Frank McCourt is on an exhaustive book tour and won't get a break until the middle of December when he gets back to New York for the premiere of the movie Angela's Ashes. Towards the end of October, Irish America Editor-in-Chief Patricia Harty caught up with Frank on the phone from Palo Alto, California. How are you? Running, running, running from place to place, signing … [Read more...] about ‘Tis Frank
Issues
A Musical, Magical, Mystical Tour of Ireland
By Nancy Lyon
Mick Moloney, the folklorist, tenor banjo player, songster, wit, and raconteur offers a tour of Ireland to end all tours. On both sides of the Atlantic, Mick Moloney is known for his expressive traditional singing and tenor banjo playing dexterity, and he performs widely with Derry fiddler Eugene O'Donnell and set dancing champion Regan Wick, and with the touring ensemble The … [Read more...] about A Musical, Magical, Mystical Tour of Ireland
The Origin of “The Fighting Irish” Nickname
By Murray Sperber
This exchange in a novel about college sports in the 1920s catches the prejudices that many Americans of the time held toward citizens of Irish-Catholic descent. However, unlike other immigrant groups who tried to submerge their ethnicity into the American melting pot and considered such terms as "Polack" and "Bohunk" insults, Irish Catholics gloried in many of their nicknames, … [Read more...] about The Origin of “The Fighting Irish” Nickname
Endurance: A compelling story of survival that hinged on the leadership of one man
Frank Wild, the second in command, made his way through the ship as its planks buckled and heaved against the mounting pressure. Occasionally a loud crack rang out like a gunshot as the timber snapped under the strain. He worked his way from the crew's quarters to the engine room and down to the propeller shaftway where two crewmembers were trying to reinforce a cofferdam that … [Read more...] about Endurance: A compelling story of survival that hinged on the leadership of one man
Thomas Cahill: An Irish Gift to the Human Race
By Tom Deignan
We mourn a writer who shed a light on Irish monks who kept the fires of Christian learning alight during the Dark Ages, and in doing so, helped banish some of the stereotypes leveled at our race. Best-selling author Thomas Cahill – who died on October 18 at the age of 82 – once described a bitter irony of history in this very magazine. “Ireland had been a place of fabulous … [Read more...] about Thomas Cahill: An Irish Gift to the Human Race