The members of the New York St Patrick's Day Parade Committee have fought a few battles in their time.
But the latest is something even the hardened veterans of the committee did not expect. They are shaping up against a major parade sponsor. And they are doing so on behalf of Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams.
Parade organisers have been wary with regard to their annual march up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and the troubles in Northern Ireland.
There are visible expressions of nationalist and republican sentiment along the route every year. But the parade has always managed to keep some distance between itself and politics on the island of Ireland.
Indeed, one of the more infamous moments in recent parade history was in 1982 when Cardinal Terence Cooke absented himself and the great doors of St Patrick's Cathedral were closed as grand marshal and veteran republican activist Mike Flannery stopped to salute the crowd on the cathedral steps. The overwhelming ethos of the parade was and remains a religious one.
The committee's particularly staunch view of Catholic Church teaching, – the teachings of St Patrick – as they frequently say themselves, has been the primary buttress in keeping unwelcome elements out of the parade.
Irish gay groups who want to march under their own banner are but one.
So longtime observers of parade affairs are indeed watching with
interest as parade leaders wrangle with the New York Post newspaper.
The roots of the latest imbroglio are to be found in a Post editorial a few months ago that compared Gerry Adams to Osama bin Laden.
The editorial infuriated most Irish Americans who read it, even many who have little time for Adams or his politics.
Parade committee members also took serious umbrage. Now they want to hear an explanation and to vent their feelings in a meeting with Post executives. What's at stake is the Post's access to the parade line of march. The line is a list of all the marching units in the parade, what time they set out and from where.
It's considered an invaluable guide for those who want to pinpoint the marching time of their favourite marching group in a parade that usually lasts five hours or more.
The Post is part of News Corporation, the multinational media conglomerate run by Rupert Murdoch. It's a conservative-leaning tabloid paper with a steadily rising
circulation in contrast to its main rival, the Daily News.
The Post is no shrinking violet when it comes to stating its views. A recent front page photo of the United Nations Security Council discussing the Iraq situation had the superimposed heads of weasels on the French and German foreign ministers.
Gerry Adams has escaped the weasel treatment, but being compared to Osama is hardly a favour. The parade committee reckons the editorial stepped over the line. And it might swipe back by denying the line of march to the Post for the upcoming parade on March 17. But that won't be easy, as the paper and committee appear to have a contract, or at least a written agreement, for the line to be carried by the Post up to and including the 2005 parade.
The Post previously included the line with a number of special features and advertising linked to the celebration of St Patrick's Day in the city.
Both sides were doing well out of the deal until the Osama editorial, which appeared at the beginning of last November while Adams was visiting New York and New Jersey.
"Gerry Adams, the head of Sinn Féin/IRA, was around town last week — basically flipping the bird to America's war on terrorism," the editorial stated.
It was referring to Sinn Féin fundraisers in New York and New Jersey attended by Adams.
"Adams's quest for American cash comes on the heels of a Sinn Féin/IRA statement, strongly opposing an American-led war in Iraq – and calling on Ireland to refuse America permission to use its airspace and seaports," the editorial said.
"No surprise there: Like birds of a feather, terrorists stick together, too."
The editorial then hit out at the IRA over alleged activities in Colombia, on the West Bank and in Northern Ireland and singled out the "Sinn Féin/IRA newspaper An Phoblacht" which had "editorialised that the 9/11 attacks were America's fault.
It also lashed out specifically at Sinn Féin.
"Let there be no misunderstanding on this point: This anti-American, pro-terrorist organisation raises enough money here in the United States to make it the best-funded political party in the Irish Republic. But it is money that will be paid for in blood somewhere in the world."
The editorial did not make any direct comparison between Adams and bin Laden in the body of the text but the comparison was clearly drawn in the "Soul Brother" heading.
And it also lectured Irish-Americans in a manner that could have been plucked straight out of old Fleet Street.
"Many Irish-Americans – some naively, some just out of romantic foolishness blind themselves to the simple fact that Sinn Féin/IRA undertakes its 'struggle' in alliance with any number of international terrorists."
Just to rub it in, the editorial then hoisted a flag.
"The United States of America has one wholly reliable ally on this troubled, turbulent and dangerous planet: Great Britain," it stated.
"This is because America and Britain share ideals and goals that are rarely found elsewhere, even among the other western democracies. Neither nation always lives up to these animating principles, of course, and therein lie the roots of the Irish peoples' historic antipathy toward London.
"Yet to the extent that the rest of the world embraced Anglo-American values, it would be a better place. Gerry Adams not only refuses to accept those principles, it has been his life's work to make war on them."
The parade leaders have long had a thing about something they might call Hibernian values.
And in a reflection of a struggle that has been going on for far too long they are sharpening their tongues, if not their swords, for one more battle with the Anglo-Saxon foe, now in the guise of a newspaper, founded 200 years ago by one of the founders of the American Republic, Alexander Hamilton.
