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February / March 2016

1916 – 2016: The Centenary

Welcome to the 1916 Centenary issue of Irish America. ℘℘℘ This special issue of Irish America is dedicated to the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising. Its aim is two-fold: to highlight and...

“No New York. No America. No Easter Rising. It’s simple as that.” – Director of Glucksman Ireland House, NYU, J.J. Lee ℘℘℘ While editing the articles in this issue, I was struck...

Ireland and the U.S. are now connected through a brand new $300 million transatlantic fiber-optic cable that went live on January 31. Aqua Comms, the Irish based company behind the America Europe...

Zoe Ireland Drake, the American baby girl born just minutes after landing in Dublin on October 28th, 2015, spent Christmas in Ireland. Her parents, Jenny and Gavin Drake, have remained in Dublin...

In mid-2015, a group of fishermen off the coast of Waterford inadvertently picked up what could potentially be Ireland’s oldest archeological artifact. While trawling for scallops off Creaden Head...

Ninety-seven-year-old Kerry man John “Jack” Mahony was named a Chevalier de La Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest honor, for his participation in the European theater of World War II. Mahony...

In early December of 2015, the Irish government launched a campaign to bring its emigrants home to help grow the economy. Inspired in part by #hometovote, the hashtag that urged Irish abroad to come...

November of last year marked the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which attempted to bring an end to the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. Signed by then-Taoiseach...

Arlene Foster, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, the largest political party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, officially began her tenure as First Minister of Northern Ireland...

This past November, detectives in County Antrim arrested a former British soldier who was involved in 1972’s Bloody Sunday. The arrest was the first made in connection with the incident, which...

It’s that time of year again in Hollywood. Everyone from critics’ associations to film review boards are giving out awards, all leading up to the Oscars, which will be held this year on February...

The Irish will be represented at the prestigious annual Sundance Film Festival. In Mammal, star Rachel Griffiths (Six Feet Under) portrays a woman named Margaret who has learned that the teenaged...

Fionnula Flanagan has already appeared in one movie slated for an early 2016 release and is shaping up to have an overall busy year. Flanagan – the Dublin-born veteran of stage and screen – was...

Californication actress Natascha McElhone, who uses her Irish mother’s name for professional purposes, is slated to appear alongside Eddie Murphy in what is being pitched as a heartwarming film in...

Comedian Bill Burr has found inspiration for his next project in his Irish American roots. The result is a dark animated comedy entitled F is for Family, now streaming on Netflix. “Sometime in my...

He was born Stephen Farrelly in Cabra, Dublin, and raised to speak fluent Irish, but the world knows him best as the professional wrestler Sheamus. A World Wrestling Entertainment champion, Sheamus...

Aidan Gillen (The Wire, Game of Thrones) sticks with the historical costume genre in Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur, to be directed by Sherlock Holmes auteur Guy Ritchie. Gillen stars...

Armagh native Colin Morgan (above) is currently busy with two Hollywood movies as well as a BBC TV series. In April, look for Morgan beside Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron in The...

Donegal native Dr. William Campbell was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on a drug that fights roundworm-related infections. He and his colleague, Professor Satoshi Omura, shared this...

Irish Ambassador to the U.S. Anne Anderson will become the first female member of the Philadelphia chapter of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, an honorary role, at a St. Patrick’s Day dinner this...

Three Americans received Irish Presidential Distinguished Service Awards on December 3rd last year. Tom Moran is a hugely successful businessman and a well-respected humanitarian. Born on Staten...

George Mitchell, the former senate majority leader (D – Maine) and Northern Ireland peace broker, has accepted the invitation to be the Grand Marshal of New York’s 5th Avenue St. Patrick’s Day...

Rick Cluchey 1933 – 2015 On February 2, 1955, the man who would become one of Samuel Beckett’s greatest protegés, got into a car in Los Angeles with a loaded gun. Rick Cluchey robbed and...

The program for the 2016 U.S. commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising launched in January with members of the Irish and American governments and Irish celebrities in New...

Though the majority of memorials to the Easter Rising are on the East Coast, the influence of the revolution are spread from Golden Gate Park to Long Island Sound. ℘℘℘ Springfield,...

Within sight of the Irish Embassy is Kerry-born sculptor Jerome Connor’s famous memorial to Irish patriot Robert Emmet, commissioned in 1916 by a group of Irish Americans (including the singer...

A new immersive exhibit is slated to open at Dublin’s General Post Office in March as part of the Irish government’s commemoration program for 1916. The exhibit – dubbed the “G.P.O. Witness...

An article written by Alan McCarthy, a first-year Ph.D. student in the School of History at University College Cork (UCC), reveals the unique importance of County Cork newspapers following the 1916...

The U.K. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in a Malaysian civil rights case has caused dramatic repercussions for Northern Ireland. Families of victims of the Batang Kali massacre were pursuing action...

The first ever independent, non-partisan study that models the economic implications of a politically and economically united Ireland suggests that there would be positive effects on both sides of...

Notre Dame’s Keough-Naughton Institute has produced a documentary on the Easter Rising that promises to stir a global debate on the historic event that led to Ireland’s...

The 16 men who were executed in the aftermath of the Easter Rising included the seven leaders who sealed their fate by signing the Proclamation (Forógra na Poblachta). It was read by Pádraig Pearse...

The 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic has been called the most important document in Irish history, establishing the idea of equal rights across gender, fair labor practices, and conferring the...

Hanged by the British in 1916 for working with Germany and Irish nationalists in planning the Easter Rising of 1916, Sir Roger Casement is remembered as the “father of twentieth-century human...

Michael Collins was born into a farming family near Clonakilty in County Cork in 1890. In 1906 he passed a civil service exam and went to London to work in the British postal system, which included...

Éamon de Valera, the dominant political figure of Ireland’s 20th century, was an enigmatic figure to the end of his life. ℘℘℘ Éamon de Valera was sentenced to death for his...

“…the general awakening that was taking place in Ireland seemed to make us forget everything else for the time and think only of the fight in prospect.” – Joe McGarrity ℘℘℘ Joe...

Irish women played a key role during Easter week 1916 but it’s largely been forgotten. ℘℘℘ Pádraig Pearse stands on the steps of the G.P.O. on Easter Monday, 1916, the Proclamation of the...

Constance Gore-Booth may have married a Polish Count, but in her heart she was an Irish revolutionary who had an active part in the Easter Rising and in the formation of the new...

Eoin MacNeill tried to stop the Rising, but there would have been no Rising without him. Maureen Murphy writes that it’s time to reevaluate the role of this true Irish patriot. ℘℘℘ When it...

The trade union movement in America played a major role in Ireland’s struggle for freedom. But Irish rebels also played a significant role in building the American trade union movement, writes...

When Irish exiles needed a refuge, they swarmed to New York and established a hotbed of anti-British sentiment and activity that fed the flames of Irish freedom. ℘℘℘ The Great Famine in the...

As World War I loomed, the U.S. was wracked by political, ethnic, and religious tension. Most Americans hoped to remain neutral, but the Irish in the U.S. were not shy about whom to root...

The battle for the hearts and minds of the Boston Irish took a sharp turn in the aftermath of the 1916 Irish Rising. ℘℘℘ Prior to the 1916 Rising, Boston’s Irish community had maintained...

David Neligan, a member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, acted as a valuable agent for Michael Collins by passing on vital information during the Irish War of Independence (1919–21). He...

Today world news is immediate but 100 years ago transmission depended on telegraph cables under the Atlantic ocean that were subject to wartime and censorship conditions. ℘℘℘ In April...

Take a journey around Dublin to relive the events and see the locations of the Easter 1916 Rising. ℘℘℘ What could be better than having your own local expert on hand to answer your every...

Unheralded men and women became leaders in the crucible of 1916. A new book by the Royal Irish Academy offers portraits and biographies of those involved in the Rising. ℘℘℘ Irish people are...

Three of the men who signed the Proclamation of the Irish Republic had published poetry before the Rising. But many more revolutionaries who participated were writers, scholars, and artists,...

When the rebellion of 1798 failed, many of The United Irishmen, including Thomas Addis Emmet, came to the United States where their influence was enormous. ℘℘℘ You may well wonder why a...

Irish Hunger and Migration: Myth, Memory and Memorialization Edited by Patrick Fitzgerald, Christine Kinealy, and Gerard Moran The biennial Ulster-American Heritage Symposium, which explores...

Growing up in New York City, there was always a formal photographic portrait of our great-grandfather Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa on the wall of our apartment. In this photo, Rossa looks dignified,...

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February / March 2016

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