"Irish people didn't get me out of jail. It was English people who got me out of jail." – Paul Hill I don't remember Bloody Sunday. I don't remember seeing footage on TV or being shocked by the carnage that left thirteen people dead and a fourteenth who would die later from wounds. How do I explain this? The Ireland I grew up in largely ignored the North. It … [Read more...] about The First Word: Something to Remember
Patricia Harty
Greatest Irish Americans Book Launch
Irish Tenor Ronan Tynan and actor Milo O'Shea were just two of the Irish luminaries who turned out to celebrate the launch of Greatest Irish Americans of the 20th Century edited by our own Patricia Harty. The event was hosted by Mutual of America in their beautiful Sky Club, 35 floors above Park Avenue in New York City. Several of the authors who contributed essays to the … [Read more...] about Greatest Irish Americans Book Launch
A Night to Remember
Irish America magazine's Top 100 awards ceremony. Of all our Top 100 awards ceremonies, this year's was perhaps the most moving as we celebrated real heroes. Irish American of the Year, Dr. Jerri Nielsen, who battled breast cancer while stationed at the South Pole, movingly contrasted the community of survivors she lived with at the polar station with the divisiveness of … [Read more...] about A Night to Remember
Broadway in Their Pockets
Two years ago they were hardly known, now Séan Campion and Conleth Hill are the toast of Broadway. In a departure from the world of big-budget films and special effects, Conleth Hill, 37, and Séan Campion, 41, create a world of characters and situations on a nearly bare stage with no props, as they bring to life the story of a Hollywood film-crew's effect on a small … [Read more...] about Broadway in Their Pockets
The First Word: Afraid of the Dark
The Irish writer John B. Keane once said of my home town that "they should build a wall around it and let no man in and let no man out." I don't know why he said that about An tAonach, which means Fair or Market place. (The town was named Nenagh by the English during that great renaming which saw Gaelic names replaced by ones which bore no relationship to the Irish.) … [Read more...] about The First Word: Afraid of the Dark