Whether it’s stomping the boards on Broadway or on Hollywood’s silver screen, these girls all share a love of performance. Perhaps it’s in the DNA?Thinking about writing an article for Irish America, I recalled the childhood games my mother and I would play on long car rips. We named state capitals, movie titles and how many famous people we could list with the same last name. … [Read more...] about Roots:
The Unrelated Ryan Girls
Roots
Roots:
Roots: The Proud Dempseys
Though never particularly numerous (as of the last count in 1996 by the Irish Times, the surname ranks as the underwhelming 164th most common surname in Ireland), the Dempsey clan was a powerful sept in its time. Originating in the Kingdom of Uí Failghe, anglicized today as Offaly and roughly covering the same territory as the contemporary county, the clan derives its name … [Read more...] about Roots: The Proud Dempseys
Roots: Is Oscar Irish?
Oscar Wilde, the playwright, novelist, poet, and critic of world renown, has long been labeled Anglo-Irish, but an examination of his roots puts the question of Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde’s Irishness to rest once and for all.All Irishmen must feel a little defensive when someone points out that some of our famous writers are Anglo-Irish – as if they are just English … [Read more...] about Roots: Is Oscar Irish?
Hillary Clinton’s Celtic Roots
Until now, the many genealogists who have researched Hillary Clinton’s ancestry have attached her Welsh grandmother, Hannah Jones, to the wrong parents. Roots detective Megan Smolenyak homes in on Clinton’s Welsh heritage and sets the record straight. When it was announced that Hillary Rodham Clinton would be inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame for her work on the … [Read more...] about Hillary Clinton’s Celtic Roots
Roots: The Macs
This issue’s Roots column is slightly different from the traditional format. Instead of looking at a single surname, or different but etymologically related surnames, I examine three unique but phonetically and geographically related family names. This is in part practical – the names are relatively uncommon compared to our usual surnames, so information on them is scarcer – … [Read more...] about Roots: The Macs