BREEZY POINT, N.Y. — Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny on Sunday encouraged people in this coastal enclave hard hit by Hurricane Sandy and with strong ties to Ireland to "keep your courage up, keep your spirit up" as they rebuild and said his compatriots were behind them as they soldiered on.

Breezy Point's Catholic Club Pipes & Drums welcomed Kenny, as did hundreds of community members, many who wore kelly green or shamrocks for St. Patrick's Day. Kenny joined Mass at St. Thomas More Catholic Church, where the altar was decorated with Irish and American flags flanking an iconic statue of the Virgin Mary saved from the storm rubble, and orange, white and green ribbons were pinned to the pews.

"I'd like to think that in the times ahead ... this community will be restored to a stronger position than it's ever been. It may not be the same physically, but the heart of that community, the strength of that community, will be retained for the future," he said after Mass in a local gym-community center that was restored by Irish athletes and paid for with Irish government funds.

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"Keep your courage up, keep your spirit up. You will never be beaten if you do that," he added, at times mentioning the challenges Ireland had overcome, such as the mid-1800s famine, and the Irish concept of meitheal, or the community coming together to rebuild, to encourage the residents to push on.

 

Hurricane Sandy rampaged through Breezy Point on Oct. 29, unleashing floodwaters that devastated some 75 percent of the community's 2,800 homes and helping to trigger a fire that claimed 126 houses in one of the oldest parts of the neighborhood.

Some 20,000 residential buildings in New York City were damaged by the storm or their utilities were disrupted by it.

Nearly five months later, people are struggling to return to Breezy Point, which was founded by Irish immigrants more than a century ago and is nicknamed the "Irish Riviera." The community is one of the most Irish neighborhoods in America, with more than half of the residents claiming Gaelic heritage, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Ireland gave $320,000 to community projects in the areas most affected by Hurricane Sandy, including $50,000 to rebuild the gym-community center in Breezy Point.

Volunteer groups, some from Ireland and others Irish-American, have pitched in to help, such as those who rebuilt the gym and the Catholic Club across the street. The entrance to the gym reads, in Gaelic, "A thousand welcomes."

"In Ireland, everybody knows about Breezy. ... Breezy has just become iconic," said the Consul General of Ireland, Noel Kilkenny. "It just captured the imagination ... Breezy became a piece of Ireland in New York."

Homes here are in various stages of recovery: some have been reoccupied, while others are being rebuilt. Yet many others have been completely demolished, leaving behind only sand or some bits of foundation. Many of these homeowners have to await official approval of their rebuilding plans before they can begin construction.

The toll of the rebuilding process — especially the length and the cost -- is adding up for folks, some who are awaiting insurance payments or other financing options to get back home.

So Kenny's visit -- part of a week-long trip to the United States -- was a welcome boost for the residents, many who can trace their roots to Ireland. 

"I think it really helped the morale of the entire community," said Marty Ingram, fire chief of the Point Breeze Volunteer Fire Department. "The timing was perfect because, you know, I think it's protracted and we're feeling the long-term effect of ... the impact."

As tears rolled down her face, Denise Sturm, 66, said: "I think it's very touching and it's good to know that people in Ireland have come to help us and we need help, we need that."

She should be able to return home within two months, but others won't: "The sad thing is so many of the people (whose) houses were totally destroyed, the disappointment has come now where whatever the red tape is they're not able to get permits to rebuild."

Sturm's friend, Evelyn Finn, said the visit "strengthens us." Her home, which once belonged to her grandmother, was flooded and may need to be raised several feet according to preliminary federal flood guidelines released in late January. She gets no federal aid since it was a second residence.

"It makes it's real," Finn, 65, who attended Mass with her daughter and four grandchildren, said of Kenny's visit. "It makes it like it's doable. My god, if the prime minister of Ireland took enough time to come and see us ... it must be coming back."

The trial of an Amish-Mennonite minister accused of helping an American woman spirit the child she had with her former same-sex partner out of the country just before she lost custody is getting under way this week.

Kenneth L. Miller, 46, of Stuarts Draft, Va., is charged with aiding and abetting Lisa Miller in taking her child, Isabella, to Nicaragua with the intent to obstruct the parental rights of her former civil union partner, Janet Jenkins, according to the court indictment. He is not related to Lisa Miller and could face a three-year sentence if convicted.

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Federal agents haven’t been able to locate Isabella or Lisa Miller, who was indicted on international kidnapping charges in 2010. Miller gave birth to Isabella, who is now 10, through in vitro fertilization when the couple was still together in 2002. She later denounced homosexuality and took up conservative Christian ideals, Reuters reported.

 

"I think she's in the equivalent of the underground railroad with the religious people ... who see the gay rights agenda overwhelming their religious rights," Gary Buseck, legal director of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, which helped Jenkins in her legal effort for visitation rights, told Reuters.

The case has drawn attention in part because it involves an international custody dispute, but also because it touches upon two major issues in the public square: gay rights and religion. A jury was selected Tuesday in Burlington, Vt., and opening arguments are scheduled for Wednesday.

Kenneth Miller's lawyer, Joshua Autry, told Reuters that his client didn't plan to obstruct Jenkins' visitation rights. 

"Unfortunately for Kenneth Miller the government has decided to drag him hundreds of miles from his home to a distant venue to prosecute him in violation of his constitutional rights," he said. "We believe that after all of the evidence comes forth the jury will acquit him." 

Kenneth Miller allegedly helped arrange the pair’s exit from their home in Lynchburg, Va., to Canada, where they crossed the border from New York on Sept. 22, 2009. He then facilitated the purchase of plane tickets to Nicaragua and set up contacts for them in the Central American country, according to an affidavit filed by Deputy U.S. Marshal Max Galusha.

Lisa Miller wed her former partner, Janet Jenkins, in a civil union in Vermont, but their relationship broke down in 2003. In the fall of that year, Miller moved to Virginia with Isabella. In November, she filed to dissolve their civil union, Galusha said. Reports said their union was dissolved in 2004.

The next years were filled with back-and-forth court hearings over child visitation. The court granted rights to parent-child contact to Jenkins in June 2004, but by the fall of 2009, Miller had not allowed court-ordered visits for Jenkins for much of the year.

The court determined in November 2009 that Jenkins would have sole physical and legal custody of Isabella starting on Jan. 2010, ruling that Miller had willfully interfered with her visitation rights. But Miller had already fled her home in Lynchburg, Va., with her daughter in tow.

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Kenneth Miller is the leader of a Beachy Amish Mennonite church in Stuarts Draft, The New York Times reported. The sect believes that same-sex marriage is a sin and its members said the mother and daughter were sheltered by their missionaries in Nicaragua, the newspaper reported. 

There are about 13,000 members of the Beachy Amish Mennonite sect worldwide, Cory Anderson, a member and doctoral student in sociology at Ohio State University, told The Times.

Lisa Miller had filed her lawsuit seeking an order of parentage (to declare that she was the only one with parental rights to Isabella) in Virginia on the day that state's statute banning same-sex marriage went into effect in 2004, said Greg Nevins, a Lambda Legal attorney who worked on the case from that year to 2010. He noted it was important to establish such attempts at an "end-run" -- by changing jurisdictions in order to get a desired outcome -- would not be acceptable.

The case was thus important, not because it broke new ground or put same-sex parents in a different category, but "because it basically acknowledges that they should be treated ... the same as other people parenting children,” Nevins said.

Sarah Star, Jenkins' lawyer in Vermont, said she hoped the trial of Kenneth Miller would send a message to those continuing to "aid and abet" the abduction and ongoing crime, though she didn't think her client was going to get closure from the proceedings. 

“People need to be held accountable for breaking the law, but she’s interested in what’s going to bring Isabella home," she told NBC News. "The bottom line is … that Isabella is still missing."

Reuters and The New York Times contributed to this report.

Comments? Questions? You can email the reporter at miranda.leitsinger@msnbc.com

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