When I wrote the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award tribute to John Huston in 1983, I had the delightful opportunity to work with his daughter Anjelica. With warmth and enthusiasm, she hosted a segment of our CBS-TV special featuring testimonials by her father's colleagues. Then thirty-one years old, Anjelica seemed like a young gazelle, an exotically beautiful … [Read more...] about Anjelica Huston’s Irish Homecoming
Feature
Irish Americans Rock the Millenium
Irish America capped the century with a special Millenium Ball in honor of the magazine's Irish Americans of the Century. Joy mingled with a touch of nostalgia at our recent Millennium Ball, during which video clips of the late President John F. Kennedy and other deceased members of the Greatest Irish Americans of the Century were cheered alongside speeches by contemporary … [Read more...] about Irish Americans Rock the Millenium
Angela’s Ashes Loses Its Voice
Anyone who has read Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes -- and by now that probably takes in about half the planet -- knows that what makes McCourt's memoir of an impoverished Irish childhood so magical is the unique "voice" the author uses to tell the story. McCourt struggled for many years until he "started writing in the voice of a child, immediate, urgent and without hindsight … [Read more...] about Angela’s Ashes Loses Its Voice
The Boy from Southie
Michael Patrick MacDonald was in the third grade when the anti-busing riots broke out in South Boston in 1974. In his first book, All Souls, he harks back to that chaotic time. He talks to Lauren Byrne about growing up poor in Southie, that most Irish of enclaves. There's a certain grim thrill in meeting a writer around whom reports are swirling that he is having to lie low … [Read more...] about The Boy from Southie
Have the Irish Made It in America?
Sociologist and best-selling author Andrew M. Greeley looks at the various immigrant waves of Irish to this country and how they fared. Have the Irish made it in America? That the question is still asked shows that the Irish are still insecure about their success in this country. In fact, Irish Catholics are the most successful gentile ethnic group in American society and … [Read more...] about Have the Irish Made It in America?