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August / September 2017

Daniel O’Day: Healthcare’s New Frontiersman

As the visionary leader of one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, Daniel O’Day is changing the future of patient care. ℘℘℘ At a time in our country when healthcare is a...

The 2017 Irish America Healthcare and Life Sciences 50 list celebrates Irish innovators who are leading the way in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. The work of these Irish-American...

“I wanna know did you get the feelin’? / Did you get it down in your soul? / I wanna know did you get the feelin’? And did the feelin’ grow? / Sometimes, when the spirit moves me...

For the first time since figures have been recorded, more than one million North Americans visited Ireland in 2016. The numbers were released in June by Fáilte Ireland. “While we have known for...

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is just one of the many international institutions emigrating from London to Dublin in the wake of 2016’s Brexit vote. With the United Kingdom no longer holding E.U....

Leo Varadkar made history in June when he was elected taoiseach, becoming the first openly gay prime minister of Ireland as well as the first prime minister of Indian heritage and the youngest ever...

Sixteen-year-old Fiacre Ryan’s life was transformed because of the Rapid Prompting Method, an innovative way of dealing with the effects of autism, and he now wishes to expand its use in Ireland...

In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph shortly following her 108th birthday in July, County Antrim woman Maud Nicholl (left, with Telegraph reporter Donna Deaney) revealed that she has only been...

Dublin Institute of Technology start-up company Kastus was the recent recipient of a Knowledge Transfer Ireland award, which promotes publicly-funded research in Ireland, for their new antimicrobial...

Sinn Féin Deputy Leader and Dublin Central TD Mary Lou McDonald (below) published a comprehensive and substantive document on Dublin’s Mater Hospital, which in June was the third most...

For the first time in history, the Irish are poised to make a material contribution to the night sky. In May, the European Space Agency confirmed the launch of Ireland’s first satellite,...

Hook Lighthouse, located on the Hook Head peninsula in County Waterford, has expanded its tourism offerings this year by introducing sunset tours to capitalize on the vast seascapes and glorious...

In June, Brian Kaller walked to the edge of the Bog of Allen, just behind his house in County Kildare, took 100 paces forward, 100 paces to the right, and began to look for a bright blue rope he had...

Irish universities are at the forefront of medical science. Here are some of the recent breakthroughs they have made in understanding human health. ℘℘℘ Queens University Belfast Dr. Philip...

As if there weren’t enough references these days to former president Richard Nixon, Watergate, and the impeachment process… This September, as movie studios begin releasing their “serious”...

Speaking of Colin Farrell, the Dublin actor also has a full slate of films coming up. He was just in the much-praised Civil War drama The Beguiled (beside Nicole Kidman) and in November his second...

In the wake of the critical and popular success she had starring in the Hulu series The Handmaid’s Tale (based on Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel), actress Elisabeth Moss is turning next to a...

In August, Pierce Brosnan stars in the family drama The Only Living Boy in New York. (If the title sounds familiar, it comes from a Simon and Garfunkel song.) Also starring Jeff Bridges, Cynthia...

In November, look for Tipperary native Kerry Condon in Irish writer-director Martin McDonagh’s latest twisted flick Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. McDonagh shot to fame with his Irish...

Two Irish films that have not yet received American release dates but that are worth keeping an eye out for are Halal Daddy and Delinquent Season. Halal Daddy is a culture clash comedy-drama about a...

With Irish stars like Kenneth Branagh and Cillian Murphy, not to mention the A-List director Christopher Nolan, it’s easy to forget that the much-hyped July war thriller Dunkirk also features the...

In case you missed these when they first came out, they are worth catching on DVD or your favorite streaming service: Irish director John Butler tells an intriguing coming-of-age tale in the...

The number of people in the United States who identify as Irish American has suffered a sharp decline in recent years and shows no signs of recovering just yet, according to the Pew Research...

Slaney Foods International, based in Bunclody, County Wexford, is celebrating after landing a deal to supply premium Irish Hereford beef to stores in the United States. The deal, facilitated due to...

The first results from a years-long study about the effects of prolonged space travel involving celebrated Irish American astronaut twins Mark and Scott Kelly (below, left and right) were released by...

Ireland’s Poet-Patriots: A Musical History, which premiered last year in San Francisco to correspond with the centenary of the 1916 Rising, is coming to Washington, D.C.’s National Cathedral on...

The Irish Repertory Theatre celebrated its 2017 gala at the New York Town Hall in June. The evening, “Sondheim at Seven,” recognized the work of one of America’s greatest musical artists,...

Pictured below at the dedication of a new monument to General Thomas Francis Meagher at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery in July is Jessie Meagher, great, great grandnephew to Meagher, stands next to...

The 2017 Women of Concern Awards Luncheon, hosted by Concern Worldwide US in New York in June, raised over $450,000 to advance Concern’s work fighting extreme poverty, a new record. Over 500...

More than 350 people attended a special ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Arboretum near New Ross, County Wexford, on May 29, marking the hour of the birth of America’s 35th president 100 years ago...

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s birth, the New York Historical Society has mounted a bold exhibition, American Visionary: John F. Kennedy’s Life and...

I was able to sniff back tears during most of the moving presentation of the 200 years history of the Sisters of Charity, entitled How the Nuns of New York Tamed the Gangs of New York, at the Sheen...

On a mid-May evening in a Fifth Avenue apartment overlooking Central Park, the County Mayo Foundation launched its first major fundraising campaign since the organization was established in 2015....

Jack Finucane 1937 – 2017 Father Jack Finucane, who co-founded the Irish humanitarian organization Concern Worldwide with his brother, Father Aengus, died in June at the age of 80. Jack...

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,...

She was the original Patient Zero, a healthy and asymptomatic carrier of a deadly plague. Baptized in Ireland in 1869 as Mary Mallon, she was re-baptized in America as Typhoid Mary, a name conjuring...

Coming to terms with hemochromatosis. ℘℘℘ When I began researching hemochromatosis for this story, I knew only the basic facts: that hemochromatosis is a genetic condition that causes the body...

A grandmother’s legacy lives on in the work of Muireann Irish, whose research has shown that people with dementia don’t just lose the ability to remember the past, they also lose the ability to...

We should be attendant to any story that involves love, even when it’s the strange and wonderful bond between a cat and human. ℘℘℘ Earlier this summer my cat died. I know it’s not...

In the past and at present alike, the name O’Dea is almost exclusively associated with the County Clare and adjacent areas such as Limerick City and north Tipperary. Though it is not a common name...

She came from a gold-obsessed family, so perhaps it wasn’t so surprising when the treasure bag was found in Hannah’s water closet. But what was this Galway girl even doing in San...

Edythe Preet writes about Ireland’s relationship with its signature crop. ℘℘℘ Back in first grade, my “see Spot run” primer told how Dick and Jane grew potatoes in their backyard and...

Between January 1, 2016 and January 1 of this year, Andrew Taylor lost over 100 pounds, going from 335 to 212 lbs., on a diet of nothing but potatoes. “I haven’t weighed myself since January, but...

Tom Deignan examines the WWI marching tune. ℘℘℘ Fans of legendary actress Mary Tyler Moore – who died in January at the age of 80 – may recall the final episode of the groundbreaking Mary...

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...

According to a 2017 report by UNICEF, Ireland has the fourth highest rate of teen suicide of E.U. or O.E.C.D. nations. Furthermore, Ireland has Europe’s highest rate of suicide among...

“There never was a sound that was not music – there’s no real trick of creating words to set to music – once you realize that the word is the music and the people are the song.” – Woody...

A new book by folk singer and author Judy Collins reveals all about her battle with food. ℘℘℘ Leonard Cohen is dead. Joni Mitchell is ailing. Judy Collins stands out in the crowd of ’60s folk...

There is something fitting about where Malachy McCourt is calling from as I speak to him about his dark and hilarious new book Death Need Not Be Fatal. McCourt is at a Manhattan rehabilitation...

Recently published books of Irish and Irish American interest. ℘℘℘ Napoleon’s Doctor: The St. Helena Diary of Barry O’Meara By Dr. Hubert O’Connor The last few years of the great Emperor...

This fall, a number of our most celebrated Irish American authors will launch books into heavy seas where Twitter storms and televised tantrums batter our attention, but after spending time at the...

My maternal grandmother Kate and I were very close. As a child I would go to Jersey City to stay with Kate for two or three weeks during the summer. As I got older, she was as much a “girlfriend”...

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August / September 2017

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