Irish America
Irish America
The Queenstown StoryTheir names were Peter, Jack, Nora, Maggie, Minnie and Kate, and one by one, the Sullivan children left Bounard, County Kerry, for Boston. They eventually made their way to Newburyport, where my grandmother, Minnie, married a Cork lad named James Barry. In my eyes, the most fascinating souvenir of the journey was my grandmother's trunk, mostly black, but … [Read more...] about Footsteps of the Past
History will be the ultimate jury, but Sinn Féin leader, Gerry Adams, one of the architects of the lrish peace process, is likely to emerge as one of the key Irish politicians of the 20th century. Unionists see him as a machiavellian schemer, with no commitment to peace and reconciliation with their tradition. The SDLP -- and one suspects the British government -- are also … [Read more...] about Gerry Adams Up Close & Personal
It's safe to say that Oscar Wilde would have loved the attention. After all, this is the man who once memorably wrote: "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." The current surge in popularity of all things Wildean -- be it books, movies or stage plays -- is two years ahead of the centenary of his death, but then … [Read more...] about Wild About Oscar
Two years ago, Garry Hynes took a chance on a young, unknown playwright called Martin McDonagh, staging his play The Beauty Queen of Leenane at Galway's Druid Theater, which she had co-founded over 20 years earlier. This June, her gamble on Beauty Queen paid off handsomely when she became the first woman director to win a Tony Award -- Broadway's answer to the Oscars. For the … [Read more...] about Garry Glitters on Broadway
As a young boy growing up in Dublin, Paul Costelloe, Ireland's most famous and successful fashion designer, was hungry. But not for food, "I was hungry for excitement," says Costelloe. "I painted. It was a way of getting my fantasies out." His fantasies, not surprisingly, were the antithesis of the romantic traditional images his clothes evoke today. "I painted crucifixes and … [Read more...] about Man of the Cloth
