Irish America
Irish America
In the vast collection of traditional Irish music, there exists a tune called the Ballinasloe Fair which celebrates what was in its heyday one of the most famous horse fairs in Western Europe and which is still regarded as the biggest and most popular fair in modern Ireland. The week-long fair opens on October 3 each year and follows an old recognized pattern of Irish country … [Read more...] about The Fair of Ballinasloe
From unpretentious origins in Dublin, Bernard Shaw grew up to be the most celebrated playwright and polemicist of his generation. His life spanned an extraordinary period from publication of Darwin's Origin of Species to the dropping of the first atom bombs. Believing that an author's business was to mind everybody else's business, Shaw involved himself in everything. His … [Read more...] about A Great Performance
Not every artist who dies abroad enjoys a home burial, though homage is generally paid– to Joyce in Zurich, or to Keats in Rome. Such is sadly not the case, however, for James Fitzgerald, a highly regarded twentieth-century American painter who died on Aranmore Island, County Donegal, in 1971, and whose grave is seldom – if ever – visited in Dublin’s Mount Jerome Cemetery. Yet, … [Read more...] about An Irish American Artist’s Brush with Ireland
STEPHEN JOYCE has visualized his legendary grandfather, the author of Ulysses, as gazing down from literary heaven, transported as he surveys the manifestations of his monumental prominence in modern letters. When contemplating the celebration of Bloomsday this coming June 16 in Ireland, America, and presumably other parts of the planet as well, a day when scholars, students, … [Read more...] about A Stroll with Joyce on Bloomsday
In 1970, at the age of 22, Bernadette ‘Devlin' McAliskey was elected to represent the constituency of Mid-Ulster, which includes her home area of East Tyrone. Although she is no longer a Member of Parliament, and her international profile has receded, this radical Republican activist is still a kind of people's tribune in her own embattled nationalist community. Nowadays … [Read more...] about Deadly Tales from County Tyrone
