1969: A Crazy Year for Irish America
It is fitting that the 1969 Nobel Prize for literature went to the Irish playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett. After all,...
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In This Issue
At Rainbow’s End: An Interview with Jim Norton
Tony-winning Irish actor Jim Norton has returned to Broadway in Finian’s Rainbow, a joyful big-budget revival of a golden-era classic that’s become that rare thing: an almost critic-proof...
MoreThe First Word: Look to the Rainbow
“I’ve an an elegant legacy / Waitin’ for ye, / ’Tis a rhyme for your lips / And a song for your heart, / To sing it whenever / The world falls apart! Look, look / Look to the rainbow. /...
MoreRemembering Frank McCourt
Why we loved him Tom Cahill, Colum McCann, Peter Quinn and others pay tribute to Frank McCourt I saw Frank a couple of weeks before he passed. It was at the Irish Repertory Theatre gala fundraiser in...
MoreAn Irish Welcome for the Champ
Thousands turned out to welcome Muhammad Ali, 67, to Ennis, County Clare, the birthplace of his great-grandfather, on August 30. The purpose of his and his wife Lonnie’s visit was to inspire...
MoreThe 2009 Wall Street 50 Awards
The annual Wall Street 50 event brought together national leaders from every sector of the financial world. Police commissioner Ray Kelly, Loretta Brennan Glucksman, Chairman of The American Ireland...
MoreRemembering Ted Kennedy
To call you the greatest of all the Kennedys might strike some as lofty rhetoric. But it isn’t. You gave your life to your country, as surely as those patriots of old gave theirs for the United...
More100th Anniversary of Celtic Cross at Grosse Île
“Children of the Gael died in the thousands on this island having fled from the laws of the foreign tyrants and an artificial famine in the years 1847-48. God’s loyal blessing upon them. Let...
MoreWilliam Kennedy Wins Eugene O’Neill Award
Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Kennedy will be presented with the inaugural 2009 Eugene O’Neill Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish American Writers and Artists, Inc. (IAW&A)...
MoreFrank McCourt on Frank McCourt
Editor’s Note: Frank wrote this piece for Irish America’s 20th anniversary issue. It was reprinted in memorium of Frank McCourt and his invaluable contributions to Irish American...
MoreIrish Eye on Hollywood
In the next couple of years, acclaimed Dublin-born director Jim Sheridan (In the Name of the Father, In America) is planning to tell gritty Irish-American stories about gangsters in Boston and New...
MoreWilliam Trevor:
A Sculptor of Words
Ireland’s foremost writer of fiction talks to Frank Shouldice. ℘℘℘ For writer William Trevor there comes a moment when it’s time to stop. Whether drafting a novel or a short story he...
More1969: A Crazy Year for Irish America
It is fitting that the 1969 Nobel Prize for literature went to the Irish playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett. After all, in works such as Waiting for Godot and Endgame, Beckett alternated between...
MoreAndrew Strong: Life After The Commitments
It is difficult to think back to the Irish film The Commitments without remembering the stunning vocals by Andrew Strong playing the character Deco Cuff, the lead singer in the film’s eccentric...
MoreThe Legacy of Danny Cassidy
Our voices carry; and though slumber-bound, Some few half awake… Give tongue, proclaim their hidden name… W.B. Yeats At one point in Quinn’s Book, the fourth novel in William Kennedy’s...
MoreJ. Courtney Sullivan: Graduating from Chick Lit
J. Courtney Sullivan is, just like each of her engaging and multifaceted characters in Commencement, far from two-dimensional. In our conversation, she tells me stories about sending copies of works...
MoreReview of Books
Recommended Leo Tolstoy famously said that all great literature is one of two stories: a man goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town. William Trevor’s latest novel is thus great literature...
MoreSláinte: Rest in Peace Ted Kennedy
As my sophomore year of high school began in 1960, the country was buzzing with the coming election. An Irish American was running for president! My Irish relatives rallied to the call and even my...
MoreThe Last Word: What Ted Kennedy & John Sweeney Built On
The death of Ted Kennedy precedes by three weeks the end of John Sweeney’s 14-year tenure as president of the AFL-CIO. Together, these events signal the end of an epoch in American political...
MoreHibernia
The 2009 Wall Street 50 Awards
The annual Wall Street 50 event brought together national leaders from every sector of the...
William Kennedy Wins Eugene O’Neill Award
Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Kennedy will be presented with the inaugural 2009 Eugene...
Irish Eye on Hollywood
In the next couple of years, acclaimed Dublin-born director Jim Sheridan (In the Name of the...
100th Anniversary of Celtic Cross at Grosse Île
“Children of the Gael died in the thousands on this island having fled from the laws of the...
An Irish Welcome for the Champ
Thousands turned out to welcome Muhammad Ali, 67, to Ennis, County Clare, the birthplace of his...