The family of a Derry man who died in 1969 three months after being savagely beaten in his home by the RUC have welcomed a move by the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan which upheld a complaint by the family that the RUC dealt with their concerns inappropriately at the time. While the Ombudsman said she did not believe that disciplinary action could now be taken … [Read more...] about RUC Guilty in 1969 Attack
Those We Lost
America Rising
Everyone knows where they were on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, when the horrific news broke. I was in my classroom on West 89th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues in New York City. I was writing out a present/past tense chart, a review of verbs for my English language learners with whom I would be working later in the day. That chart, which for five days lay … [Read more...] about America Rising
Father Mychal Judge
Fire Chaplain Mychal Judge arrived just as bodies were falling like missiles from the sky. Few in those last precious moments thought the Twin Towers would actually collapse, which is why so many rescue workers were sent running up stairs to their deaths, and why the greatest danger to people on the ground involved office workers escaping the upper floors' thousand-degree heat. … [Read more...] about Father Mychal Judge
Carroll O’Connor
He called his wife "Dingbat." He called his daughter a "weepy Nellie atheist." Puerto Ricans "spics"; Jews "yids." He was terrified of African Americans, homosexuals, feminists and evolutionists. But most of all Archie Bunker was afraid of change. He sat in his mangy armchair amidst peeling wallpaper and dingy windows and preached his sermon to whoever stopped by. And … [Read more...] about Carroll O’Connor
Passings
John Joseph Moakley Irish America lost a skilled and big-hearted leader with the death on May 28 of Massachusetts Congressman John Joseph Moakley, the South Boston Representative raised in a housing project who became one of the most influential leaders in Congress during his 15 terms there from 1973 to 2001. In January of this year he was diagnosed with incurable … [Read more...] about Passings