertie Ahern to stand up and suggest that we save this slice of Irish history in New York, but how can he, or any of our politicians, or planners, say it should survive when so little else seems to survive at home these days?
How much does a story need to be told in order for it to finally become one that we recognise? How many times must something be said in order for it to resonate? A story, for it to live, must be told over and over again. An act of damage, however, is committed once. After that it exists forever. Goodness needs to be repeated in order for it to survive. Knock down Saint Brigid's and it's knocked down forever. Put up 30 acres of floodlights one kilometre from the Hill of Tara and you light up the fact that we have become ignorant with money. Allow the builders to cluster-bomb the west of Ireland and you are left with a landscape that is irretrievable.
The traditional shout is: What will our children think? But our children will think nothing because they won't know. We will not be judged by the generations to come. We should be judged by how we are now. Our lack of outrage is an outrage. So many people declare these points of view to be sentimental, or naïve, but I'd rather die with my heart on my sleeve than end up holding my breath.
It would of course be an extraordinary thing for the Irish government to stand up and shout for a place like Saint Brigid's in New York, for us to save something that is beyond our shores. Imagine Irish people rescuing a bit of our history, 3,500 miles away, let alone somewhere on our own doorstep. With our new money and our new wealth, it would be nice to be something better than vulgar. One can only hope since, after all, most of us have given up praying, even outside somewhere like Saint Brigid's. The question is: Who would blame us?