"I knew that we were Irish and I knew that Irish was the best thing to be."
– Novelist Alice McDermott
℘℘℘
When I immigrated to this country I had no idea of the history of the Irish in America – indeed, I had the idea that only someone born and raised in Ireland could call themselves Irish.
A Greyhound bus ticket at a cheap student rate that lasted three months and … [Read more...] about The First Word:
Now and in Time to Be
The Irish in America
The First Word:
Hibernia: Irish
U.N. Sculpture
The United Nations recently received a sculpture from the Irish government. The work, by renowned Galway artist John Behan, celebrates the Irish diaspora and their contribution to the world.
Entitled Arrival, the work portrays Irish emigrants debarking from a ship. If this sounds like a typical Famine commemoration, it's not. As the Irish Minister of State at the Department … [Read more...] about Hibernia: Irish
U.N. Sculpture
Puddle Jumping
The English Catholic martyr, St. Edmund Campion, lived in Dublin for a while in 1569 and here is what he wrote about the Irish: "The people are thus inclined: religious, franke, amorous, irefull, sufferable of paines infinite, very glorious, many sorcerers, excellent horsemen, delighted with warres, great almes-givers, passing in hospitalitie: the lewder sort both clarkes and … [Read more...] about Puddle Jumping
Links in the Chain
Being Irish? Is being a clannish islander with all the good and all the bad that comes of that. Is being pagan and spiritual at the same time, in the same bone marrow, with all the good and all the bad that comes of that. Is not knowing how different you are until you meet the other islanders of all the world. Is being sad and happy in the one minute, changeable as … [Read more...] about Links in the Chain
Tip O’Neill
Master of the House
Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1953 to 1987. His 10-year tenure as Speaker of the House was the longest consecutive run in U.S. history. Here he recalls growing up in Boston with his widower father, his relationship with President Reagan, and how the pendulum swings in American politics and will swing back.
October, 1986: Weaned on … [Read more...] about Tip O’Neill Master of the House