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03/03/2010 - 7:25pm

Boston Police report finding a man lying in front of 85 Draper St. with gunshot wounds around 7:25 p.m. yesterday.

Benjamin Martins, 30, of Dorchester, was transported to Boston Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Anyone with information can contact the homicide unit at (617) 343-4470 or the anonymous tip line by calling (800) 494-TIPS or texting 'TIPS' to CRIME (27463).

Veteran Tyrone activist in New York Owen Rodgers has put together, at short notice, an important seminar on the Famine to coincide with St Patrick's Day. Owen, of course, memorably organised a mammoth campaign in the US in the nineties to have the Famine placed on the curriculum of schools in the US. Details below:

New York: Migration and Memory: American Irish Consciousness Since the Famine, O'Lunney's at Times Square, 145 W 45th St. The event will explore a range of themes emanating from the shock of an event which transformed Ireland and generated a massive influx of its surviving population to the US. The impact of the Famine reverbates 160 years after its conventional endpoint, not least in the form of a massive and diverse Irish diaspora present in every sector of society. Participants include Irish artist Robert Ballagh, Dr. Christine Kineally, Michael Patrick MacDonald, and Dr. Ruan O'Donnell. Event organized by Owen Rodgers and Dr. O'Donnell. Free and open to the public.

Comhghairdeas leis an 40 faoi 40 ar hóladh a sláinte i Halla na Cathrach inniu. Tá sé le sonrú go raibh an aos óg as an Cheathrú Ghaeltachta chun tosaigh — Feargal Mac Ionnrachtaigh, Diarmaid Ua Bruadair, Colma Nic Sheáin, agus Tony Devlin. Maith iad.

Belfast City Hall never looked that good when I was a councillor but it was at its sparkling best (following a £12m refurb) today for the Belfast 40 under 40 celebration where we rolled out the red carpet for that other ex-councillor Sammy Wilson, now Minister at the Department of Finance and Personnel.

Having retired from the Council on Monday, some staff in the Dome of Delight may have been surprised to see former councillor Wilson back so soon but he gave a witty and generous speech which reflected the long distance travelled by Belfast and its people over the past 40 years.

You can see the bios of the 40 under 40 on our website but the Special Achievement Awards were particularly noteworthy, going to Colma McKee, who runs a training scheme as Gaeilge for 100 students aged between 16 and 18, Belfast Giants manager Todd Kelman, New York Stock Exchange dynamo Conor Allen (who spoke beautiful Conamara Irish), Charlotte Dryden who heads the Love Music-Hate Racism campaign, boxing champ Brian Magee and Harry Connolly of the Fáilte Feirste Thiar tourism initiative in West Belfast.

Our photo shows Brian Magee, who picked up a European super-middleweight title and a purse for €140,000 in Denmark in January, with Minister Wilson. Also pictured are as many as the 40 who hadn't bolted after lunch on the stairs at City Hall (led by the indefatigable Sinn Féin MLA Sue Ramsey).

Footnote: we serenaded the 40 in with a jazz band. Someone unfamiliar with his heritage remarked, "isn't that a bit foreign?" "Not at all, I replied, don't you know jazz comes from the union of Irish and African music in the US and the very name, as Danny Cassidy memorably pointed out, comes from the Irish word 'deas'." (5 Márta: Ooops: As Concubhar points out, he says it comes from teas/heat not deas/nice though anyone who met Danny or read How The Irish Invented Slang will understand the fun and the devilment was in telling the story rather than the accuracy of his conclusion.)

Focal scoir: Last night, I watched a marvellous 2006 documentary on TG4 about the indomitable but sadly passed Fr Ó Péicín, who led the fight for justice for the people of Tory before being banished by the church authorities, followed by the top-class Dónal Lunny series (Lorg Lunny) where he tours the country seeking members for a new band. The quality of the musicianship was out of this world, the Rosses Irish of Lunny a revelation and the breathtaking backdrops — Magee College, Belfast Castle, Limerick University, Philip King's home in Dingle — inspiring. I'll be tuning in next week to see the penultimate programme in this series which is a credit to the South Belfast film company Stirling Productions (under Anne Stirling — who I've just called to commend, she says: "I think this is the best thing we've ever done.") which, with seven Irish speakers on its staff full-time, is a major player in the Gaeilge universe.

In the requisite song and dance awash in cheers and tears, the Winter Olympics end, leaving behind more questions than answers.

Chief of which is: “Are these glorious games any longer worth it?”

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The month of March will close out the Winter session of programs and is full of special events in all core program areas. In our Athletic program we will host the championship games for all three divisions of the Intramural Basketball program: Girls Low Rim (3/5), 14&U Co-ed (3/6) and Boys Low Rim (3/11). Our 4 All-Star teams will continue to play home and away games against other Clubs from the region and we will host Spring Training (3/20) and Try-outs (3/27) for the Savin Hill Baseball League.

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“Never again will I spend another winter in this accursed bucketshop of a refrigerator called England.”
Letter to Sidney Colvin From Rudyard Kipling

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By Tom Mulvoy, Reporter Staff

 To grow up in Boston in the mid-20th century in an extended multi-neighborhood family, where an Irish cultural atmosphere dominated time spent away from school for the children and away from work for the adults, was to know that while the United States held the promise of good things to come, the old country, where your heart was supposed to be, held the memories and the traditions.

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The story of the dramatic turnaround in the fiscal health of Dorchester’s Carney Hospital is truly a remarkable one.

It was just thirty months ago that Attorney General  Martha Coakley conducted an investigation of the hospital and its  parent network. “We are looking at the Caritas Christi system,” Coakley said in late 2007. “Like many people in the Carney Hospital service area, we are concerned about its viability. The system as a whole causes some concern to us. It’s always of concern when a nonprofit has an operating record that’s negative and appears to be getting worse.”

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Peter Stevens, Reporter Staff

For 44-year-old Gregory Grene, of the popular band The Prodigals, nothing will ever be the same. His twin brother, Andrew, a well-known UN political affairs officer, perished in the earthquake that devastated Haiti in January. Gregory headed to another island, Ireland, to help bury his brother in Belturbet, County Cavan.

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The 2010 gubernatorial race came to Dorchester this week as Gov. Deval Patrick hosted an “urban town hall” at a Codman Square church. “It’s hard to be heard above the din of ‘hate radio,’ ” Patrick told a welcoming crowd that packed Rev. Bruce Wall’s Global Ministries Christian Church on Sunday night. But the governor had little trouble in the friendly room that gave him a standing ovation upon his entrance.

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The federal government has started proceedings to take control of a Dorchester house it says two brothers built to become the center of an international drug ring that was broken up with a series of arrests in 2007.

The government says it will sell off 59 Bloomfield St., currently assessed at $503,000, to help recoup some of the roughly $3 million in drug and money-laundering profits made by Anna Trinh and Tiem Trinh, both convicted in federal court on Dec. 23, 2009, on a variety of drug charges.

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Debate over a pair of state worker holidays, until now publicly confined to a struggle between good government and historical value arguments, veered this week into the touchy realm of ethnic politics as lawmakers engaged in uncommonly heated exchanges over a Republican-sponsored bill repealing the holidays.

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Ed Forry, Publisher

The two physicians who head the management team at Carney Hospital painted a bright picture of the hospital’s fiscal condition and outlook for the future last week for a breakfast audience of legislators, health care advocates and other business and civic leaders.

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Reporter Staff

The Boston Police Department reports finding Troy Robinson and his two-year-old nephew on the 700 block of Washington Street tonight.

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There are all sorts of 'per cent' rules, so here's a new one.

I was with the Colin Neighbourhood Partnership board and key workers last night at an 'away-day'in the Dunadry Inn.

One of the key areas of work the Partnership champions is community safety: in base terms, trying to handle up to 500 young people who take to the streets of the area (Poleglass, Twinbrook, Dunmurry, Lagmore, Mount Eagles) on a weekend night. Not all of these young people are drinkers, not all are violent. But a minority are — which is why we get the sort of pitched battle scenes witnessed in the area this weekend.

An inordinate amount of the Partnership's resources are focused on containing this anti-social behaviour.

There are 16,000 young people in the Colin area. That 500 represent about three per cent of the total.

Also each year in Colin, about 500 young people or three per cent, leave school to go to college. Those young people will usually only peripherally avail of Partnership services.

So here's a thought: what about diverting the majority of resources focused on the three per cent at one end of the scale and trying instead to up that figure of college admissions from three to ten per cent.

In the case of Cristo Rey in New York, school ceo Fr Joseph Parkes says the focus isn't on the top 25 per cent of those heading to high school from disadvantaged backgrounds because they can usually access scholarships. Neither is it on the bottom 25 percentile because they are, sadly, already too far behind to benefit from the Cristo Rey approach. Instead, his energies are directed at the 50 per cent in the middle.

What percentage of our community resources go to the equivalent groups here?

Pictured is Ciaran Sheehan, head of Clarendon Executive Recruitment and a key player in Business in the Community, who also sits on the Colin Neighbourhood Partnership Board — as he enjoyed the post-discussion dinner last night. Next door was an Ulster-Scots dance night which, as you can see, Ciaran was keenly anticipating.

The federal government has started procedings to take control of a Dorchester house it says two brothers built to become the center of a family drug ring that was broken up with a series of arrests in 2007.

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I'm up but still shaky on it though the sunny weather — I saw my first wasp of 2010 30 minutes ago — will surely cure all ills.

This morning, I had a useful meeting to discuss a new plan to provide US scholarships to some of our ambitious young people in North Belfast and later today I will attend an away-day outside Belfast about the future of the Colin area (Dunmury-Twinbrook-Poleglass-Mount Eagles to you).

My brief is to discuss 'selling Colin'. The community leaders in the area are already at the top of their game when it comes to community regeneration but the next step will be to rebrand the area as one where the peace process has blossomed in terms of employment, training and education.

I think back to Tom McEnery, former Mayor of San José, who created the strap-line 'capital of Silicon Valley' for his Californian city and then lived up to the dream by making it the hub of the world's high-tech industries.

Tom asks an area wishing to recreate itself to search for its 'cathedral', that element which sets it apart and which makes for a compelling proposition. In the Gaeltacht Quarter, that's Irish culture and language. What will it be in Colin?

While you're thinking about that Heather Trotta of Cristo Rey has sent this photograph of St Patrick as he appears in a stained glass window in St Cecilia's church, which stands next door to her school. It really is something else. Thanks, Heather.

Some days, the sunshine feels like it comes right out of our hearts. Today is one of those days. From where I sit, a fire blazes in a stone hearth and classical music is my soundtrack. I see seagulls flapping in the morning sun, a small gaggle of Canada geese, and the seacoast sunrise over a nearby slope. Now, don't be jealous. The seagulls are flapping over a dumpster, the hill rises from filthy black snow at the edge of a parking lot, and the sunrise is illuminating the top floor of the federal high security prison. I'm so lucky to live in a gorgeous seaside town. With our own Panera, no less!

Sometimes we must suffer the bland and the generic in order to find our own. Sometimes a change is as good as a rest.

Then, just like in a movie, the phone rings. A grumpy voice reminds you that you were supposed to be somewhere else at 7 am today, and suddenly, the sun fades and the federal prison emerges in stark relief.

Even the fanciest new contraption (Jesus Mary and Joseph, I do regret getting a Droid) cannot solve this problem. Sigh.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.