Parishioners and friends of historic St. James Parish, founded in 1855 on Chicago’s South Side by Irish immigrants who’d escaped the Great Starvation, spent Easter in a prayer vigil in front of their padlocked church, imploring the Archdiocese (and the Pope, via his Twitter @Pontifex) to stop the wrecking ball, due in only a few days, from destroying their unique church and … [Read more...] about The Fight to Save Chicago’s St. James Parish
Stopping the Famine Trigger – Phytophthora infestans
A pathogen called Phytophthora infestans has long been recognized as the cause of the Irish Potato Famine, which led to over one million deaths. But until recently, scientists were unsure of exactly how it subverted the natural immune system of the crop and wreaked such rampant failure. A new study published in Nature Genetics uncovers the process by which Phytophthora cripples … [Read more...] about Stopping the Famine Trigger – Phytophthora infestans
USS Monitor Sailors Laid to Rest
What will likely be the last burial of the U.S. Civil War took place at Arlington National Cemetery on March 8. Two sailors whose skeletons were found in 2002, when the gun turret of the sunken USS Monitor was unearthed off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, were finally laid to rest in a full naval ceremony. Speaking at the funeral service, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus … [Read more...] about USS Monitor Sailors Laid to Rest
Those We Lost
Recent passings in the Irish and Irish-American communities. Inez McCormack 1946 – 2013 Northern Irish civil rights and labor activist Inez McCormack died late January. She was 66. McCormack, who once said, “There is no fun in being the first woman on anything,” served on numerous boards as the sole female representative, and broke the glass ceiling in labor and politics as … [Read more...] about Those We Lost
A Sacred Place: Skellig Michael
Photographer and writer Chris Ryan visited the larger of the two Skellig Islands off the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, where an early-medieval monastery survives at the edge of the material world. Start at the Dublin offices of Google or Facebook, drive to the southwest tip of Ireland, hop a boat, journey seven miles out to sea, and climb 600 steps clinging to the edge of … [Read more...] about A Sacred Place: Skellig Michael