Aífe Murray tells Irish America the story of how an Irish maid influenced Emily Dickinson's poetry and saved it from destruction. Genius does not exist in a vacuum. This was the message taken away from Aífe Murray, author of Maid as Muse, when she spoke at Glucksman Ireland House on March 25th. The topic was Emily Dickinson, whose poetic prowess has been understood as the … [Read more...] about Maid as Muse: Emily Dickinson’s Irish Connection
Feature
The Good Samaritan
During the worst winter of the Famine, the American reformer Asenath Hatch Nicholson began her one-woman relief operation, organizing a soup kitchen, visiting homes of the poor and distributing bread in the street. In May 1844, Asenath Nicholson left New York aboard the Brooklyn to “personally investigate the condition of the Irish poor.” She had been a schoolteacher in … [Read more...] about The Good Samaritan
Hunger Memorials in America
Some crimes are so terrible, an affront to humanity, that they are impossible to capture in a memorial. But it could be said that memorials are for the living, not for the dead, a way to comfort the survivors, a way to redeem the suffering through beauty, and a reminder that we have to care for the hungry citizens in the world today. New York Thousands suffering in … [Read more...] about Hunger Memorials in America
How Name Changing Hid a Heritage
By Megan Smolenyak
Barry Manilow. Yes, I know, most think of him as a Jewish fellow from Brooklyn – and he is. But he’s also a quarter Irish, and due to certain circumstances in his family, that Irish share has had a disproportionate influence on his family tree. - Megan Smolenyak Name Changing Though he wouldn’t have known it, when Barry changed surnames, he was the third generation … [Read more...] about How Name Changing Hid a Heritage
Walking Into The Marvelous With Declan Kiberd
It is somehow fitting that the Good Friday peace agreement of 1998 has become inseparable from Irish poetry. If, for a moment in Northern Ireland, “hope and history rhymed” or those involved in resolving the conflict “walked on air against their better judgment,” phrases that politicians and other speechifiers ubiquitously quoted, they had poet Seamus Heaney to thank for their … [Read more...] about Walking Into The Marvelous With Declan Kiberd