Don’t Get Raunered!

February 25, 2018 by · Leave a Comment

Stop this weasel on election day! Take a Republican ballot and vote Jeanne Ives!

Sometimes we find ourselves in the midst of a firestorm and wonder which way to turn.

I’m excited about the candidacy of Jeanne Ives for Governor in the upcoming Republican primary on March 20th. She’s the only pro-life candidate in the race and is bringing a breath of honesty and grace to the millionaire pinball machine that make up our only other options. That’s why I organized a little party on March 5th at Reilly’s Daughter called “Irish for Ives”.

Last week I was invited to a luncheon at the Union League Club to meet Jeanne once again. My last visit to the Union League Club was about ten years ago when I was interviewed for membership.

I didn’t make the cut, somebody blackballed me. To quote from my book, Hooliganism: I’m not naïve enough to think I haven’t made enemies over the years. I’m an outspoken chronicler of hypocrisy and absurdity and I take pride in that. But which of my attributes can take the blame for my blackballing?

 I discussed this with my lovely wife and she reeled off a litany of my character traits that could have led to my ostracism. “Well, maybe it was because you always paid your bill late at the CAA. They could have said you’re a deadbeat…or a lush…or maybe it was… your fatness…you’re very crude…your clothes don’t fit…or the way you eat like a slob…or…” That’s quite enough, I said, I get the picture.

 Long story short, those anti-Catholic poseurs didn’t want me in their club. And yet there I was last week looking over my shoulder for those patrician fakers.

I got there early because I wanted to distribute some postcards and posters for the Irish for Ives event. At the coat check counter I encountered the same disdain as I had years earlier. “You can’t leave any literature here sir.”

I gathered up my stuff in umbrage and turned to my left to discover my old friend Rusty O’Toole checking his coat. He glanced at my posters incredulously, “Houli, are you a Republican?”

I am, and proud of it, been a Republican since 1985 when my old pal George Ryan helped me get a job after busting out in Gotham. It was easy, there was no initiation ceremony and no interview and they have never tried to blackball me like those jerks at The Union League Club.

But Rusty O’Toole was offended. If I wanted to waste another breath talking to him I would have told him how the Democratic party abandoned me when they embraced abortion on demand, homosexual marriage, transsexualism, and the suppression of Christianity in our schools, institutions, and supposedly free press.

But I really didn’t have time to debate this tool. His third cousin was once Attorney General and Rusty had been playing off that connection for over thirty years.

I asked the concierge the location of our event and headed to the elevator. Once again Rusty O’Toole approached me with his Union League pals, “What would your ancestors say if they knew you’d become a Republican?”

“Feck off!” I said, and headed for another elevator. Rusty was now playing the “Irish card”, and it really ticked me off.

What would my ancestors say? I thought about that. Well my ancestors were all Catholic when they came to this country. This was long before legalized abortion and the church has consistently denounced it as the very personification of evil. It was then, and still is considered the taking of a human life, murder.

Generations of Irish Americans have voted Democratic ever since the famine days, and when the progressive wing of the party took over in the late 1970’s, they kept right on doing it. I blame the Kennedys. Teddy sold his soul to the devil.

That night I had a dream. My great, great grandfather, Ferocious Frank O’Hooligan, from Kilrush, County Clare, Ireland, slid onto the stool next to me at the bar. He’s been in heaven for over a century and wanted to know how I was doing.

It was my connection to Frank that the Irish government considered when granting me citizenship a few years ago and I thanked him for that. His son, Frank Jr., was an Iron Worker in Chicago who fell to his death from a building in 1915, leaving my father an orphan at 11. My dad toughed it out with his two older policeman brothers, went on to great success, married my mom and fathered six sons and one girl, of which I am the youngest.

I had plenty to tell Ferocious Frank, but the words of Rusty O’Toole haunted me, “What will you say to your ancestors?”

So I ordered us both a pint and a shot of Irish whiskey and blurted it out, “Grandpa, I’ve been a Republican since 1985.”

He sipped his drink and smiled, “We don’t have politics in heaven, that’s why they call it heaven.”

I explained our “motley insurgency” to elect Jeanne Ives, and why I always take a Republican ballot by going over some of the sordid history of our country: the secularization of our society, the promotion of deviant lifestyles over the rest, the surrender to government in solving every problem, how our unions were infected with this disease and embraced it, forcing members to choose between the state or their religious beliefs, career politicians who lined their pockets while pretending to help the poor, political correctness destroying comedy for a generation, a mainstream media trying to shape the will of the American people with “fake news”, and…well you know the story.

Grandpa’s jaw was practically hitting the floor. “Rusty O’Toole, did you say? I knew his ancestors. I think somebody pissed in his gene pool! They took inbreeding to new heights. His family tree looks like a telephone pole.”

So what should I do, Grandpa?

“It’s obvious, lad. Jeanne Ives is our last chance! The only other candidates are left wing wacko billionaires! You’ve got to encourage all your friends to cross over, take a Republican ballot in the primary and vote for her before it’s too late!”

But he has tons of dough, Grandpa! He’s spreading lies about her in mailings and on TV and radio, some people are actually starting to believe Rauner’s bullshit!

Ferocious Frank O’Hooligan, drained his glass and slammed it on the bar.

“Don’t get Raunered! All he’s got is a checkbook, all Jeanne has is the truth. Who do you trust?”

And then he was gone. Maybe I can get him to show up at Reilly’s Daughter on Monday, March 5th for IRISH FOR IVES. Please join us, the craic will be mighty!

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August 2016 Irish American News Column

September 4, 2016 by · Leave a Comment
Doctor Aidan MacCarthy from A Doctor's Sword

Doctor Aidan MacCarthy

Hooliganism

By

Mike Houlihan

 

“May you live in interesting times…” is an old apocryphal Chinese curse.

Looking around lately, you’d think we all might be on the wrong end of that curse. The world seems to be spinning faster and faster into a terrifying gyre of violence, racism, false prophets, mendacity and infanticide. And that’s just from the Democratic candidate!

But is this the end of western civilization? Or is it just the beginning of the end? The world keeps on turning and the best we can do is to hang on and pray to Almighty God for the best.

Yes, the world can be a very scary place, but it has always been so. Look back to World War II and the “greatest generation” and you wonder how they survived the horrors of that time and the emotional and physical terror of man’s inhumanity to man. What was the source of their obvious fortitude in those “interesting times?”

Faith, of course.

On Saturday night October 1st, The 2nd Annual Irish American Movie Hooley will screen A DOCTOR’S SWORD, the terrific film about an Irish doctor who survived just about every major horror of WWII.

Dr. Aidan MacCarthy was his name and this extraordinary film will leave you emotionally spent and so very proud to be Irish.

Tara Brady of the Irish Times said about the film. “The doctor was Aidan MacCarthy, one of a family of 10 children from Castletownbere, Co Cork. From his youth, MacCarthy proved a capable fellow: a champion swimmer and the recipient of a Muster senior medal for rugby, he graduated from Clongowes, then UCC, before departing for London in search of work.

Having signed up with the Royal Air Force, he survived the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940, the fall of Singapore and four years in a Japanese POW camp on a diet of maggot and rice soup.

From there he was transported to Nagasaki – he was one of only 38 people out of 780 prisoners to make it after the cargo ship on which they were travelling was torpedoed – where he witnessed the atomic bombing of that city.

His efforts during World War II did not go unrecognised: he received a George Medal for pulling five men from the wreckage of an RAF bomber, an OBE and a Papal Medal. But being part of a more reticent generation, he seldom spoke of his experiences, or about the ancestral Japanese sword that still hangs in the family bar in Castletownbere

A Doctor’s Sword follows his daughter Nicola as she journeys to Japan to discover more about its original owner. It’s a tricky piece of detective work: some 60 years have elapsed since the blade came into her late father’s possession.

Director Gary Lennon makes terrific use of Aidan MacCarthy’s own testimony (recorded for an RTÉ radio documentary that aired just days after his death in 1995), archive footage and Ronan Coyle’s imaginative animation to recount the extraordinary events of the doctor’s life.

Even before the film closes in on Isao Kusuno, the 2nd lieutenant who previously owned the sword, we’re embroiled in a gripping saga, guided by Aidan MacCarthy’s calm, matter-of-fact narration; as capable as ever.”.

A DOCTOR’S SWORD was an emotional experience for me to watch and I am thrilled to be able to present this film to our audience at the Siskel Film Center on Saturday, October 1st at 8PM. The line that clinched it for me is when the BBC interviewer asks Dr. MacCarthy how he survived, “Well, it’s a combination really of my Irish Catholic heritage, my family background, and lots and lots of luck.”

Please join us in Chicago Sept. 30 through Oct. 2nd,  at The Siskel Film Center, for the 2nd Annual Irish American Movie Hooley, where you can meet the producer Bob Jackson and other filmmakers premiering their movies that weekend.

The Second Annual Irish American Movie Hooley is sponsored by 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey, The Emerald Loop, IAN, Hilton Chicago, Kitty O’Shea’s, and McCann’s Irish Oatmeal. For more information and updates about the schedule, go to moviehooley.org.

See you at the movies.

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July 2016 Irish American News Column

September 4, 2016 by · Leave a Comment
Finbar Spillane & Kevin Baggott star in BENEATH DISHEVELED STARS

Finbar Spillane & Kevin Baggott star in BENEATH DISHEVELED STARS

Hooligansim

by

Mike Houlihan

 

“When I go see a movie, I want to feel like I’m peeking through a keyhole…just gimme the truth as best you can.”

So says first generation Irish American filmmaker and writer Kevin Baggott. The disciple of the late novelist Nelson Algren, is an “enigmatic cat”, much like his dead mentor.Kevin won the “Best Actor” Award at the Winter Film Fest in NYC last February, (for “Why Do You Smell Like the Ocean?”), and he’s premiering his film BENEATH DISHEVELED STARS to kick off the 2nd Annual Irish American Movie Hooley on Sept. 30th in Chicago.

Baggott’s unique and funny odyssey, about an Irish American guy taking his mother’s ashes back to Ireland, is a tough adventure for this Brooklyn auteur, who plays the lead as well as directing this totally original story that walks a wobbly line between melancholy and zany. Baggott’s character, Bobby, a Brooklyn tenement super, has enough trouble surviving the wacky New York characters in his life, until he gets to Ireland and encounters Irish men and women of epic personalities and things quickly escalate to a mythical stage.

Starring with Kevin Baggott in “Beneath Disheveled Stars” are Nicole Roderick, Vic Martino, Danny Gilfeather, and Ireland’s own Colin Martin. The film also features a terrific original score by Estelle Bajou that transports the audience to Ireland as well as an Ireland of the mind.

Are they just “having some fun with the yank”, or are their motives more sinister? In the best spirit of indie film, Baggott is also the cinematographer of this haunting and comic road movie.

Baggott’s film is the cornerstone of a trio of Chicago premieres scheduled for the Hooley in the windy city this fall. The other two masterpieces are yet to be chosen, but will eventually join BENEATH DISHEVELED STARS on the marquee at the Gene Siskel Film Center, once again the home of the Annual Irish American Movie Hooley.

Kevin’s dad is from Galway and his mom from Cavan. He grew up in the Bronx, where his mother “used to beat me with the Irish Echo when I wouldn’t go to school.”

A street kid who could have easily wound up like Rocky Sullivan in the Cagney classic ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES, Kevin yearned for NYU Film School, but “those bastards wouldn’t let me in.”

He wound up at CCNY, put together his first film on 16 millimeter in Coney Island, The Village Voice raved, festivals clammered, and Baggott’s revenge was sweet. “So they had me going down to NYU every year…to show their students the film.”

Shot in  West Cork in the village of Kilcrohane, Baggott recruited his crew of three for BENEATH DISHEVELD STARS: his wife and a kid from a local farm they hired to work sound, and himself.Without a script he made it up as he went along, meeting the people of the town and recruiting them as characters in the film. They turned out to be terrific actors and briliant improvisers. Kevin told me, “Oscar Wilde says the Irish talk their books away.”

“Everybody we asked, ‘we’re doing this movie, we don’t have any money, we can’t pay you anything, would you like to be in it?” The response that came back was, “Sure I can do that!”

He shot for a month with “a camera the size of a box of cracker jacks” and then returned to NYC to film the beginning of the movie with his friends. It worked, it’s brilliant, and captures the Irish from a unique and funny perspective; that of a guy with “Ireland in his DNA” who’d been away too long.

BENEATH DISHEVELED STARS premiered at the Cork Film Festival in 2014 and the entire village of Kilcrohane turned up to see it, and loved it. “It’s nice hearing a lot of laughter.”

He’ll be hearing it again when the film makes its Chicago premiere at the 2nd Annual Irish American Movie Hooley on September 30th at the Gene Siskel Film Center.

Kevin gets diffident when asked what he hopes the audience will get out of BENEATH DISHEVELED STARS, and after a few hems and haws tells me, “I don’t know.” he said. “I hope they will all move back to Ireland!”

Please join us in Chicago Sept. 30 through Oct. 2nd for the 2nd Annual Irish American Movie Hooley, where you can meet Kevin Baggott and other filmmakers premiering their movies-and of course, you’ll likely feel like moving back to Ireland yourself!

The Second Annual Irish American Movie Hooley is sponsored by 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey, The Emerald Loop, IAN, Hilton Chicago, Kitty O’Shea’s, and McCann’s Irish Oatmeal. For more information and updates about the schedule, go to moviehooley.org.

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May 2016 Column from The Irish American News

May 8, 2016 by · Leave a Comment

Capone's grave

Hooliganism

By

Mike Houlihan

I’ve been trying to limit my candor on Facebook ever since inadvertently insulting a friend’s mother.

But of course Facebook friends are not real friends. They are mostly for our own self-amusement whilst goofing off on the internet.

And the Internet can be a scary place. That’s why I never “accept” the friendship of those anonymous hot chicks who keep hitting on me. I know I’m gorgeous gals, but I ain’t that stupid.

However, the other day I got a friend request that taught me a valuable lesson.

I was amusing myself on Facebook, throwing bombs at Hillary and linking to weird news stories from wacky tabloids, when I get a friend request. Who’s this? Stephen Mullen, name doesn’t ring a bell, so I check out his page, he’s a young guy from Ireland. Well that’s good enough for me.

Mr. Mullen proceeds to tell me he is visiting Chicago from Tuam and his dad suggested he try to contact some old friends. “Would the names PJ O’Dea or The Notre Dame Inn mean anything to you?”

Would they? PJ O’Dea, “the man from Clare”, is a true GAA legend who played with 2 clubs in 11 cities and in four countries. He won his first county medal in 1939 and represented Clare in minor, junior, and senior hurling and also played senior football with Clare and with the Munster teams in 1951 and ’52. He won an All-Ireland hurling medal and then emigrated to the US where he played hurling and football in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and was the proprietor of the Notre Dame Inn here in Chicago for years. He’s been my friend for over 30 years and is the narrator of the Irish epic film, OUR IRISH COUSINS.

Long story short, I put Mr. Stephen Mullen in touch with Mary and PJ O’Dea and the next day I’m picking him up at the Metra station to bring him to meet the O’Dea’s on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

As I sat in the O’Dea’s living room and watched this young man tell the story of his father Frank from Knocknagur, and his fond memories of Mary and PJ, a Celtic connection was made. PJ had clippings for Stephen to bring back to Frank along with his best wishes. Later that day I took Stephen out to Queen of Heaven cemetery so he could visit the graves of his aunts Nell and Bridie and before dropping him back at his hotel I insisted we visit one more grave in Mt. Carmel cemetery.

On the way back he said, “My dad will be gobsmacked…it was a day of meeting extraordinary people like Mick Houlihan, PJ O’Dea and his wife Mary, the grave sites of my grand aunts, and to top it all off…along with all those great and fantastic people, the last place we visited was the grave of Al Capone!”

I figured if the kid was gonna see Chicagoland, might as well show him the sights.

Stephen’s father Frank sent me a note the other day.

When Stephen was going to Chicago for a few days over the Easter he asked me if there were any of my old friends that he might look up. I told him as it was almost 44 years since I was in Chicago, that many of the people I knew then would be quite elderly and some may even have passed on to their eternal reward.

       I mentioned a few names one of whom was PJ O’Dea and the Notre Dame Inn. PJ was so kind to me when I was in Chicago in 1972 and 73 as a college student on a J1 Visa.

        I hadn’t heard from PJ or had any contact with him since I left Chicago 43 years ago. Just imagine my amazement when Stephen, informed me that, thanks to you, he had located PJ, who was hale and hearty, and was able to visit with him and his good wife Mary.  Stephen video recorded PJ and I was absolutely thrilled to hear him recall some of the events in Chicago when I was there 44 years ago. I was amazed at how vividly he recalled some of the incidents that happened in the Notre Dame Inn and on the football field almost a lifetime ago.

       Mary, his wife, was the first person I met when I arrived in Chicago in ’72. It was such a coincidence as Mary is originally from my parish Kilconly in Co. Galway.

        I had such a brilliant time in Chicago, playing football with St Mels… and all the wonderful people I met – Mike Moran, Batty Boyle, Pat McGrath, Mike Scanlon, Mike O’Connor are a few that readily come to mind. I often think about them and wonder what became of them all?

       One of my outstanding memories was celebrating in the Notre Dame Inn, with PJ O’Dea -a Clare man, and all those crazy Limerick men, after Limerick winning the McCarthy Cup in ’73. Boy did they love their hurling!

       Please pass on my best wishes to PJ O’Dea and his lovely wife Mary. Though I never had any contact with them since I left Chicago in ’73 I never forgot their kindness to me all those years ago.

So there’s the lesson, a simple act of kindness goes a long, long way in making real friends. An Irish welcome can last forever.

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February 2016 Irish American News column

February 1, 2016 by · Leave a Comment

nun surprised-1

Hooliganism

By

Mike Houlihan

Frank O’Hooligan learned the “value of enemies” in a most enlightening way, when he was a fifth grader at Little Flower many years ago.

Many of you are familiar with the heroic exploits of Ferocious Frank O’Hooligan, son of Finbar Hooligan from Kilrush, County Clare. The stories of Ferocious Frank have been passed down in Southside Irish families for generations.

But a recent encounter reminded me of the lesson Frank learned in his 79th Street neighborhood oh so long ago.

Young Frankie was a tough tyke but had yet to come into his Druid powers at this age. His father Finbar feared that bestowing the magic on his son too early would foster exploitation of enchantment. Finbar instead chose to enlighten his son with the wisdom of generations of O’Hooligan giants.

Back in the old neighborhood, the O’Hooligans were generally respected but like the Montagues and Capulets, or the Hatfields and McCoys’, there had always been bad blood between the O’Hooligans and the Ztupalino family. Back in fifth grade Frankie’s mortal enemy was Zeke Ztupalino, a wiry little Italian lad who Frankie could pulverize physically but Zeke was very resourceful in pushing Frankie’s buttons.

Zeke would constantly make loud fart noises in class whenever Sister Mary Philomena had her back turned and Frankie would get blamed and dealt a crack, much to Zeke’s delight.

The O’Hooligan family was known in the parish as a cop family while most of the Ztupallino family had embraced a life of crime. Zeke’s father was the custodian for the school and moonlighted as the Alderman’s driver. His mother Sophie was very religious and did the laundry for all the nuns in the convent.

Zeke also had an older sister, Zelda, who had “blossomed early” in high school and hung out behind the bowling alley with sleazy greasers smoking cigs and igniting impure thoughts in Frankie’ O’Hooligan’s brain.

The Ztupalinos not withstanding, in fifth grade at Little Flower, Frankie O’Hooligan’s real nemesis was that nun, Sister Mary Philomena.

Her breath smelled like Auschwitz and she was a begrudger’s begrudger, seizing every opportunity to belittle and badger young Frankie O’Hooligan as he entered the cusp of puberty. His homework would be personally examined every morning by this skinny harridan as she grasped his ear with her bony fingers and befouled the air with her putrid gasps of pedagoguery.

The nasty nun was also regularly busting the chops of young Zeke Ztupalino as she made disparaging remarks about his family of “garlic chompers”. Frankie often complained to his dad about the nun and Finbar wasn’t too crazy about her either as she regularly called the house to complain about the kids. Somehow in passing young Frank had told his da how Sister Philomena also regularly tormented Zeke Ztupalino.

As Finbar imbibed from a fresh pint in the kitchen he dropped this pearl of wisdom on his son Frank’s ears, “My enemy’s enemy is my friend.”

With those words in the back of his head, Frankie remarked to Zeke the next day, “Don’tcha just hate that witch Philomena? What would you like to do to her?”

Without missing a beat Zeke confessed to Frankie, “I’d like to put a tarantula in her underwear!”

Frankie said, “I don’t know where to get a tarantula…but my old man has this powder from the farm inIreland that made our dog spend almost the whole day trying to bite off his red thing. We finally had to hose him off behind the house.”

Zeke’s eyes widened. A plot was hatched, the powder delivered, and applied to the pair of panties with Sister Philomena’s name sewn into them in the nuns’ clean laundry basket in Ztupalino’s basement.

The lads became the most attentive students in the class on Monday as they watched the nun and waited.

Sister had been playing volleyball with the girls at recess when she returned to the classroom looking flushed. Frankie and Zeke studied her face while the kids read aloud from their geography books.

Philomena slowly began to squirm in her seat and a small drop of sweat appeared just below her wimple and danced its way down her skeletal face. A faint smile crossed her lips which leisurely gave way to befuddlement and finally a look of complete horror as she rose from her chair and started doing a quick time jig. Before you knew it Philomena was on her feet shimmying in front of her desk as the kids burst out laughing. She started moaning and then shrieking and then raced out of the room, running down the hall screaming.

They never saw her again. A substitute teacher arrived the following day and finished the school year and the kids loved her.

Frankie overheard his mother talking to his da in the kitchen. “Didja hear about that poor nun Sister Philomena over at the school? They’re sayin’ she couldn’t handle the children and had a nervous breakdown!”

Finbar remarked, “Ah sure that wan was wrapped too tight altogether anyway, right Frankie?”

Frankie winked at his da, “Sure she woulda made a great dancer!”

Wisdom had been passed on, the value of enemies.

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December 2015 column from The Irish American News

December 11, 2015 by · 1 Comment
Willie Quinn, Houli, Abigail, Dennis Kearns, and Mary Quinn in Inishcuttle, Kilmeena, County Mayo, IRE

Willie Quinn, Houli, Abigail, Dennis Kearns, and Mary Quinn in Inishcuttle, Kilmeena, County Mayo, IRE

Hooliganism

By

Mike Houlihan

The spirit speaks louder in Ireland.

Every trip to Eire reminds me that the spirits are leading me back. Like embracing a woman who tells you, yes, you are loved and cared for and all will be well. Kathleen ni’ Houlihan is her name and we’ve been carrying on this mad affair for the last 67 years but it’s just started to get passionate in the last half dozen.

I reported for this year’s “Druid’s Call” at O’Hare on October 1st. My brother on this journey was my old pal Dennis A. Kearns, both of us wisecracking our way through life since first grade when Sister Therese Marie went batshit on him as he stood at the blackboard and pissed his pants, green corduroys if memory serves me right. I’d witnessed Dennis’s aplomb and subversive humor during this horrifying experience and we’ve been pals ever since, meeting at least annually to compare notes on the comic absurdity of getting older.

We’ve danced with the spirits of this island before and we did it again this October.

We were in search of the usual: the Celtic connection that can strike like a thunderbolt or ease onto you like a favorite blanket.

We prepared for our séance with plenty of drinking, on the plane, on the train from Dublin to Galway and then in Headford in the home of our Irish cousins, Mike Monaghan and his wife Cindy. Mike and Cindy and their son Kevin, and Mike’s brother Joe entertained us as we adjusted to being “home.”

We went on a piss-up through the pubs of Headford and traded crummy jokes all along the way. Theirs were better. “Didja hear about the midget who got married? The lads had to put him up to it!”

On Sunday Padraic Walsh drove us to the Ballynahinch Castle in Connemara. Walking through the woods by the castle at dusk, we met an Irish lady, Mary Rooney, who had been visiting the Castle with her husband every October for the last 26 years. She was beguiling. As we parted ways with her we suddenly heard the sound of a tin whistle in the midst of this forest. I’d been talking to Dennis about my late brother Danny, who had died just a couple years back as we came upon the guy playing the whistle. His tune was crystal clear and the melody wafted through the gentle wind over the salmon stream. He was mythological in his look and we complimented him on the music.

“Oh, I’m just practicing. “

Well keep it up, you sound great!

We walked down towards the stream in search of the Salmon of Wisdom and Puck started playing again. I know that song! I know that melody! What is it? Danny Boy!

I turned to Denny, “Do you hear what he’s playing?”

The thunderbolt!

I felt the spirit and my heart leapt. My brother Danny was suddenly there with us in Ireland. Just saying hello.

The next morning my old friend Michael Quinlan picked us up at the castle for a trip to Mayo. We were on a mission to discover whatever we could about James Ambrose Kearns, Denny’s grandfather who had left Ireland for Chicago and would later become Alderman of one of the Southside wards. In Chicago he was known as “Weeping Jim Kearns” because he made a habit of attending every wake in his ward.

All we had to go on was his birth certificate from 1871. Weeping Jim had emigrated to Chicago when he was about 9 years old, with his mother Catherine Quinn and his father James Kearns Sr. The birth certificate gave Kilmeena, Inishscuttle, County Mayo as his birthplace.

We knew Kilmeena was just outside Westport so we just started driving around looking for it and finally found a little road that we followed and discovered the tiny town. We found the church, St. Brendan’s, where Weeping Jim had been baptized and sent Dennis in to say a prayer for his grandfather.

School was just getting out next-door and mothers were arriving to pick up their kids. We chatted with a few ladies who asked what we were up to and we told them the story of Weeping Jim Kearns.

“And what was his mother’s name?”

Catherine Quinn.

“Sure Willie Quinn is just above there in his car, picking up his grand daughter.”

The lightening bolt again!

Denny and I walked over to Willie’s car and knocked on the window. Willie had just undergone surgery and chemo for tongue cancer and I thought he had the thickest brogue I’d ever heard until he explained his trouble speaking. His granddaughter Abigail arrived, the sweetest child with red hair and freckles about nine years old. Willie turned out to be one of the finest gentlemen I have ever met. He explained that “Inishscuttle” is the island where he was born and said he would take us there. He got in his car and said, “Follow me!”

And so we did, and Willie took us into his home and we met his wife Mary and he broke out the whiskey for a toast with his long lost cousin Dennis Kearns from Austin, Texas by way of Chicago.

As Willie passed the bottle around he said, “God bless the givers and the willing takers!”

We all felt the spirit of Weeping Jim Kearns right there in Willie’s home and now it was Dennis’ turn to weep as his emotions took over and he proclaimed his everlasting gratitude for his ancestors and their Catholic faith.

The spirit speaks louder in Ireland.

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Irish American News column September 2015

September 6, 2015 by · Leave a Comment

iamh_logo_72x66_pixelsHooliganism

By

Mike Houlihan

Never let it be said that I don’t know how to throw a party.

Case in point-Back in the eighties I was living in New York, City visiting Chicago, and dropped by my late brother Danny’s law office. He introduced me to the office manager Monica Dwyer Fox. (She was already a fox before she married one.)

Monica looks at me incredulously and says to Dan, “This is your brother?”

Dan starts giving me the stink eye, “Yeah?”

Monica laughs and says, “I didn’t know you were related, this is the first guy I ever saw naked!”

Former seminarian Dan turned fifty shades of red and stared daggers at me.

Seems my folks were away one night back in the sixties and word around the neighborhood was that “Houli is having a party”. Monica and her girlfriends come in the front door and yours truly is streaking around the party buck-naked and no it was not my birthday. The nude hello was a little stunt, (literally,) which I used to pull in my teenage years to break the ice and loosen up the crowd sometimes at parties.

Now remember this was fifty years ago and shenanigans like that were considered just harmless hooliganism then. Today of course I’d be arrested and sent to jail much like that Duggar kid was for coppin’ a feel from his sleeping sister.

My birthday suit now is very wrinkled and quite a bit larger to accommodate the several watermelons and barrels of beer I’ve consumed over the last fifty years, so it’s probably not the best ice breaker, but lemme tell ya back when I was a teenager I was an Adonis!

Lately I’ve been forced to learn some new tricks to entertain at parties and I’m throwing a party later this month that promises to be a doozy!

It’s the First Annual Irish American Movie Hooley on September 25-26-and 27th at The Gene Siskel Film Center on State Street in Chicago. Please join us for the only Irish American film festival in the world. We’re out to discover the next John Ford, Grace Kelly, Jimmy Cagney, or john Huston.

We’ll be premiering three terrific films with Irish American themes and this is our first year so come on out to the Hooley. After each screening we’ll all be heading around the corner over to The Emerald Loop on Wabash to celebrate the “hooley”.

You can read all about the films we’ve chosen elsewhere in The Irish American News or online or at http://hiberniantransmedia.org/movie-hooley/.

Please say hello when you get to the theatre, I’ll be there Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

I won’t be naked and you’ll be glad I’m not!

But we’ll still have plenty of laughs.

So.

Don’t miss the Hooley!

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April 2014 Column from The Irish American News

April 4, 2014 by · Leave a Comment

Houlihan_Book_StickerHooliganism

By

Mike Houlihan

Local police are concerned that three venues in the Chicagoland area will not be able to contain the fans expected to turn out for the book launch of “More Hooliganism Stories” this month.

Frenzied female fans of Irish American News columnist Mike Houlihan are expected to mob the entrance to three Irish pubs in the next few weeks.

Houlihan is scheduled to appear at the pubs to promote his latest book, the sequel to his immensely popular debut tome “Hooliganism”, which enraptured readers and critics alike. Said Houlihan, “We were going to call it “Son of Hooliganism” but that sounded too much like a Godzilla movie, and besides I’ve already got two sons and their lives are already miserable enough thanks to me!”

The new book features Houlihan’s columns from the last six years as well as a foreword written by former 19th Ward Alderman and Cook County Sheriff Mike Sheahan. In the foreword, Sheahan makes allusions to the crime of “Hooliganism” which led to the imprisonment of feminist rock punk group “Pussy Riot” in Russia.

Once again the book’s cover employs the deceptive photo of a much slimmer Houlihan from the year 2000 which triggers hot flashes and drives many women into menopause. The author has been heard to remark, “Yeah, that’s my First Holy Communion picture!”

Houlihan will perform excerpts from the book and reportedly will be telling some dirty jokes he learned from Betty Loren Maltese. Additional traffic precautions should be taken by anyone in the neighborhood of these venues on the following dates.

Wednesday April 9th, Lizzie McNeill’s Irish Pub, 400 North McClurg Court, Chicago.  7-9PM.

The book launch will take place immediately following the taping of the Skinny & Houli Show that night so get there early to avoid the horde of Hooliganism fans.

Thursday April 10th, Cork & Kerry Irish Pub, 10614 South Western Ave. Chicago.  7-9PM

Mob action details from the 22nd Police district will be on call to handle the swarm of Southside sluts who spurned the Hooligan in his younger days.

Friday, April 11th. The Claddagh Ring Pub, 2306 West Foster, Chicago. 7-9PM

A stones throw from the Hooligan’s birthplace, this venue could be the most dangerous of them all because of certain units of the AOH Ladies Auxiliary.

Members of Pussy Riot will not be in attendance at any of the “More Hooliganism” launches. Unconfirmed reports say they will be very busy on those evenings in Siberia.

“More Hooliganism” is also available online at www.mikehoulihan.com/store

 

***

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Irish American News Column August 2013

August 10, 2013 by · Leave a Comment

Kathleen Keane w:pintHooliganism

By

Mike Houlihan

Wanna know what heaven is like? Then come to Ireland with Skinny Sheahan and me this October.

Those of you who’ve been there know what I’m talking about. And those of you who’ve never been, well prepare to find the key to your soul.

Many of us are lucky enough to have ancestors who started in Ireland. This tiny island nation is where all our charm, beauty, poetry, and laughter began.

If you could meet your great great grandmother in the flesh, what would you say to her? Don’t worry about it because she would be doing most of the talking. Would you pass up the opportunity for her to take you in her arms and kiss you on both cheeks and then feed you and offer you a glass of something delightful?

I know you wouldn’t. So what are you waiting for? You could be dead soon and find yourself at the pearly gates and God will ask you, “Why didn’t you go to Ireland so you could touch the place from where your family started? Why did you keep putting it off? You could have gone with Skinny and Houli and a group of friends and had the time of your life, but no, you wanted to sit on your arse and watch the Bears stink up another season. You could have stayed in some of the Emerald Isle’s nicest hotels and traveled to Dublin, Galway, Ennis, Killarney in the Kingdom of Kerry, and back to Dublin again. But no, you wanted to stay in Chicago that week and watch your dog hump the futon in front of the TV. What is wrong with you?”

Then you’ll be sorry you didn’t go. And God will be very disappointed in you. He’ll tell you, “You must be daft! You had the opportunity to meet the ghosts of your ancestors, and Skinny and Houli’s pals Black Dave Cahill, Mike Monaghan, Jimmy Deenihan, the Irish Minister of Culture, and Niall “Botty” O’Callaghan, the former Mayor of Killarney, and tons of other wonderful Irish characters, and you didn’t go?”

What are you gonna tell Our Lord then? He might even add, “And the deal was great! $2499 included airfare, hotel, meals, everything…except booze!”

“Frankie Moran went to Ireland with the Skinny & Houli Show, that’s like having Irish comedian Pat Roche with you for the whole trip! And so did Dean Vallas, Mary Ann Wilson, Mike Miller, Brendan O’Brien, Mary Ann Moran, Skip Carey, Denny Kearns, and Froggie McGuire!”

You’ll start to sweat then when God says, “I’m not sure if heaven is the right place for you! You had the opportunity to experience a mystical, almost supernatural event and you passed because you wanted to wait and go “some day”. The nation of Ireland needed your help, 2013 was the Gathering and you opted not to go that year because that was the week of the wedding of your second cousin’s horrible daughter? Are you absolutely cracked?”

By then you will be on your knees and begging God to “Send me back and I will go to Ireland with Skinny and Houli for sure Lord! I know I was foolish, I know now I should have gone, please Lord, send me back so I can go the old country with the rest of the gang before I actually die!”

And the Lord might say, “I can do that, I can send you back to the beginning of August. But you have to call Cathy Featherstone at 847-542-1539 or email her at triseasonsgroups@gmail.com and you have to get your deposit to her immediately!”

Yes Lord I will, send me back, please. I want to go to Ireland.

“Why, why do you want to go to Ireland with Skinny and Houli?”

Because I know it will be fun, romantic, memorable, and I will be laughing so hard and crying tears of joy to travel into the mystic that I will never forget it.

And then the Lord will tell you, “And because life is short kid, don’t forget that!”

Sure hope you can make it before you die. Ireland with Skinny & Houli, Oct. 17-24th. See you in heaven!

N.B.-As we went to press it was announced that international Irish singing sensation/fiddle player/flute player/and Irish dancer Kathleen Keane, (pictured above), will be joining the Skinny & Houli Ireland Tour as our musical guest! Kathleen will serenade us all as we explore the auld country! Don’t miss this preview of Heaven on earth!

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June 2013 Hooliganism–The Irish American News

June 2, 2013 by · Leave a Comment
Unfortunately he's having a good year.

Unfortunately he’s having a good year.

Hooliganism

By

Mike Houlihan

On special assignment for the Irish American News I recently visited the devil.

It was hard to nail him down for an interview, the guy is as slippery as an eel, an electric feckin’ eel!

I was ushered to his suite by a short German guy with a Hitler moustache. Hey wait a minute! That was Hitler!

As I followed Adolph down the hall, I mused to myself, “Wow, Hitler is the butler in hell. He deserves something worse than that. How bad could it be, being the butler in hell?”

Just then a large naked Jewish lady stepped out of the shadows and slapped Hitler in the face with a very wet used diaper she had been wearing.

Old Adolph just took it in stride, pushed back by the force of the gooey diaper, but then just wiped some mocha slime from above his moustache and said, “Thank you Mrs. Finkelstein!”

He smiled at me as he softly vomited into his mouth and put his hand on the knob to the devil’s door. “His Excellency will see you now.”

I sneered at Der Fuehrer, “I hope Mrs. Finkelstein does that to you a lot.”

He clicked his heels, “She does, every one hundred and ninety-six seconds…or so.”

As the door closed behind me, a double batch of Depends slammed into his kisser.

I looked about the sumptuous room with a spotless onyx desk with little beams of light occasionally blinking thru the cracks.  You could hear the soft murmur of sinners trapped inside that desk. The huge panoramic window looked out on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. I wondered why Beelzebub had chosen this view and then I heard a dark voice behind me.

“Futures clients.”

Old Scratch picked up the remote and started clicking around the world via the window to Vegas, Kuala Lumpur, Amsterdam, and Chicago; scenes of avarice, lust, and homicide in all his favorite places.

“Have a drink, Houli. I’ve got some Irish Whiskey or some Guinness, whatever you like.”

I was apprehensive, I’ve been slipped a Mickey before and if anybody was gonna do it, it would be this sick creep.

I think I’ll just stick to this bottle of water I brought with me, if you don’t mind, Lucifer.

“Please, call me Lou.”

Let’s not get too chummy; I’m here for your story, not to go dancing with you.

“We’re very patient down here Houls, we want to make you a future client.”

I whipped out my reporter notebook; glad that I brought the water because it was starting to feel really warm down here.

Okay, I guess most of us already know how you got started in the evil business, and how St. Michael kicked your ass down here for eternity.

“Well, of course that’s exactly the narrative that the haters, racists and bigots want you to believe. I think the truth lies a bit further down the road.”

Yeah sure Lou, right down the ol’ Hershey highway.

“You’re boring me…so what’s this interview all about, what’s your angle? Who do you write for again?”

The Irish American News

He laughed as he drained his drink- Baby’s Blood on the rocks. “Oh we’ve got plenty of your Irish cousins down here, don’t you worry about that.”

He picked up the remote and on the screen was the village of Moneygall when the President visited the town of his Irish roots.

“You know how you love watching ‘The Quiet Man”, Houli? Well this is my Quiet Man.

Whaddya mean?

“Barak, Barry, my man, the best client I’ve got. Evil Inc. is booming, thanks to him. Millions of babies murdered, Benghazi, Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the IRS scandals, and spying on the AP reporters. He’s made evil cool again! This kid is the best thing that’s happened to me since Stalin.”

Yeah, maybe it’s time you slowed down, cuz right now it looks like the world is goin’ to hell.

“Well, duh! It’s only taken me two thousand years.”

Don’t count your chickens, Lou.

“Oh yeah? Watch me dismantle the Catholic Church over the next couple decades. And all it took was Obamacare and a couple dozen pedophile priests. Ireland is ready to legalize abortion, they are toast!”

I stood up, backtracked toward the door, and opened my water bottle; it was really getting hot down there.

“Come on Houls, it’s only your soul. I can have Lindsay Lohan here in five minutes!”

He picked up the remote and suddenly the picture got fuzzy and the sound went blippo screeching so loud the devil put his hands over his pointed ears.

What the hell is that?

“Damn, somebody is jamming my connection with prayers.”

Don’t you get it, devil boy. The tide is turning. The media is turning on your buddy Barry.  Even the mopes at MSNBC are having second thoughts, including moral zombies like Lawrence O’Donnell and Chris “The Tingler” Mathews.

I took a swig from my water bottle, flung open the door, and discovered Hitler over Mrs. Finkelstein’s knee as she spanked him. The devil was pissed now.

“You’re not going anywhere!”

I spit a mouthful of the water in his face.

“Ahhhh that’s holy water!”

That’s right Lou, adios sucker!

I leapt over Hitler and ran down the hallway and made it outta there just in time.  Something tells me it’s gonna be a very hot summer.

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