Out & About

What a busy night I had on Thursday as I first went to the Irish Consulate on Park Avenue in honor of Michael Martin, T.D., Minister of Foreign Affairs, on the invitation of the Consul General of Ireland Niall Burgess and Ms. Marie Morgan-Burgess along with the Ambassador of Ireland Michael Collins.

I only stayed for a short period as I was going to another dinner which I will tell you about later.

But, the time I spent at the Consulate was great. Well what can I say as the who's who from the Irish Community were there, including Jeff Cleary, who came all the way down from Albany (and I was wondering huh, what is all that about, as I could see him working the room, maybe he has intentions to run for Governor of New York himself; you just never know nowadays).

Mary Power, the President of the Cork Association was also there with the lady-in-waiting Mae O'Driscoll, and I will talk later about what these two ladies were doing on Friday night.

In the crowd was Dermot Kelly from the Nassau County Executive office who I am sure has a lot on his plate with the Light House Project in the Nassau  Coliseum  - home of the New York Islanders - that is been held up by the Town of Hempstead Supervisor Kate Murray. What is she thinking? Let's get it done!

The Lighthouse Project is expected to take 8 to 10 years to be completed, if approved, and cost about $3.74 billion.

The project is expected to generate $71 million of annual tax revenues, and create about 75,000 construction and construction-related jobs.

After the project is finished, 19,000 new permanent jobs are expected to come from it.

Many believe the project being approved is the only way that Wang will keep the Islanders on Long Island, rather than selling the team.

As I was saying the cream of the Irish community was at the event: another lady that does great work, Siobhan Dennehy and her husband Dan, who was the past President of the Cork Association were both there, as were folks from all the Irish press including ourselves who were on hand for the scoop, which I must say was not much.

I said my goodbyes and headed in the rain across town to the United Nations Building for the National Council of Women of the United States Annual Dinner that was honoring Ann Gloag non-executive director for the Stagecoach Group. The award was the Susan B. Anthony Humanitarian Award that was presented to Ann for all her charitable and volunteer work in Africa and elsewhere around the world.

Now, how was it I'm invited? Well my good friend Christina Kirshbaum is on the dinner committee; see it's not what you know its who you know, just kidding.

Christina is well known in the Irish community even though she is Scottish but as you know we are all from the same stock and we also like a good party.

I got to meet some great friends at the dinner such as Patricia Cunningham Continental Airlines' Manager of Transatlantic Leisure Sales, Sheila Clancy from the Corcoran Real Estate Group, David O'Sullivan, the Executive Director of The Ireland-US Council who I shared a cab with on the way home to our trains.

Friday night (and wow what a night) as again I was a guest at the Cork Association's 125th Anniversary Dinner that was held at the Terrace On The Park (in Flushing, Queens).

All the Stars came out for this event, and again you had the Minister of Foreign Affairs Michael Martin T.D. who was a special guest sitting at the dais along with the Nassau County Chief Executive Tom Suozzi who is now an honoree Corkman as his great-grandfather came from County Cork.

All the past Presidents were on the Dais, I was not... huh? Joe Murphy is just one of the ones who stands out as he was the man that introduced me to the media business and coached me with his experience. I have learned quite a lot, thanks Joe for everything.

Pat Hurley, another past president and a very good one to me, has been very instrumental in making this great association strong with input and guidance. Good on you Pat.

Now to the women of the moment: Mary Power, Mae O'Driscoll and the finance wizard  herself Mary Waters. They guide this club with a lot of pride and give it their full attention in everything they do.

I some times have to kneel and pray they do not point a finger at me and say what are you going to do for us?

I really admire what they do seriously. Where are the Corkmen who hopefully will step up to the plate and continue to bring the club success (and then I might get on the dais... who said that?).

I visited Papillon Bistro (on East 54th Street off Madison Avenue) that is Irish owned on Wednesday evening and I can only tell you that the service and the food is excellent and the place was packed to the door.

We than took a trip down the avenue to the Galway Hooker on 36th street hoping to catch one of the owners and yes, we caught up with Ana who was telling me she was heading to Argentina on Wednesday for a wedding. I wonder what Niamh is going to do? Oh yes, I hope to meet her on that day for a dinner sponsored by Bushmills Irish Whiskey, now that should be a good night, but again, somebody has to do it.

See you all next week.