Irish Americans celebrate Earth Day and beyond with action and activism The man who began it Denis Hayes Denis Hayes – recognized around the world as the founder of Earth Day with Senator Gaylord Nelson, recently looked back at a key moment in environmental history. “In late January 1969, millions of gallons of crude oil began to pour into the waters off Santa … [Read more...] about Embracing the Green Wave
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Time for Peace
The year was 1981, and Irish American elected officials – including the junior U.S. Senator from Delaware, Joe Biden – had plenty of reasons to be concerned. Yes, another festive St. Patrick’s Day in Washington D.C., was approaching. But so were some of the darkest days of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Amidst rising clashes on the streets of Belfast, an Irish Republican … [Read more...] about Time for Peace
Wild Irish Women: Bernadette
After 800 years of colonial rule, Ireland finally got conditional freedom and fell victim to the British Empire’s deadliest legacy, partition. In the six northern counties, bigotry and resentment simmered over the years until it broke wide open in 1968. Then along came Bernadette. In the beginning, there was a single face that symbolized the conflict, a passionate college … [Read more...] about Wild Irish Women: Bernadette
Good Friday and Us
I wonder if we are, as novelist Salman Rushdie has written, at the deepest level of our nature, “frontier-crossing beings.” Is it part of an innate desire to step across borders, and by doing so enter into places that can be disorienting or even dangerous? If that is so, are we not wall-builders as well, determined to keep at bay the foreign, the invader, and the … [Read more...] about Good Friday and Us
Against the Tide
Sean Granahan is determined to keep The Floating Hospital afloat It’s been nearly 20 years since Sean Granahan found himself in a diner on the West Side of Manhattan, staring at a piece of paper. “The numbers weren’t pretty,” Granahan recalls. “In fact, they were un-pretty.” A lawyer, Granahan had spent the previous several years doing work on behalf of a New York-based … [Read more...] about Against the Tide