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JULY/AUGUST 2006
GERMAN FOOTBALL FEVER
president of on the eve of this
HE BLATHER . from Mr. S. W Blatter, the
FIFA,
year's 2006 World Cup of Football, was lofty stuff. "Universality is our guiding force" he said; "FIFA is a beacon of hope," he added.
Like the IOC he was evoking a dream that sport fosters global amity and that the football teams would be free from the influence of the state and marketplace. The occasion, for the most part, lived up to those ideals. There were few outbreaks of violence on or off the field although 300 English yobbos were barred from the stadium when England was playing.
Host of the World Cup of Football, or soccer as some call it, was Germany, a formerly divided nation, home to great beer, buxom Frauleins, fast cars, spicy sausages, a reputation for efficiency and football fever while remaining humorless, held the biggest bash to hit the country since the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
Many viewed the celebrations as Germany's post-unification "coming out" party with five weeks of worldwide television coverage and a projected eight out of 10 television viewers watching World Cup soccer coverage. The final tally was an estimated one billion 400 million viewers.
The impact on tourism in Germany was extensive. Millions of visitors made the pilgrimage, including thousands of Canadians, to enjoy more than 1,500 sporting and cultural events happening every day for nearly six weeks.
Careful planning allocated games to 12 German cities (e.g. Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Munich, Dusseldorf etc). The geographic locations of various matches ensured financial benefits for the chosen cities allowing them to upgrade their stadiums, attract tourists by focusing attention on regions outside of traditional centers like Bonn and Frankfurt.
Cites like Nuremberg, with its history of the war crime trials after the Second World War, embraced the attention for it provided an opportunity for the city council to promote its historic past, even though many Germans get depressed when they show war films on television!
One friend, who is soccer mad, spent a month in Germany traveling the country to see as many games as possible. He was reticent to admit his bill was over C$700 per day (a medium hotel room, meals, local train travel and game tickets), airfare not included. Scalpers demanded EU1,000 to EU3,000 for some matches. Add an additional 50 percent for Canadian dollars.
The cup final in Berlin, once sealed-off by East German communists, accelerated the gentrification of the city with a new central railway station (US$2 billion) and a revamped soccer stadium (US$ 1 billion).
Three million tickets were sold but dozens of free public
TRAVEL DIARY
By DAVE ABBOTT
viewing areas were available including the Brandenburg Gate and Kaiser Wilhelm church in Berlin.
It was an exciting time to be in Germany. Every pub, cinema and public space was gripped by football fever making it the most successful football extravaganza in history bringing in at least C$3 billion in revenue.
With 32 teams representing 32 countries in the first round, substantial international attendance was guaranteed. Every continent had contingents of fans, including those from obscure and distant lands like Togo, the Ivory Coast and Ghana.
More affluent nations like Saudi Arabia, Japan, Korea, England and Mexico, to name a few, had substantial fan support as their colourful costumes attested on unprecedented television coverage.
The games themselves, whatever your ethnic origins, were, for the most part, magic. Supporters had traveled vast distances and mortgaged their lives (and probably their souls) to be there.
Togo, a tiny country smaller than West Virginia with a population of five million, has only 70,000 television sets in the entire country, yet their presence was noticeable in the stands.
When Ghana, a nation smaller than Oregon State, defeated and eliminated the super-power USA, the African nation, median income $200 per month, went wild with excitement with dancing and singing in the streets for days.
Playing World Champions Brazil in the second round brought world attention to the country and immeasurable pride. Even Trinidad and Tobago, that seems to have more islands than people, carried a measure of excitement, despite most soccer fans not knowing its actual whereabouts.
All the giants of the game were on display: Beckham, Ronaldo, Totti and Zidane, but cup favorites, Brazil, had more stars than the Milky Way!
Exotic Brazilian-females were a television magnet. The cameramen loved lingering on their physical "uniqueness," to the delight of viewers. The World Cup was cause for national anthems, flags, t-shirts, painted faces to be heralded with national pride.
In a rather bizarre cultural twist, the Anheuser Busch Company of St. Louis topped the bids for the rights to the exclusive beer concession. It didn't make sense in a country famous for its marvelous beer, until one learns the German organizers sold it to Bud Lite for US$200 million!
For soccer fans it was a feast that ended too soon. For FIFA it was a financial windfall. For Germany, it was an undeniable social, cultural and sporting success and a boost for tourism
As Arte Johnson of TV's Laugh-In would have said: " Verrry Interesting!"
Dave Abbott is heard three times daily on the Jim Pattison Radio Network at 600AM on the dial. Website: www.irishlaughter.com, ore-mail: abbott@telus.net.
RESPECTED PEACE ACTIVIST DIES AFTER LONG ILLNESS
DUBLIN - Monsignor Denis Faul, who was widely known and admired for his pursuit of peace and justice in the North, died in Bon Secours Hospital Dublin on June 21, after a long battle with cancer.
For 40 years the 73-year-old was based at St. Patrick's Academy in Dungannon, County Tyrone, for the first 25 as a teacher and then as head, a position he retained until his retirement. In 1998, he was appointed parish priest in Carrickmore, County Tyrone.
As Father Faul he played an active part in the civil rights movement, highlighting the many injustices
experienced by Catholics in the North in the 1960s. Later he campaigned against internment and the excesses of the security forces throughout the Troubles.
He never, however, viewed peace and justice as something to demand from one side only and was equally critical and vocal about the violence of republican paramilitaries.
He incurred the wrath of many republicans when he campaigned for an end to the hunger strikes of 1981 and played a big part in limiting the number of deaths.
It was Fr. Faul who took up the cases of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, and others who were wrongly convicted, at a time when taking such a stance didn't go down well with the establishment on either
side of the border or in Britain.
Fr. Faul, however, never concerned himself with how he would be viewed, always insisting on speaking the truth and supporting the underprivileged. In pursuit of this principle he also called repeatedly for information from those in the IRA who knew where the Disappeared were buried. Indeed his dying wish was that the IRA would reveal the whereabouts of the remaining bodies.
In the Sunday Business Post, journalist Tom McGurk listed Fr. Faul's many attributes and considerable achievements, finishing with the accolade, "In a lifetime of journalism, I think he was the most remarkable human being that it was my good fortune to come across."
How to Locate a Relative Born in Ireland in 1870
GENEALOGY
I
i
By
SUSAN-
MARY
SMITH
THANK YOU so much to all the people who e-mailed me in response to the first Family History column.
I want to share with you two similar questions that came up just this morning.
In both cases, people wrote asking how on earth they could locate their relative, born in Ireland in 1870 (they knew the exact date and place) who had subsequently moved to the United States.
One myth amongst some family researchers is that the Irish records all burnt, so it is really no good even looking. While researching your family in Ireland does require a certain diligence and creativity, civil records do exist and can be searched and even purchased.
The fire in the Public Record Office in 1922 was truly regrettable for genealogists because many valuable records, included 19th-century censuses, were destroyed.
However, due to the introduction of civil registration in Ireland in 1864 certificates of birth, marriage and death are still available. In total, the Registrars in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland hold approximately 28 million entries.
The state registration of marriages, other than Catholic marriages, began on April 1, 1845 and 6,114 were recorded for that year. By January 1, 1864 all births, marriages and deaths were recorded by authorities: 136,643 births, 94,095 deaths and 27,373 marriages.
The originals of the civil registration records were not in the Public Record Office at the time of the fire. Because of the particular jurisdiction of the records, the originals exist still with indexes in various repositories.
Local registrars then sent the records to Dublin where they were copied and subsequently sent back to the local office.
Because the origins of the documents still remain with the local Health Boards, all that exists in Dublin are the indexes (available for public research) and the microfilms of all of the copy registers
(available for purchase.)
The British Isles Vital Records CD set produced by the Church of the Latter Day Saints has a useful index of the civil registration of Ireland, but the registers themselves cannot be seen using this source.
To put your family in context it is more useful to search the entire register, which will show family groupings, something the index does not.
The Latter Day Saints have copies of almost all the General Register Office indexes and registers available for loan through their Family History Centres.
Go to www.familysearch.org, click on Library, then Family History Library Catalogue and type "Ireland" in the place box.
A long list of Irish resources that have been filmed will come up on the screen. On the second page the Irish church and civil records film numbers are listed.
Click on the highlighted record you want, make a note (or copy it direcuy into a text document) of which films you wish to order. Contact your local Family History Center for details on how to order and view the microfilms.
Once you find the entries for your ancestors, you can then buy the appropriate certificates through the General Register Office. You can download an application form from their website and either mail it or fax it back to them.
The records are searched manually by Register Office staff, so supply as much information as possible: first and last names; the date (or at least the exact year); location; parents' names, including maiden names.
The more information you supply, the better chance you have of success. Payment must be in euro and they can be reached by mail at: General Register Office, Government Offices, Convent Road, Roscommon. There are no postal codes in Ireland.
As yet, no on-line database exists for searching the entire record base of Irish civil records, though some are listed on the International Genealogical Index, on the Latter Day Saints website, listed above.
In my next column, I'll give you some hints on how to find your elusive ancestor's emigration record, passenger ship record and records in the immigrant country. •
SEARCHING FOR: James Monaghan, born December 10, 1871 Ballintogher, Oldcastle, Meath, Ireland.
Moved to the United States in 1890, last heard of by Irish family members in 1951. James died in the U.S. around that time.
Please contact the columnist who will put you in touch with the people searching for James.
Susan-Mary Smith is a family history researcher from Quesnel, British Columbia. For information on fees for service, please contact her directly at susmith@lycos.com.
To submit your family history questions forthe column (free of course!) please e-mail information to herfor inclusion.