One of the many highlights of our recent Hall of Fame lunch was Notre Dame’s president Rev. John Jenkins’s tribute to Don Keough, the late great Irish American who contributed so much to Ireland and Irish Studies. “Don loved everything Irish,” Jenkins said, “but he also insisted it can’t be all about Ireland, and challenged us to found the Keough School of Global Studies at … [Read more...] about First Word: High Notes
Patricia Harty
A Challenging Woman: Remembering Inez McCormack
Inez McCormack, the late labor leader and human rights activist from Northern Ireland, once said that her greatest achievement was “seeing the glint in the eye of the woman who thought she was nobody, and now realizes she’s somebody.” McCormack would have had a glint in her own eye had she witnessed the turnout for a recent screening of a documentary on her life in … [Read more...] about A Challenging Woman: Remembering Inez McCormack
Kennedy Senate Institute Opens in Dorchester, MA
Chilly weather did not deter the hundreds who turned out for dedication of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate on Monday, March 30, in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Kennedy who was known as “The Lion of the Senate” for his long tenure (47 years), was warmly remembered in a grand ceremony featuring President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, a … [Read more...] about Kennedy Senate Institute Opens in Dorchester, MA
First Word: Google & Me
Google was following me. Or so it seemed. Immediately after my visit to the Google complex in Mountain View, California, I drove on to Big Sur and the Monterey Peninsula. I confess to being a bit jaded at this stage in my life, and I wasn’t particularly looking forward to spending a couple of nights in a cabin in the woods with my sister and my roommate from the early 80s. But … [Read more...] about First Word: Google & Me
My Grandfather’s War
Over 210,000 Irish enlisted in the British Army during World War I. Among them were doctors such as my grandfather who tended the wounded and saw the brutality of modern warfare up close. Waiting for the Wounded: “A British advance has just begun, and the surgeons of a Divisional Collecting Station near the Somme are awaiting the arrival of the first laden stretcher-bearers. … [Read more...] about My Grandfather’s War