Article: Martin Coughlan; a carpenter with goals

Martin Coughlan was raised in Cappawhite, a small village in County Tipperary, Ireland, but his family said he had no trouble fitting into life in the big city. He moved here in 1987 with his wife, Catherine, and their four daughters, Orla, Ailish, Sinead and Denise. A carpenter in Ireland, he immediately set about finding work in the trade.

Mrs. Coughlan said the family left because there were better job opportunities here than in Ireland. But Mr. Coughlan also had a love for Elvis Presley, Graceland and western movies, which may have been a small part of the inspiration to immigrate.

Shortly after they came to New York, Mrs. Coughlan told her husband that she did not want the family to live in an apartment. Mr. Coughlan zealously pursued jobs, often working seven days a week, and the family moved to a house in Bayside, Queens.

"He just wanted a comfortable home and a car that worked and to see that we were educated," said his eldest daughter, Orla Bowie.

His job with the Sweeney and Heekin Carpentry and Dry Wall Corporation of Long Island City took him to buildings all around Manhattan, and on Sept. 10 and 11, Mr. Coughlan, 53, was working on the 92nd floor of 2 World Trade Center. 

The Coughlans' daughters now range in age from 40 to 32. Two have completed college. "I was finally getting him to relax on Sundays," Mrs. Coughlan said. "We were just getting our life back."

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES

PN: A great friend and brother -in-law who never got to see the 12th of September 2001. Barry

Why waste a temper tantrum if nobody is around to see it.....

Ali knocks out Foreman to the rocky Balboa Beat (highlights) Great!!!

People are either awesome or stupid; you decide

Photos: It's a family affair as spring is in the air in Canada

Barry Clifford: Destiny

It was bitterly cold night in the winter of 1878 when the woman was

about to give birth in a place that was little more than a stable. She

was in a fearful state and had much to fear, after having lost her

three previous sons in childbirth

She worried too for her future should they both live. Being married to

a violent alcoholic shoemaker, who despaired at her previous efforts

to give him a son or even a child controlled every moment of that

fear. The painful spasms started suddenly as the midwife exhorted her

to push hard. When the pushing finally stopped, she had, at last, given birth to a son.

The next day, when the Father saw his son, strangely he became

suspicious.  His wife feared for a moment that he thought she had been

unfaithful; but it was the infant’s feet the father was fixated on.

“You have given birth to the devil.” He screamed. The mother struggled

to her feet desperately searching for what he had seen. The infant’s

right foot had two toes joined together. She despaired at what he

might be thinking and cried when he said what he thought: “He has a cloven foot,” he stammered drunkenly,  “It is the mark of the devil.”

As the boy grew up, the drunken shoemaker would not stop trying to

beat the devil out of him. When he became a teenager, he joined the

priesthood, and the old man seemed content for a while but was a victim of habit.

The years wore on and the old man wore on too and died alone in a pauper’s grave. Those same years would see what the father had sown after the son had left the priesthood and entered politics.

He would go on to become the leader of his people and be responsible for over 25,000,000 of their deaths. His name was Joseph Stalin

Barry Clifford

Article: John Waters said.........

On the closing of the Irish embassy in the Vatican:

“An opportunistic act of neurotic bigotry by militant atheists seeking to impose their myopic beliefs on the rest of us. The closure of the Irish Embassy in the Vatican is further evidence that we are now governed by the most bigoted, anti- religious administration in the history of the State.”

On social welfare recipients:

“There should be no question, in a free and fair society, of the forced redistribution of earned income to assist those who are, for whatever reason, negative contributors to society.

Imagine how you would feel if, instead of having to subsidise your work- free neighbour, you had to accept direct responsibility by talking him into your home and catering to all his needs. How long would you tolerate him hanging around your sitting room, eating your corn-flakes, and flicking around your Sky package?”

On secular education:

“ A ‘secular’ education sets out to produce citizens, consumers and functionaries rather than human beings animated with affection and curiosity. No longer will our children be told that they are Christ’s chosen ones, but instead the accidental offspring of the pointless oozing of primordial slime, units of meat and bone, existing for random junctures by bread and rules in a pointless, meaningless, and indifferent universe.

They call this ‘rationalisism,’ but have no idea where it will lead. Like chimpanzees with hammers poised over the engine of a Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, they gibber their stunted nonsense and set enthusiastically to work.”

On Paedophlilia:                                                     

“They (the media) don’t regard paedophliia as a serious matter at all. If clerical abuse did not exist in the church, I greatly suspect that we would by now have a campaign to legalise paedophliia from these quarters.”

“Was it the case that the thrust for acceptance of paedophilia was stymied only by the emergence of the clerical abuse scandals in the Church, which the left saw as an opportunity to destroy the authority of the Church?”

Can anyone take this man serious bar himself; he even calls himself a journalist.

Barry