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January / February 2019

Cheerleader-in-Chief

Eileen McDonnell, Chairman & CEO of Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company.

Eileen McDonnell, the Chairman & CEO of Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, discusses her Irish heritage, breaking the glass ceiling, and the way forward. When parents tell their children...

Happy Christmas to all our readers. I love this time of year. New York is abuzz with lights and window displays, and good cheer. ’Tis the season… To make time for a little reflection to go along...

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has relocated its main EU banking arm from London to Dublin, months ahead of the earliest possible date of the UK’s exit from the EU. They are one of the first banks...

As other western countries are endorsing populist agendas on tightening immigration policy, Ireland is voicing its opposition to such restrictions, overwhelmingly in favor of reinstating birthright...

President and First Lady Higgins celebrate his reelection at the residence, Áras an Uachtaráin.

Irish President Michael D. Higgins has been re-elected for a second term after receiving 56 percent of the country’s vote on October 26. He was first elected in 2011 and will now serve another...

On Saturday, November 17, International Rose of Tralee, Kirsten Mate Maher joined Santa and the mayor in Waterford City for the launch of the seventh annual Winterval, Ireland’s largest Christmas...

On Sunday, December 2, 500 Dubliners dressed as Santa Claus with Christmas lights took part in Ireland’s biggest Santa Cycle, now in its fourth year. After departing from the Phoenix Park, the...

On Tuesday, November 6th, Former president of Ireland and UN Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson delivered the Inaugural Senator George J. Mitchell Annual Peace Lecture at Queen’s...

University of Limerick has long been a leader on gender equality among Irish higher education institutions, with the highest percentage of female professors at 33%, and as one of the first two...

1 in 19 people in Ireland are carriers of the Cystic Fibrosis gene. In 2010, Professor Paul McNally and Dr. Barry Linnane set up the SHIELD Cystic Fibrosis study, a wide-ranging long-term study into...

On Monday, December 3, Guestbook Project, an initiative started by Boston College Professor of Philosophy Richard Kearney that uses the power of digital storytelling to promote peace and heal...

It will certainly be a happy new year for Dublin born director Ciaran Foy. Foy is the director of the upcoming horror film Eli, featuring Lili Taylor and Sadie Sink, as well as Anglo-Irish actress...

Irish actress and Golden Globe nominee Caitriona Balfe is branching out from the excellent work she has been doing for several years now on the Starz network show Outlander. In 2019, Balfe –...

What do you get when you cast an Irish American, alongside an Irish Englishman, alongside a Scotswoman with a history of playing Irish roles? A Laurel and Hardy movie, of course! With all of the...

It would make sense if Outlander – with its Irish cast and time-traveling concept – inspired Irish writer and director Steve Kenny to create his film Time Traveller, which may well earn an...

As always, there is plenty of news on the Liam Neeson front. Look for the hunk from Ballymena in February 2019 in the action thriller Cold Pursuit, alongside Laura Dern and Emmy Rossum. Then, when...

Gleeson family update: Don’t look now, Domhnall, but you’re no longer the only son of Brendan Gleeson making waves in show biz. In recent years, Brian Gleeson has had roles in films such as the...

Jamie Dornan is working feverishly to branch out from the Fifty Shades franchise, taking on roles in an eclectic mix of offbeat and serious projects. Not long ago, he was in the campy HBO flick My...

Just in time for Christmas, Netflix has produced a 30 minute animated movie based on a Frank McCourt’s story rooted in his memoir Angela’s Ashes. Entitled Angela’s Christmas, the sentimental...

In Sotheby’s in London, on November 21, a sale of Irish art from the collection of Brian P. Burns – one of the most significant collections of its kind in private hands – brought a total of...

Hear my Voice, a cinematic tribute to those who suffered loss as a result of the Northern Irish conflict known as The Troubles, (1968–1998), was screened at the Core Club in New York on November...

Talk show legend Phil Donahue presented Joanie Madden with the O'Neill Lifetime Achievement Award.

New York-based Irish American Writers & Artists bestowed the prestigious Eugene O’Neill Lifetime Achievement Award to traditional Irish musician Joanie Madden at a formal ceremony at the...

One of the most unique of the many events the Irish American Partnership puts on each year to raise money and awareness of its goals is its celebration of Nollaig na mBan, or “Women’s...

Fenway Park, the hallowed ground of the Boston Red Sox, was taken over by Irish players wielding sticks in what has been described as the world’s fastest game played on grass, on November 18. It...

“You’ll Never Walk Alone,” the unofficial anthem of Celtic Football Club, was sung loudly and proudly on October 30 at the Celtic FC Foundation’s Inaugural New York Gala Dinner in Manhattan,...

On Thursday, November 15, NUI Galway held its 12th Annual Gala Dinner at the University Club in New York City. This year’s honoree was Senior Vice President at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management,...

On November 8, the Ireland-U.S. Council, a premier transatlantic business organization, held its 56th Annual Dinner at the Metropolitan Club in New York City. The council was founded in 1962 to...

Chris de Burgh performing at the Irish Post Awards.

The band The Script, actor James Nesbitt, and music legend Chris de Burgh were among the stars honored at the star-studded 2018 Irish Post Awards in London on November 22. Journalist and broadcaster...

President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins presented the 2018 Presidential Distinguished Service Awards for the Irish Abroad on Thursday, November 29. ℘℘℘ Pulitzer Prize-winning author William...

On Tuesday, December 4, at Cipriani Wall Street, Concern Worldwide US held its 22nd Annual Seeds of Hope Award Dinner, which this year also marked the 50th anniversary of its founding in Dublin in...

Irish Tenor Ronan Tynan sang Silent Night, as well as another song in Irish, at former President George H.W. Bush’s bedside, shortly before he passed away. “Believe it or not,” said James A....

Sarah Friar, former CFO at Square and now CEO of Nextdoor and one of our 2018 Business 100 honorees, was the Honorary Speaker at The Ireland Funds Women in Leadership Luncheon on November 30th. The...

Patrick O'Neill's favorite plane, a B-17, and his favorite rank, captain, 1944.

Recent passings in the Irish and Irish American communities. ℘℘℘ Patrick O’Neill. Patrick O’Neill 1915–2018 Patrick H. O’Neill passed at the age of 102 at his residence in New...

Steeped in history with landscapes that go from brilliant beaches to windswept boglands, lakes, mountains to islands, pilgrimage sites to pirate queens, Mayo has it all. ℘℘℘ There’s something...

Now in its fourth decade, the Irish America Business 100 has a long history of providing recognition to a fundamental core of American business. It can be easy to assume that the Irish in America and...

It took a movie, 1981’s Reds, to both lift Louise Bryant from obscurity and reduce her to the sniveling acolyte of American communist John Reed, Annie Hall in a babushka. Wrong. For all her (many)...

Sean Kelly remembers one of Ireland’s most significant and revered poets. ℘℘℘ Ireland, from 1932 until 1973, was ruled by the eminently austere statesman Eamon de Valera, in cahoots with...

The Irish American Partnership supports education and community development programs across Ireland, North and South.

The Irish American Partnership ensures Irish children have the educational resources they need to thrive. ℘℘℘ Only 11 km off the coast of Connemara lies the island of Inishbofin, a stunning...

John Gilmary Shea preserved much of the existing knowledge of the beginnings of American Catholicism. ℘℘℘ Considering the Irish-American influence on U.S. Catholicism, it makes sense that...

The name McDonnell accounts for a widespread group of individuals of Irish or Scottish heritage. Categorized as a patronymic (a name labelling by male ancestor), McDonnell is an anglicization of the...

Stan & Ollie finds the legendary comedy duo at a low point in their professional lives. No longer the box-office success they once were, they attempt to reignite their careers by embarking on an...

Being New York, Being Irish is available now in all good bookstores and online at www.iap.ie.

Reflections on Twenty-Five Years of Irish America and New York University’s Glucksman Ireland House. ℘℘℘ Terry Golway assembled Irish and Irish-American writers to give voice to Being New...

Recently-published books of Irish and Irish-American interest. ℘℘℘ FICTION A Keeper By: Graham Norton A Keeper As a friend commented recently, is there anything Graham Norton can’t do? He’s...

Illustration to Robert Burns' poem "Auld Lang Syne" by J.M. Wright and Edward Scriven.

With the New Year in mind, Edythe Preet writes about Robert Burns: Scotland’s Immortal Bard. ℘℘℘ In case any reader has ever wondered how a gal named Preet could claim Irish ancestry,...

The sudden death five years ago of the Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) evoked an unprecedented outpouring of grief around the world. Generally acknowledged as the greatest poet of the age,...

My mother, Patricia Duffy, was born December 7, 1927. She was one of two children raised by Rose and Frank Duffy in Oakland, California. Frank Duffy and his brother came to the United States from...

The Greyhound roared up the Jersey Turnpike in the rain, its fierce power leaving the cars behind, the thick wheels ripping through the gathering pools of water with the driving stateliness of a...

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January / February 2019

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