Irish America

Irish America

Folklore

Sláinte! Feile Na Marbh – the origins of Halloween

By Edythe Preet

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Slainte! Columnist Edythe Preet explore how "Feile Na Marbh "or "Feast of the Dead" became Halloween and includes a recipe for Irish Barm Brack, which is traditionally served in Ireland on this day. That which we know as All Hallows Eve actually began as a harvest festival several millennia ago in Ireland. Though the evening’s popular colors are black and orange, they might as … [Read more...] about Sláinte! Feile Na Marbh – the origins of Halloween

Sláinte! Trees, Tea and ESP

By Edythe Preet, Columnist
April / May 2011

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Edythe Preet explores ancient traditions of fortune telling and explains how to see the future in a cup of tea. My Irish grandmother, Margaret McCaffrey, was a psychic. “Pooh! Not possible,” you say. Maybe, maybe not, but here’s the story. You be the judge. One fine May week when Dad was in first grade, his class was scheduled to have a picnic on an island in the middle of … [Read more...] about Sláinte! Trees, Tea and ESP

Sláinte!: A Charmed Life

By Edythe Preet, Contributor
April / May 2008

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My friend Michael says he has a charming mother. He hastens to add: “I know you think we all do, but my mother has charms other than the ones on her gold bracelet. She has the ability to stop bleeding and cure burns and headaches and sprains and styes in the eyes just by laying on her gentle hands and reciting words handed down through the centuries.” The concept doesn’t … [Read more...] about Sláinte!: A Charmed Life

Goodbye Columbus, Hello St. Brendan

By Abdon Moriarty Pallasch

July August 1992

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As the rest of America celebrates the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus arriving in the New World, Irish-Americans can boast that one of their own may have beat him by nearly 1,000 years. The idea that Irish monks in an ox-hide boat might have beaten the Conquistadors and the Vikings to America was largely relegated to Irish folklore before 1976. That year, British … [Read more...] about Goodbye Columbus, Hello St. Brendan