Sitting in the audience watching dancers from The Pirate Queen at Irish America’s Top 100 Gala in 2006, honoree Trent Kowalik never imagined that in just two years it would be him up on a Broadway stage. Even Trent’s mother, Lauretta, has trouble believing that her son has gone from Irish dancing to a starring role in the Broadway production of Billy Elliot. “Who would’ve … [Read more...] about Becoming Billy Elliot
Issues
The Pain and Beauty of Hunger
Declan O’Kelly discusses Steve McQueen’s film about Bobby Sands’ last days. Hunger is a movie about the last six weeks of Bobby Sands’ life. It is directed by Englishman Steve McQueen and stars Michael Fassbender in the lead role. Widely acclaimed, the film has won several awards, the most notable being the 2008 Camera D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Bobby Sands died on … [Read more...] about The Pain and Beauty of Hunger
Murder She Wrote: Martina Cole
Martina Cole is famous, and quite pleased about it. Her books are notorious for being the most requested in the prison libraries in the UK, and she is consistently referred to as England’s bestselling adult fiction writer. “When I wrote Dangerous Lady, the first book,” she says in a voice that is as full of grit and glamour as her epic six-hundred-page crime dramas, “I never … [Read more...] about Murder She Wrote: Martina Cole
The Polish Connection
Since Poland joined the EU in May 2004, two million people have left the country. An estimated 250,000 of them have come to Ireland where they now amount to five percent of the population. In fact, so large is the Polish contingent in Ireland that when the two countries recently met in a soccer match in Croke Park, penalty scorer Stephen Hunt remarked that it was like a home … [Read more...] about The Polish Connection
A Grandmother’s Gaze
When I was young I had the habit of staring off into space. We might be sitting at the kitchen table cutting string beans for dinner when I’d go into a trance-like state. My mother, Nora, always said that I reminded her of her mother, who used to do the same thing. I wondered what my grandmother may have been thinking as she stared into space or out the window at the sheep … [Read more...] about A Grandmother’s Gaze