Young Skins By Colin Barrett Glanbeigh, the fictional Everytown of Mayo native Colin Barrett’s Young Skins, is “nowhere you have been, but you know its ilk,” asserts the narrator of the collection’s opening short story. Barrett borrows from the techniques of William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez, immediately setting his debut book in the tradition of literary giants – … [Read more...] about Review of Books
Issues
Slainte! The Meat and Potatoes of Life
An Irish saying has it that “A dinner is not a dinner at all but only an excuse for one if it does not contain a plate of meat.” It’s a good bet that America’s penchant for “meat and potatoes” was cultivated by the immigrants who flocked here from Ireland, where meals built around meat have a long history. Tracing the tradition requires journeying back to the days of the High … [Read more...] about Slainte! The Meat and Potatoes of Life
Photo Album:
“We Loved You, Mary Garvey”
My grandmother Mary Garvey was born on October 18th, 1894 in Farmhill, Claremorris, County Mayo. She was the oldest of six children born to Anne Mullen Garvey and Peter Garvey. She left for America in 1914 at age 20 and came to New York via Ellis Island. She soon married a successful young engineer, John Edward O’Connor, whose name is on the brass plaque as one of the engineers … [Read more...] about Photo Album:
“We Loved You, Mary Garvey”
An Ancestral Tour of Stephen Colbert’s Family
It was a damp morning in late February 2008 when the phone rang. Harvard scholar and PBS host Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr. was calling with one of his random genealogical requests. He was going to be on The Colbert Report later that day. Did I, by any chance, know anything about Stephen Colbert’s roots? Luckily for him, I had two hundred years of family history at the … [Read more...] about An Ancestral Tour of Stephen Colbert’s Family
Compadre Plant Matrix
Botanists at Trinity College Dublin have launched a database that documents significant ‘life events’ for nearly 600 plant species across the globe. Working with like-minded individuals across five continents the team has gathered data over a near 50-year span. At a time of climate change, the researchers hope their COMPADRE Plant Matrix database will … [Read more...] about Compadre Plant Matrix