On her recent visit to the United States President Mary Robinson (49) became for Irish Americans the embodiment of a new Ireland, an Ireland in which the Irish diaspora – those 70 million worldwide who can trace their roots to the Emerald Isle – were once again welcome. Perhaps it happened as she gave her magnificent speech at Ellis Island, commemorating the first immigrant to … [Read more...] about The Vision of Mary Robinson
Feature
To Die for Ireland
By Cormac McCarthy
May June 1993
I'm driving through Recess out in Connemara at the weekend. The whole lands under the peaks of The Twelve Pins cleanly washed by a summer shower, the birds singing. Again I am troubled by the whole concept of Dying for Ireland. Its a difficult one. I've always been selective in my patriotism. There are areas of this land, in short, that I would not willingly die for. Anyone … [Read more...] about To Die for Ireland
The Roads to Nowhere
Photos and reporting by Oistin MacBride
May June 1993
With the implementation of the Single European Market at the end of 1992 that "opened up all European frontiers to free movement and trade" no one in the border counties of Fermanagh and Leitrim registered more than a cynical shrug of their shoulders. For years the border, imposed under threat of war in 1922, had not only cut through their homes and fields but every aspect of … [Read more...] about The Roads to Nowhere
A Big Ship Sailing
By Frank McCourt
May June 1993
On the deck of the SS Costa Riviera a half dozen strayed revelers from Irish Festival Cruises raise their near-empty glasses to the dawn. Paddy Clancy, guru of that renowned group the Clancy Brothers and Robbie O'Connell, is so overcome with the beauty of it all he strips down to his shorts and dives into the Jacuzzi. You say, "How can anyone dive into a Jacuzzi?" Your point, … [Read more...] about A Big Ship Sailing
Farewell to Erin
By Irish America Staff
May June 1993
All over Ireland – why this chill?Why this foul mist?Why the crying birds?Why do the heavens mutter Such wrathful words? In 1840 Ireland's population was close to 10 million; less than a decade later, starvation and emigration had reduced it to 6.5 million. Such was the devastation that a visiting Frenchman wrote in his diary: "I saw the American Indian in his forests. And … [Read more...] about Farewell to Erin