Irish archeologist Damian Shiels, who specializes in what he calls “conflict archeology,” will launch his new book on the Irish immigrant experience during the Civil War at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. in March. Shiels’s book, The Forgotten Irish: Irish Emigrant Experiences in America, uses the archives’ widow and dependent pension files of Irish Civil War soldiers … [Read more...] about The Forgotten Irish Remembered at U.S. National Archives
Literature
Review of Books
Recently published books of Irish and Irish American interest. ℘℘℘ Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth By Mark Williams In the midst of the Celtic Revival of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, W.B. Yeats implored his Irish literary compatriots to “go where Homer went.” It was an audacious urging, to formalize a relationship between Ireland’s … [Read more...] about Review of Books
What Are You Like?
Author Donal Ryan
Donal Ryan is one of Ireland’s best new writers. His first novel, The Spinning Heart, was published to great acclaim in 2012. It won the Guardian First Book Award, the European Union Prize for Literature, and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and the Desmond Elliott Prize.
Born, in 1976, outside Nenagh, Co.Tipperary, Ryan … [Read more...] about What Are You Like?
Author Donal Ryan
Review of Books:
Kathleen Donohoe’s “Ashes of Fiery Weather”
Kathleen Donohoe's debut novel is a stunning and intimate portrayal of four generations of New York City firefighters that puts women at the forefront.
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The Irish tradition in the New York City Fire Department is undeniably rich. But it also must be said that stories of the FDNY inevitably tilt towards the male perspective, since the department has only been hiring females … [Read more...] about Review of Books:
Kathleen Donohoe’s “Ashes of Fiery Weather”
The Touch of The Poet
Five years ago this summer, a dream came true – but not quite the way the daydreamer envisioned it might. A decade earlier, I approached the poet and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, proposing a magazine profile of him and requesting an interview in Dublin. An enthusiastic admirer of his work, I’d just published an assessment of his translation of Beowulf – “a cross-cultural … [Read more...] about The Touch of The Poet