Irish America
Irish America
"The Commitments" is a story of the formation and journey of northside Dublin soul band. It is contemporary urban Ireland as you have never seen it before – raw, energetic, joyous, earthy and poverty stricken. Here, Patrick Farrelly, himself a northsider, sings its praises. The scene is Spike Lee out of Frederico Fellini. The manager of "The Commitments," Jimmy Rabbitte is … [Read more...] about Bringing Soul to Dublin
I thought that ours indeed was a land of shame, a land of murder, a land of strange, throttled, sacrificial women," says the narrator of Edna O'Brien's story, "A Scandalous Woman." Of Irish murder and Irish shame we have heard much, but the news has been in the mouths of men. Edna O'Brien tells the Trish woman's inside story. She has — as only the finest writers can created a … [Read more...] about Edna O’Brien: A Fanatic Heart
On October 19, 1988 the British Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, imposed unprecedented peace time restrictions on broadcasting. The banning of direct interviews with eleven Irish organizations, including Sinn Féin, a legal political party with elected councillors and an MP at Westminster, was widely condemned. This article documents the effect of the restrictions on British TV … [Read more...] about The British Broadcast Ban, The Media and the Conflict in Northern Ireland
Just hours before winning a Grammy, country singer Kathy Mattea reminisced about her first meeting two years earlier with her current musical hero. "We went to the show and we were doing the whole bit about trying to get backstage. It was such a role reversal." she said. "I felt like a groupic." Ms. Mattea, one of the hottest names in Nashville, wasn't trying to crash the … [Read more...] about The Irish in Country: Putting the Celtic Fringe on the Music Charts
When you think of James Joyce, you think of the printed word. However, film adaptations were made of two of his works —Ulysses (1967) and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1977)—and both are now available from the innovative Mystic Fire Video Company of S. Burlington, Vermont. New York film director Joseph Strick was the driving force behind both projects. Now based in … [Read more...] about Video Review: James Joyce’s Ulysses
