Think of Irish pubs and the mind turns to Dublin; sipping a pint of Guinness as the sun streams over the aged wooden interiors of Doheny and Nesbitt's or following the literary trail of Joyce, Behan and Kavanagh through Davy Byrne's, Mulligans and McDaids. Celebrated in verse and novel, a focal point for every tourist, Dublin pub culture is a treasure to be prized. But travel … [Read more...] about Historic Pubs of Belfast
Out of Albany
William Kennedy, known as the author who captured Albany, New York, talks to Tom Deignan. ℘℘℘ William Kennedy is telling a story about his father that could very well be a haunting moment from any one of his seven "Albany cycle" novels. "My father's father came from Tipperary," the novelist, 74, says over an Irish breakfast in Fitzpatrick's mid-town Manhattan hotel. Kennedy's … [Read more...] about Out of Albany
The Voice of the Dispossessed
February 2, 2002 marked the centenary of John Steinbeck's birth. Jim Dwyer writes about the great American writer's Irish Roots. ℘℘℘ All the great novels and stories of John Steinbeck slice into the American experience, clear to the bone. They are set in California, or along Route 66, where the Joads trekked across the Southwest from the Dust Bowls. And Steinbeck himself, born … [Read more...] about The Voice of the Dispossessed
Film Forum :
Troubles with Sunday
The epochal "Bloody Sunday" -- the massacre of thirteen unarmed Londonderry civilians by the British Army on January 30, 1972 -- is the stuff from which great drama could be drawn. The stories of the individuals caught up in the violence, the political machinations behind the scenes, the obscuring fog of lies and propaganda, and that day's transformation of Irish politics offer … [Read more...] about Film Forum :
Troubles with Sunday
Thomas Flanagan (1923-2003) Earned His Place in Irish Literature
By Seamus Heaney
On March 16, 2002, Thomas Flanagan reviewed a history of St. Patrick's day for The Irish Times and was identified by the paper's literary editor as "a novelist and scholar...currently working on a book about Irish-American writers." When he died in Berkeley from a heart attack five days later, he had submitted to The New York Book Review of Books his piece on William Kennedy … [Read more...] about Thomas Flanagan (1923-2003) Earned His Place in Irish Literature