Irish America
“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” Maybe she had too many gifts: she was a great beauty with a quick intellect; she could act, sing and, with little effort, was “discovered” and groomed for Hollywood stardom. In the early 1950s, she was a newcomer at 20th Century Fox, deemed so promising, she landed a plum showcase – a presenter at the 1952 … [Read more...] about Constance Smith: A Hollywood Tragedy
“I am not going to give you any taffy!” The charismatic and powerful public speaker who pushed for equal pay for equal work, better labor standards and overall empowerment for women , is profiled by Rosemary Rogers. Leonora O’Reilly was born in 1870 to parents driven out of Ireland by the potato famine only to live in poverty in New York’s Lower East Side. Her father … [Read more...] about Wild Irish Women: Leonora O’Reilly
Pilloried by the press and railroaded to prison, she still managed to sail into the sunset. During the summer of 1965 in the East Bronx, the collective grief in Saint Raymond’s convent was almost palpable. The nuns learned that one of their students, a former Good Irish Catholic Girl, had brought shame on them and the rest of the tribe. Alice Crimmins was now fodder for … [Read more...] about Wild Irish Women: More Sinned Against Than Sinning
“How hard Ireland was on the women who could not fit in – the wild ones, the ones who had to get out, seeming emigrants but actual exiles.” – Nuala O’Faolain Chicago May wasn’t from Chicago and, in fact, spent little time there, but the name somehow suited her. May Duignan was born in 1871 in the remote county of Longford in the ancient world that was 19th-century Ireland. Her … [Read more...] about Wild Irish Women: Chicago May
Oh! star of Erin, queen of tears, Black clouds have beset thy birth, And your people die like morning stars, That your light may grace the earth. – "Stars of Freedom," 1981 By IRA volunteer Bobby Sands, M.P. H-Block, Long Kesh Prison Camp ℘℘℘ Watching Bobby Sands die in 1981, much of the world realized, finally, that the young IRA soldier and hunger striker was a … [Read more...] about Wild Irish Women: A Most Sorrowful Mystery
