June 16 has been immortalized by lovers of James Joyce's Ulysses everywhere as "Bloomsday" and has become an annual day of pilgrimage and celebration. Ulysses is the epic hour-by-hour account of one day in Dublin -- June 16, 1904. In the novel, the hero, Leopold Bloom -- an ordinary Dubliner -- is a modern-day Odysseus wandering through the urban landscape which is alternately … [Read more...] about Leopold Bloom Lives On
June July 2002 Issue
The Heart of a Firefighter
When the dust settled on September 11, one of the 343 firefighters listed as missing, later pronounced dead, was Chief Bill Feehan. A firefighter to his core, Feehan was loved by the men and women in the FDNY. Bill Feehan loved eggs over easy. Every day for the last 20 years at least he stopped at the Northern Cross Diner in Queens and read the Daily News as he had his usual … [Read more...] about The Heart of a Firefighter
Historic Pubs of Belfast
Think of Irish pubs and the mind turns to Dublin; sipping a pint of Guinness as the sun streams over the aged wooden interiors of Doheny and Nesbitt's or following the literary trail of Joyce, Behan and Kavanagh through Davy Byrne's, Mulligans and McDaids. Celebrated in verse and novel, a focal point for every tourist, Dublin pub culture is a treasure to be prized. But travel … [Read more...] about Historic Pubs of Belfast
Out of Albany
William Kennedy, known as the author who captured Albany, New York, talks to Tom Deignan. ℘℘℘ William Kennedy is telling a story about his father that could very well be a haunting moment from any one of his seven "Albany cycle" novels. "My father's father came from Tipperary," the novelist, 74, says over an Irish breakfast in Fitzpatrick's mid-town Manhattan hotel. Kennedy's … [Read more...] about Out of Albany
The Voice of the Dispossessed
February 2, 2002 marked the centenary of John Steinbeck's birth. Jim Dwyer writes about the great American writer's Irish Roots. ℘℘℘ All the great novels and stories of John Steinbeck slice into the American experience, clear to the bone. They are set in California, or along Route 66, where the Joads trekked across the Southwest from the Dust Bowls. And Steinbeck himself, born … [Read more...] about The Voice of the Dispossessed