Irish America
Irish America
“An Irishman’s heart is nothing but his imagination.” – George Bernard Shaw (John Bull’s Other Island) Gabriel Byrne says that the line between reality and imagination is very thin. I concur. Perhaps it’s because my father filled my head with stories of banshees and haunted fields with gates that never stayed shut. Perhaps it’s simply the beauty of the Irish countryside – … [Read more...] about The First Word: Imagine Ireland
A selection of recently published books of Irish and Irish-American interest. Recommended Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons: Tales of Redemption from an Irish Mailbox A couple of years ago, comedian Greg Fitzsimmons, known to me as Greg Fitz or Fitz, was honored as one of Irish America’s Top 100 and we roped him in to perform. He brought the house down with his stories of growing … [Read more...] about Review of Books
Niall O’Dowd returned from interviewing Coach Brian Kelly with a story of a cab driver he met – an immigrant from Africa who had seen little of America outside of South Bend, Indiana. When the cabbie learned that Niall was Irish, he exclaimed with admiration, “You Irish, you own everything over here!” Watching the televised game between Notre Dame and Utah and witnessing the … [Read more...] about The First Word: Putting the Fight Back in the Irish
It was an interesting experience, to say the least, following up on our issue commemorating the Great Hunger with one in which we profile Irish-American titans of Wall Street. In a way, those two words “Famine” & “Finance” could be seen as the bookends of the story of the Irish in America. Not that we claim that success in the financial world is the only … [Read more...] about The First Word: From Famine to Finance
On January 30, 1972 members of the British Army fired upon unarmed civil rights marchers in Derry, killing 14 people, 13 outright, and one who would die later from his wounds. The marchers, about 15,000 strong, had been protesting internment without trial, which was introduced in Northern Ireland in August 1971, and involved mass British army arrests of more than 340 people … [Read more...] about “Bloody Sunday:” James Nesbitt’s Personal Odyssey
