Belfast is abuzz in preparation for the upcoming three-week-long Titanic Festival, which will both commemorate the centenary of the sinking of the Belfast-built ocean liner and celebrate the eagerly-awaited opening of Titanic Belfast, the centerpiece of city’s revitalized waterfront. The festival, which runs March 31 through April 22, will feature 120 events, including light … [Read more...] about Titanic Commemoration in Ireland
History
Rural Ireland: The Inside Story
Boston College’s McMullen Museum of Art is giving visitors a rare look at the daily lives of Irish country people in the nineteenth century. Once thought to be an unpopular subject among Irish artists in the 1800s, who often focused on the grander “big house” themes and landscapes, the rural Irish population comes to life in this expansive and carefully curated … [Read more...] about Rural Ireland: The Inside Story
The Irish on the Titanic
Maureen Murphy explores the seldom-told story of the third-class Irish passengers on board the doomed RMS Titanic – some were survivors, others were heroes and victims. There has been no disaster in the twentieth century quite like the sinking of the Titanic. It was peacetime; the weather conditions were perfect; the ship was the measure of man’s mastery of technology. The … [Read more...] about The Irish on the Titanic
The Day the Irish Invaded Canada
In the sleepy town of Ridgeway, Ontario – just a stone’s throw from Crystal Beach, the “Southern Shore of Canada” and former home to the Niagara region’s most beloved amusement park – there stands a stone memorial cairn, an unobtrusive roadside monument most travelers overlook as they pass north toward Niagara Falls or east toward Buffalo. Barricaded behind a black wrought … [Read more...] about The Day the Irish Invaded Canada
Irish-American Heritage Month Announced by Obama
March 1, 2012
The first of March marks the beginning of Irish-American Heritage Month in the U.S., a time, according to President Obama, to celebrate the "indomitable spirit of those Irish Americans whose strength helped build countless miles of canals and railroads; whose brogues echoed in mills, police stations, and fire halls across our country; and whose blood spilled to defend a Nation … [Read more...] about Irish-American Heritage Month Announced by Obama