(by Seán Mag Uidhir, Irelandclick.com)

Belfast pays tribute to the heroic firefighters and grieving populace of New York tonight (Thursday) when the Aisling Award Person of the Year Award goes to the victims of the 11 September attacks on America.

New York Fire Department representatives Gerard O'Hara and Paul McMenamy flew into Belfast yesterday to be present at the glittering awards ceremony in the Europa Hotel. The pair, who both boast Belfast roots, lost 343 colleagues when the Twin Towers collapsed.

Education Minister and Aisling Awards guest of honour Martin McGuinness will hand over the Wheel of Life sculpture which has gone previously to peace campaigner Terry Enright, union leader Inez McCormack, and festival founder Caitriona Ruane.

"Ireland and America share the same heartbeat and there are few families in this city who don't have relatives in New York," siad Andersonstown News editor Robin Livingstone. "We thought there was no better way to express our support for our American cousins at this time than by presenting the Aisling Person of the Year Award to the firefighters and people of New York from the people of Belfast."

The surnames on the Fire Department roll of honour tell their own story about the appalling blow to the fiercely proud Irish-American community of New York: Boyle and Brennan before Collins and Clarke, Lynch and Lyons alongside Sweeney and Sullivan, Kelly, Keating and Kennedy bookended by Carroll and Cawley and Tierney and Whelan.

Scores of Irish-American firefighters died as heroes rushing into the Towers to save lives. They lie with thousands of others beneath the charred rubble and twisted metal which was the World Trade Centre. "Oh God," writes retired Bronx firefighter Dennis Smith, who joined the futile rescue mission immediately after the attacks. "If I could give you their names one by one, to call out to them, to have them appear."

"They laid down their lives for strangers," said New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. "They were inspired by their sense of duty and their love of humanity. As they raced into the Twin Towers and the other buildings to save lives, they didn't stop to ask how rich or poor the person was, they didn't stop to ask what religion, what race, what nationality. They just raced in to save their fellow human beings."

Adds Robin Livingstone: "We're delighted that Gerard and Paul were able to join us for the Aisling Awards and we know they'll be given the full red carpet treatment across the city. "We'll be asking them to accept our Person of the Year Award as a token of our respect and condolence to them and their fellow firefighters and as a mark of our conviction that New York will rise again, better and stronger than ever."

A collection for the Fire Department Widows, Children and Orphans Fund will be taken up at the Aisling gala. Irelandclick.com will be donating $1,000 to the fund.

This article appeared first on the Irelandclick.com web site on November 8, 2001.


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