"One thing that explains more than anything about me is the fact that I'm Irish." ~Eugene O'Neill Is there anything better than cuddling up with a good book? I was fortunate enough to have been brought up without television. Not because my parents were worried about it being a distraction from homework, but because Ireland was a bit behind the times. When we did get … [Read more...] about First Word: Mortas Cine
First Word
The First Word: Shall We Ever Overcome?
My English brother-in-law once asked me if I had anything happy to write about. To paraphrase Dorothy Parker, the world has enough happiness in it without our having to read about it in magazines, but I know what he means. I wish I could devote this space to waxing lyrical about our Top 100: How their success contrasts with the snuggles of earlier generations. And how some of … [Read more...] about The First Word: Shall We Ever Overcome?
The Last Word
The last time it happened...The Irish were to blame. ℘℘℘ The election results are in. The presidential candidate of the incumbent Democratic party has won the popular vote but lost the election because one big state has narrowly swung to the Republicans. Commentators blame the Democratic loss, in part, on defections among a key ethnic group many of whom had been led to … [Read more...] about The Last Word
The First Word:
Now and in Time to Be
"I knew that we were Irish and I knew that Irish was the best thing to be."
– Novelist Alice McDermott
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When I immigrated to this country I had no idea of the history of the Irish in America – indeed, I had the idea that only someone born and raised in Ireland could call themselves Irish.
A Greyhound bus ticket at a cheap student rate that lasted three months and … [Read more...] about The First Word:
Now and in Time to Be
The First Word: A Little Boy’s Cry
On a plane to San Francisco a young couple sit across from me with two boys. The younger one is kicking up a ruckus. As I reach for my ear-plugs I hear the wife say something to her husband, a trendy fellow with glasses and an earring. "Big Ian" she calls him. Belfast, I think to myself. The accent is that of my sister-in-law Elaine. That this family is from Northern Ireland … [Read more...] about The First Word: A Little Boy’s Cry