Recently published books of Irish and Irish-American interest. Recommended The Dream of the Celt The idea of Mario Vargas Llosa, one of the star writers of the Latin American Boom and the winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature, writing about Roger Casement, one of the more controversial, and misunderstood figures of Irish history, is initially surprising. There’s … [Read more...] about Review of Books
Issues
Roots: Keeping Up With the Joneses
The surname Jones, a holdover from the patronymic naming convention, means “son of John.” Celtic Welsh in origin, it emerged in the years following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, as the practice of using surnames was introduced into society. The first documentation of the name Jones is found in the 1279 Hundred Rolls of Buckinghamshire, which lists a Matilda Jones in … [Read more...] about Roots: Keeping Up With the Joneses
Family Album: John Hughes
This is a picture of my grandfather, John Thomas Hughes, born January 1891 in Dundalk, Co. Louth. He died in May of 1954, so I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but I have garnered information through stories from my father, my visits with relatives in Ireland, and from my own genealogical research. My dad and I spent a very poignant day in October 2003 at Calvary … [Read more...] about Family Album: John Hughes
The Year of Michael – An Interview With Michael Fassbender
An interview with Michael Fassbender. Michael Fassbender looks tanned and relaxed as he strolls into the bar at Claridge’s Hotel in London to join me for a drink. Sporting a bushy red beard, he is thin and slight in appearance, and like the chameleon he is on screen, he glides through the hotel undisturbed by importunate fans. For someone who became so famous as an actor in … [Read more...] about The Year of Michael – An Interview With Michael Fassbender
The First Word: Hunger and Silence
“People think [the Irish] are such great talkers, but there is so much silence in Ireland about certain issues.” – Fionnula Flanagan The image of Michael Fassbender on our cover is very different to how he was seen in Hunger, the 2008 movie in which he played Bobby Sands, leader of the 1981 hunger strike in Northern Ireland. Fassbender, a Kerry native whose mother is from … [Read more...] about The First Word: Hunger and Silence