The old St. Patrick's Day quip about there being two kinds of people – those who are Irish and those who wish they were – turns out to be not so far from wrong. The research my colleague Michael Hout has carried out shows that there are a lot more Americans claiming to be Irish than one might expect from immigration records, because the children of ethnically mixed marriages … [Read more...] about The Irish as Playful Souls
Immigration
The First Word: In the Beginning . . .
From the time of St. Brendan, the Irish were drawn to America. Maybe it came from gazing out on the vast Atlantic Ocean and wondering what was on the other side. Brendan made his legendary trip in an ox-hide currach. Later the Irish reached "Inishfail" -- that "island of destiny" envisioned by the poets -- as migratory fishermen making their way to Newfoundland in the holds of … [Read more...] about The First Word: In the Beginning . . .
What the Future Holds
Bear in mind these dead: I can find no plainer words. - John Hewitt, "Neither an Elegy nor a Manifesto" The New Year brings good tidings to a young couple I know, the birth of a baby boy, a welcome addition to their ever expanding family. Unlike his mother, a Belfast native, this boy will grow up outside the danger zone of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. Other children … [Read more...] about What the Future Holds
A Visit Home
By Betty O'Connor Wald
January / February 1998
Betty Wald visits Ireland for the first time in search of her grandmother's home in Kilmacillogue, County Kerry In all the long years of Sunday visits to my grandmother's apartment in the Bronx, she never talked about Ireland. There were no tales of a far-off land for a child's imagination to grab hold of, to elaborate over the years, making family myths to pass on to future … [Read more...] about A Visit Home
The First Word: No Immigrants Need Apply
Franklin Delano Roosevelt once told an uncomfortable audience of the Daughters of the American Revolution that "we are all immigrants." It is something that we should remember now when the scapegoating of immigrants is reaching a new height in this country. California is leading the way in states that are proposing initatives that would deny public education and medical care to … [Read more...] about The First Word: No Immigrants Need Apply