AMONG the events of New York’s coming “holiday season”, I see, is something called “Good Riddance Day”. Begun in 2007, this is a ceremony on December 28th wherein people write down the things they most hated about the outgoing year and then ritually destroy the sheet of paper. To which end, a giant shredder is installed for the day at Manhattan’s Duffy Square.
One might retrospectively question the wisdom of inaugurating, in 2007 and so close to Wall Street, a festival devoted to shredding documents. But that quibble aside, Good Riddance Day sounds like an idea that could catch on elsewhere. Maybe we should have one too: a subject to which I’ll return.
Chances are that readers who, like me, are at least vaguely familiar with Manhattan, may now be wondering where Duffy Square is; even if, like me, they may have stood in it on several occasions. In fact, it is the northern part of what is better known as Times Square: long synonymous with the city’s New Year’s Eve celebrations. Hence the tourism authority’s canny attempts to create an out-with-the-old ceremony three days before the in-with-the-new.
Duffy Square is named after Father Francis Patrick Duffy, the “Fighting Chaplain” of the first World War, whose statue – complete with trench-coat and army boots – overlooks the tourists queuing for Broadway tickets. His nickname was no exaggeration.
Duffy's exploits with the 165th Infantry Regiment made him the most decorated clergyman in US military history, with a Distinguished Service Medal and a Croix de Guerre, among many other honours.
And it’s only fair to point out that, despite his obvious heritage, Father Duffy was Canadian by birth. But if Ireland claims him as a lost son, on the basis of his name alone, there is a certain justice. After all, the other dominant statue in Times Square is that of George M Cohan, the great vaudeville showman who sounds like he might be an ancestor of another songwriter, Leonard, but whose surname, before it became Americanised, was Keohane.
The diverse lives of these two men were drawn together by yet another member of the Diaspora, James Cagney, who played Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy(1941) and a year earlier also starred in a film about Duffy's regiment, The Fighting 69th(in which that serial portrayer of clerics, Pat O'Brien, played the priest).
Those numbers may be confusing, but the 165th Infantry Regiment was the spiritual descendant of an older regiment all but obliterated in the American civil war, and their names are still used interchangeably. Indeed, General MacArthur invoked both when, in 1940, he said that “no greater fighting regiment has ever existed than the 165th . . . formed from the old Sixty-Ninth Regiment of New York”.
It was the 69th, led by Young Irelander Thomas Francis Meagher, to which the “Fighting Irish” nickname was first attached. And the regiment had already distinguished itself long before its most famous hour, at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862, when members charged uphill against impregnable rebel defences (also manned by Irish soldiers). Fewer than 300 of the 1,200-strong force survived.
Their doomed heroics later moved the Confederate General Robert E Lee to comment: “Never were men so brave. They ennobled their race by their splendid gallantry on that desperate occasion. Their brilliant though hopeless assaults on our lines excited the hearty applause of our officers and soldiers.” John F Kennedy quoted those words when, during his visit to Ireland in the summer of 1963, he addressed the joint houses of the Oireachtas. He also brought with him a regimental flag from the battle – one of a new set of colours presented to the 69th on the Eve of Fredericksburg because the old ones had been shot to shreds. And he gave that flag, listing their many battles, as a present to the Irish people, in whose name it is now on display at Leinster House.
FOR VARIOUS REASONS, therefore, it strikes me that the front or back of the Dáil might be a good location to inaugurate an Irish “Good Riddance Day”. I don’t mean this as a cheap shot at our already-beleaguered Government. But after all, barring an extraordinary turnaround, Leinster House looks like being the site of another out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new ceremony soon.
Besides, perhaps even politicians – of all parties – might benefit from the therapeutic effect of a ceremony like New York’s, although as a sensible precaution, I suggest an independent observer be on hand to check all papers before shredding.
Another reason the gates of Leinster House might be a suitable location is that we could all do with some of the Fighting 69th’s spirit now. Like theirs, Ireland’s colours have been torn to shreds in battle. A new set may now be required as we prepare for the financial Fredericksburg ahead. And even the regiment’s old battle cry – “Faugh a ballagh” (“clear the way”) – could be adapted for our times.
We can only hope that, unlike the 69th in another grim December, we as a nation can get over the top, eventually. But all journeys start with a single step. Thus, in their spirit, and as a small down-payment on the struggle ahead, I suggest that all householders and business people who have not already done so should get out today and – perhaps with a cry of “Faugh a ballagh!” – at least clear the snow off their pavements.