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
The Connolly family are an ancient sept of Ireland's western province of Connacht. The Gaelic form of the name is O'Conghaile. The original sept dispersed and in time three separate families developed based in Cork, Meath and Monaghan. However, the name is mainly found in Monaghan and in its native Connaught where it is sometimes spelled Connelly. There is also an unrelated … [Read more...] about Roots: The Connolly Family
When Wolfe Tone examined the situation of his country in the 1790s, he made what for him was "a great discovery, though I might have found it in Swift and Molyneux, that the influence of England was the radical vice of our government, and consequently that Ireland would never be either free, prosperous, or happy until she was independent, and that independence was unattainable … [Read more...] about Jonathan Swift: A Literary Life
Every so often in Irish traditional music, a marvelous album comes along without much advance fanfare. The Missing Reel by fiddler Séamus McGuire and flutist John Lee, with superb support from guitarist Arty McGlynn and pianist Fiona McGuire (Séamus' sister), is just such an album. Released at the end of 1990, it has sustained its popularity among traditional music lovers in … [Read more...] about Nothing’s Missing from The Missing Reel
In the Shadow of Michael Collins is an interesting review of the fatal ambush at Béal na Bláth, where the famous Cork rebel was slain. The 1922 shooting has aroused as much controversy among Irish historians as does the 1963 assassination of J.F. Kennedy in Dallas among their American counterparts. Although the film begins with the assassination, it soon reverts to the life … [Read more...] about A Great Story Well Told
