Irish America
Irish America
Tradition. A word that embodies Guinness, a brand which celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2009. In 1759, Arthur Guinness set the stage for the iconic brand by signing a 9,000-year lease at St. James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin. Guinness provided his workers with wages that were 10 to 20 percent higher than the local average, provided paid holiday vacations, and offered free … [Read more...] about My Goodness My Guinness!
De Dannan, along with The Bothy Band, Planxty and The Chieftains, is one of the seminal super-group Irish traditional bands that started up in the heady days of the 1970s and have powered along in various incarnations to this day. Hailing from Spiddal, Co. Galway, and originally made up of Frankie Gavin on fiddle, Alec Finn on bouzouki, Johnny “Ringo” McDonagh on bodhrán and … [Read more...] about Frankie Gavin Back with De Dannan
If, in 1964, you were to have asked me which two things excited me most, aside of course from ‘The Siren Call of Sex’ as the poet Philip Larkin put it, I would have answered, the Ronettes and the paintings of Francis Bacon. Oh, and the fact that I was leaving Hull College of Art intent on a life of painting, so three things. The first Francis Bacon paintings I saw were in … [Read more...] about The Human Cry: An Appreciation of Francis Bacon
Chuck Daly 1930-2009 Charles Jerome “Chuck” Daly, head N.B.A. coach and Hall of Fame inductee, died at age 78 on May 9 of pancreatic cancer in Jupiter, Florida. Born in St. Mary’s, Pennsylvania, and raised in the 1930s by an Irish Catholic family in the midst of the Depression, Daly’s humble roots kept him grounded throughout his successes. He resolved in high school to become … [Read more...] about Those We Lost
I first encountered Thomas Cahill in the reading requirements for ninth grade history, where Mr. Dachille’s designation of Cahill’s book The Gifts of the Jews as a substitute for the dry textbooks to which I was accustomed instantly granted him canonical stature in my mind. And for good reason: Cahill’s accessible and fascinating takes on the histories of the Irish, the Jews, … [Read more...] about Thomas Cahill: Civilization on Trial
