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April / May 2014

At Home with the McDonalds

Ed: NYPD Detective Steven McDonald, who was inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame in 2014, died Tuesday, January 10, 2017 at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, NY following...

Past, Present, and Future In this issue, in which we celebrate the new inductees into our Hall of Fame, I’m reminded of great Irish Americans of the past such as John Barry, the father of the...

Christine Kinealy is the world-renowned historian and newly appointed professor of history and founding director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University, Connecticut. Beginning...

Chris Matthews has been following American politics since the first Eisenhower campaign. As a young teen, he became enthralled with the historic rivalry of John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. It was a...

Andrew McKenna is one of Chicago’s premier businessmen. He is nicknamed “St. Andrew of the Boardroom” because most of his work happens behind the scenes. But at the age of 84, “an age when...

Martin O’Malley is the governor of Maryland and the former mayor of Baltimore. He was born, one of six children, in Washington, D.C. to Barbara and Thomas O’Malley, a former U.S Army Air Force...

Since he joined the Fox News Channel as the anchor of “The O’Reilly Factor” in 1996, Bill O’Reilly has been the exemplar of cable news personalities. His style of challenging inquiry, the...

The son of an Irish-American Ford dealer in a Milwaukee suburb, Patrick Ryan has made Chicago his residence since graduating from Northwestern University in 1959 and is now one of the city’s...

Dublin native Brian W. Stack is the managing director of CIE Tours International and president of the Ireland-U.S Council for Commerce and Industry. In both these positions, Brian is at the forefront...

Ireland has experienced heavier than usual winter storms with high winds and massive flooding particularly in the Shannon River basin. The extreme weather also had a devastating effect on Ireland’s...

This year marks the beginning of a three-year full archeological study of the 1798 Battle of Vinegar Hill site in County Wexford. The Rebellion battle, in which over 1,000 rebels were killed, was not...

Loretta Brennan Glucksman is the new Chairman of the Board for the University of Limerick Foundation. Formerly the chairman of the American Ireland Funds, the Allentown, Pennsylvania-born...

The Central Bank of Ireland issued a 10-euro coin, their first new collection coin for 2014, to celebrate the life of Irish tenor John McCormack (1884-1945), who reached worldwide fame for his...

Relatives of 11 people killed in Belfast by the British Army in 1971 met with Taoiseach Enda Kenny in January to ask him to lobby the British Government to set up an independent panel inquiry into...

Cuts to services, fear of crime, and loneliness brought on by emigration of loved ones have led to a huge surge in calls to a helpline for the elderly, The Irish Examiner reported at the end of...

“When we stood together on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama during our 2013 Civil Rights pilgrimage, we vowed ‘Next Year in Ireland.’ In April we will fulfill that promise,” says...

The St. Patrick’s Day season brings with it two movies featuring Irish actors – one an established veteran and the other a versatile up and comer. First, there’s the always-busy Ciaran Hinds in...

It was a magical place – a romantic place – the mythical cottage of Mary Kate and Sean Thornton that was featured in John Ford’s classic 1952 movie The Quiet Man, starring John Wayne and...

Legendary singer/songwriter Carly Simon was moved to tears by a new cover of her iconic “Let the River Run,” which became the theme song for Derry/Londonderry City of Culture celebrations. The...

Irish dancers under 10 years old are now forbidden to wear makeup or false eyelashes during competition but can still wear wigs. The Irish Dancing Commission’s site announced that the ban would...

Judy Collins and some of Ireland’s best loved musicians took over Dromoland Castle last September to film a concert that will be broadcast on PBS this coming spring: Judy Collins Live in...

A renowned Irish inventor is honored in London. Louis Philip Brennan was born on Main Street, Castlebar, Co. Mayo, on 28 January 1852. He was the tenth child of Thomas Brennan, a hardware merchant...

Human Rights First joined the family of Northern Ireland civil rights lawyer Pat Finucane on the 25th anniversary of his murder to discuss the campaign for a public inquiry into his killing.The...

On January 16, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was presented with the prestigious Anam Cara Award (Irish Soul Friend) from the Irish Cultural Center in Phoenix. Justice O’Connor...

Tony-winning actor Brian Dennehy presented the inaugural Seamus Heaney Award for Arts & Letters to acclaimed writer Pete Hamill at Glucksman Ireland House NYU’s Annual Gala on Tuesday, February...

Hearing Stephen Rea read the Cyclops chapter from Ulysses makes you realize that Joyce wanted us to enjoy his masterpiece, and to laugh. I was lucky to catch one of Rea’s performances in Ireland...

Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT recently acquired the historically significant collection of Hester Catherine de Burgh, Lady Sligo (1800-1878). The letters...

If I could be dropped anywhere in Ireland with my camera and lenses, I’d choose the region of Munster nearly every time. The spectacular cliffs on the coast of Clare, the wild headlands of the...

A thousand years ago, on April 23, 1014, the Battle of Clontarf, and Brían Boru’s last costly victory, changed Irish political life forever. The following, from The Story of the Irish Race by...

Vikings, mercenary warriors, and competing clans made up the terrifying cast in one of Ireland’s oldest and best-known battles. All of these different elements will once again play their part in...

An Irish American takes a family trip to Normandy’s WWII battle site. June marks the anniversary of the D-Day landings when the United States and her allies, primarily Britain and Canada, launched...

Over 250,000 children were transported from New York to the Midwest over a 75-year period (1854-1929) in the largest mass migration of children in American history. As many as one in four were...

Camelot might be a misnomer. Brían Boru, the last High King of Ireland, was a Kennedy. Boru sculpture on the Chapel Royal outside Dublin. The O’Kennedy genealogies, held by the Royal Irish...

The actor has been busy since Bridesmaids, and it’s made him eager to return to his roots as an actor and Roscommoner. From the beginning of our conversation, Chris O’Dowd is enthusiastic. I only...

Brían F. O’Byrne, 46, is currently starring in the Broadway production of Outside Mullingar, a play by John Patrick Shanley. O’Byrne, who grew up in Mullagh, Co. Cavan, trained at the Samuel...

JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY TALKS ABOUT LOVE, LOSS, AND HIS LATEST PLAY, OUTSIDE MULLINGAR It was late afternoon in February at a bistro in New York’s East Village that playwright and screenwriter John...

Recently published books of Irish and Irish-American interest. Fiction The Blessings By Elise Juska There’s a certain kind of belonging that comes with being part of a large, extended...

It is perhaps a love of words that endears the Irish to Saint Patrick. Son of a West Britain Roman family, at age sixteen Patrick was kidnapped by pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland. Six...

Paddy Homan’s newest CD reflects the Irish tenor’s philosophy of life. In the tradition of a lively rambling house, Irish tenor Paddy Homan has been presiding for six years every Sunday night at...

Dr. James J. Gallagher 1927 – 2014 Dr. James J. Gallagher, who fought tirelessly for children with special disabilities, died January 17 in Chapel Hill. He was 87. Born June 11, 1926 in...

John J. Callahan was one of fifteen boys who arrived in Philippi, West Virginia, on an Orphan Train. It was on June 24, 1903. He was taken by C.K. Switzer, owner of a flour mill in Mansfield, now an...

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