Irish America

Irish America

Issues

Sláinte! Samhain: The Celtic New Year

By Edythe Preet

September October 1993

by Leave a Comment

Halloween is a night of magic, mystery and merry making. Ghosts haunt the imagination and trick-or-treaters go begging from door to door. Though the evening's colors are black and orange, they could as easily be forty shades of green because the customs of All Hallows Eve are Irish as the shamrock. The ancient Celtic year was divided by the four seasons. Samhain (November I) … [Read more...] about Sláinte! Samhain: The Celtic New Year

A Mission Remembered

By Maureen Murphy

September October 1993

by Leave a Comment

A sentimental nineteenth century novel of virtue rewarded tells the story of an Irish immigrant girl who came to New York in the 1870's. Subtitled "A Tale Founded on Fact," Annie Reilly or the Fortunes of an Irish Girl in New York describes Annie's arrival at Castle Garden: immigrants confused and exhausted, luggage broken or lost, possessions scattered, indifferent officials, … [Read more...] about A Mission Remembered

The Gift of Life

By Emer Mullins

September October 1993

by Leave a Comment

Jeanne Marie Flanagan was pottering around her beautiful home in Walden, New York, just before Thanksgiving in 1989 when she started to cry. "I thought at the time it was my hormones because I was pregnant, but in my spirit I guess I knew something terrible had happened," she remembered. She was right. Her seven-year-old son, Mark, was in the East Coldenham Elementary School … [Read more...] about The Gift of Life

Somalia: Ireland’s Concern

By Oistin MacBride

September October 1993

by Leave a Comment

Concern Worldwide are opening a school in Wil Wal, north Mogadishu, Somalia. It will soon have over 900 pupils. But first the playground has to be cleared of the remains of the dead. It is nauseating to discover that the little broken pieces of roofing asbestos jutting out of the ground are "gravestones," and that the pervasive smell is from corpses rotting inches below the … [Read more...] about Somalia: Ireland’s Concern

“Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor…”

By Patricia Harty, Editor-in-Chief
September October 1993

by Leave a Comment

"Gunmen Kill Irish Aid Worker in Somalia." The story made the headlines on Monday February 22, 1993. The worker was Valerie Place, 23, of the Irish charity Concern. For months the media had been bringing us the latest on famine-ravaged, war-torn Somalia, and it seemed that in almost every story an Irish volunteer was quoted. Now one had been killed. Relief workers have no … [Read more...] about “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor…”