A tradition isn’t worth respecting if it’s based on outdated sexism

FIANNA FÁIL TD Timmy Dooley has criticised Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore for refusing to attend a male-only dinner during his St Patrick’s Day trip to America.

So are we to assume the party favours gender segregation if “tradition” demands it?

The Hibernian Society of Savannah is more than 200 years old and, for all of that time, has celebrated St Patrick’s Day by hosting a banquet with a very specific entry requirement — guests must possess a penis. Not even the female mayor of Savannah, Edna Jackson, is exempt from this dictat.

Not wanting to ruffle any feathers, and alienate voters from the Irish community, she has opted to send a male deputy mayor in her place in the two years since her election. “I will not break their tradition… it is more important to build relationships, respect tradition and concentrate on moving forward. Maybe in the future they will extend an invitation,” she said last year, striking a conciliatory tone, when she didn’t get an invite to the group’s 200th anniversary dinner.

I wouldn’t hold my breath. The Hibernians didn’t extend an invite to the city’s only other female mayor, Susan Weiner, when she was elected in 1992.

That snub marked the first time in the group’s long history that a Savannah mayor was not invited to the dinner, but apparently some traditions are more important than others. Although the most high profile, Ms Weiner wasn’t the first political casualty of the Hibernians’ dubious tradition.

Former Fine Gael minister Gemma Hussey has revealed that she was shocked to learn that she wouldn’t be welcome at the event in the 1980s.

The fact that the biggest Irish society in Savannah was more concerned with Ms Hussey’s gender than the fact that she was an elected representative of the sovereign government of the Republic of Ireland tells you all you need to know about their putative respect for the hallowed homeland.

William Bruggeman, president of the group, has expressed bafflement at Mr Gilmore’s snub, saying it marked the first time any government official, Irish or American, avoided the dinner because it excludes women.

If that’s truly the case, then it is a sad indictment of politicians in both countries who have, until now, meekly acquiesced to the group’s unapologetic sexism. Perhaps the Hibernians have been able to get away with their rank discrimination for so long by cloaking it under the innocuous-sounding guise of tradition.

A tradition is something that is culturally important, of historic value and worth retaining, but can a policy of gender segregation properly be called a tradition in 2013? What if the Hibernians’ tradition was excluding people from their event based on race or religion? Would people be so eager to respect the tradition then? Would politicians be willing to pander to it? That’s a question that should be put to Mr Dooley.

In a statement on Saturday, he said he found it “very disappointing” that Mr Gilmore had snubbed the dinner because “he appears to have personal issues with the Hibernian Society”.

Now, I’m pretty sure Mr Gilmore doesn’t have an irrational hatred of Hibernians, or Irish-Americans from Savannah, and the reason for his failure to attend was not petty “personal issues”, but rather because he didn’t want to lend his office’s imprimatur to gender segregation.

Mr Dooley himself alluded to this in his statement, saying; “the Minister for Foreign Affairs’ role is bigger than the person who occupies it”.

Quite, and it is the job of the minister to represent both the men and women of Ireland abroad, which is exactly what Mr Gilmore did when he refused to take part in a sexist charade. He’s not the first representative of the Irish State to take a principled stand when it comes to the archaic conservatism of many Irish-American groups.

Former president Mary McAleese refused an invitation to act as grand marshal of the 250th New York City parade in 2011 because of the organiser’s policy of excluding gay and lesbian groups. Another bunch of Hibernians, this time the Ancient Order of Hibernians, have successfully barred gay and lesbian groups from marching under their own banners by redefining the parade as a “private, religious procession” — despite the fact that the city comes to a veritable standstill each year to host the mammoth event.

This fatwah, which implies that homosexuality is incompatible with Irish identity, is particularly hard to fathom in a US state where gays and lesbians can legally marry yet, for reasons of pure prejudice, are still precluded from wearing green and marching down Fifth Avenue on St Patrick’s Day.

Ms McAleese, to her credit, didn’t want to associate her office with the base bigotry of the event and so she opted not to take part. Commenting on the controversy at the time, Mr Gilmore made some astute observations. “What these parades are about is a celebration of Ireland and Irishness. I think they need to celebrate Ireland as it is, not as people imagine it. Equality is very much the centre of who we are in our identity in Ireland.

“This issue of exclusion is not Irish, let’s be clear about it. Exclusion is not an Irish thing… I think that’s the message that needs to be driven home,” he said, in an interview with website Irish Central.

PERHAPS Taoiseach Enda Kenny, who took part in this year’s New York parade, should take these sentiments on board — especially considering an Irish-American lesbian is hotly tipped to become New York’s next mayor.

Council speaker Christine Quinn, whose grandparents were Irish, will contest the election in November, but has never attended the parade in an official capacity.

“I’ve marched in Dublin with visibly identifiable stickers and buttons that made clear we were both Irish and LGBT. If you can do that in Dublin, in God’s name why can’t you do it on Fifth Avenue?” she said this week.

Maybe Mr Kenny will be able to explain that conundrum to her if he again travels to New York next year for the festivities and has occasion to congratulate her on her election. Irish politicians routinely justify their junkets abroad for St Patrick’s Day on the basis that the global celebrations provide a world-stage on which to sell the country.

However, they could, like Mr Gilmore, opt to use the spotlight to spout something other than the usual mawkish sentimentality that is a staple of these events and highlight the fact that Ireland is a modern, liberal, inclusive democracy where bigotry and segregation are not tolerated.

If Irish-Americans, clinging to their shamrocks and shillelaghs, are of the opinion that the Irish only value citizens who are straight, white, male, and Catholic, then they need to be disabused of that notion.

Instead of pandering to prejudice, and an old boys’ network whose views about women and gays have more resonance in Iran than Ireland, Irish politicians should refuse to take part in discriminatory events until organisers agree to represent the Ireland of the 21st, and not 19th, century.