The Irish who have been Choked to Death (Thursday, TV 3)In New York in the 1860s and 1870s, over 400 Irish people were deliberately choked to death every day. In Boston, the figure was twice that number, and in San Francisco, 300 times that again. By 1888, more Irish people were being choked to death every day than died in the Napoleonic wars. At one time, Irish people were being choked to death somewhere in the world at a rate of 12 per second. Most of them hardly even bothered to put up much of a struggle, and were regarded as fair game for roaming gangs of vicious thugs. No matter where you stand on Earth, in all likelihood an Irish person has been choked to death on that very spot. And, of course, these statistics do not include Irish people who accidentally choked to death on bacon rinds, apple cores and, of course, the demon drink!
Reasons as to why all this seemingly senseless choking went on is hard to pin down, but it had its roots in the anti-Irish discrimination of the 19th century. Originally the Irish were picked off randomly in isolated incidents. Kicking the Irish to death was very popular in the 1840s, along with stoning them and clubbing them with sticks. As well as these indignities, they would also be routinely laughed at and forced to do silly jobs that no one else wanted to do, such as chasing and crushing mice.
By the dawn of the new century, death by choking had become the number one method of controlling the Irish problem, and great festivals were being organised which resembled the spectacle of gladiatorial contests in ancient Rome.
Crowds of 50,000 or 60,000 would regularly pack into a stadium to see cartloads of the sons and daughters of Eireann despatched to the accompaniment of cheering and the singing of obscene anti-Irish songs. Official souvenir programmes were printed and postage stamps issued to commemorate the hugely popular events, which often attracted sponsorship from companies such as Shell Oil and Coca Cola.
On Thursday's fascinating documentary on TV3, Prof Con Condon-Connolly from the University of Utah attempted to shed some light on the phenomenon. "I think what basically comes through when one studies any data on this topic is that people loved choking Irish people to death. Combined with the fact that the Irish have traditionally not minded being choked to death as much as say, the Germans or the Dutch, one can conclude that this fact made them an easy target. In interviews with people who choked members of the Irish community to death; one thing always comes through; the sheer fun of it. "The Irish had very supple necks that were ideal for choking, and people just loved doing it. It felt great. Another attraction was that up to 1914 it wasn't illegal. There were also rewards and tax cuts which acted as an incentive to choke Irish people to death. When the Irish began to be choked in purpose-built arenas, some objections began to be raised. People began to see that it was cruel, barbarous, unnecessary and unspeakably violent. But the other side to it was that it was a fantastic day out." What eventually put an end to this peculiar tradition was the resolve and sterling effort of one man: Chicago-born Father Gerard Dunne, the son of Irish parents from Mayo, who led a life-long crusade against this horrible scourge of our time. By an early age, he had seen all of his Irish relatives and friends choked to death in the slums of his native city, and he had had enough of it.
In a 1934 filmed interview, he explained how his campaign had come about. "I thought, with the Great Famine, that's fair enough. But the sheer ridiculousness of choking Irish people to death really got my goat. I thought some legislation needed to be introduced to put a stop to it. Obviously, if it wasn't made illegal, there would be nothing to prevent people doing it. There was a huge temptation there. It was tremendous fun to go up to an Irish person and choke him to death. But of course, my position was that I was Irish, and people would often come up to me and try to choke me to death. I didn't like that so much."
After years of hard work involving coast-to-coast lecture tours of America, lobbying of politicians and fund-raising pitch and putt tournaments, Father Dunne finally bribed President Woodrow Wilson to introduce legislation put a stop to choking the Irish. It was the end of an era.
"I can't say I miss it," said 110-yearold Lorcan Dowd, one of the few who survived a choking in the early days of the century. "There was a certain glamour attached to it, but in hindsight, I wouldn't have liked to have been choked to death. Although, in a way, it would have been just great."
Arthur Mathews is co-writer of Father Ted.
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