Irish America

Irish America

By Jack McCormack March 1991

Hibernia | Irish in the Civil War

By Jack McCormack

March 1991

by Leave a Comment

The March-April issue of Civil War magazine is devoted to examining the role of the Irish in the War Between the States. This fact comes on the heels of the widely acclaimed Public Broadcasting System's eleven-hour series "The Civil War," which virtually ignored the Irish contributions to both sides in America's most famous conflict. PBS mentioned the Irish for about fifteen … [Read more...] about Hibernia | Irish in the Civil War

Hibernia | Who Wrote “Danny Boy”?

By Peter Garland

March 1991

by Leave a Comment

The words to perhaps the most famous of all Irish songs, "Danny Boy," were actually written by an Englishman named Frederick E. Weatherley, a leading barrister and lyricist of his day. The tune of this song is Irish-the "Londonderry Air," first seen in print in 1855 after Miss Jane Ross of Limavady, a village east of Derry, in Northern Ireland, had taken it down from a peasant … [Read more...] about Hibernia | Who Wrote “Danny Boy”?

Back to the Future

By Irish America Staff

March 1991

by Leave a Comment

In the anteroom to the office of the Mayor of Chicago there is an impressive photographic display of portraits of all the Chicago mayors since politics began. It follows the pattern of the political destiny of ethnic America but only to a point. After all this is Chicago, the city once characterized crudely as "owned by the Jews, lived in by the Blacks and run by the Irish," … [Read more...] about Back to the Future

“If You Can’t Stand Up – Stand Out”

By Irish America Staff

March 1991

by Leave a Comment

It is a Manhattan Irish bar late at night. Chris O'Donoghue of WWOR Channel 9 wheels into the bar with a group of friends. Heads swivel, as one of the best-known faces in the New York area passes. He knows it is only a matter of time. And it is. A large man, the map of Ireland on his face, comes lumbering down the bar. "Chrisss," he slurs, assuming familiarity with the face he … [Read more...] about “If You Can’t Stand Up – Stand Out”

Hall of Fame | The Lion in Winter

By Irish America Staff

March 1991

by Leave a Comment

The gentle rolling hills that surround his ranch in Goshen, New York, about 60 miles north of Manhattan, remind Paul O'Dwyer of Ireland, and that's good enough reason for him to live there. He spends almost every weekend at the ranch. The New York Commissioner to the United Nations, now in his mid-eighties, catches the bus from Manhattan, then walks the almost three miles to … [Read more...] about Hall of Fame | The Lion in Winter