Blame It On The Pill

With the introduction of artificial birth control, the seeds of the sex abuse scandal were sown.

That's what the Catholic Church would have us all believe.

The bishops studied the seminarians of the 1960's and 1970's. They examined the society from which these budding priests came. They concluded that society's discarding of sexual prohibitions resulted in the sexual abuse of children that has nearly bankrupted the Church.

It's not homosexuality to blame, even though more boys were abused than girls. The Church being so male-oriented, you see, there's more boys around to be molested.

It's not celibacy that's to blame. Ordering a normal male to refrain from sex does not attract an element unsure of its sexuality or seeking a hiding place from deviant thoughts.

The study also blames stress and lack of preparation and improper monitoring. Does that mean that men entering the priesthood in the 1930's through the 1950's were calm, prepared, and kept under a watchful eye? And when the sexual revolution struck, all the rules at the seminaries went away?

In Ireland, the sexual and physical abuse of children predates the sexual revolution era of the Swinging Sixties.

To claim that changing social mores resulted in a blossoming of priestly perverts is to assume that the laity is stupid.

After five years of study, this is the best they can come up with?

No Market For That Sort Of Thing

Read over Daniel Menaker's series of rejection letters that he's listed at the Huffington Post, and you'll find that market forecasting is what's behind acquisitions.

The man is well known in publishing circles. He has friends in high places. Yet his memoirs did not garner the enthusiasm from the editors that he apparently expected.

Clearly, Mr. Menaker thought his recollections of life lived among the literati of New York City would be a blockbuster. He was editor in chief of The New Yorker, worked at Random House....what more does a writer need to do?

Write something that the editors of the big publishing houses think readers will buy. They're thinking that readers have no interest in Pauline Kael or the behind-the-scenes look at a highly influential magazine.

Could it be that editors realize that the typical book buyer doesn't give a rat's arse about a toney rag? That what passes for intriguing gossip in New York City isn't going to attract more than a bored shrug in Omaha, Nebraska?

Rejections No. 2, No. 4,  No. 5 and No. 7 say as much, in a polite collection of phrases. Too small an audience, dear author. Your writing is sublime, your prose soaring, but your story isn't interesting to enough people to make it worthwhile.

What is a writer to do, so? Literary agents tell you to write from the heart, write what you love. If, by some miracle, an editor at a publishing house needs that story or plot line, then you're in. If they don't, you're rejected.

It should come as no surprise, then, that authors are turning to e-book publishing in such numbers, with a couple of UK literary agents not far behind. 

What the editors seek is their best guess as to what will sell, and they're often wrong. Declining book sales suggest as much.

Although they do get it right often enough. They're still in business, after all.

Did they get it right about Daniel Menaker's recollections of a life in publishing? Unless someone publishes his memoirs, or he does it himself, we'll never know.

The Cool Parent

In my next manuscript, I'd like to make the antagonist one of the cool parents.

You know the type. Their kids get to have parties with alcohol because the parents figure the kids are going to drink anyway so better they drink at home, right?

With that kind of adult supervision, it's easy to envision something bad happening, which the protagonist can then make right while befriending the cool parents everyone else hates, thereby bringing the neighborhood together and it's a happy ending.

Here's the scene: a warehouse in a toney suburb. Let's say, Highland Park, Illinois.

Plenty of money there. Plenty of parents wanting to be cool, to be friends rather than the bad guy in the family circle.

The warehouse has become the venue for late night parties. Cool parents rent it out and hire a disc jockey to provide music. Their kids get to invite everyone, making them more popular at the high school.

Word spreads. Teens show up, invited or not, because that warehouse party is the place to be on a Saturday night. Cool parents drop their kids off at the door, never bothering to verify how many adults are supervising. That wouldn't be cool.

Teens know that vodka looks like water and it's easy to fill a water bottle with vodka and sneak it in when the few adults supervising the party are lost in the crowd and can't check everyone at the door.

So there's drinking. The cool parents have arranged for bottled water to be sold at the venue so they can say there's no drinking, but these kids are being groomed for Harvard and Yale and Columbia. They're too clever for mere mortal parents.

Which way might the plot go? In one scenario, a not-so-cool mom might insist on meeting the parental host, only to find a warehouse packed beyond its capacity with gyrating bodies and underage drinkers. She busts the party and is cast into social limbo. The rest of the novel revolves around her re-acceptance and the ostracism of the cool parents.

Something for Jodi Picoult? Maybe. She might go with the tragic drunk driving accident leading to community breakdown scenario, though.

The police in Highland Park busted up the party, by the way. A parent went to drop off Junior and was alarmed by the crowd of 800 teens inside and 150 teens waiting to get in.

No word yet on whether that parent is viewed as a hero or a pariah.

Is No One Here?

Enda Kenny assured everyone that the majority of the Irish people would welcome the Queen of England on her first official visit to a former colony.

To increase the chances of that happening, the gardai will keep everyone off the streets.

Is no one here? the Queen may ask as she scans the scenery through bullet-proof glass.

North and South, known dissidents have been arrested. They'll be let go after herself departs. No charges filed. Just suspicion. Just cautionary.

The Queen will drop in to lay a wreath at the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Square, but no one will be on the streets nearby. All gawkers have been banned.

Various loyalist leaders will be present, however. There have to be some smiling, happy faces around when Her Majesty is going about her official business.

Sinn Fein was invited. They won't be going. They're busy, they've said, with "alternative events". Call them if the Queen announces an end to partition of the island.


For the next four days, there'll be no caid mile failte from the local populace when England's royalty steps out of the car with the smoked glass windows. It's too dangerous to let anyone get that close.

The few Irish people who have jobs to go to will be inconvenienced by the road closures and detours that will be put in place. Businesses near itinerary stops have already lost customers due to safety precautions that kept motorists and pedestrians away from their doors in advance of the visit.

They are asked to smile through it all, and keep in mind that the world will be watching and that means potential tourists will be checking the place out and it's imperative that they find Ireland appealing enough to spend their money there.

So if the news cameras could please not show the angry protests against England and the visit? And don't interview the people who have to carry a passport and pay slip just to get into their place of work. They're liable to be a bit unpleasant.

All The Money In The World Can't Buy Happiness

A troubled man in these troubled times is Dominique Strauss-Kahn. With all the money in the world at his fingertips, you'd think he'd not be so cheap as to expect free oral sex.

The maid was there to clean his room, not provide a happy ending.

Thus far, the ending is proving to be entirely unhappy.

As head of the International Monetary Fund, able to make entire nations jump at the snap of his fingers, Mr. Strauss-Kahn took all that power to heart. He lusted after the maid who came to his Sofitel hotel room, and he took her against her will.

I don't know what they call it in his native France, but in the States it's called rape and it's quite against the law.

Somehow or other, Mr. Strauss-Kahn got wind of his criminal liability, because he barreled out of his room sans cell phone and other personal items. As fast as his little old French legs could carry him, he was on an Air France jet bound for Paris.

That's where the cops nabbed him, in his first class seat. He'll be arraigned soon enough and there'll be statements made. In France, there's rumors afloat that Sarkozy set all this up, to create a scandal around a potential presidential rival.

All the money in the world, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn was too cheap to ring up a call girl and pay for the service he desired. A maid costume? No problem. All it takes is a simple request.

Absolute power corrupts, yes?

First Encounter With The Pawn Broker

Admit it, you're addicted to Pawn Stars and Hard Core Pawn and those Pawn Queens from suburban Chicago. You've watched those programs often enough to have a rough idea of what it would be like to engage in a transaction with a pawn broker.

Apparently, the bankers who control HMV are unfamiliar with the genre.

HMV is bankrupt and the banks holding the loans would like to see capital raised to meet debt obligations. Once those debts are brought under control, HMV would like to rise from the ashes like a phoenix, restructured but functioning. To reach that point, HMV would part with its Waterstone's book chain, but the banks insist on a price of L70 million.

Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut says nyet. He owns 6% of HMV already, and would like to acquire Waterstone's for L35 million.

And like the pawnbroker, he's in the position of power. HMV is rather desperate for cash, and no one else has come forward to buy their valuables. The pawnbroker has to make his profit, and if HMV is worth L70 million, he'd be a poor businessman to pay full retail.

So it's take it or leave it, Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland. Accept the low-ball offer because it's the best you'll get in any pawn shop in town.

They're balking now, of course. The fact remains, if they don't agree a deal, they're left with the option of closing stores to reduce costs, but that could put a fork in the whole phoenix scenario, and the banks would end up with less than Mr. Mamut's current offer.

Someone should point them in the direction of any pawn shop television program and give the bankers an education in financing that doesn't take place in sumptuous offices. Where the seller doesn't have any other option, and the pawn broker knows it.

What Does A Literary Agent Do?

If you've written a book, you need a literary agent to open the door to the big publishing house.

Or you could skip the advance and the contract and all that, and do it yourself. After all e-books are making huge advances into the hard-cover market, accounting for an increasing percentage of book sales.

The downside to the DIY scenario is that you have to do your own marketing and promotions, which isn't an easy task if you've no experience in either.

What if your agent did the publishing for you? They're more familiar with the non-creative side of publishing.

Up to now, however, it was considered unethical for an agent to also be a publisher. Too much conflict of interest, and too much risk of shady dealings for the Association of Author Representatives.

Recently, UK agent Ed Victor announced that he was becoming a publisher for client backlist offerings. That, and he hinted at the ability this new venture would give him to put out works that he loved, but publishers didn't.

Why should a good bit of fiction go unread because a few select editors couldn't afford it or weren't sure it would sell through?

What's good for Ed Victor is good enough for Curtis Brown's UK division.

They're joining the agent as publisher parade. They'll re-publish works that are out of print but still serviceable.

Are they to be considered at war with major publishing houses? The major publishers could retaliate and refuse to do business with Victor or Brown clients, but if everyone starts doing it, who's left for the publisher to acquire properties from? With rejected authors e-publishing on their own, and independent publishers cropping up on the landscape, with agents acting as publishers, it's clear that change is in the air. 

Whether or not it's a permanent change or a blip on the radar remains to be seen.

Good Value For Someone Else's Money

Kieran Byrne must be fond of traveling.

Over the course of the past seven years, he's spent E100,000 on taxis.

The President of the Waterford Institute of Technology believes that he's given the taxpayers good value for their money. In his mind, he's actually saved them money by not charging them the higher mileage rate versus the cost of a car and driver.

Is he driving to Donegal and back, twice a day, every day? That's a lot of miles, to burn through E100,000 seven years. Does he not take the summer holiday, so, but continue to drive around for the benefit of the school? How about booking passage on Iarnrod Eireann and knocking down costs further?

He's working on an expansion of the school, in the hope that it will receive university status before long. That would explain the need for E134,000 worth of fine art to dress up the old barn.

All of this is coming out now because Professor Byrne is up for a new ten-year term as president, and you'd imagine that some board members who didn't like his generosity with taxpayer funds went looking for a good reason to vote in someone else.

There's talk of upping the fees that third-level students have to meet, a budget issue that has students and parents alike up in arms. They aren't likely to agree with the professor, that fitting out his office and boardroom to the tune of E157,000 is good value.

To them, good value is an office big enough to hold everyone, a serviceable carpet and the desk that the president's been using all along. They're making do on what they have because everyone's suffering in the downturn.

They expect those who manage the services they fund to do the same.

Sears Has Everything---Almost

For people of a certain age, the arrival of the Sears catalog was almost an event.

Page after page of stuff to buy. There was a time when Sears advertised that they had everything.

Now it's Amazon with everything, in an electronic catalog. Place your order and the goods arrive at your door, just like Sears did with phone orders back in the dark ages.

Sears, however, has decided not carry absolutely everything.

They're a family-friendly corporation. Didn't they bring the world's marketplace to farm families once upon a time?

And you wouldn't want to be selling pornography to good Christian people in the Bible belt. That's no way to stay in business.

To compete with Amazon, Sears has an on-line store where they pair with independent vendors so that they can offer all that's out there in the big world. As it turns out, they weren't paying attention to the selection of merchandise that those outsiders were vending via Sears.com.

The porno DVDs will no longer be available. Underage youth using a family's account information will have to get their sex education elsewhere.

Thanks to the eagle eyes of the American FamilyAssociation, pubescent boys nationwide are out of luck if they didn't discover the unexpected lapse in time to place their order.

What's a curious young man to do? Organize a boycott of Sears?

Maintaining Tension

Literary agent Don Maass recently ran a Twitter-based series of writing tips. Among his many suggestions was one that dealt with secrets.

What secret does your protagonist hold, and what secret does another character hold that the protagonist doesn't know?

What does it mean? You can find a good example in Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter.

The two characters who drive the narrative both have secrets that they have not shared. The mystery that underlies the plot arises from the secrets, which you the reader uncover over the course of the book.

Bit by bit, the protagonist's backstory is revealed. That's what gets you turning the page, to find out a little more until you can figure out what happened at that key moment in the past when the story began.

By parcelling out clues, the writer maintains the tension. It doesn't take long paragraphs. It can be something as minor as a single sentence that reminds the reader of why they're sticking with the novel.

But it's not just the first character introduced in Chapter One who keeps the tension going. It's the second character's narrative that really bubbles under the surface. And it's the second character who has a secret that the protagonist doesn't know.

Again, the reader is reminded of this secret-keeping at various intervals, usually through internal dialogue where the character remembers "that night" or "what he did". Nothing fancy. No soaring prose. But the reader recovers the tension with these little bon mots.

It's not a perfect book. Native Chicagoans will cring when they notice that the secondary character identifies himself as a native of Joliet, Illinois, and then proceeds to describe it as the south side of Chicago.

Not even close.

And a south sider would never, ever, wander up to Wrigley Field on the north side to cheer for the Cubs, to stand in the parkway (there are no grassy medians in Chicago, except in boulevards, which Sheffield and Waveland are not).

Tension is not created by fact-checking your manuscript and making sure that the details that flesh out your novel's setting are spot-on accurate. You create tension by inventing a secret for your protagonist and another secret for his friend.

Then you bring up the secrets here and there, pulling the reader along. Towards the end, you build to a climax where the secret-keepers reveal their truths and put wrongs to right. And if you've kept the tension flowing, your readers are still with you.

Commercially Viable

Television news anchors are supposed to be above the fray of ordinary commercialism. They wish to be seen as trustworthy, honest and impartial.

Several prominent Chicago television news folks have been seen in a glorified commercial for a furniture store. Appearing far from impartial, it's proved to be an awkward moment.



The people who once covered Mayor Richard Daley, who were supposed to be independent of thought, don't look so independent when they gush over the departing politician. After the fact, they'd like very much to be edited out of the commercial.

How the clip came to be is, perhaps, due to a bit of subterfuge. The news anchors, and other local celebrities, were guests at a farewell party. Asked to say a few words, they were polite and said nice things.

What of the news people who were filmed on the set of their evening broadcast?

At their specific request, Walter Jacobson and Bill Kurtis have since been left on the cutting room floor.

The damage has already been done.

Viewers who have watched these anchors, expecting to hear an unbiased version of events, are left wondering if they've been had. If the anchor is fawning over a man who tore up Meigs Field because he could, did they give the man a pass on other things that might have influenced a voter to just say no to the Daley Machine?

In that case, why bother listening to them at 4, 5, 6 and 10?

It's Been A Long Time, Don Corleone

The Godfather saga played out years ago. Isn't Hachette Book Group a little late in resurrecting it?

Mario Puzo's original book sold well, and he produced a body of work that touched on the Mafia. But the man's been gone for over a decade and the final installment of the film series was a flop.

Even so, Hachette has their hands on a never-used screenplay that Mr. Puzo wrote before his passing. Why let good words go to waste?

Ed Falco was brought in, to take that screenplay and turn it into a novel. Scheduled for release in June of 2012, The Family Corleone is supposed to take us back, to reveal the events that pre-dated the original novel.

Wasn't that what The Godfather Part II did?

Naturally, Hachette is expecting to sell through and then some, and they'll trade on the dusty old original to generate fresh buzz.

They're taking a gamble. The sequel to Gone With The Wind didn't fare well, as dedicated Margaret Mitchell fans went on the attack. Will fans of Puzo think the same of the prequel that's on the way?

It's a risk to Mr. Falco as an author, with his reputation at stake, to take on a well-known body of work and create something not quite his own, but not Mario Puzo's either.

That's what publishing is all about, anyway. It's a gamble based on flawed data and hunches that may or may not pan out. Who knows? Maybe we haven't had enough of the Mafia don and his assorted relations, and the public is actually clamoring for more.

Last Minute Gift For Mother's Day

With the first of May coming on a Sunday, this second Sunday seems to have snuck up on us, and that's not good at all.

There you are, in need of a gift for your mother or your wife or your sister or aunt, and where's a person to go early on a Sunday morning when the shops are closed? Give the gift of reading.

If your loved one has any sort of e-reading device, you can surprise them with a couple of fine works from the Irish diaspora.  

The Leaven of the Pharisees is a tale of a daughter's love for her father, a love that grows as she discovers the reason behind his reticence when she asked about his childhood. The Smashwords edition has been formatted to meet the requirements of all e-reader platforms. You can find one to match Mam's preferred device and she'll thank you for it.

Any mother who is fond of historical fiction, romance and intrigue would enjoy A Terrible Beauty. Set in Western Australia and Dublin, the novel follows the growth of a rebellion, from conception to birth. More than one tear will be shed before the first shot is fired at Dublin's General Post Office in 1916.

Buy one, buy both. Either way, lucky mothers who receive the gift of reading will be so engrossed in the novels that they won't mind if you don't take them out to dinner.

The Justice Derby

Tomorrow, the best horses in the world will run around in a circle and punters with money riding on the outcome will cheer.

The former inmates of the Magdalene laundries in Ireland are running around in a circle as well, and it's the Catholic Church with money riding on the outcome.

The forgotten Maggies don't have a finish line in sight.

They're to keep on running, and that way, there'll be no declared winner. The bishops, with money riding on the outcome, can hold on to their cash.

Only the abused women lose in such a scenario. They'll die of old age before their race is over, if the religious congregations have their way.

For decades, Irish women were incarcerated and forced into slave labor for the crime of being pregnant out of wedlock. For the crime of being pretty. For the crime of rubbing the local parish priest the wrong way. For the crime of being illegitimate. For the crime of having a mother who wasn't toeing the morality line.

A greater crime was committed by the religious congregations who never paid into a pension plan for their inmates. The women are now old, unable to work, and have no source of income in their dotage.

In dire want, they've gone to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who's all sympathy to their plight. Go see the Sisters, he said.

What, then, did the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Mercy, the Good Shepherd Sisters, and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity do in response? In short, they told the forgotten Maggies to feck off. There's nothing to talk about, as far as they're concerned.

That leaves the women with but one option, which is to go back to the Archbishop, who can then send them back to the nuns, who won't do anything, and it's back to the Archbishop, and sooner or later the old gals will drop in their traces and there's an end to a financial burden.

A fictional portrayal of the harsh regime is found in The Leaven of the Pharisees, available as an e-book with multiple format options. It's well-researched and based on survivor accounts.

Easy enough to ignore the former inmates of the Magdalene laundries. Not so easy to ignore the voters, the parishioners, or those who fund the Catholic Church. The Justice for Magdalenes group needs everyone's help. Drop by their website and see if there's anything you might be able to do.

Win Valuable Prizes

All it takes is money. Something that the average author-in-training is lacking.

But if you have the ready cash, you could win a critique of your fiction, YA manuscript, poem, or illustration, and it all goes to a more worthy cause than your neighborhood bar.

Literary journal Hunger Mountain is raising funds to support the Vermont College of Fine Arts. They've rounded up a trove of authors and literary agents to do the work. All you have to do is head on over to Ebay and put in your bid.

If you've ever wanted literary agents Erin Murphy or Jill Corcoran to look at your work and analyze it for you, to give you some direction on where your YA or MG writing should be heading, this is your chance.

Maybe one of the author-volunteers is someone whose writing you admire. Imagine what it would be like to have that person critique your manuscript.

Go check under the sofa cushions for loose change and hundred dollar bills and have at it.

Failure To Fact-Check

Any publisher knows that a book should never be released until all the facts contained therein have been checked.

Unless that publisher is the European Union, in which case someone needs to check on the fact-checkers.

Apparently, there will be no Christmas or Easter for European schoolchildren. It's not in their official diary, three million of which were sent out to Europe's teens.

John Dalli is quite sorry.

Sorry that an Irish priest, of all people, noticed that not one single Christian holiday was included in the Europa Diary and lodged a complaint.

Quite embarrassing, to have it pointed out that you've got Sikh, Muslim, Chinese, etc. special days noted. But Christmas and Easter? Not worth including.

Money's tight, so the EU will not be printing a new run of diaries. The kiddies get a one-page insert that lists the missing holidays, and they'll have to make the best of it. Diary spokesman P. Nikiforos Diamandouros said the EU's apology was sufficient.

So stop your whingeing, Europe. The EU "blundered" on a grand scale. Their determination to be politically correct and all-inclusive, but still not bound to the Vatican, went astray.

And if the Irish clergy weren't so damned attentive, no one would have noticed.  


P Nikiforos Diamandouros

A Form Of Prayer

There I was, sitting in the pew. Bored. The priest is more of the accountant type, not a dynamic speaker at all.

Mention was made of the late Pope's beatification and I couldn't help but think it was all political posturing by the entrenched hierarchy still reeling from the clerical abuse scandal.

So my mind wasn't on the matters at hand. And then it hit me.

I'd been struggling with the opening chapter of a new manuscript. It's always a challenge when writing historical fiction to bring in a little backstory, to set the scene and time, but too much backstory is deadly and I don't want my novel Dead On Arrival.

The character moved through the scene, used a prop to convey a thought when I'd written out a long paragraph. A few other sentences revised themselves, to cloud up issues and induce the reader to turn the page.

What was the priest talking about? No idea. But my manuscript is moving forward again, by the grace of God.

If You Had A Choice, Who Would You Save

A new billboard campaign in favor of animal testing for scientific research has caused a stir because it asks people who they would rather see live, a cute little girl or a nasty lab rat.

You'd pick the child, of course. It's a question designed to tug at the heart strings, to infuse guilt. What decent person would let a baby perish so that a white rat might live?

Who would you save? What if you had a choice between farmland or houses?

Homes means people. Farm land is empty. Sounds like an easy choice, but it's a choice that will have to be decided by a judge.

The Missouri and Mississippi Rivers meet at the tip of Illinois, where the insignificant town of Cairo lies. It used to be a might river city, bustling and prosperous. Now it's poorer than poor, with a few thousand black residents. The homes to be saved are not mansions. They aren't particularly valuable.

They're rather like the housing stock in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

The farmland is in Missouri, and it is valuable indeed. Should the Army Corps of Engineers be allowed to breach a levee to prevent Cairo from drowning, it means the farmland would be covered in silt and muck and the farmers wouldn't be able to plant this year. There's a chance that the land would never be productive again. So how are they to make a living and pay their property taxes?

So which would you choose? The farmland? The run-down homes?

If Cairo gets washed away, would the Fed provide trailer-homes for the displaced? Sadly, a FEMA trailer would be luxurious accomodations as compared to what some have. Would that be preferable, in the long run?

If the farmland gets washed away, would the Fed compensate Missouri for lost tax income? Would the farmers be paid the value of their land and told to farm elsewhere?

As far as Missouri is concerned, they'd rather see Cairo go than lose fertile land. They know that the Army Corps of Engineers tried a levee breach back in 1937, and all that did was to ruin farmland and Cairo got flooded just the same.

If you had to choose, would you pick the black folks in Cairo, or the white folks in Missouri? Does skin color really matter, or is it a question of social class and financial strength? Is either option really preferable to the other?

Re-Patriating The Profits

Some years ago, Pat McDonough decided to conquer the American food industry. He invested heavily in a franchise of expensive Irish pubs and ended up in a feud with his partner/manager Kevin Blair.

And in the end, he was the sole owner of the Claddagh Pub chain. Heavily in debt, it was no sure thing that the restaurants would survive.

Kevin Blair was right about one thing, even as he over-reached and over-extended. The idea and the menu and the venue were all going concerns. Claddagh Pubs have turned a profit.

The money was earned in the U.S., but Mr. McDonough is Irish and so the profits have gone home with him. He's expanding his SuperMac's chain of fast food emporia. In Ireland. With money earned in the U.S.

It's not so one-sided as it might appear, however. Mr. McDonough plans to build a string of travel plazas along Ireland's motorways, and the first one will rise up in Moneygall.

And we all know who is going to be stopping in Moneygall soon, to visit his ancestral homeland (on his mother's side).

Granted, the place won't be opened until next year, long after President Obama has gone home, but it would be nice if the press photographers managed to snap a few "Coming Soon Supermac's" signs in the background.

Makes for outstanding, and free publicity. Perhaps a tag line might be added, somthing about "Be sure to visit Claddagh Pubs when you're in the States" and keep the profits flowing across the water.