If you happen to have a neighbor, or even a friend, who has recently returned from a visit to the ould sod and, after a couple of drops of the crathur', they start babblin' on about strange sightings in counties Mayo and Galway, take a good pinch of salt and, please, be patient, all will be explained! It is just over 50 years since one of the first Technicolor films ever to be … [Read more...] about Quiet Man Celebrations
Film and Television
The Quiet Man Turns Fifty
This year marks fiftieth anniversary of John Ford's The Quiet Man, the favorite movie of many Irish Americans. The native Irish tend to see it with more ambivalence, yet the readers of the Irish Times in 1996 voted it the greatest Irish movie ever made. The beguiling comedy-drama won Ford his fourth Academy Award as best director, as well as bringing Oscars to cinematographers … [Read more...] about The Quiet Man Turns Fifty
Straight to the Heart
The Grand Dame of the Big Band era is still moving hearts. The houselights in the expensive supper club on New York's East Side slowly began to dim one evening last spring and conversation, which had given the room a friendly buzz, also began to fade. Through a door at the end of the room came a smiling, heavy-set woman, blonde, dressed in a blue caftan-style gown. Slowly she … [Read more...] about Straight to the Heart
Just Judy
By the time Judy Garland made her first and only concert appearance in Dublin in July 1951, she had been an international star for more than a decade. She had starred in 27 feature length films, performed on more than 200 radio shows, appeared in hundreds of national and international magazines and newspapers, and recorded more than 70 records and albums. The diminutive … [Read more...] about Just Judy
Lacey Meets Brecht in Dublin
Tyne Daly, known to TV viewers as Mary Beth Lacey, takes on a new role in Dublin. The character of Mary Beth Lacey is as firmly fixed in the collective televisual consciousness of the Irish as it is in Americans – perhaps even more so. Yet it's hard to imagine Tyne Daly, the person behind the persona, being swamped by autograph seekers in a Stateside mall; it wasa … [Read more...] about Lacey Meets Brecht in Dublin