My grandparents were born in the Irish midlands in the 1870s, the decade that the Home Rule movement began. My grandfather Mick O'Rourke, a thatcher, was from Drumgilda, County Leitrim. My grandmother Martha Thompson was a Ballinamuck woman. She worked in her grandmother's shop in Drumlish before her family sold a heifer to raise her passage so that at 16, in 1894, she could … [Read more...] about My Guiding Star
Archive
George Mitchell
The Peace Maker
Former U.S. Senator George Mitchell has earned a hallowed place in the annals of Irish and Irish-American history for the crucial role he played in chairing the All Party talks in Northern Ireland that culminated in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
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On chairing the All Party talks: It's a labor of love and I mean it. I believe this is a moment of historic opportunity that … [Read more...] about George MitchellThe Peace Maker
Maureen O’Hara
Hollywood Colleen
Throughout her film career, Maureen O'Hara captured the essence of the Irish colleen in all its contradictions. In The Quiet Man, as Mary Kate, she went toe-to-toe with John Wayne's Jack Thornton, in one of the most rugged screen courtships in the history of film.
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There were a lot of Irish actors in Hollywood at that time, weren't there?
Yes, Barry Fitzgerald, Arthur … [Read more...] about Maureen O’HaraHollywood Colleen
Confessions of a
Bronx Irish Catholic
Over the years, I've spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about what it means to be Irish. Occasionally, my public writings and ruminations on the subject have led to me being described (and dismissed) as a "professional Irishman." If only it were true! Unfortunately, I'm still a semi-pro, forced to make a living at activities unrelated to my ethnic investigations.
A … [Read more...] about Confessions of a
Bronx Irish Catholic
The Irish as Playful Souls
The old St. Patrick's Day quip about there being two kinds of people – those who are Irish and those who wish they were – turns out to be not so far from wrong. The research my colleague Michael Hout has carried out shows that there are a lot more Americans claiming to be Irish than one might expect from immigration records, because the children of ethnically mixed marriages … [Read more...] about The Irish as Playful Souls