Sometimes a story comes along that captivates even the most cynical of us journalists -- a notoriously hard-to-impress bunch at the best of times. Such a story is this issue's cover feature on Aimee Mullins, the daughter of an Irish immigrant father and American mother, who is fast becoming one of the nation's most inspirational stories. At the age of one, Aimee had to have … [Read more...] about The First Word: The World At Her Feet
First Word
The Best and the Brightest 1998
This has been quite a year (we measure time from March to March) for the Irish in America. As our annual Top 100 list shows, the Irish, as the song goes, are "top of the heap, king of the hill," and not just in New York, New York, but everywhere. But of all the great Irish American success stories there is none to rival Frank McCourt's tale of triumph. As we go to press, his … [Read more...] about The Best and the Brightest 1998
What the Future Holds
Bear in mind these dead: I can find no plainer words. - John Hewitt, "Neither an Elegy nor a Manifesto" The New Year brings good tidings to a young couple I know, the birth of a baby boy, a welcome addition to their ever expanding family. Unlike his mother, a Belfast native, this boy will grow up outside the danger zone of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. Other children … [Read more...] about What the Future Holds
The First Word: Our Evolving Heritage
In this issue we celebrate the realization of the American dream by so many of our people, reminding us once again of the good fit this country has proved to be for the Irish. Not that it happened overnight. In the words of Robert Kennedy: "As the first of the racial minorities our forefathers were subject to every discrimination found wherever discrimination is known." The … [Read more...] about The First Word: Our Evolving Heritage
An Always Known Place
"We people of the diaspora, whether from Australia or Michigan or the plains of Canada, get here, returning ghosts, utterly confused and in need of guidance; and we see a place like Ballycotton, and recognize it straight away as a never but always known place." The Australian-Irish writer Thomas Keneally summed up in that sentence how someone from so far away, both in terms of … [Read more...] about An Always Known Place