My grandmother Nora MacNamara (née Hickey) turned 100 on June 15, 2014. From her retirement home on the Dingle peninsula, County Kerry – snuggled in the foothills of the Slieve Mish mountains and overlooking the clear blue Atlantic ocean – family and friends gathered to celebrate the centenary of a woman known to her grandchildren as simply ‘Granny Mac.’
What was the secret to … [Read more...] about Photo Album:
Granny Mac’s Centenary
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On The Set with
Norah O’Donnell
Norah O’Donnell is the co-host of CBS This Morning, guest host on Face the Nation, and a 60 Minutes correspondent. This seasoned broadcaster has earned the moniker “tough but fair.”
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Of course it helps Norah O’Donnell’s popularity that the camera loves her – she is tall and slim with perfect features, thick auburn hair, and big blue eyes. She’s also, as I found out when I … [Read more...] about On The Set with
Norah O’Donnell
The First Word: A Visit to Irish America
I've come to think of Irish America as an actual place unto itself, sort of like in an Irish fairytale where someone is magically transported to another world. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, you get to take a trip to that place without ever leaving American soil. That’s how it was for me the week after Easter. It began when I took two friends, visitors from Northern Ireland, … [Read more...] about The First Word: A Visit to Irish America
Does Paul Ryan Have Irish Amnesia?
On the eve of St. Patrick’s Day last March, Timothy Egan’s column “Paul Ryan’s Irish Amnesia” appeared in The New York Times. Egan cited Sir Charles Trevelyan, the British assistant secretary to the Treasury, who had ordered relief works to be shut down during the height of the Famine. “Dependence on charity,” Trevelyan declared, “is not to be made an agreeable mode of life.” … [Read more...] about Does Paul Ryan Have Irish Amnesia?
Gerry Adams Arrested
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams was arrested in Northern Ireland on Wednesday, April 30, and held until the following Sunday night when he was released without charge. Police cited new evidence from a Boston College Burns Library oral history project in which former IRA members apparently named Adams in connection with the kidnapping and killing of Jean McConville’s in 1972. Adams … [Read more...] about Gerry Adams Arrested





