Pete Hamill, the acclaimed author, died Wednesday, August 5, at age 85. His brother Denis delivered this eulogy on Saturday, August 8. Pete Hamill is going to be fine. My big brother Pete helped me with my grammar school book reports, my teenage hippie poetry, my first piece of published journalism, my first produced screenplay and most of my published novels. Pete always made … [Read more...] about Pete Hamill was a great journalist, and an even better big brother
Pete Hamill
Wild Irish Women: More Sinned Against Than Sinning
Pilloried by the press and railroaded to prison, she still managed to sail into the sunset. During the summer of 1965 in the East Bronx, the collective grief in Saint Raymond’s convent was almost palpable. The nuns learned that one of their students, a former Good Irish Catholic Girl, had brought shame on them and the rest of the tribe. Alice Crimmins was now fodder for … [Read more...] about Wild Irish Women: More Sinned Against Than Sinning
The Last Irish Saloon
An old-time bar in Brooklyn, Farrell’s has served as a community center since the 1930s, and is the last marker of what was once a thriving Irish neighborhood. Farrell’s Bar, on the corner of 16th Street and 9th Avenue in Brooklyn, has been in the same location in Windsor Terrace since 1933. It was the very first bar to open in New York after Prohibition. The writer Pete … [Read more...] about The Last Irish Saloon
The 17th Christmas
The Greyhound roared up the Jersey Turnpike in the rain, its fierce power leaving the cars behind, the thick wheels ripping through the gathering pools of water with the driving stateliness of a cruiser. The bus that was carrying us home for that 1952 Christmas smelled of stale smoke and damp wool; on that detail, memory does not fail. Sailors stood in the aisles, soldiers … [Read more...] about The 17th Christmas
Irish Eye on Hollywood: The Golden Age of New York Journalism
Legendary Irish American newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin (right) is gone but will not be forgotten. Breslin, who died in March at the age of 88, left behind a series of classic columns as well as a handful of brilliant books, including gritty novels like Table Money, and insightful non-fiction like The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez. But before he died, Breslin also … [Read more...] about Irish Eye on Hollywood: The Golden Age of New York Journalism