Irish America
Irish America
Jeanne Marie Flanagan was pottering around her beautiful home in Walden, New York, just before Thanksgiving in 1989 when she started to cry. "I thought at the time it was my hormones because I was pregnant, but in my spirit I guess I knew something terrible had happened," she remembered. She was right. Her seven-year-old son, Mark, was in the East Coldenham Elementary School … [Read more...] about The Gift of Life
Twenty-two years in the music business, three previous songs in Ireland's National Song Contest and suddenly it was all happening for Jimmy Walsh, who kept on plugging until he made it. Walsh's song "In Your Eyes" won the Eurovision Song Contest, the biggest competition of its kind in Europe which is broadcast live via satellite. Over three hundred million people watched Niamh … [Read more...] about Blazes Boylan
Once again, Northern Ireland dominates headlines, both in Ireland and internationally. The Manchester IRA bomb was a huge blow for the peace process and set back support in the U.S. for Sinn Féin. Once again, Gerry Adams has to answer whether or not he can bring about a ceasefire. But the IRA is not the only problem. Day after day, it seems it is one step forward and two steps … [Read more...] about The Politics of Peace
Virtuoso New York fiddler Eileen Ivers is thrilling audiences everywhere with her wild Celtic rhythms in Riverdance, the sensational Irish dance revue which is taking the world by storm. ONE of the most electric moments in Riverdance occurs when the slight figure of virtuoso fiddler Eileen Ivers bounds into the spotlight and effortlessly teases up the tempo until the entire … [Read more...] about Bringing It All Back Home
Many of the thousands of Irish babies adopted in the U.S. in the '40s, '50s, and '60s are reclaiming their roots. Emer Mullins reports. ℘℘℘ In a quiet convent outside Dublin, an elderly nun is in possession of a veritable Pandora's Box relating to one of the most controversial periods in Irish social history. Sr. Patricia Quinn used to work at St. Patrick's Guild in Dublin, a … [Read more...] about Ireland’s Banished Children
