In her new biography of Maeve Brennan, Angela Bourke includes two photographs taken around 1948. In one, Brennan, a delicate-looking young woman dressed in black, is sitting in front of the fire looking over her shoulder, a cigarette in her left hand. With her hair fixed tightly in a bun and her lips pursed, she looks like a fashion model. In another photo from the same shoot, … [Read more...] about The Troubled Life of Maeve Brennan
Issues
Paddy Whacked
T.J. English didn't quite know what to expect when he went up to Boston earlier this year to promote his eye-opening new book, Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster. "Boston is the one place where this story is still a contemporary story, because of South Boston and the way Irish-American culture has been preserved in South Boston like no place else," … [Read more...] about Paddy Whacked
Omagh
Gerard McSorley was traveling the day a bomb shook the foundations of Omagh -- his hometown. He was returning to Dublin, where he was living at the time, and his sister, who was in London struggling to piece together the events of the day, was frantic to reach him. On entering his house, he answered the phone to his sister's hysterics. Images of bodies and general confusion … [Read more...] about Omagh
Review of Books
Recommended MYSTERIES OF MY FATHER: An Irish-American Memoir Thomas Fleming Publisher's Weekly is the bible of the book industry, and is read closely by everyone from writers and literary agents to editors and book store owners. All of them have their eyes out for the next big thing, say, the next Angela's Ashes. For years, all of the reviews in Publisher's Weekly were … [Read more...] about Review of Books
Holy Cross, the Untold Story
"There were men and women, over their fences, shouting names and spitting and pulling people's hair...and then a bomb flew over. Father Troy told us all to run. I thought everyone was going to die." Roisin Crawford was nine years of age during the infamous Holy Cross protest of 2001, when a group of Loyalist protesters, claiming provocation from local Republicans (including … [Read more...] about Holy Cross, the Untold Story