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Presidents & First Ladies of Irish Ancestry

By Carl Sferrazza Anthony

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There's as much of the old sod in the White House as there is on its south lawn. The backgrounds of America's First Families are diverse: Nancy Reagan and Lady Bird Johnson have Spanish forebears; Herbert Hoover was Swiss and Canadian; Mamie Eisenhower was part Swedish while Ike was German; Martin Van Buren and the Roosevelts were Dutch; James Garfield had a royal strain … [Read more...] about Presidents & First Ladies of Irish Ancestry

Crime Pays for John Banville

By Tom Deignan

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Will Real John Banville Please Stand Up! Wexford native and Booker-prize-winner John Banville has spent his celebrated literary career exploring the slippery nature of identity and reality. Characters in Banville’s dazzling, challenging novels, such as The Untouchable or Athena, slip in and out of personas, and conceal so many secrets from friends and family (not to mention … [Read more...] about Crime Pays for John Banville

John Lennon and Me
(20 years behind)

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By Megan Smolenyak As the rest of the world commemorates what would have been John Lennon’s 80th birthday, I celebrate my 60th. More or less confined at home. Not the circumstances I would have chosen, but just about all of us are apt to have pandemic-impaired birthdays, so no complaints. Still, a milestone like this makes one reflect, and the lack of distraction makes it … [Read more...] about John Lennon and Me
(20 years behind)

Jim Dwyer Storyteller

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By Irish America staff A trio of New York journalists Jimmy Breslin, Pete Hamill and Jim Dwyer, profoundly changed the way newspaper columns are written. Where once columns were either think pieces or puffery of the rich and powerful, Breslin, Hamill and Dwyer pioneered a “man on the street on the side of the little guy” style that transformed modern journalism. To New … [Read more...] about Jim Dwyer Storyteller