Back in July, Bronx Irish Catholic Edwin F. O’Brien, after a 40-year career as a priest, military chaplain and aide to two cardinals, was named the new Archbishop of Baltimore. The archdiocese O’Brien will lead numbers more than a half-million Catholics, with 200 priests, five Catholic hospitals, two seminaries and 151 parishes, including two cathedrals, The Baltimore Sun … [Read more...] about The First Family of Irish America
Tom Deignan
Review of Books
Fiction A few years back, Irish novelist Joseph O’Connor wrote Star of the Sea, an ambitious, multi-layered novel set mainly during the voyage of an Irish famine coffin ship. The book was a best-seller, despite the fact that it was a demanding read. Using flashbacks, jumbled chronology and other trickery, O’Connor took readers all over the British Isles, and his narrative … [Read more...] about Review of Books
Irish Eye on Hollywood
With the summer upon us, TV is a vast wasteland of reruns – except, of course, for Denis Leary’s brilliant Rescue Me on FT, which some critics believe will take over the title of Best Drama on TV now that The Sopranos is over. But what else is Leary working on, aside from his post-9/11 Irish-American firefighter drama? Though he’s appeared in over 30 movies (including The Ref, … [Read more...] about Irish Eye on Hollywood
The “Emerald” Pastime
Tom Deignan reflects on a time when many of the Boys of Summer had a touch of the Irish brogue. A recent New York Times article about the consistent success of the Minnesota Twins baseball organization made numerous important points about how teams in smaller cities can compete with financial giants such as the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers. But two … [Read more...] about The “Emerald” Pastime
Review of Books
The earlier decades of the 20th century provide the settings for two new works of Irish-American fiction.Dream When You’re Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg explores life on the homefront during World War II, as seen through the eyes of the three Irish-American Heaney sisters from Chicago.Kitty, Louise, and Tish each have differing conflicts, and Berg masterfully divides time … [Read more...] about Review of Books