Ireland is no stranger to the Nobel Prize. Indeed the prize awarded each year in memory of Alfred Nobel (the inventor of dynamite) has gone to citizens of the island a total of seven times. W.B. Yeats (1923), G.B. Shaw (1925), Samuel Beckett (1969) and Seamus Heaney (1995) all won the Nobel Prize for Literature. But good writers aside, the Nobel Committee has also focused on … [Read more...] about The First Word: Living Up to The Nobel Prize
The Troubles
February / March 1999
Derry: The Town I Love So Well
By Mary Pat Kelly
May/June 1995
Mary Pat Kelly talks to Phil Coulter, one of Derry's most famous sons. Often during the years of the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland, when the"end of the day" brought political conversation, someone would sing PhilCoulter's "The Town I Loved So Well." And if the singer was from Derry they knew, too, "the gas yard wall" where soldiers had replaced school boys playing ball. … [Read more...] about Derry: The Town I Love So Well
The American Role in the Ceasefire
By Emer Mullins
November/December 1994
Emer Mullins reports on how Irish America flexed its muscle to help the historic peace process in Northern Ireland. It ended, finally, after months of speculation, months of hope, and months of hard work by the strongest Irish American lobby yet seen in Washington. The IRA declared a "complete cessation" of military activity on August 31, 1994, bringing to a close a terrible … [Read more...] about The American Role in the Ceasefire
The Irish Diaspora and the North
By Pete Hamill
November/December 1994
Writer Pete Hamill, whose parents are from Belfast, explores the connection between the Irish diaspora and Ireland, and offers suggestions as to what Americans of Irish descent can do now to help further the peace process. Almost forty years ago, a fine Irish-American writer named John McNulty wrote an account of his first trip of Ireland. The story was lovely, full of the … [Read more...] about The Irish Diaspora and the North