Reparations H!

By Mike Houlihan

April 12, 2024

I want reparations!

The Irish have been one of the most maligned races throughout history. Irish people have been persecuted, starved, and ostracized going all the way back to the genocide of the potato “famine” in 1847.

It can be directed against the island of Ireland or Irish immigrants and their descendants in the Irish Diaspora. This sentiment is also called hibernophobia, and today it continues unabated, whether it was employment signs in post WWII America that said NO IRISH NEED APPLY, or the more recent FBI investigations of “traditional Irish Catholics” undertaken by “supposed Catholic” Joe Biden’s Dept. of Justice.

So pay attention, they’re out to get us! I’ve dedicated my life’s work to commemorating the historic journey of Irish immigrants of the 20th and 21st century. That’s why I founded Hibernian Media over ten years ago. Our mission revolves around celebrating their extraordinary contributions to Irish American culture, spanning the realm of arts, business, and government. Our narrative is one of triumph over adversity.

Check out my website, hibernianmedia.org and if you are so inclined you can start those reparations right now by donating online! We’ve recently reached out to the goo-goo community on our Hibernian Radio show to embrace the DEI movement promoted by the far-left whackos. See, as much as it sounds crazy, it ain’t easy being white these days, especially in the non- profit world. There are already too many “victims” out there claiming discrimination and prejudice in trade for your tax-deductible dollar.

That’s why I tell everybody, “We’re not white, we’re Irish!” Of course, Irish culture is worthy of your donations, but it is worthy enough? Fear not folks, we have created maybe the greatest story of sacrifice in the face of modern oppression and racism ever known to man. And like any great story, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. Don’t even start with that crap! We have found the answer to rampant hibernophobia that has plagued our culture since before the Easter uprising of 1916.

What is it?  Well it’s so simple really, it’s a story. It’s the story of SEAMUS O’HOOLIGAN JR., BLACK IRISHMAN. It’s the story of a young man who battled racism and hate while women of every race, creed, and color threw themselves at him, women who were wooed by his extraordinary banjo plucking hands, a genetic gift no doubt from his Irish father who was nicknamed “Fingers”.

Seamus Jr. was conceived at Woodstock, when his father, All-Ireland champion banjo player and the leader of “’Fingers’ O’Hooligan and the Hooligans”, an Irish trad band from Kilrush, County Clare, were cut from the program right before taking the stage at the fabled concert. Of course Fingers was distraught and fled from the stage, finding refuge on a deserted bale of hay in the middle of some farmland. But serendipity appeared in the form of Zambian goddess Diane who seduced him into a nearby barn in Bethel NY, where Seamus Jr. was conceived.

We pick up our story eighteen years later when  young Seamus finds his father’s bewitched banjo, inhabited by the Celtic mythical spirit Fionnuala, who leads the lad through a mystical portal to Ireland to reunite with his father. This fairy tale is now featured every week on Hibernian Radio as SEAMUS O’HOOLIGAN JR, BLACK IRISHMAN. It’s our comic soap opera created by Second City funnyman Greg Hollimon and yours truly. It’s our answer to the politically correct crap spewed daily in our media and yes it features Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and most importantly Shenanigans! It will make you laugh and make you smile. The lad’s journey is not without difficulties, both comic and heart-breaking, as we explore the world of Seamus O’Hooligan Jr. in search of his Irishness.

Greg Hollimon is an actor best known for his work on Comedy Central strangers with Candy. Hollimon grew up in the Chicago housing projects of Cabrini–Green. He started his illustrious career at Second City and has worked with me on several TV projects including “Nolan’s Cracker Barrell” with our old pal Peter Nolan, and my films TAPIOCA starring Ben Vereen, as well as the recent IN SEARCH OF WEEPING JIM about the life and times of the late Alderman James Ambrose Kearns, “the father of the Chicago flag”.

As Hibernian Media continues our fight against hibernophobia, we’re proud of our collaboration with Greg Hollimon and look forward to SEAMUS O’HOOLIGAN JR, BLACK IRISHMAN taking its place among the great Chicago radio comedies like FIBBER MCGEE AND MOLLY and harkens back to the halcyon days of Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre.

So don’t be hibernophobic, tune into Hibernian Radio and laugh along with SEAMUS O’HOOLIGAN JR, BLACK IRISHMAN. And you can start our reparations with your donation at hibernianmedia.org. Assuage your white guilt: listen, laugh, and donate!

Reparations? Yes!

For Hibernian Media? Yes!

-30-

Known around town as “Houli,” he is former features columnist for The Chicago Sun-Times, Irish American News and currently Chicago correspondent for The Irish Echo. He began his career in 1973 as an apprentice with The American Shakespeare Festival, appearing in the classics there and in regional productions across the nation as well as Off-Broadway, on Broadway, on TV and in major motion pictures. He is a playwright and author of anthologies “Hooliganism Stories” and “More Hooliganism Stories” and the gonzo Mayoral campaign journal “Nothin’s on The Square”. Founder of the Annual Irish American Movie Hooley film festival each Fall at The Wilmette Theatre. He was honored as 2020/2021 “Irishman of the Year” by the Emerald Society, the Irish American Police Association. His Hibernian Radio Hour podcast can be found at hibernianradio.org and streaming worldwide on Sat. nights from 7-8PM on Global Irish Radio, GIR.ie.

His latest book ” Chicago Irish Mythology” is available on Amazon and wherever else you buy your books.

https://abbeyfealepress.com/

Even more info about Houli is available here, on his latest adventures: hibernianmedia.org

Comments 23

  1. If one can find a person of any color that was enslaved and is still alive, maybe they deserve reparations. Maybe. My grandparents arrived here after World War I. They were discriminated against also. They were Eastern European (Croation). They had nothing to do with slavery. Where are the reparations for their descendants? This is nothing but BS from a bunch of people whose profession is victimhood and the idiots in Washington and the Democratic party listen to them because they want to buy votes. If the Democratics are so concerned about this, why don’t they raise from their wealthy donors for reparations? Put their money where their mouth is. Don’t hold your breath for that to happen. It is easier to try and use someone else’s money to make them feel good. Their only virtue is hypocrisy.

    2. Very well said. My mother when she graduated from nursing school during WWll did private duty nursing which was quite profitable since Uncle Sugar never got a cut of what she earned. She took care of John T. Pirie of Carsen,Pirie, Scot and company fame. Too make sure she arrived on time to his estate in the north shore burbs, they sent a limo to pick her up! On one ride they served her dinner (worked 2nd shift) in limo. My mom was flattered and said you didn’t need to do that, she could eat it in their kitchen,
      upon which the driver said: ‘the help doesn’t eat in the residence’. Then when Mr. Pirie died the wife thanked her for her care of the husband saying: ‘you know, your pretty smart for a Pollack!’ The Poles are a constant victims of jokes, just like any other race except certain ones were if you dare critique you get canceled. How many employers fired an employee for an Eastern European joke?
      Most of us came from nothing but due to good to great parenting, teachers who took interest in their students, religious institutions who led us to do good, and our own determination,we succeeded.

    3. Well stated.. There is nothing else that can be said. You covered it all: abject prejudice, outright lies, and political addenda. What else drives the so-called “progressive movement”?

  3. A great tale, Mike, as usual! I’m pretty sure it’s true – or at least it should be so. Keep fighting for our heritage. Also, in the time- honored manner of our many esteemed local Irish politicians, I merely ask for “just a taste” of those generous donations.

  4. The Irish were enslaved at home and away. Pointed headed academics try pry open a distinction that the transported Irish(West Indies, Australia, Africa and New Zealand) were “indentured servants and not really enslaved.” Yeah, well, hop up and kiss my fat wrinkled old Irish ass.

    https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/welcome-to-sligoville-the-story-of-the-irish-in-jamaica-1.3225038#:~:text=It%20was%20thought%20that%20the,The%20term%20Redleg%20was%20coined.

    1. Even more interesting, I came across one account where Irish were used to clear swamps in the antebellum South because slave owners were afraid that their more-expensive slaves might get snake-bit. I wonder if OSHA rules might be retro-active?

  5. I find it interesting that every Nationality. has had a turn at the bottom rung of the ladder. Irish, Italian, French et al. We moved to Kankakee in 1958, I was advised you don’t go to the Northeast side of Town. Because that is where the Polish are. Therefore we should be eligible for Reparations. Now we all live as neighbors, as life should be.

  7. Very well said. My mother when she graduated from nursing school during WWll did private duty nursing which was quite profitable since Uncle Sugar never got a cut of what she earned. She took care of John T. Pirie of Carsen,Pirie, Scot and company fame. Too make sure she arrived on time to his estate in the north shore burbs, they sent a limo to pick her up! On one ride they served her dinner (worked 2nd shift) in limo. My mom was flattered and said you didn’t need to do that, she could eat it in their kitchen,
    upon which the driver said: ‘the help doesn’t eat in the residence’. Then when Mr. Pirie died the wife thanked her for her care of the husband saying: ‘you know, your pretty smart for a Pollack!’ The Poles are a constant victims of jokes, just like any other race except certain ones were if you dare critique you get canceled. How many employers fired an employee for an Eastern European joke?
    Most of us came from nothing but due to good to great parenting, teachers who took interest in their students, religious institutions who led us to do good, and our own determination,we succeeded.

  8. The only people who were truly wronged and deserving of any “reparation” in this country’s history are the Native Americans. Original Americans. The people who were here already. Most still live in abject poverty. Controversial statement? Maybe. But one thing I’m sure we all can agree on is that the Africans who were brought here in chains didn’t get the welcome our new illegals are getting. I guess our new illegal population are now getting the black folks reparations….

    1. Well said! The best “reparations” we could grant American Indians is whatever degree of political and economic sovereignty each Nation desires. And of course, to care for the Earth – the later best being accomplished by following a course of State and Indian Nation sovereignty, I believe, in a nutshell.

  9. Cromwell enjoyed depopulating seaside Irish communities and selling them into slavery. Puritans never met an ethnicity that couldn’t be captured and enslaved, since all except themselves were predetermined to go to hell anyway. I had the pleasure of experiencing this same “your going to hell if you don’t believe exactly as us” growing up in Wheaton – people I RUN to now oddly enough with this far left lunacy (plus they all drink now anyway). My reparations have finally begun – thank you, and on behalf of my slave holding family from Maryland – the mysterious “McGlones”

    One thing I read recently that gave me pause – Remnant Celtic people in Ireland who consider Gaelic their primary language associate having to learn English with cognitive decline. I think I know what’s going on here 🙂

  10. Counterpoint. Many of the early Irish and Scotch-Irish settled in the South. They were enslaved in the old country, and enslaved people here. My own family has Irish on one side. (this is meant to be tongue and cheek, not serious so don’t go crazy). But here is some serious history: https://uncpress.org/book/9780807849682/the-irish-in-the-south-1815-1877/.

    If anyone should be giving reparations, it is in fact the Irish. They have formed political machines in cities like Boston and Chicago and ruined civil society, paving the way for modern day progressive Marxism. : )

  11. The means of production in America always chased or captured the cheapest methods, especially of labor.
    After Democrat elites lost their access to slaves, each succeeding wave of immigrant serfs was either readily admitted, or imported and exploited.
    The railroad builders imported so many Chinese, to so much irritation, eventually their entry had to be banned.
    Now with NAFTA, TPP, the WTO and enabled by WEF globalism, cheap labor gets exploited with no borders at all.

  12. Good morning John. The problem is the young do not know History, Obama and his buddies are changing History to fit their Voting Crowd and they do not care weather they destroy America or not.
    Actually that is what they said they would do, and the Illegals are here so they can Vote for them and the Student Loans are distribution of Wealth. None of them tell the top Schools to reduce their tuition so all young people can learn and none of them are teaching History the way it happened. So sad. Lots to say but Easter is almost upon us so I will let go for now. Christ is the King and he will take care of everything and everyone. Count on it.

Leave a Reply