Irish America
Irish America
Six years have passed since Joe Doherty was deported from the U.S. in 1992 back to prison in Northern Ireland. Brian Rohan talks to Doherty about life behind bars and his thoughts on the Good Friday Agreement. In a place like Her Majesty's Prison, The Maze, even the tiniest of details can hold you up. By ten o'clock on the morning of May 21, I had navigated a series of iron … [Read more...] about The Prisoner
On October 5, 1968, the Northern Ireland civil rights movement burst onto the international scene when television pictures showed marchers being batoned off the streets of Derry by the police. Non-violent protests against discrimination had been percolating for years, but it was the small march in Derry that really launched the movement. When film showed the police using water … [Read more...] about Black and Green
Mary McAleese was elected president of Ireland in October of 1997. It was an astonishing outcome. Just a few months previously, the 46-year-old law professor at Queens University in Belfast was hardly known in the Irish Republic and the notion that a Northerner could be elected president of Ireland seemed a farfetched one. Then in one of the most stunning ascents to power in … [Read more...] about A People’s President
First, a confession. I once urged Julia Sweeney not to become an actress. Luckily, Julia disregarded that advice and went on to become, as she calls herself, "a woman of many media." Most people know her best from her four years on TV's Saturday Night Live, where she created the endearingly goofy, mysteriously androgynous Pat, or from the 1994 movie version, It's Pat, which she … [Read more...] about God Said, “Ha!”
Irish America speaks to Larry Kirwan about the Irish Famine's Musical Legacy. Think of any major event in Irish history and a song or two will spring to mind that describes the emotions of a people. Except, that is, for the Great Famine, which left its sufferers at a loss for words to describe their anguish and devastation. With the exception of “Skibbereen,” the musical … [Read more...] about New York Rock Band: Black 47
