How the son of immigrants from Mayo and County Down found success in America but never forgot his Irish roots. ℘℘℘ Each year when he returns to Ireland, Bill Flynn takes time to stand at the graveside of his grandparents in Loughinisland in County Down, just over the border from the Irish Republic. It is a beautiful part of Ireland, with the Mourne mountains sweeping … [Read more...] about The Early Years
The Irish in America
Faces of the Fallen
By Ruth Riddick
August / September 2007
August / September 2007
The Faces of the Fallen exhibition, which commemorated the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces who lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, recently closed. The story of Faces of the Fallen begins with a visual artist, a national newspaper and a cup of tea. When Annette Polan opened her morning Washington Post sometime in the fall of 2004 she saw, not just thumbnail … [Read more...] about Faces of the Fallen
Okie Faces & Irish Eyes: John Steinbeck & Route 66
The ad man knew what he was doing. Hired to write copy about a road that didn’t yet exist, he had an idea: create something out of whole cloth. He had as his subject an about-to-be-named Chicago-to-Los Angeles highway, the ramshackle one that would be quilted together from dozens of variously named and sometimes unconnected roads. He would dress that baby up. He’d call it … [Read more...] about Okie Faces & Irish Eyes: John Steinbeck & Route 66
The 1930s: When Irish Catholics Changed America
Before the decade was over, America would be a vastly different nation, thanks in no small part to Irish Catholics. Nineteen hundred and twenty-eight was a dark year for Irish Catholics in America. It was, of course, the year Al Smith ran for president and lost. The anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant Ku Klux Klan played a major role in bringing down Smith, who lost “because of … [Read more...] about The 1930s: When Irish Catholics Changed America
The Last Word: Freud, The Irish & The Departed
Abdon M. Pallasch ponders the truth of a provocative line from the movie The Departed. “What Freud said about the Irish is: We’re the only people who are impervious to psychoanalysis,” declares Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) in Martin Scorsese’s film The Departed. So what exactly did the father of modern psychiatry, Sigmund Freud, mean by that, anyway? Are we Irish all crazy? Or … [Read more...] about The Last Word: Freud, The Irish & The Departed