On swanky hotels, Gráinne O’Malley’s tailor-made pirate outfits, and her own unusual hidden talent. ℘℘℘ Mary Beth Keane’s novel, Ask Again, Yes, published in May 2019, is a lyrical, moving tale spanning 40 years, about Irish American cops, family, love, alcoholism and mental illness. Told with tenderness and empathy for the human condition, it isRead more..
From rural Donegal to Russia’s Hermitage Museum: the bizarre journey of an Irish landscape by an American artist. ℘℘℘ You would hardly expect to find idyllic scenes of the Donegal Gaeltacht in a Russian state museum, but the celebrated painting “Dan Ward’s Stack” and other gorgeous canvases of rural Donegal grace the walls of twoRead more..
A night of creative expression recalling the Troubles in Northern Ireland, sponsored by the Irish government in tandem with Poetry Ireland, was exhibited at both the Lyric Theatre in Belfast and the Barbican Centre in London in April in honor of the Good Friday Agreement’s 20-year anniversary. The program, called “A Further Shore,” focused on the necessity of keepingRead more..
Author Sebastian Barry, known for his representation of varying perspectives during Ireland’s revolutionary period in The Steward of Christendom and A Long Long Way, was announced as Ireland’s new Laureate for Irish Fiction by President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins in February. He will hold a term of three years, through 2021, and succeeds writer AnneRead more..
Six years after finding a box in her attic with her great-great-grandfather’s photographs and letters from his time in the American Civil War – and one book later – author of Yours Faithfully, Florence Burke: An Irish Immigrant Story and former educator Ellen B. Alden donated these artifacts of the early days of the IrishRead more..
Actor Aidan Quinn on how Dostoyevsky changed his life and made him a better performer. ℘℘℘ My father was an English teacher, and my family moved back and forth between Ireland and the United States. In my house, you couldn’t go anywhere without tripping over books by Beckett, O’Casey, Yeats, and all the other great IrishRead more..
Award-winning Irish novelist Eimear McBride (right) has been named the inaugural recipient of the University of Reading Samuel Beckett Research Center Creative Fellowship, which provides exclusive access to Beckett’s archives. McBride, whose debut novel A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing won the Goldsmiths Prize in 2013 and the 2014 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, will researchRead more..
A trip to the West Cork Literary Festival turns into an unexpected and inspiring look at Bantry Bay and the people who call it home. ℘℘℘ In the words of Man Booker Prize-winner Anne Enright, “Ireland is a series of stories that have been told to us.” For me, Enright’s words couldn’t have rung truer.Read more..
The tragic story of Eugene O’Neill’s sons, both of whom died by suicide. ℘℘℘ A four-time Pulitzer Prize winner and 1936 Nobel laureate, playwright Eugene O’Neill has reigned as the undisputed Irish American heavyweight champion of drama. His private life, however, was far less enviable than his career trajectory. At age 23, while living inRead more..
A new opera dealing with the trials and imprisonment of the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde made its East Coast debut this past February. It was put on at the charmingly lavish Opera Philadelphia by composer and co-librettist Theodore Morrison and English opera director John Cox, a year following its debut in Sante Fe, New Mexico inRead more..