I love to drive around Ireland, especially if I have the luxury of time. I aim my car in the direction that I hope to end up, and then take the by roads, leaving the highway behind. Many of the old “main” roads are still in use and, though narrow by today’s standards, they are still wide enough for another car passing in the opposite direction. It is down these backroads, with … [Read more...] about Portals to the Past
2014
Review of Books
By Irish America staff
February / March 2014
February / March 2014
Exchange Place by Ciaran Carson Ciaran Carson is a writer preoccupied with memory and perception. The author of five other prose collections and ten books of poetry, Exchange Place is Carson’s most recent meditation on these subjects, told through the conceit of a mystery surrounding the decade-old disappearance of a Belfast painter named, depending on who is … [Read more...] about Review of Books
The Fifth Province
By Dr. Miriam Nyham, Contributor
February / March 2014
February / March 2014
There is a well-known Irish saying: ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine that can be loosely translated as “it is in the shelter of each other that the people live.” Particularly during acts of migration, this adage becomes a critical component of immigrant success. In New York and other parts of the United States, as Irish immigrants attempted to recreate a sense of home in … [Read more...] about The Fifth Province
Grandma Walsh’s Wake
By Timothy Walsh
February / March 2014
February / March 2014
Grandma Walsh’s Wake After the viewing in the funeral home— all the young cousins marauding through the ghostly upstairs rooms, our parents whispering solemnly below— then came the night-long wake in the apartment of the bachelor cousins, the newest arrivals from the old country, the casket brought there by eight strong men. Next day would come the funeral Mass in the stone … [Read more...] about Grandma Walsh’s Wake
Toy Trains
An excerpt from the memoir “Tipperary to Tibet,” a collection of Irish stories by Joseph M. Cahalan. It had all the earmarks of a classic sibling rivalry. My sister, Pat – or Patsy as she was called until adolescence – was born four years earlier than me and had our parents all to herself for those early formative years. When I came along, things changed dramatically in all … [Read more...] about Toy Trains