From The Seven Little Foys to Patriot Games.
Once when I was a child, I asked my mother to let me dye my entire body green for St. Patrick's Day. She refused, sensibly enough, or I would still be trying to scrub the food coloring from my fingernails. That memory tells me I must have had a strong enough desire to proclaim my Irish roots from an early age.
But those were … [Read more...] about In Pursuit of my
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In Pursuit of my
Mary Higgins Clark
Queen of Suspense
The author of such suspense thrillers as Where Are the Children?; Loves Music, Loves to Dance; and Before I Say Good-bye, Mary Higgins Clark is the number one best-selling suspense writer in the United States and the highest-paid female author in the world.
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My mother worked as a department store buyer. She married at 40 and produced three of us. I grew up in the Bronx. … [Read more...] about Mary Higgins ClarkQueen of Suspense
A Man of Two Countries
"I have lived so long abroad and in so many countries that I can feel at once the voice of Ireland in anything." – James Joyce, in a letter to Frank Bludgeon ℘℘℘ A story: In the early 1940s a young and popular nun from Louisburgh in Mayo – a coastal town under the dark and lovely shadow of Croagh Patrick – was asked to leave her native land to help a struggling church in … [Read more...] about A Man of Two Countries
My Wild Irish Mother
In 1967 when she was 80, I tossed a birthday party for Mother. There were over 70 people present: my generation and hers, friends and cousins, our children, cronies from way-back years. The party started at three in the afternoon because I was sure that Mother and the other old girls would get tired early. I should have known better. Twelve hours later, I and my contemporaries … [Read more...] about My Wild Irish Mother
Sean Minihane
Immigrant Defender
In the late '80s and early '90s the Irish Immigration Reform Movement (I.I.R.M.) was a powerful lobbying group for Irish immigrants, working to change U.S. immigration law to provide equal access to all immigrants and to legalize the thousands of illegal Irish immigrants who were in the country already. The following excerpt is from an interview with Sean Minihane, then … [Read more...] about Sean MinihaneImmigrant Defender