Irish America April / May 2009

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IRISH AMERICA April / May 2009

Vol. 24 No. 2

FEATURES 31 THE GLOBAL IRISH Our list includes members of the Irish family from Argentina (page 36), Australia (page 38), Britain (page 40), Canada (page 42), Mexico (page 44) and Irish America (page 55).

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THE OLYMPICS Still celebrating their victories in the Beijing Summer Olympics, these athletes have swum, fought and trained their way to medals and world records. The coaches honored here have been a source of motivation and exemplars of the hard work that brought the Irish to the forefront of sport this year.

50 A HEALER ON A GLOBAL MISSION Irish American of the Year, Dr. Kevin Cahill, talks with Conn Corrigan about his storied career in medicine.

80 THOSE WE LOST Though they have passed on, the timeless influence of these irreplaceable individuals on all of us remains. We honor their lives and work as we celebrate their spirit.

82 LUCK OF THE IRISH The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem’s legendary 1963 concert at Carnegie Hall has just been released on CD. Tom Deignan takes a look at the famous Irish trad group.

36 38

88 ULSTER SCOTS AT STONE MOUNTAIN HIGHLAND GAMES Turlough McConnell explores the history of the Ulster Scots’ culture and inheritance in preparation for October’s Stone Mountain Highland Games and Scottish Festival.

DEPARTMENTS 6 8 10 14 86 90 92 94 96 98

First Word Readers Forum News from Ireland Hibernia Music Roots Books Crossword Sláinte Photo Album

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96 80

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{the first word} Vol.24 No.2 • April / May 2009

Celebrating the Far-Flung Irish hen I was young, a visit by two I wasn’t Frenchmen caused great excitemuch of a letment in our house. ter-writer and They were distant cousins – descendants of my French PHOTO: KIT DE FEVER Oliver Harty who was born in Knockainey, was terrible, Knocklong, County Limerick in 1746 and left so Albane and I soon stopped writing. My for France as a lad of sixteen. mother, on the other hand, kept up a runLike many young Irishmen who had lucraning correspondence with all my father’s tive careers in continental armies since the 16th relations as well as her own. As I was growcentury, Oliver left for France in 1762 to ing up, our never-met cousins in Australia, serve as a cadet in Berwick’s Irish Regiment, Hawaii, and various parts of England were attached to the French Army. Three of his known to us through photographs and letters. maternal uncles (the Sheas) were at the time They were all very much in my mind as we officers in the Irish Brigade. put together this Global 100 issue.

Oliver distinguished himself as a soldier. He We are a far-flung people, and it was excitwas decorated by Louis XVI with the Order ing to explore the Irish threads that color the of Saint Louis, and mosaic of so many after the Revolution, countries; to discover took part in various a champion surfer in Napoleonic campaigns, Australia with Irish and was created Baron roots, and a Polo player de Pierrebourg (Alsace) in Argentina, and to

by Napoleon. consider the backstory While my father was of their immigrant delighted to have a ancestors.

Baron in the family, the It was a first digging news that Oliver had away at the topsoil of a sailed into Bantry Bay huge story that encomwith Wolfe Tone as part passes some 70 million of the French attempt to Irish around the world. rout the British in 1796 It was also a nod to a was even more impresnew web venture that sive. The invasion failed My French cousin Albane (left), my teenage we are undertaking but Oliver evaded cap- penpal, pictured with her cousin in the sum- called IrishCentral.com, mer of ’67. We have yet to meet. ture and made it back to which will be a truly France, to his wife, global site; one that we Anne Marie de hope will become a Grenveld, two sons and a daughter. Thus meeting place for the Irish around the world began the French branch of the Harty family tree.

– where long-lost relatives will reconnect Oliver’s great-grandson, Patrice Harty de and new friendships will be forged; a place Pierrebourg, had a keen interest in genealogy where the far-flung Irish from every corner of and wrote a biography of his illustrious ancesthe globe can get together and share their tor, which is how Patrice’s grandsons came to version of the wonderful story that is our make that visit to Ireland in the 1950s. heritage.

Over the years our two families kept in occaEnjoy this issue and that think about consional touch. A look through my memento box necting up with your own relatives, wherever upturned a French wedding invitation of they may be. some time back, a more recent letter from one Mortas Cine. of the men who had visited us, who “remembered my father well,” and a photograph of Albane, a French cousin I pen-palled with when I was a teenager.

W

6 IRISH AMERICA FEBRUARY/MARCH 2009

IRISH AMERICA 875 SIXTH AVENUE, SUITE 2100, N.Y., NY 10001 TEL: 212-725-2993 FAX: 212-244-3344 E-MAIL: irishamag @ aol.com WEB: http://www.irishamerica.com

Mortas Cine Pride In Our Heritage

Founding Publisher: Niall O’Dowd Co-Founder Editor-in-Chief: Patricia Harty Vice President of Marketing: Turlough McConnell Art Director: Marian Fairweather Senior Editor: Declan O’Kelly Copy Editor: John Anderson Advertising & Events Coordinator: Kathleen Overbeck Financial Controller: Kevin M. Mangan Editorial Assistants: Tara Dougherty Bridget English Kara Rota Irish America Magazine ISSN 0884-4240) ©

by Irish America Inc. Published bi-monthly.

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{readers forum} WHAT’S WRONG WITH PORTLAND?

Barbara Burr Portland, Oregon Received via e-mail

COURTESY BRIAN O’LONGAIGH

I just received my Feb/Mar 2009 issue of Irish America.

I must say, I was surprised to read about President Mary McAleese’s West Coast visit in December and not hear a word about her stop in Portland, Oregon. It was here in Portland that she dedicated the Oregon Irish Famine Memorial and was guest speaker at the 70th anniversary of the All-Ireland Cultural Society of Oregon. The memorial is an exact replica of the Cross of the Scriptures at Clonmacnoise, County Offaly, hand carved in Donegal Town by sculptor Brendan McGloin. Perhaps Irish America magazine will do an article about this beautiful memorial in a future edition.

Powers family, both sides of my family came from Cork and settled in Charlestown. Dave Powers’ brother (I can’t remember his first name) was the guy everyone went to when you needed an electrical appliance fixed. A very nice, pleasant man.

Also, in an odd coincidence, in the Eye on Hollywood section of the same issue, the two Boston Irish crime movies, Code of Silence and The Town, appear to be using Charlestown's exaggerated crime reputation as a plot background.

William J. Donovan Received via e-mail

Folks, I would like to comment and agree with Patrick Roe’s letter “Enough of the Lists.” Your magazine is full of

GOD BLESS THE KINGDOM I enjoyed your story in the Dec/Jan issue about County Kerry more than words can describe. My father came from County Kerry in 1929. In 1960, I had the pleasure of visiting Ireland and Kerry and I met all of my dad’s brothers and sisters a well as my cousins. As a result of my visit, my uncle and aunt (dad’s brother and sister) came over for a visit to Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1974. My dad had not seen them in 45 years. About 10 years later, my sister took Mom and Dad back to Ireland where he visited with his brothers and sisters who he had not seen in 55 years.

My wife and I visited Ireland in 2001 and spent a wonderful time with my cousins and their families. We were warmly treated wherever we went and have many memories of those good times. It is magazines like Irish America that allow people to tell their stories about being Irish in this great country of America.

Michael H. Holly Fort Wayne, Indiana

GOOD OL’ GREEN EYES I have three Irish and one German grandparent. I have green eyes. My eye doctor told me on my last visit that only one or two percent of people have green eyes. So the picture in the last issue showing Sarah Convey’s grandmother’s green eyes in a portrait taken in 1905 could actually be true to life.

Joan Melofchik Received via email

LISTS I agree with Patrick Roe of Wisconsin (Feb/Mar 2009) that the business-oriented lists printed in almost every issue are getting to be too much. The rest of the articles are always well done and very informative.

In the same issue, the article about the Kennedy White House contains one small error that I just couldn’t let go.

Dave Powers' parents settled in the Charlestown section of Boston, not Charleston. Charlestown, the location of the famed Battle of Bunker Hill, was about 90 percent Irish from the mid 1800’s until the early 1970’s. Like the 8 IRISH AMERICA APRIL/MAY 2009

wonderful stories of Ireland and the Irish which I enjoy reading. When you take away story space and put in endless lists of business people, you lessen your appeal to the readers of all things Irish.

Your Feb/March issue is full of stories that I and my large family love to read.

Bill Kelly Received via e-mail

Top left: President McAlesse at the memorial dedication. Above: Mount Brandon on the Dingle Peninsula.

Send letters to: Irish America, 875 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 2100, NY NY 10001. Or E-mail irishamag@aol.com. Please include name, address, and phone number. Letters will be edited for length and clarity.

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{ news from ireland}

By Frank Shouldice

Recession Deepens With Bank Scandal

I

reland’s economic difficulties intensified with a series of controversies in the banking sector compounded by industrial unrest and further job losses across the country.

Anglo-Irish Bank is at the center of many difficulties in the financial sector.

As the third largest bank in the state, Anglo-Irish was founded in 1964 and publicly quoted in 1971. Although it does not have the profile of either Bank of Ireland or Allied Irish Banks (AIB), it came to prominence during the boom years by providing substantial credit to commercial interests, particularly those active in the property market.

The bank performed spectacularly through the 90s. However, the sudden drop in construction and property values and a serious economic downturn across the board brought its success to an abrupt halt and revealed serious irregularities within lending practices at Anglo-Irish.

A detailed examination into its affairs disclosed that the bank inflated its end-ofyear figures by transferring funds – up to 7 billion euros – to and from Irish Life & Permanent, another national lending institution. Large loans concealed within the Anglo-Irish accounts were not publicly identified by the financial regulator Patrick Neary, and in the wake of a highly critical report the effectiveness of the regulator was called into question. Mr. Neary then obliged by retiring with a golden handshake of 630,000 euros and an annual pension of 142,670 euros.

At the height of the preChristmas financial crisis the government considered recapitalizing the ailing bank before taking the momentous step of nationalizing it to prevent outright collapse and the knockon effect it would have on the national economy. When trading on the stock exchange stopped, Anglo-Irish shares were priced at 22 cents, compared to a 17 euros share price at its peak in 2007. Anglo-Irish shareholders are now examin-

10 IRISH AMERICA APRIL/MAY 2009

ing whether they have a legal case against the bank for being misled on share value.

However, the net worth of the bank – regarded as a central player in commercial and property finance during the Celtic Tiger years – remains unclear. Most of the executives, including its chief executive Sean Fitzpatrick, whose ebullient style was seen to characterize the bullish entrepreneurialism at Anglo-Irish, have resigned. It also emerged that Mr. Fitzpatrick borrowed 83 million euros from his own bank. This has yet to be repaid.

Among a mounting catalogue of potentially crippling transactions, it was also revealed that the bank loaned 451 million euros to ten long-established clients. In a complicated scheme, the ten investors used these funds to buy Anglo-Irish shares, then sold some of the shares back to the market. The remainder of the loan was guaranteed by the security of AngloIrish shares, but because these shares are now virtually worthless, the bank stands to lose 300 million euros on the deal. With the bank now nationalized, there is widespread anger that the loss incurred by this unorthodox deal with elite businessmen is likely to be passed on to Irish taxpayers.

Leading economist Morgan Kelly has warned that the government has stepped into the brink without knowing the full extent of financial exposure it has taken on. In addition to nationalizing AngloIrish, the government has also committed billions to recapitalizing Bank of Ireland

and AIB. Writing in The Irish Times, Kelly cautioned bluntly, “The ability of the state to continue funding itself ultimately depends on the size of these bad debts. If they are of the order of 10 to 20 billion euros, we will survive. If they are of the order of 50 to 60 billion euros, we are sunk.”

Representing the Irish state, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan is now the sole shareholder in Anglo-Irish Bank. He has cited confidentiality clauses and declined to reveal the identity of the ten investors.

His reluctance to name them has sparked speculation that the ten are major commercial figures, some of whom may have ties to Fianna Fáil. The charge of concealment on these grounds has been angrily denied by government figures, but Fine Gael deputy leader Richard Bruton has demanded that the public be provided with the names of the “golden circle of investors.” The growing impression that unregulated banking has left a raft of bad debts prompted Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey to describe lending policies at Anglo-Irish as “economic treason.”

A further 15 percent of Anglo-Irish Bank shares was bought by businessman Sean Quinn and his family. It was recently revealed that this purchase was also financed with significant loans from Anglo-Irish. The conduct of directors at Anglo-Irish prior to nationalization is already under review by the Office of Corporate Enforcement. Its Dublin headquarters was raided by officers from the Fraud Squad, assisted by gardai (Irish police). Office Director Paul Appleby is currently examining documentation taken from Anglo-Irish and will consider what civil and criminal options are available under various Companies Acts.

Members of the board at Anglo-Irish Bank listen to chairman Donal O’Connor answer shareholders’ questions at a meeting in Dublin in January.

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Dublin Loses Two of Its Finest

D Over 120,000 took to the streets in Dublin on February 21 to protest the new pension levy introduced by the government.

Huge Demo Protests Tax Levy n estimated 120,000 people marched through Dublin to protest a new pension levy on public service workers. The levy, intended to save the state 1.4 billion euros, will affect all civil servants, but the main focus of the protest was on those in lower pay levels who face an immediate cut in takehome pay. A week later the Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU) staged a oneday strike to protest the levy.

In a time of widespread job losses in the private sector, there is little public sympathy for the pension levy action. Smaller but voluble demonstrations were also held outside the Dáil (Irish parliament) by taxi drivers, farmers, fishermen and gardai (Irish police) to protest against government policy.

Already this year unemployment in Ireland has doubled to 8.3 percent of the workforce. The first losses were mainly in construction, but the recession has extended to every sector, including 1,900 jobs axed at Dell in Limerick, 470 at Dell supplier RR Donnelly, 1,130 at SR Technics aircraft maintenance in Dublin, 300 at Ericssons, 250 jobs at Intel, Co. Kildare, 400 layoffs in Superquinn, Dundalk, and another 200 at food company Glanbia.

Staff at Waterford Crystal await the outcome of a takeover by U.S. firm KPS Capital.

Production at the plant in Waterford ceased in January, putting 480 jobs in jeopardy and sparking a sit-in protest by workers. Staff at Waterford Crystal welcomed the announcement of a takeover, but the terms of the KPS deal are yet to be finalized.

A

Fianna Fáil Slump in Polls

F

IANNA Fáil politicians have blamed the economic downturn for the party’s historical slump in the opinion polls. For the first time ever, Fianna Fáil has fallen to third place in party support with 22 percent of votes, trailing behind Fine Gael (32 percent) and Labour (24).

According to an Irish Times/MRBI poll,Taoiseach Brian Cowen has also seen his approval rating slide to 24 percent, his standing seriously eclipsed by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny (30 percent) and a resurgent Labour under Eamon Gilmore (44 percent).

Another poll, conducted by the IMS through “Irish Independent/Millward Browne,” posted further bad news for Fianna Fáil and the government. It showed public satisfaction with the government had plummeted to 10 percent of voters. Half the electorate felt it was time for a general election, which added to Fianna Fáil’s woes facing into local elections.

ublin playwright Hugh Leonard passed away on February 12, aged 82. His best-known play, the semiautobiographical Da, was staged on Broadway in 1978 and went on to win numerous awards, including a Drama Critics Circle Award for best play of the year. Born John Joseph Byrne, he was adopted and worked in the civil service after leaving school. His breakthrough play with the Abbey Theatre was The Big Birthday in 1956, and Leonard then enjoyed a successful period in Britain writing for television.

When he returned to Dublin in 1970 he settled in Dalkey, Co. Dublin and turned out a series of well-received plays.

He was an outspoken critic of the Provisional IRA and frequently used his weekly column in the Sunday Independent to express his position.

“When I began writing a column I discovered I was the only journalist to hold the Provisionals in open contempt – and I say this not in boastfulness but in shame,” he once remarked.

His numerous awards include honorary doctorates from Rhode Island College and Trinity College Dublin. Hugh Leonard is survived by his second wife Kathy Hayes and his daughter Danielle.

Another Dublin author and playwright, Christopher Nolan passed away on February 20. At age 43, Nolan overcame severe cerebral palsy to write his play Under the Eye of the Clock in a painstaking process using a unicorn stick fastened to his forehead.The lyrical, semi-autobiographical novel won the prestigous Whitbread Award, beating out established authors Ian McEwan and Seamus Heaney.

The writer’s mother made the acceptance speech on his behalf. “I want to shout with joy. My heart is full of gratitude,” she told the audience. “You all must realize that history is now in the making. Crippled man has taken his place on the world’s literary stage!”

Nolan also wrote the play Torchlight and Laser Beams, which was produced at the Gate Theatre, and followed up with a second novel, The Banyan Tree.

Christopher Nolan is survived by his parents and his sister Yvonne.

APRIL/MAY 2009 IRISH AMERICA 11

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{news from ireland}

Govt. Scuttles Plan to Raise Asgard II

Russian Navy Admits Pollution

A

fter more than a week of repeated denials, the Russian Navy has admitted responsibility for a serious oil slick off the south coast of Ireland. Following a number of meetings with the Irish Coast Guard, a highlevel Russian military delegation conceded that the spillage occurred accidentally during the refueling of the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov some 60 miles southeast of Fastnet Rock.

A large oil slick, estimated at some 300 tons of oil waste, was found to be drifting towards shore and there were fears that the coastline along Cork, Waterford and Wexford would be threatened by pollution.

Despite initial denials that it had any-

thing to do with the spill, the Russian Federation later conceded that oil might have been accidentally released during a “cleaning” of the aircraft carrier, regarded as the flagship of the Russian Navy.

The delegation then expressed “extreme regret” for the incident.

The Irish Coast Guard estimates the cost of the clean-up at about 250,000 euros, and it remains to be seen how much the Russian Federation will contribute to the anti-pollution measures.

Calm weather conditions assisted the clean-up, and Karin Dubsky, spokeswoman for environmental campaigners Coastwatch, said that the southeast was “very lucky with the weather.”

GAA Marks Its 125th Birthday Mary Spring Rice and Mrs. Childers aboard the original Asgard. Plans to salvage the Asgard II, which sank last year, were shelved by the government.

P

lans to salvage the Asgard II from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean have been shelved.The vintage 30-yearold sail-training vessel sank in heavy seas off the northern coast of France last September.There were hopes that the vessel would be restored, but Minister of Defence Willie O’Dea announced that those plans were now abandoned.

“Spending in the region of 2 million euros on a salvage effort, the outcome of which is uncertain, is something we cannot afford at this time,” the minister said.

“A real risk exists whereby more than 2 million euros could be expended on a salvage effort that proves unsuccessful or, following which, the vessel is found to be damaged beyond repair.”

All 25 crewmembers were safely evacuated when the Asgard II sank.The stricken craft was built, as a replica – the original Asgard famously played a gunrunning role in the War of Independence and its ruins are exhibited in the courtyard of Kilmainham Jail. It was believed to have collided with a floating object, causing it to take water and sink.

12 IRISH AMERICA APRIL/MAY 2009

T

he Gaelic Athletic Association staged a spectacular fireworks display at Croke Park in Dublin to commemorate its 125th anniversary since being founded in 1884 in Thurles, Co. Tipperary. Association president Nicky Brennan rejected criticism that the 500,000-euro spectacle was inappropriate in a time of economic hardship.

“In the past we have been criticized for not doing enough with our match presentations,” he said. “There is a lot of gloom around the country but perhaps this can be a detachment from that. It’s a match with a show wrapped around it, highlighting that the GAA is now vibrant and 125 years old.”

While the razzmatazz following the Dublin/Tyrone football match at Croke Park was greeted enthusiastically by over 80,000 fans, the Association has been unable to resolve the bitter dispute between Cork’s senior hurling panel and current manager Gerald McCarthy. Thousands of hurling fans marched through Cork City, in support of the players and it remains highly unlikely that last year’s team will line out again under McCarthy, who is backed by the Cork county Timmy McCarthy of Cork and James Ryall of Kilkenny battle in the 2006 All-Ireland hurling final.

board. In the meantime the manager has fielded a makeshift selection to play out Cork’s fixtures in the National Hurling League. Showing solidarity with the hurling players, Cork senior footballers also indicated they would refuse to play in this year’s Munster championship if the hurling dispute was not resolved.

Nationally at club level, the AllIreland club championships will be held on St. Patrick’s Day. Galway hurling champions Portumna are favored to beat De La Salle of Waterford, while Armagh’s Crossmaglen Rangers take on Kilmacud Crokes of Dublin in the football decider.

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{ hibernia }

PEOPLE

| HERITAGE | EVENTS | ARTS | ENTERTAINMENT

Chasing The

Green Dragon

By Michael P. Quinlin

O

ne of the world’s extreme sporting events is careening across the planet’s most treacherous oceans right now, making its way toward Boston and then Galway.

The Volvo Ocean Race is an elite race that pits the world’s best sailors against each other in a nine-month contest of endurance, skill and luck covering over 37,000 nautical miles.

Eight boats started the race last October in Alicante, Spain, and now only five boats remain, including the Ireland-sponsored entry, the Green Dragon.

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RICK TOMLINSON/VOLVO OCEAN RACE

GUO CHUAN/GREEN DRAGON RACING/VOLVO OCEAN RACE

{hibernia}

Above left: Anthony Merrington climbs the mast in the Doldrums on Leg 1 of the Volvo Ocean Race. Above: The Green Dragon at Cape Town, South Africa at the start of Leg 2.

Sponsored by Tourism Ireland and several Chinese companies, the Green Dragon has a unique iconic look that blends Irish and Chinese symbols. The boat is skippered by British Olympian Ian Walker and a crew of ten, including watch leader Damien Foxall, who was recently named Ireland’s sailor of the year.

The grueling race got underway last October in Alicante, Spain, and has already been to Cape Town, South Africa; Kochi, India; Singapore and Qingdao, China. It’s due to reach Rio de Janeiro in early April, and then on to Boston, the only North American stop on the circuit of eleven ports.

BOSTON April 27- May 16 Boston is pulling out all the stops for a 20-day festival at Fan Pier along the city’s new Seaport District in South Boston. The area was once a depleted district for the fishing industry but today it houses the city’s new convention center, the World Trade Center, the Institute of Contemporary Art and new hotels and restaurants. And boats – fishing and sailing alike – continue to dock there.

Joe Fallon, president of the Fallon Company, which owns the 21-acre Fan

Pier, said the race will bring heightened awareness of Boston’s waterfront and the sport of sailing. Fallon is organizing a five-acre Race Village on Fan Pier from April 27 through May 16 that will feature continuous events, children’s programs, concerts and parties.

Spectators will have a great view of the races and sailing regattas that will take place all over Boston Harbor.

Tourism Ireland is sponsoring one of the pavilions in Boston, and is holding an Ireland Waterfront Festival on May 1516, featuring concerts by Celtic Thunder, Trad on the Prom and Arcana, and culinary displays by Good Food Ireland.

Barbara Lynch, Boston’s renowned chef, will present live cooking demonstrations at the Tourism Ireland pavilion, and will later travel to Galway to cook with Irish chefs.

GALWAY May 22- June 6 On May 16 the Volvo Ocean Race departs from Boston for Galway, the seventh leg of the trip. The 2,550 nautical mile route is described by officials as “the classic transatlantic crossing, dominated by low pressure systems and the Gulf Stream flow. History tells us that

the first boat onto the Gulf Stream travellator will build a lead that is hard to break down.”

Irish Tourism officials are anticipating a warm Irish welcome to the sailors and their entourage. Bonfires will be lit along the coast as hundreds of pleasure and support craft gather on the water to mark the arrival of the boats.

From May 23 through June 3 Galway will put on a party as only the City of the Tribes can do. Street theater, children’s entertainment, concerts, a boat show and fish angling exhibition, and food and wine exhibits will take place in Galway, Salthill and surrounding villages and towns.

A three-acre tented village will offer continuous hospitality and cultural events, with free concerts by Sharon Shannon, Kila, The Stunning and Hothouse Flowers throughout the event.

On-water activities include sports boat regattas, sailing lessons, inner harbor races, and a Parade of Sail spectacular as the race gets ready to move to its next destination, Marstrand, Sweden. The race finishes up in St. Petersburg in late June.

In all, the Volvo Ocean Race is stopping in ten countries, and is expected to reach nearly three million spectators. IA

For more information: VOLVO OCEAN RACE: Volvooceanrace.com

• BOSTON: Volvooceanraceatfanpierboston.com GALWAY: discoverireland.ie/volvooceanrace, Letsdoitgalway.com APRIL/MAY 2009 IRISH AMERICA 15

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{ irish eye on hollywood}

By Tom Deignan

Now that Liam Neeson has done the Hollywood blockbuster thing with his very big, very violent hit Taken, he can return to the kinds of movies which have made him such a respected actor.

Neeson is currently out shopping Five Minutes of Heaven, a drama about the Troubles in Northern Ireland. This, of course, is a very personal issue for Neeson who was born in Ballymena, Antrim, in the North.

Five Minutes of Heaven, which also stars acclaimed Northern Irish actor James Nesbitt (Bloody Sunday), is a character-driven story about events after the most violent ABOVE: Jim Sheridan will direct Black Mass, the film version of the book about Whitey Bulger and the Boston Irish mob.

LEFT: James Nesbitt, director Oliver Hirschbiegel and Liam Neeson at Sundance promoting Five Minutes of Heaven.

years of the Troubles have passed. In the film, two men struggle to deal with a murder that happened many years earlier.

Five Minutes of Heaven is currently making the rounds on the film festival circuit, and received raves (as well as awards) at the Sundance Film Festival. According to Internet reports, Neeson had not watched the completed film until Sundance – meaning he had to watch his performance for the first time along with hundreds of other folks in a crowded theater.

Asked what it was like, he said: “I wouldn’t use the word ‘fun.’ It’s strange – it’s kind of like giving birth. I hadn’t seen the complete film and to see it with 200 other people is a wee bit nerve-wracking. You work on something for quite a long period and then you see it and there’s stuff you can’t change.

And you’re seeing it with a roomful of strangers too. It’s kind of a very odd, unique feeling.”

Five Minutes of Heaven was written by Guy Hibbert, who also wrote the gripping 2004 Northern Ireland film Omagh.

The twisted saga of Whitey Bulger and the Boston Irish mob has already inspired numerous movies and TV shows.

For example, The Departed starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson featured an aging, Bulger-esque mob boss as well as FBI agents who spent their down time working for gangsters. Then there is Showtime’s excellent series Brotherhood, about two New England Irish brothers, one a politician and the other a criminal.

16 IRISH AMERICA APRIL/MAY 2009

As chance would have it, Whitey Bulger’s brother, Billy, was a leader in the Massachusetts state legislature.

So, having danced around the Bulger saga, Irish director Jim Sheridan (In the Name of the Father, In America) is now tackling the story directly. Sheridan will direct, and co-write the screenplay for a movie based on the book Black Mass, which is the definitive account of Bulger’s rise and fall, and the ways it was hard to tell the cops from the crooks in Boston.

Filming is expected to begin later in 2009. No word on casting decisions just yet.

Black Mass (written by Gerard O’Neill and Dick Lehr) explores the rise of Bulger’s Winter Hill Gang (which ran drugs and, on one memorable occasion, guns for the Irish Republican Army) and how the criminal life lured in even FBI agents such as John Connolly, who grew up with Bulger.

Bulger remains on the run and on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

“This is a story of a corrupt system and about how an angry guy became the second most wanted man after Bin Laden,” Sheridan told Daily Variety.

Irish-American Queens native Amy Ryan has at least three movies coming out in 2009, with another prestigious project about to begin shooting.

Look for Ryan (best known for her Oscar-nominated turn as the troubled Southie Mom in Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone) in Bob Funk, The Missing Person and Green Zone. The film also stars Matt Damon (who portrayed another Boston Irish-American in Good Will Hunting) and was directed by Paul Greengrass, whose many credits include the Northern Ireland docudrama Bloody Sunday.

Meanwhile, Ryan is about to begin shooting Jack Goes Boating, a film which will mark the directorial debut of Philip Seymour Hoffman, fresh off his Oscar-nominated role as a Bronx Irish priest in Doubt.

Heath Ledger’s role as The Joker in The Dark Knight was hailed by many, in part because it was believed to be the last time we would see the actor, who died in January of 2008.

But Ledger was actually shooting The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus when he died. Director Terry Gilliam later asked

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{hibernia}

numerous Hollywood A-listers to help complete the film, which will be out later this year.

Among the actors who will be seen as stand-ins for Ledger is Dublin star Colin Farrell. Jude Law will also appear in the film. Gilliam is the Monty Python alum and visionary director behind such films as Brazil, Time Bandits and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

stage work, including memorable collaborations with Deborah Warner. However, she has also been appearing in many movies in recent years, including several of the blockbuster Harry Potter movies.

Tree of Life is currently in post-production and should be released by the end of the year.

If there are people out there who mistakenly believe the famous troubled poet Dylan Thomas was Irish (he was actually Welsh), they must pay close attention to The Edge of Love – a film due out in March about Thomas and his wife Caitlin MacNamara, who did have Irish roots. Cork star Cillian Murphy plays the poet whose life came to a sad end at The White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village.

The Edge of Love also features Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller and Matthew Rhys and was directed by John Maybury.

Later, Farrell will team up with teenaged Irish acting prodigy Saoirse Ronan as well as Ed Harris to begin shooting The Way Back, a World War II drama from director Peter Weir (Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show).

After his big-time buzz at the Oscars, Sean Penn’s next project is Tree of Life, which also stars Brad Pitt and Irish actress Fiona Shaw.

Tree of Life is an updated spin on the fountain of youth myth. The characters in the film strive to locate the titular tree in the belief that it will give them everlasting life. Expect this to be an unorthodox film, as it is being directed by Terrence Malick, who directed Colin Farrell in The New World as well as other critical faves such as The Thin Red Line, Days of Heaven and Badlands.

Cork native Fiona Shaw is best known for her

If there is an actress working today with a more Irish name than Siobhan Fallon Hogan, then you are most likely to see her on TG4, the Irish language TV station.

Hogan, however, is a native of Syracuse, New York, who has slowly but surely built a solid career, appearing regularly on TV stalwarts such as Seinfeld and Saturday Night Live, before moving on to movie roles in blockbusters such as Men in Black and (most recently) the Renée Zellweger-Harry Connick Jr. comedy New in Town (out on DVD).

Hogan (a graduate of Catholic University), initially turned down the New in Town role. It would have required this mother of three to fly across country with one day’s notice. But once Hogan read the script, she ended up landing the part – which, she says, appealed to her devout Catholicism.

“Being that I was raised in the Catholic faith, I am very careful about what I choose. I’ve turned down a lot of projects that . . . could have helped me a lot financially, and I’ve quit shows because of where they were going and because I feel like I have to be a role model for my kids. So when I got this script, it was unbelievable to me,” she recently said.

TOP: Colin Farrell volunteered to finish Heath Ledger’s final role in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. ABOVE: Fiona Shaw will star with Sean Penn and Brad Pitt in Tree of Life.

Saoirse Ronan will team up with Colin Farrell and Ed Harris in The Way Back.

Speaking of famous Irish names, how does Oona Chaplin roll off the tongue? Yes, this is indeed Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter, but the young actress’s Irish connection goes far beyond her mythic first name. Charlie Chaplin, of course, married the daughter of acclaimed Irish-American playwright Eugene O’Neill (even though O’Neill’s daughter, also named Oona, was half Chaplin’s age).

These days, the young Oona O’Neill is trying to get an acting career going. She recently appeared in an Italian film entitled Imago Mortis. It was quite a family effort for young Oona, because also appearing was her mother, Geraldine Chaplin, a screen veteran who has appeared in classic films such as Doctor Zhivago, and remains a busy actress.

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The Coke Side of Life How one Coca-Cola ad gave one Irish America reader a very pleasant surprise.

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bartender added some ice cubes to it,” Diane says. “That wasn’t exactly what Pop wanted, but there you go. At the time in Ireland, beer and ale were served without the benefit of refrigeration!”

Anne and Joe later had three children of their own, Joanne, Joe Jr. (Bud) and Peg. Joe worked as Deputy Chief Clerk of the New York State Supreme Court in Jamaica, New York.

Anne and Joe in the Coke ad.

He died at the age of 69, short- Above: Below: The 1999 reunion of the Kenney family. ly after retiring. Anne lived in the family house in Flushing, New York Phoenix to San Jose, the family ties until her death at age 83. remain strong. Diane says, “Anne and Jerry, two-time Hawaii Iron Man Joe’s children were fortunate to start their Triathlon champion, is survived by two adult, married lives living in close proxchildren. Bud is survived by two children imity to one another. That gave us grandand eight grandchildren. children the opportunity to develop close Mary, now 84, is married with one son relationships which still exist today.” and three grandchildren. Joanne has six In 1999, over 100 members of the children and nine grandchildren to boast Kenney family gathered for a reunion at of. She is retired at the age of 75. Peg, Lake George, New York. Anne and Joe’s now 72, and husband Ralph have retired daughter Joanne observed, “The far-flung to Marco Island, Florida. They have six aunts, uncles and cousins all seemed to children and fourteen grandchildren. resemble one another. It was great!” IA Though the Kenney family now has Submitted by Diane Adams, additional homes spanning the country from reporting by Tara Dougherty.

COURTESY DIANE ADAMS

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he photo at right depicts Anne Marie Nevins and Joseph Michael Kenney on their honeymoon in Ireland in 1932. The image may be familiar to readers as it has often been featured in the Coca-Cola ads on the back cover of Irish America. Anne and Joe’s daughter Mary had no idea that the photo was on the back cover of the magazine, which her husband had subscribed to for years.

Their granddaughter Diane tells the story of when her aunt Mary made the discovery: “The day my uncle’s magazine arrived in the mail, my aunt had it stacked with the rest of the envelopes. She set the stack down on the table, and stopped in her tracks. There, smiling up at her, were her parents. The magazine was face-down in the stack and the envelopes shifted just enough for her to see their picture.”

Soon after Mary saw the picture, the family scrambled to find more copies of the magazine. Tommy, another of Anne and Joe’s grandchildren, visited a kiosk at Grand Central Station where he bought every copy. The following day, his cousin, Diane’s sister, went to the same kiosk only to be told “Some guy came and bought all the Irish Americas yesterday.” That guy, it turns out, was her own cousin.

Anne Marie Nevins and Joseph Michael Kenney were both first-generation Irish-Americans, born in New York City in 1897 and 1898 respectively.

Anne’s mother, Bridget Finan Nevins from County Sligo, emigrated at the age of sixteen. Joe’s mother was Mary Lane (Leane) from Kerry.

When the couple met, Joe was a young World War I veteran and widower with two children, Mary and Jerry, and Anne was working as a private secretary. They were married on June 1, 1932 and honeymooned in Ireland. At the time, the International Eucharistic Congress of the Catholic Church was being held in Ireland and they were able to attend some of the ceremonies as well as visit a few pubs.

“At one pub they stopped in, Pop complained that his beer was too warm, so the

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Stars Come Out for IFTAs

Brendan Gleeson at the sixth annual Irish Film & Television Awards.

rable one-take scene together in Hunger will live long in the annals of great moments in Irish film. Robert Downey Jr., who has Irish roots on his paternal grandmother’s side, won best international actor for Iron Man. Irish America contributing writer Frank Shouldice was nominated with Oonagh Smyth in the Current Affairs television category for their documentary on teen bullying which ran on Prime Time Investigates. We congratulate Frank and Oonagh on being recognized for their quality work.

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Maria Doyle Kennedy, who won an IFTA for best actress in a supporting role for her work on The Tudors.

Aidan Quinn and his cousin Deirdre Murphy.

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY IFTA

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ebruary 14 was not only a day for the romantics in Ireland as the stars of the big and small screen came out to celebrate the sixth annual Irish Film & Television Awards, which were held at the Burlington Hotel in Dublin.

Hunger, the movie about Bobby Sands who died on hunger strike in prison in Northern Ireland, was one of the big winners of the night with six awards. Michael Fassbender won for best actor and Liam Cunningham won for best supporting actor. Their memo-

Above: Saoirse Ronan, who won an IFTA for best actress in a supporting role for Death Defying Acts, and Sarah Bolger, who won the IFTA Rising Star Award.

Far left: Michael Fassbender, who won an IFTA for best actor in Hunger and the Rising Star Award, with Leasi Andrews.

Center: Fionnula Flanagan and Nick Dunning at the awards.

Left: Irish broadcasting legend Gay Byrne with his wife Kathleen Watkins.

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Above:: Croke Park in Dublin, 1929.

Left: Former Kilkenny great Lory Meagher with goalkeeper Jim Dermody, circa 1940s.

22 IRISH AMERICA APRIL/MAY 2009

Measuring in at just two feet tall and nearly 90 years old, a chair known as Fauteuil aux Dragons or the "dragons' armchair," made by Irish designer Eileen Gray, sold for just over $28 million. The sale shattered the record for the most ever paid for a 20th-century piece, which had been a comparatively measly $5 million paid for a 1915 sideboard, also designed by Gray.

The chair, a rounded decorative piece made of brown leather, was anticipated to be the big sale item at the auction at Christie’s in Paris this past February. Still, it came as a shock when the chair brought in more than six times its estimate.

"We're absolutely amazed by what's happened," Edward Dolman, Christie's managing director told The Independent.

"There are still a lot of extremely wealthy people out there." The dragons’ armchair was part of a three-day sale of artwork collected by the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, who died last June, and his part-

PHOTOS COURTESY CHRISTIE’S

he Boston College Center for Irish Programs, known as BC-Ireland, has just embarked on a hugely ambitious project focused on the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) of Ireland, which is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year.

The GAA has long been at the heartbeat of Irish life and a constant in times of war and peace. It has acted as a cradle for the Irish language, and many cultural and social traditions are indelibly linked to the amateur sports organization.

The project will feature an academic conference in April in Dublin and will also collect and digitize films and photos to create an archive in the GAA museum that will be available for public viewing in 2012.

BC-Ireland Academic Director Mike Cronin put the GAA’s role in Irish society – the organization boasts 2,500 clubs and 800,000 members – into context.

“Because there is a GAA club in just about every parish throughout the country, you can honestly say the organization is the root and soul of Ireland,” says Cronin. “Its social component, and the opportunities it presents for service – one national report says the GAA encompasses 49 percent of all volunteering in Ireland – put the GAA at the center of Irish community life.”

The project has also given the general public the chance to share their feelings about the GAA. Questionnaires are downloadable at www.gaahistory.com for people to share their GAA stories and recollections.

“Oral history is a key aspect of this project,” Cronin says. “I met one guy in his 90s whose great-uncle played in the first All-Ireland Final back in 1887, and he had all kinds of stories to tell. We want to capture those long memories – have kids go out and interview their grandparents about what the GAA was like back in “their day.”

Project organizers hope to publish a book on the oral history of the GAA to coincide with the organization’s own anniversary celebrations in November, and a documentary about the Project will be shown at Christmas time on television.

The four-year project will chronicle the GAA county by county and will also include the development of the organization around the world by Irish communities in America, Australia and Britain.

PHOTOS FROM THE GAELIC ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION ARCHIVE.

BC-Ireland Launch Major GAA Project

The $28Million Chair

ner Pierre Berge. It is fascinating to note that the man who paid $28 million for Fauteuil aux Dragons, Cheska Vallois, was the same dealer who had sold the chair to Saint Laurent in the 1970s.

Eileen Gray, a Wexford-born designer, designed the dragons’ armchair in her early 30s when she arrived in London from Enniscorthy sometime between 1917 and 1919. She spent most of her adult life between Paris and London, and was known for her rather colorful lifestyle. Gray’s designs were luxurious and bold, recognized as among the most important furniture designs of the 20th century. She died in 1976 at the age of 98. -Tara Dougherty

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Memories, Memoirs and the McCourts at the Symphony Space

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he McCourt brothers have gone from the slums of Limerick to the stages of New York, working odd jobs as actors, teachers and bartenders along the way. On March 31, Symphony Space and the Irish Arts Center will bring the four brothers, Frank, Malachy, Alphie and Michael, together on stage at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater in Manhattan to swap stories.

Frank, Malachy and Alphie will read from their memoirs, Angela’s Ashes, A Monk Swimming and A Long Stone’s Throw respectively. Michael, the fourth brother, will put in his two cents as to the accuracy of his brothers’ accounts. Writer Peter Quinn and Symphony Space Artistic Director Isaiah Sheffer will serve as moderators and cross-examiners. The audience members will be invited to ask questions.

Despite growing up in the same home, each brother offers a different and equally eloquent insight into family and the Irish experience in America. The event, as any other featuring the McCourt brothers, is sure to be full of wit, charm and humor.

The McCourt brothers: From the top: Frank, Malachy and Alphie.

Another Island: Contemporary Irish Art A wide ranging collection from contemporary Irish artists, featuring photography, painting and sculpture, will exhibit at the newly renovated American Irish Historical Society house in New York. Arranged and organized by the George Moore Society, and supported by the Consulate General of Ireland, the exhibit will showcase work by acclaimed artists such as Desmond Seymour, whose work is pictured above, Brian Bourke, Alice Maher, Louis le Brocquy and Charles Tyrrell.The exhibit will run through April 4 from Wednesdays to Saturdays between 11a.m. and 6 p.m. at 991 Fifth Avenue.

Fordham Alum at 64th Anniversary of Iwo Jima

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ebruary 19th marked the 64th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima. To celebrate this historic event, Joe Lisi, actor and star of the TV series Third Watch, gathered 30 Marine Corps veterans at Gallagher’s Steak House in New York City. Among the Marines present were Fordham alumni Irishmen Thomas F. Kane and Gerry Byrne.

Among the veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq were three Marines who served at Iwo Jima: Sergeant Jack Seiferth, Corporal Stanley Rybeck and Corporal Allen Striffler.

Rybeck noted that it was “overwhelming to be part of such a marvelous group of gentlemen.” Seiferth called the event an “emotional experience” and an “unforgettable evening.”

Thomas Kane and Gerry Byrne reminisced about their days in the service and expressed extraordinary happiness to be present for the celebration. Kane is a managing partner of Adare Manor Hotel and Golf Resort in Adare, County Limerick, Ireland.

24 IRISH AMERICA APRIL/MAY 2009

Thomas F. Kane. Joe Lisi and Gerry Byrne.

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IrishCentral Launches Global Site “

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he goal of IrishCentral.com is nothing less than putting a nation’s heritage online for the first time, and to reach the 70 million people around the world who identify themselves as Irish. It is a spectacularly ambitious mission that we hope will grab headlines around the world as easily as it has drawn prominent investors to its side in record time,” says Kevin Hayes, General Manager of IrishCentral.com, the new global Irish site set to launch on March 15.

IrishCentral was founded by Niall O’Dowd, also founder, with Patricia Harty, of Irish America magazine and the Irish Voice. “This global Irish site has been the obvious next step for us at Irish America and Irish Voice,” he said. “We have seen the extraordinary growth in interest in Irish heritage, not just in America, but wherever the Irish settled. We intend to try and capture that momentum.”

Hayes is confident that the new site will succeed. “It is the right idea at the right time.

Most websites are in search of an audience; as one of our investors said, ‘You have an audience searching for a website.’”

The managers, investors and staff of IrishCentral are veteran journalists, prominent businessmen, accomplished technology experts, and leaders from many traditional and creative fields who have been drawn to the project because they know it is groundbreaking and will make history.

“We are hoping to do what has never been done before: use the power of the Internet to unite a nation and its far-flung children, giving them a home they have an inner picture of and an almost-mysti-

26 IRISH AMERICA APRIL/MAY 2009

cal connection to – but do not truly know.

Perhaps better than this: As they traverse this speed-of-light, international bridge, they will meet a family they didn’t know,” says Hayes.

Before giant corporations from around the world found their pots of gold in Ireland, it was often said that the nation’s leading export was its children.

Now the seed breed and new generations of the offspring of those children can return to their heritage online.

Hayes says IrishCentral will be a website that taps into this wellspring on many levels, providing the latest news, sports, entertainment and business coverage to this far-flung audience, as well as creat-

ing a huge, vibrant online community.

“The hope is the world’s Irish will meet others who share their particular interests, create family galleries and personal clan pages, upload their own pictures and videos, send in their own news stories, study their clan’s roots, look for real estate and employment, find the Irish lad or lass of their dreams, and even share their favorite jokes.

Best-of-breed software will help this giant online family quickly find and connect them with others who share their roots, their interests, who’ll enjoy their photo galleries, videos, recipes – and even people who’ll give them a good argument why Tyrone has the best football team in Ireland,” says Hayes.

“Social networking like this is supposedly something new – but for 25 years, our print publications have been building what is now a powerful and influential social network of leading Irish-Americans through events such as the Top 100, Business 100 Legal 100, and Silicon Valley Leaders,” said O’Dowd.

“This is a natural next step to extend the network.

“Digitizing the Diaspora is a daunting task, but one which we will accomplish through a thought-out and determined plan based upon our years of success as publishers of Irish America magazine, and the Irish Voice and Home & Away newspapers, as well as with the leadership of a team of expert technical and content experts, for whom success is standard operating procedure,” he said.

“We want to reach out to the Diaspora to tell and to listen, to learn and to be taught, to tell a joke and to hear a joke – to communicate. This is the true power of the Web. “The hope is we will build it, and the IA Diaspora will come,” said Hayes.

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Quote Unquote Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Santonio Holmes, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, head coach Mike Tomlin and team owner Daniel M. Rooney celebrate the Steelers defeat of the Arizona Cardinals 27-23 in the Super Bowl XLIII football game, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009, in Tampa, Fla.

“Dublin is a fabulous place.

I highly recommend anyone going there. But if you’ve been to northern Dublin, you know that you can’t always understand what people are saying . . . I had a wonderful driver whose name was Mark. It’s kind of intimidating because he’s Irish and they’re very tough, so it took me about a month before I had to just admit to him that I had absolutely no clue what we’d been talking about the last four weeks.

Then he slowed down and started enunciating. We would sign to each other, which was difficult because he was driving.”

Actress Anne Hathaway on her experiences filming Ella Enchanted and Becoming Jane in Dublin.

– The Irish Voice.

AP PHOTO/JULIE JACOBSON

“People say we sound like Timbaland meets U2. I resented that when I first heard it.

If you have a guitar in Ireland they label you as U2.”

“This is for the Rooneys. This is a top-class organization, top-notch owners. I saw Mr. Rooney and I just broke down. He gave me the opportunity to play for the Steelers, and each week I lay it all on the line to go out there and play for him. It’s a special feeling to be a part of this.”

Wide receiver Hines Ward after the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl on February 1. – The Washington Post

“A lot of owners, this is a hobby, but for him, this is his business, what he does. He’s here, shakes your hand, talks to you every day. Every day.”

Nose tackle Casey Hampton on Rooney – The New York Times

“Kennedy all her life has, like her mother, cherished first and foremost her family and her privacy. She would have been foolish not to try the tempting dessert of a political career which so many people she knows and are related to have tried. But having briefly tried it, she has gone back to her first priorities – family and privacy.”

Ted Sorensen, former special counsel and adviser to President John F. Kennedy - ABC News

Mark Sheehan of the Irish trio The Script.

– The Irish Voice.

“None of us can believe the disregard In Bruges has been handled with. But the distributors were kind enough to send me two copies of Milk. And you can quote me. It’s a shame as I think what Colin did in In Bruges is like De Niro in The King of Comedy.”

British novelist and Farrell’s former girlfriend Emma Forrest bemoaning the lack of promotion and marketing for Martin McDonagh’s film In Bruges.

– The Irish Voice.

“It’s like the cherry on top of a really big, beautiful cake.

I’m just so happy people are honoring my father, yet he’s not here and I’d rather have him.”

Kelly Carlin-McCall, backstage at the Grammy Awards after accepting the best comedy album Grammy for her late father, George Carlin.

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WE EXTEND A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO ALL OUR SPONSORS FOR THEIR SUPPORT:

1-800-Flowers.com Continental Airlines Mutual of America Quinnipiac University The American Ireland Fund The Coca-Cola Company The Merrion Hotel, Dublin UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School Waterford Crystal

Irish Government Agencies: CIE Tours International Enterprise Ireland IDA Ireland Tourism Ireland

The Global 100 When Mary Robinson lit a candle for the Irish all over the world during her days as President of Ireland, she inspired a sense of family in all of us, whether we called Dublin or Denver home.

In the following pages we celebrate the achievements of our brothers and sisters across the globe and rejoice in the that fact that though you can take a man or a woman out of Ireland, you can’t take the Irish out of the them, or their descendants . . .

Comhgairdeachas do gach duine ar an liosta PROFILE WRITERS: Tara Dougherty, April Drew, Bridget English, Patricia Harty, Paul Keating, John Kernaghan, Declan O’Kelly, Kate Overbeck and Kara Rota.

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IRELAND

THE GLOBAL IRISH Bono hilanthropist, stage personality, lyricist, vocalist and larger-than-life legend Bono was born Paul David Hewson in Ballymun, Co. Dublin in 1960. His band U2 has won a whopping 22 Grammy awards, but aside from his impressive discography, Bono is known for his passion for humanitarian causes and diplomatic ability to form alliances with diverse leaders. He has been involved with projects including Amnesty International’s Conspiracy of Hope tour (1986), Band Aid, Live Aid, and Live 8. He co-founded the organization DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) and the socially conscious fashion line EDUN, and is the only person to be nominated for an Academy Award, Golden Globe, Grammy, and the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2008, he was awarded the Nobel Man of Peace Prize.

Bono married Alison Stewart in 1982 and they live in Killiney with their four children.

Whether in politics, philanthropy, sports, poetry or music – or a melange of all – these Irish people have become known the world round.

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Mary Robinson y lighting a candle in the window at Aras an Uachtarain at the outset of her presidency in 1990, Mary Robinson told Ireland’s sons and daughters who had scattered to the four corners of the world that while they might be gone, they were not forgotten.

Such a gesture had not been made by any politician before that time, and the difference it made to ex-pats and those who claim Irish heritage around the world cannot be underestimated.

They were being told by the head of state that they were part of the family, and that they mattered.

In becoming the first female President of Ireland, Robinson not only struck out for “Mna na hEireann,” but revolutionized a position once seen as a retirement home for politicians.

Robinson used her influence to shed light on the civil war in Rwanda and enjoyed unprecedented levels of popularity until she resigned in 1997 to become the High Commissioner for Human Rights, a position she held until 2002. In 2007 she became part of “The Elders” a group of world leaders including Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter who convene to discuss the world’s problems. Robinson, who is a barrister, is also the Chancellor of the University of Dublin.

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Michael Flatley ichael Flatley first took the world by storm in 1994 with Riverdance, a fusion of Ireland’s great tradition in dancing as well as innovative modern elements that would change forever the face of Irish dance. In 1996, his Lord of the Dance show premiered in Dublin and was an instant phenomenon. He followed this achievement with the Feet of Flames World Tour and Celtic Tiger, a celebration of Ireland’s spirit, history, and powerful Irish dance.

Born in Chicago in 1958 to Irish emigrant parents from Co. Sligo and Co. Carlow, Flatley began dance lessons at age 11 and at age 17 was the first non-European resident to win the All-Ireland World Championship for Irish dance. He was recognized by the National Geographic Society as a Living Treasure in 1991, and has held Guinness Book world records for tap dancing speed (a record he first set in 1989 and broke in 1998), highest paid dancer, and highest insurance premium placed on a dancer’s legs.

Flatley is married to dancer Niamh O’Brien and they have a son.

They live in Co. Cork, Ireland.

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Van Morrison an Morrison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 2003. He has six Grammy awards, and received a BRIT award as well as an OBE from Queen Elizabeth II for his contributions to music.

Born George Ivan Morrison in Belfast in 1945,Van began his career as a member of Them with their hit “Gloria” before moving on to his successful solo career, marked by such classics as “Brown Eyed Girl,” “Domino,” “Wild Night” and “Moondance,” from the CD of the same name which achieved 3x Multi-Platinum status in the U.S. 1968’s “Astral Weeks,” acknowledged for its Celtic influence, “Tupelo Honey” and “Days Like This” added to his luster. He has collaborated with Roger Waters, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Tom Jones, and The Chieftains. In 2002, his visage appeared on Irish postage stamps, and in 2007, “Brown Eyed Girl” was still the fourth requested song of DJs in the United States.

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Frank McCourt rank McCourt was born in Brooklyn, New York to Irish immigrant parents who soon returned to Ireland. It’s a good job they did, because if Frank hadn’t had such a terrible poverty-ridden childhood in Limerick, he would not now be known the world over for his memoir Angela’s Ashes. It’s a terrible tale to be sure, but told with such wry humor, compassion, love for his family, and masterful storytelling, that it struck a chord with people everywhere. It has sold over four million copies, been published in 27 countries and been translated into 17 languages. Frank received the Pulitzer Prize (1997) and National Book Critics Circle Award (1996) for the book, which was also made into a movie. He followed up on Angela’s success with two more autobiographical works: ’Tis (1999), which picks up where Angela’s Ashes leaves off and focuses on his life as a new immigrant in America, and Teacher Man (2005), which details his life as a teacher in New York City high schools, where his books are now often part of the syllabus.

Frank’s younger brother Malachy, an actor who appeared most recently on the ABC series Life on Mars, has also penned an autobiographical memoir, A Monk Swimming. And a third brother, Alphie McCourt, wrote his own version of the family story, in A Long Stone’s Throw in 2008.

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Roma Downey oma Downey touched the lives of families across America in her portrayal of angel Monica on CBS-TV’s Touched by an Angel. Today, she continues her role as a real-life angel by touching children’s lives through her work as a spokesperson and Board of Governors member for Operation Smile.

Since founders William and Kathleen Magee first traveled to the Philippines in 1982, the group of medical volunteers has spread to serve children with cleft lips and palates in nearly 25 countries, and Roma (pictured in Vietnam in 2003) has witnessed the miracles they perform many times. Most recently, she traveled with her husband TV producer Mark Burnett and their three children, James 14, Reilly, 12, and Cameron, 11, to Amman, Jordan, to attend an Operation Smile medical mission and open the Roma Downey Life Support Training Center, which will train local medical professionals.

Raised in Derry, Roma was educated at the Brighton College of Art in England with ambitions of being a painter. She began acting in theatre in Ireland before coming to the states where she toured with Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World. Roma then moved into television with memorable roles in several miniseries including a part as Jackie Kennedy in the Emmy award winning, A Woman Named Jackie.

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Seamus Heaney eamus Heaney, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995, was born in 1939 on a farm in Co. Derry, Northern Ireland, the oldest of nine children, to a cattle-dealing father and a mother whose relatives were employed in mills in the Industrial Revolution. This tension between a rural Gaelic past and industrialization has impacted his work as a poet.

At age 12, Heaney won a scholarship to St. Columb’s, a Catholic boarding school in Derry where he learned Latin, then went on to Queen’s University of Belfast where he studied English language and literature.

He published his first major volume, Death of a Naturalist, in 1966, a year after his marriage to Marie Devlin.

Since then he has published 11 more volumes, including North, Field Work, Station Island, The Haw Lantern, and his most recent, 2006’s District and Circle, as well as three collected editions of poetry and four collections of prose. Heaney has written two plays, 1990’s The Cure at Troy and 2004’s The Burial at Thebes, and his famed translation of Beowulf won the Whitbread Award. A member of Aosdana, the Irish academy of arts and letters, Heaney was named a Commandeur de L’Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 1996. He has three children with his wife Marie.

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Bob Geldof ob Geldof has never been the shy and retiring type.

Whether it was belting out the tunes as lead singer of the Boomtown Rats or fighting famine in Ethiopia, the Dublin native had always been passionate and outspoken. After a brief career as a rock journalist in Canada, Geldof returned to Dublin to front the Boomtown Rats. The band had two UK number ones and were hugely popular in the late 70s and early 80s.

Geldof wrote and produced the song “Do They Know It’s Christmastime?” with musician Midge Ure for Band Aid, which would evolve into Live Aid in 1985, the first globally broadcast real-time concert of its kind. The two-day concert was created in order to bring relief to starving people in Ethiopia.

In 1986 Geldof was awarded a knighthood and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the mastermind behind Live 8, a series of benefit concerts that took place on July 2, 2005 in the Group of Eight nations of the northern hemisphere and in South Africa. More than 1,000 musicians performed at the concert that was broadcast on 182 television networks and 2,000 radio stations.

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Concern oncern Worldwide has been serving the world’s neediest people for over 40 years.

The organization was founded in 1968 by Limerick-born priest Father Aengus Finucane who found himself in the middle of the bitter civil war between Nigeria and Biafra.

Headquarterd in Dublin, Concern now has a team of over 3,600 highly skilled and committed workers and an on-the-ground presence in 28 of the world’s poorest countries. Concern set up its U.S. operation in 1994, under director Siobhan Walsh, and in the past 14 years, thanks to the work of Siobhan and the American Board, chaired by Tom Moran, pictured above on a trip to Niger, the profile of the organization has never been higher. Known in the corporate world as a savvy businessman – he is the chairman, president and CEO of Mutual of America life insurance company – Tom has made a major commitment to Concern. Under his leadership, and with great assistance from Mutual’s Vice President of External Affairs, Ed Kenney, Concern’s annual “Seeds of Hope” dinner in New York City has become a major source of funding for the organization. The 2008 dinner on December 8 honored Xerox chairman and CEO Anne Mulcahy, and raised over $1 million.

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The Chieftains he renewal and resurgence of Irish traditional music can be attributed to many factors, but the fulcrum of that renaissance were The Chieftains, the legendary Irish group that formed in 1962 and still performs today. The group is led by Paddy Moloney and its lineup includes Sean Keane, Kevin Conneff and Matt Molloy. Derek Bell, the group’s celebrated harpist, passed away in 2002. Over a long career they have won six Grammys and received 18 nominations, and their willingness to collaborate with other types of music and musicians have made them loved the world over.

The group still tours every year and is in the midst of a 20 city jaunt around the U.S and Canada. Its many collaborators over the years include Van Morrison. Moya Brennan, Tom Waits, Mick Jagger and Elvis Costello. Every genre needs a torchbearer and Irish traditional music is no exception. What The Chieftains have done, however, is to give the world a taste of our music while being open enough to embrace other forms of musical expression, and this has enhanced the reputation of Irish musicians no end.

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ne of the world’s most gifted writers, Edna O’Brien was born was born in Tuamgraney, County Clare in 1932.

Since publishing her first novel, The Country Girls, in 1960, the author rarely has had a pen out of her hand. (She writes in longhand – “I feel that a typewriter or word processor would be an artificial barrier, would stymie the flow between conscious and unconscious,” she said in an interview with Irish America in 2007). Since The Country Girls, which, though an immense success in other parts of the world, was banned in Ireland, she has written over 20 novels, several collections of short stories, a number of plays, a book on James Joyce, and her latest book on Lord Byron, Byron in Love. All of O’Brien’s books, fiction or non, share one thing in common – good writing. At her very heart, O’Brien is a world-class story teller, and she is devoted to her art. In the Irish America interview, she talked about how she will recede from life, “cut myself off and go into solitary to write a book. I know it is only a book and yet it is everything to me when I am doing it.”

O’Brien has received numerous awards, including a Kingsley Amis Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

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Patrick Harrington

James Galway

riple-major winning golfer Padraig Harrington is fast becoming the most famous Irish sportsman on the planet, and the Dublin native has done it all in less than 15 months.

In a career more known for a string of second place finishes, Harrington exploded into golf’s elite in August 2007 when he won his first British Open at Carnoustie. Twelve months later he defended his Open title at Royal Birkdale, despite starting the tournament with a wrist injury.

The 37-year-old followed it up three weeks later by winning the U.S. PGA championship, becoming the first European to win back-to-back majors. That he has done all this while remaining affable and grounded is all the more impressive.

The father of two credits his transformation to hard work and to developing a stronger mental approach, and he aims to give Tiger Woods a real run for the World Number One spot over the coming seasons.

elfast-born flautist James Galway is one of the most widely recognized classical musicians of his generation. The list of dignitaries and musicians he’s shared the stage with range from Queen Elizabeth II to the Empress of Japan and from Stevie Wonder to The Chieftains.

Galway studied in London and Paris. In 1975 he launched his solo career, playing with the world’s leading orchestras. His honors include induction into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame in June 2008, the 2008 UMS Distinguished Artist Award and Irish America’s Spirit of Ireland Award 2008. Several of his albums have been named Record of the Year by Billboard magazine. He has put his fame to good use, supporting charitable organizations such as SOS, Future Talent, Swiss Artistic Foundation, the Caron Keating Foundation and UNICEF. Galway and his wife Jane, also a flautist, run the International Flute School in Switzerland.

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Liam Neeson he former boxer from Ballymena can still pack a punch at the box office as his latest hit Wanted has proven, but it is the big man’s talent playing the likes of Michael Collins and Oscar Schindler that makes Liam Neeson a heavyweight in Hollywood. His latest role, as a Protestant rattled by guilt after killing a Catholic during the Troubles in Five Minutes from Heaven, sees Neeson deliver another strong showing in a film that doesn’t shy away from difficult subject matter.

Finally set to team up with director Steven Spielberg to play Abraham Lincoln, fans can look forward to another epic performance by the County Antrim native.

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Gabriel Byrne olden Globe winner Gabriel Byrne has inspired many by his portrayal of a psychotherapist in In Treatment, and consolidated his position as one of Ireland’s foremost actors. From silver screen performances in Miller’s Crossing and The Usual Suspects to theater roles as James Tyrone Jr. in Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon for the Misbegotten and Major Cornelius (“Con”) Melody in A Touch of the Poet, the Dublin native’s versatility has brought him an enduring career.

A native speaker, Byrne has been involved in many Irish productions and wrote an Irish language drama, Draoicht, in 1996 .

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Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell n January, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson faced off for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Comedy, each nominated for his role in the film In Bruges. While at the end of the night, Farrell walked away with the Globe, joking that “They must’ve done the counting in Florida,” he made a point in his acceptance speech to say, “Brendan, this is at least half yours. I’ll cut it when I get offstage, you can have a hemisphere.” Both Dublin-born actors received accolades for their comedic and dramatic teamwork in In Bruges, a dark comedy about two remorseful Irish hitmen hiding in the Belgian city.

Farrell seems to have outgrown his reputation as the Irish “bad boy” of Hollywood. After dropping out of The Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin, he was cast in the BBC television drama Ballykissangel, which was only a stepping-stone to Hollywood, where he played his sexy charm to the hilt, on and off screen. Now that his hell-raising party days are over, he is gaining recognition for his talent as an actor.

Last seen in Pride and Glory alongside Ed Norton, he will next play a photojournalist in the thriller Triage, scheduled for release later this year.

Gleeson started his career later in life after leaving his job as a secondary school teacher and it would seem he hasn’t looked back since. He has worked in a variety of genres, playing Walter McGuinn in Gangs of New York a film about the Civil War draft riots, and is treasured by younger audiences as the disturbing Mad Eye Moody in the Harry Potter films. His upcoming portrayal of Winston Churchill in Into the Storm is already creating a buzz.

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Fionnula Flanagan rom Friel to Joyce and everything in between, Fionnula Flanagan has worked extensively as an actress in every medium from theater to film to television. Tony nominated and an Emmy winner, the fluent Irish speaker has never forgotten where she comes from and is a frequent supporter of all things Irish. A television regular on NBC’s addictive hit Lost in addition to her ongoing memorable role as Rose Caffee in Showtime’s Brotherhood, Flanagan can still mix it up on the big screen, playing a scene stealing neighbor to Jim Carrey’s Yes Man last year. Now a great-grandmother, when she isn’t filming, Flanagan is focused on writing. She told Irish America recently, “I’m developing a script with a writer, not Irish, totally Americana.”

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THE GLOBAL IRISH Guillermo MacLoughlin uillermo MacLoughlin best epitoG mizes the model of Irish Argentine, having strongly contributed to the knowledge of Irish culture and genealogy in Argentina. He has lectured in Ireland, UK and the U.S. and has published articles in historical and genealogical magazines. He recently took over as editor of The Southern Cross newspaper upon the retirement of Santiago O’Durnin.

He is a founder and first president of the Corrientes Genealogical Institute and member of many genealogical and historical institutions of Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, and Ireland.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1959, MacLoughlin is a public accountant. He is a tax advisor at the Argentine Rural Society (SRA), and board member of La Nación and the Southern Cross newspapers. He is an Honorary Advisor of the Irish Embassy to Argentina and has been Deputy Secretary of the government of the Province of Corrientes, Argentina and Advisor to the Deputy Minister of Economy of Argentina.

Edmundo Murray orn in Buenos Aires (1955) in a family with Argentine, Colombian, Irish and Swiss origins (though Spanish-Jewish, African and Amerindian are also in the blend), Edmundo Murray holds an M.A. in literature from the University of Geneva, where his dissertation How the Irish Became ‘Gauchos Ingleses’ has been accepted with honors. A poet and short story writer, he is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Zurich (Romanisches Seminar). Edmundo Murray works as an editor at WTO Publications, the in-house publisher of the World Trade Organization.

He is the author of Devenir Irlandés: Narrativas íntimas de la emigración Irlandesa a la Argentina 1844. Edmundo lives with his wife Estelle and two of his five children in a farm surrounded by pasture woodlands in the Swiss Jura mountains.

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THE ARGENTINIANS The Irish emigrated to Argentina in two waves. The first tapered off in 1880, the second was from 1948-52.

Pablo MacDonough ablo MacDonough, polo-player, was born on 21 February 1982 in Buenos Aires, and is a fifthgeneration Irish Argentine. At the end of 2007, at the age of 25, the Argentine Polo Association awarded him the ten-goals handicap, continuing a tradition of outstanding Irish-Argentine polo players who attained the highest handicap in the sport, which had begun with Juan Traill in 1913.

Pablo can trace his Irish roots back to his greatgrandfather, James MacDonough, from County Sligo, who arrived at the River Plate in 1865 and married Jane Watson from County Clare. The MacDonoughs settled in the extended Pampas, initially managing estancias and eventually becoming substantial landowners closely associated with the equine sector.

There is a long polo-playing lineage in the family. Pablo’s father Jorge is a former player, as well as being a veterinary surgeon. His grandfather Thomas Garrahan was the owner of the estancia “La Espadaña,” which was prominent in the development of polo. Garrahan was himself the founder of a long line of polo-players. His great-grandfather James Garrahan was considered a true ‘gaucho.’ When he died, an obituary in The Southern Cross said of him: ‘It was rare to find a man of any nationality who could throw the loop as dexterously and as surely as ‘Don Santiago.”’

Pablo began playing polo as a child in the ‘Nueva Escocia’ training center in Pehuajó in Buenos Aires Province, under the tutelage of the renowned former player, trainer and breeder of polo horses, Eduardo ‘Gordo’ Moore. In 2001 he won the Chamber of Deputies Cup with his team ‘La Irenita,’ which included his brother Matías, Martín Garrahan and Gonzalo Von Wernich. He joined his brother Matías and second cousins Gonzalo Jr. and Facundo Pieres to form the ‘Ellerstina’ team in 2003. They have won almost every important competition, including the Tortugas Open and Hurlingham Club Open. Although they appeared in two finals, the Argentine Open has eluded them to date. They narrowly lost by 15-16 goals in the 2007 final against La Dolfina. “Not yet,” said Pablo after the 2007 Argentine Open, who after reaching two finals is looking forward to his third opportunity.

– Guillermo MacLoughlin Bréard

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Santiago O’Durnin antiago “Jimmy” O’Durnin is a true Irish Argentinian. His father was born in Ardee, County Louth and emigrated to Argentina around 1910. His mother, Cathleen Walsh, was Irish Argentinian from a family of Gaelic speakers from County Clare (most of the Irish who immigrated to Argentina were from the English-speaking counties of Meath and Longford).

Jimmy was educated by the Irish Pallotine priests who arrived in Argentina in 1885 and opened St. Patrick’s School in Mercedes in 1887. In 1998, at the request of the Pallotine fathers, who are shareholders in The Southern Cross newspaper (a non-profit owned by the Federation of Irish Societies), Jimmy took over as editor. He recently retired from the position, turning over the job to Guillermo MacLoughlin. Founded in 1875, by Fr. Patrick Joseph Dillon, an Irish priest from County Galway, the newspaper is published monthly. Jimmy is married to Mary Elizabeth, his wife of 53 years, who is of German, Austrian and Irish (1/8) ancestry. They have three sons and one daughter.

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THE AUSTRALIANS Thirty percent of Australians claim Irish ancestry and about 50,000 of them were born in Ireland. The rest are descendants of various waves of migration, including the 40,000 Irish convicts transported between 1791 and 1867 for political offenses.

Dr. Elizabeth Malcolm

r. Elizabeth Malcolm has studied and taught at universities in Australia, Ireland, England and Norway. She took her Ph.D. in Irish history from Trinity College, Dublin, and in 2000, after working for many years in Belfast and Liverpool, was appointed the first professor of Irish Studies in Australia.

At the University of Melbourne she teaches, with the help of colleagues, a variety of courses on Irish history and supervises the Irish studies department, which offers courses on everything from Irish history to the Diaspora.

Malcolm has published extensively on topics including alcoholism, pop culture, and mental illness. She is the product of four generations of Irish immigrants and has family in Ireland, England, Australia and Canada. Her mother’s family came from Dublin city and Co. Kildare; one member was sent from an Irish workhouse during the Famine, arriving in Sydney in 1848. Her father grew up in Co. Fermanagh and immigrated with his family to Sydney in 1925. She returned to Ireland as a student in 1974 and worked there for nearly 15 years. In recent years she has been a visiting professor at Trinity College, Dublin, and Queen’s University, Belfast.

PHOTO: PIERRE TOSTEE/ASP VIA GETTY IMAGES

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Damien Leith amien Leith, who won the 2006 season of Australian Idol, grew up playing in a family band. As a teenager in Dublin he fronted the band Relevate before moving to Australia and impressing the Idol judges with his guitar accompaniment to renditions of classics such as Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game.” Since his victory, Leith, 32, has gone on to release three albums including chart-toppers The Winner’s Journey and Where We Land. Both held the number one position in Australian charts. His third record, Catch the Wind: Songs of a Generation, reached number two. Leith was nominated for three Australian ARIA Music Awards in 2007, and won a Highest Selling Album award for The Winner’s Journey. That same year, he also received two nominations for MTV Australia Video Music Awards. Not limiting himself to music, Leith has released a novel, One More Time, and has a second to be published late this year. He has also hosted Australia’s Network Ten television series Saving Kids about children achieving medical miracles.

Leith, who became an Australian citizen in 2007, lives with his Australian wife, Eileen Stapleton, and their two sons Jarvis Dion and Jagger Ramone. He is currently traveling on an extensive national tour, and plans to release a new album around June.

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Eugene “Mick” Fanning ugene “Mick” Fanning learned to surf at the age of five in coastal New South Wales at a town called Ballina, but did not go full on until his family moved to Tweed Heads on the Queensland border, when he was twelve. There he had access to great surf and soon began to make a name for himself.

He placed in the top three at the Australian National Titles in 1996. In 2001, he won the Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach, one of Australia’s toughest contests. He finished 2002 as rookie of the year winning the Billabong Pro at Jeffrey’s Bay and earning a slot on the 2002 tour as the World Qualifying Series (WQS) champion.

2008 marked Fanning’s seventh year on the Foster's Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Tour and his 10th year on the ASP WQS. He began his 2007 World Title campaign with a victory at the Quiksilver Pro, the first event on the Foster’s ASP World Tour, putting himself on top of the ratings. He won the Santa Catarina Pro in Brazil on November 6, 2007 placing above Taj Burrow and Kelly Slater clinching the 2007 ASP world title (he lost to Slater in 2008.)

Fanning, whose father is from County Donegal, is married to model Karissa Dalton.

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Jim Stynes

Tom Power om Power, born in Clonmel, County Tipperary, has been head of the Great Irish Famine Commemoration Committee since 1996, when a group of individuals decided to construct a monument in Sydney to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Great Hunger. Tom worked with the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales to commission the artwork which depicted symbolically victims as well as survivors who immigrated to Australia. He also helps to run a website with the Irish Famine Commemoration Committee which connects IrishAustralians to their roots by posting genealogical and historical information.

Tom obtained degrees in philosophy and theology from Gregorian University in Rome.

He was a teacher in New South Wales and Queensland before working as a senior parole officer in the New South Wales Department of Corrective Services.

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im Stynes was born in Dublin and played Gaelic football for Ballyboden St. Enda’s until he decided to leave Ireland to go Down Under and take up Aussie Rules football with Melbourne.

Stynes was a natural, and won the Brownlow Medal – the game’s highest individual honor – in 1991 and enjoyed a hugely successful playing career from 1978-98. After his playing career wound down he assumed the role of anti-racism officer for the Australian Football League and also played a vital part in the International Rules series between Ireland and Australia, so much so that “The Jim Stynes Medal” is awarded to the best Aussie player every series. Stynes took over as Chairman of Melbourne Football Club last year, vowing to increase membership and opposing the possible move of the club outside Melbourne.

Not only has he made his mark in football, but Stynes has changed the lives of many children for the better through the Reach Foundation, a nonprofit which he co-founded to inspire young people. For his charity work he was named Victorian of the Year in 2003 and was awarded an OAM (Order of Australia medal) in 2007.

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Billy Cantwell illy Cantwell is founding editor, publisher and owner of The Irish Echo, Australia’s only Irish newspaper.

Born in Navan, County Meath in 1964, Billy studied Communications at the Dublin Institute of Technology before leaving for Sydney in 1987. In 1988, frustrated by the lack of news and sports coverage from Ireland in the mainstream Australian media, he co-founded The Irish Exile. In 1991, Billy became the sole owner of the newspaper and changed its masthead to The Irish Echo. The newspaper is now distributed nationally across Australia and online (www.irishecho.com.au). It has forged a reputation as the newspaper of record for the Irish community in Australia and indeed the broader Irish Australian community. In May 2009, the 20th anniversary of the first regular edition of The Irish Echo will be celebrated with a commemorative edition announcing the Top 100 Irish-Australians of all time, from Ned Kelly to Tadhg Kennelly.

Billy lives in the inner west of Sydney and is married to Kathy. They have two children, Liam (9) and Julia (7) and are expecting a third child in April.

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Thomas Keneally

Paul Keating

homas Keneally’s book Schindler’s List won the Man Booker Prize in 1982 and later become the basis for the Academy Award winning film starring Liam Neeson. He followed this success with The Great Shame, a memorable book which calls on his Irish ancestry and deals with the famine, the emigrations and the transportations to Australia.

In an interview with Patricia Harty in Irish America, Keneally talked abut his first visit to Ireland. “I found Cork very provocative because the convicts who were sent to Australia were put on an island in the harbor prior to departure. My grandfather was from County Cork.”

Keneally was born in Homebush, New South Wales in Australia and attended St. Patrick’s College nearby. He entered St. Patrick’s Seminary to train as a Catholic priest but left before his ordination, and later worked as a schoolteacher.

aul Keating served as the 44th Prime Minister of Australia from 19911996. During his time in office Keating focused on transforming the Australian financial system and bridging the gap and healing wounds between Aboriginals and other Australians through the passage of the Indigenous Lands Amendment.

Born into an Irish-Australian family, Keating left school at 15 and began his career in the Labor Party at the age of 25 when he was elected to the House of Representatives. Since his time as Prime Minister, Keating has been the topic of several award-winning biographies including Recollections of a Bleeding Heart by Don Watson. He has also penned books himself including his foreign-policy-focused Engagement: Australia Faces the Asia-Pacific. Currently a Visiting Professor at the University of New South Wales, Keating is outspoken on the need to name Sydney the new capital of Australia.

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THE BRITISH Anna Friel nna Friel is best known for her quirky role in ABC’s offbeat, if slightly morbid, comedy Pushing Daisies, which follows a man who can bring people back to life, if only for a minute, and uses this talent to solve mysteries. Although the show was canceled after struggling through the 2007-2008 Writers Guild strike, Friel was a hit as the female lead Charlotte “Chuck” Charles, Ned’s love interest. The English actress with Irish blood has captured audiences with her charm.

She earned a 2008 Golden Globe nomination for her role in the Emmy award-winning show.

Friel was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, England on July 12, 1976.

At the age of 13, she was hired for her first professional acting job in the Channel 4 drama serial G.B.H. In 1995, Friel won the National Television Award for Most Popular Actress for her work on Brookside. In 1998 she appeared in the original Broadway run of Closer by Patrick Marber, winning a Drama Desk Award and a Theatre World award for her performance as Alice. In 2001, she made her West End debut in a production of Lulu which later transferred to Broadway. Friel may well get her knack for musical theater in part from her Irish father, Des, who like her mother is a teacher, but also dabbles in folk guitar.

The Irish are the largest ethnic group in Britain– over six million Britons have an Irish grandparent.

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Martin McDonagh fter wowing the world with his award-winning plays (The Pillowman, The Lieutenant of Inismore, to name two), Martin McDonagh took to the silver screen in 2006, and, his first time out, won an Oscar for his short film Six Shooter.

After the success of Six Shooter, a black comedy featuring Brendan Gleeson, McDonagh entered into an agreement with Focus Features to direct a feature-length film from his screenplay In Bruges. The movie, about two Irish hitmen, played by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, who hide out in Bruges after a job gone wrong, earned McDonagh a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at this year’s Academy Awards, and a Golden Globe Award for Farrell.

The son of Irish parents from Counties Sligo and Galway, McDonagh was born in London on March 26, 1970. He was discovered by Garry Hynes, the director of Galway’s Druid Theatre (Hynes made her New York directorial debut with McDonagh’s Beauty Queen of Leenane, and won the Tony for Best Director of a Play).

McDonagh’s transition from acclaimed playwright to successful film writer/director has been seamless and his future big screen projects are widely anticipated.

NUALA PURCELL

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Danny Boyle anny Boyle is the man responsible for this year’s “little film that could,” Slumdog Millionaire, which skyrocketed to fame as it raked in award after award for best film of the year. The film, set in modern-day Mumbai, follows the life of an orphan named Jamal, who finds himself on a game show.

The film won eight Oscars this year, including Best Film and Best Director for Boyle, and has sparked a growth in a number of charities set up to aid slum-dwelling children in India.

Boyle was born in Lancashire to Irish parents. His mother hailed from County Galway, and his father was born in England to an Irish family. He began his work in television on such shows as Inspector Morse and Mr. Wroe’s Virgins.

Some of his films have become cult classics, notably Trainspotting, which brought Irvine Welsh’s novel about Scottish heroin addicts to life.

Elvis Costello

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rom the New Wave London pub scene of the 70s to his lyrically driven rock of the 80s, Elvis Costello has become a legend of the music scene. Born Declan Patrick McManus, Costello was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003 shortly before releasing his album of ballads North which brought his album count to over 30.

Born to a mother from Liverpool and a musician father, Costello traces his Irish roots back to his greatgrandfather. He lived in Ireland for a time and was married to the Pogue’s bassist, Cait O’Riordan. The tradition of musicians in Costello’s family spans four generations, and he continues to work collaborating with everyone from Paul McCartney to Tony Bennett.

He is now writing operas and making frequent television appearances as well as singing on several albums in the works.

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Marianne Elliott rofessor Marianne Elliott is one of the leading lights at the University of Liverpool’s acclaimed Institute of Irish Studies. Born in Belfast, Eliott is internationally recognized as one of Ireland’s leading historians and is best known for her biography Wolfe Tone: Prophet of Irish Independence, which won numerous awards.

Her other books include Partners in Revolution: The United Irishmen and France, Robert Emmet: The Making of a Legend and The Catholics of Ulster: A History. She was invited to deliver the prestigious Ford Lectures at Oxford University in 2005 and is currently preparing Religion and Identity in Irish History for publication.

Professor Elliott has also played an important role in the promotion of peace efforts in Northern Ireland. In October 2000 she was awarded an OBE for services to Irish Studies and the Northern Ireland peace process and in 2002 was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

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Oasis he English rock band Oasis, infamous for the bickering battles between its front men, brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher, is also known for having the fastest-selling album in UK chart history with 1997’s Be Here Now. The brothers grew up in Manchester and were raised by their mother, a native of Charlestown, County Mayo. Councillor Mulherrin of Mayo described the brothers as “the fulfillment of the Irish emigrant dream.” He went on to say, “The Gallagher brothers have won 34 international music awards and it’s only right that we should honor them here in Mayo because they always acknowledge their Irish heritage.” The Gallaghers have made regular trips to Charlestown, even at the height of their fame.

The band enjoyed the peak of worldwide success in the mid 90s but also gained a reputation for their hard rock lifestyle.

In 2008, Oasis signed with Sony BMG for a threealbum deal. The first album, entitled Dig Out Your Soul, was released with a DVD short feature showing the Oasis boys teaching buskers in New York their tunes off the new album.

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Paul McCartney he Beatles will always remain Liverpool’s greatest treasure, but the Irish have every right to take a bit of the credit as three of the Beatles claim Irish roots.

Paul McCartney claims Irish heritage on both sides of his family. His great-grandfather James McCartney was born in Ireland (some sources suggest his grandfather James McCartney II was as well). His maternal grandfather, Owen Mohin, was born in 1880 in Tullynamalrow, County Monaghan, and his grandmother Mary Theresa Danher was a Glaswegian of Irish descent. Paul grew up in an Irish Catholic family in Liverpool where he went to school with George Harrison and met John Lennon.

After the summer of love was over and the Beatles parted ways, McCartney continued his songwriter efforts. His solo career has continued to bring McCartney success over the past three decades. This February, he was nominated for two Grammy Awards. At the ceremonies, he performed the Beatles classic “I Saw Her Standing There.” Though he did not leave with an award, he did leave the Jonas Brothers a lesson on how the original pop idols did it.

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Shane MacGowan hough his lifestyle and controversial behavior have made Shane MacGowan infamous in the world of music, it is his powerful vocals which define the Pogues and strike a chord with fans all over the world. Now 51 years of age, MacGowan has nine albums under his belt. The Pogues, which disbanded for several years, have regrouped and annually play in the U.S. around St. Patrick’s Day. This year they will showcase in Washington, D.C., among other venues. Born in England to Irish parents – his mother was a singer and model and his father was a writer – MacGowan briefly attended music school in England but after being asked to leave he drew on his Irish roots and formed the Pogues who often sang of Irish nationalism and the Irish experience in England. He now lives in Carney, Co. Tipperary, his mother’s family home.

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Dido he English-born singer and daughter of an Irish publisher, Dido released her third album Safe Trip Home late last year to critical acceptance and just a bit of controversy. She paid tribute to her father, who passed away in 2006, by incorporating the rebel song “The Men Behind the Wire” into her track “Let’s Do the Things We Normally Do,” and was criticized for using a song with IRA sympathies, which was once banned by the BBC. Dido, who has been extremely successful since her first album was released in 2001, has said that her earliest childhood memories were of her father singing traditional Irish songs to her and her brother.

The recipient of numerous awards, and a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocalist of the Year, Dido has also co-written hit songs for several artists including Britney Spears, and collaborated with the likes of Eminem and Rufus Wainwright. In 2007, she, along with Annie Lennox and some 20 other female artists, recorded the song “Sing” which was released on World AIDS Day and focused on spreading awareness and bringing care to young children and mothers-to-be in Africa.

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THE CANADIANS Marianna O’Gallagher arianna O’Gallagher is a driving force behind Quebec City’s understanding and sharing of its past. In 1973, she founded Irish Heritage Quebec and helped raise public awareness of the tragic history of the island quarantine station, Grosse île, where an estimated 6,000 Irish famine immigrants are buried in mass graves. (The Celtic Cross pictured right was erected there by the Ancient Order of Hibernians). Marianna was instrumental in the creation of the Grosse île and Irish Memorial National Historic Site in 1996.

Born in Sainte-Foy to parents of Irish descent, Marianna has written a number of scholarly and popular works, including Grosse île: Gateway to Canada 1832-1957 and Eyewitness Grosse île 1847. She is a member of the Historical Society of Quebec and has served on the organizing committee for Quebec City’s 400th anniversary. Her honors include the Ordre National du Québec (1998), and the Order of Canada (2002). She operates her own publishing company, Carraig Books, specializing in works from Quebec with an Irish connection.

The Irish are the fourth largest ethnic group in Canada, many of whom trace their ancestors to Famine immigrants.

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John Furlong ohn Furlong has taken the lessons of playing fields in Tipperary and applied them to the management of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver next February.

He is CEO of VANOC, the organizing committee which has brought all the Games venues in on budget and a year in advance.“I’ve tried to take the essence of sports – fair play, integrity and teamwork – and incorporate them in the culture of this organization.” The father of five and grandfather of six caught the Olympic bug during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He played for Ireland’s national basketball and handball teams and jokes that to make the Irish Olympic team “All you needed was a letter from your grandmother.”

When he came to Canada 30 years ago, the customs officer challenged him to make the country better. He began to do that almost immediately, serving on the Canadian Olympic Committee, then headed the group which won the 2010 Games, and now leads the body delivering the Olympics to the world.

He hopes when the last person in the world turns off their TV at the end of the Games, they say, “Wow, Canada did a fabulous job.”

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Brian Mulroney

Leahy

orn in Baie-Comeau Quebec, Brian Mulroney grew up in a bilingual household, one of six children. The first in his family to attend college, he became Prime Minister of Canada in 1984, and held the position until 1993. His accomplishments included sanctions against South Africa, land claims settlement with the Inuit, the Goods and Services Tax (GST), and free trade with the United States. Mulroney was known for sprinkling prose from his Irish heritage into his speeches. He even recalled lines by Thomas d’Arcy McGee, an Irish immigrant and Canadian journalist, in an address honoring U.S. President Ronald Reagan. In March of 1985, The Shamrock Summit, a 24-hour meeting between Reagan and Mulroney in Quebec, opened the door for free trade agreements between the U.S and Canada. The meeting concluded with the two men evoking their mutual Irish ancestry by singing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.”

Mulroney traces his Irish ancestry to County Carlow.

itnessing a performance of Leahy is like getting caught in a storm of music, color and movement. The members of the eight-person band share more than music: they are brothers and sisters. Even on recordings, the group’s raw energy and sheer joy in the music come through.

Band members Donnell, Agnes, Angus, Doug, Erin, Frank Jr., Maria and Siobheann didn’t have to look far for inspiration. Their father, Frank Leahy Sr., whose grandfather immigrated from Mitchelstown, County Cork in 1825, is an accomplished fiddle player. Their mother, Julie, is a champion Canadian step dancer. The family’s three-bedroom farmhouse in Lakefield, Ontario, had one piano and three fiddles, so all the siblings, while beginning on the piano, quickly mastered the fiddle also.

The Leahy family’s legacy of music is sure to continue into the next generation thanks to the marriage of the band’s fiddle player, Donnell Leahy, to Cape Breton native and fellow master fiddler Natalie MacMaster. The couple has two children, Michael Joseph and Mary Frances.

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PHOTO: CHRIS O’MEARA:AP

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Aralt Mac Giolla Chainnigh ralt Mac Giolla Chainnigh is fluent in Irish and works extensively to establish a firmer sense of Irish-Canadian heritage through Cumann na Gaeltachta, Canada. He is a leading organizer of Gaeltacht Bhaile na hÉireann, an area in Ontario that is the first Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking area) outside of Ireland. “I could envision people coming from all the Irish Gaeltachts, meeting at our Gaeltacht and going on an Irishlanguage tour of the Niagara Falls,” Aralt told Gaelport.com. “[Canada] is not like America where there is a strong Irish-American identity. We never really escaped the British Empire and there isn’t a globally defined IrishCanadian identity.”

Cumann na Gaeltachta, Canada, won this year’s Glór na nGael’s Global Gaeilge award for promoting the Irish language. Aralt, a captain in the Canadian police force, is also a researcher into circumstellar morphology in symbiotic star systems. He is the President of the North American Association for Celtic Language Teachers and is a professor of physics at the Royal Military College of Canada.

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Brendan Shanahan rendan Shanahan – born Jan. 23, 1969 in Mimico, Ontario – is one of pro hockey’s most decorated players. He topped off his Hall of Fame credentials with a role as a leading force in reforming the National Hockey League style of play.

When the NHL suffered through a labor lockout in 2004-2005, Shanahan stepped up to form an ad hoc committee of players and managers to look at why the game was losing popularity. His initiative grew into a new, and finally resolute, approach to make hockey faster and cleaner.

Shanahan, 40, currently with the New Jersey Devils, has won every major championship, including three Stanley Cups with Detroit, an Olympic gold medal with Canada, a Canada Cup, World Cup and World Championship. At the time of writing he had 653 goals and 692 assists in 1,503 career regular-season goals as well as 59 goals and 72 assists in 177 playoff games.

Shanahan’s mother is from Belfast and his father is from Dunmanus, near Bantry Bay. He has a cottage in Ireland and has talked about managing an Irish national hockey team to accelerate the country’s hockey development.

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Wendy Murphy oved by the sight of an infant being carried in an adult stretcher, hardly protected or safely fastened, during the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, Wendy Murphy invented the WEEVAC 6 emergency evacuation stretcher for infants. “They would take [the infants] out of the rubble and put them on huge adult pole stretchers that were far too large for the infants to be safely secure,” Wendy recalled on the phone to Irish America. Her stretcher allows for up to six infants to be Velcro-strapped into heat insulated pockets, which ensure that babies in need of incubators are kept warm. She drew inspiration from a variety of unlikely sources, including pizza delivery bags.

The former medical researcher and radiology technician at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children is now expanding her invention to adult stretchers for the bedridden. She was awarded the National Research Council Award for outstanding innovativeness in 1991 for her work.

Wendy, who lives in Deer River, Ontario with her son Scott, traces her Irish ancestry to her great-grandfather Kilroy who immigrated in the 1800s.

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Pat Burns ormer New Jersey Devils coach and current Devils scout Pat Burns has worked as a professional hockey coach for over 20 years. He survived colon cancer in 2004 and liver cancer in 2005. In January 2009, Burns was diagnosed with lung cancer.

While the prognosis is not great, Burns remains optimistic about his remaining time and intends to enjoy his days with his wife and with the team he has worked so productively with.

Burns coached three Original Six teams before leading the Devils to their 3rd Stanley Cup. He coached the Boston Bruins from 1997 to 2000 and took them to two Stanley Cup playoffs. In 1997-98 he became the first to win three Adams Awards as the league’s top coach. The Jack Adams Trophy is presented each year by the NHL Broadcasters’ Association to “the NHL coach adjudged to have contributed the most to his team’s success.” Burns was born in St. Henri, Quebec, and traces his Irish ancestry to County Cork.

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Michael Kenneally

PHOTO: CHRIS O’MEARA:AP

n 2009, Professor Kenneally, who was born in Youghal, County Cork, will receive St. Patrick’s Society of Montreal’s Community Award for his work in the development of Canadian Irish Studies at Concordia University. Professor Kenneally and his wife, Dr. Rhona Richman Kenneally, a professor of architecture and design, who is also a distinguished Irish Studies scholar, have established Concordia as a preeminent academic location for the study of Irish and the Irish diaspora in Canada.

As well as the academic programs, the Irish Studies Centre at Concordia coordinates an Irish Public Lecture Series which has brought more than 150 academic and public figures to the university over the past fifteen years, including Presidents Mary McAleese and Mary Robinson, Garret FitzGerald and Seamus Heaney. The Centre also awards 20 scholarships annually and is involved in various community out-reach activities.

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THE GLOBAL IRISH

THE MEXICANS The Irish and the Mexicans are united in a shared religion and the spirit of The San Patricios who fought on the side of Mexico in 1846.

Vicente Fox icente Fox was president of Mexico from 2000 to 2006. Originally from Mexico City, he was the second of nine children to a rancher of Irish descent, José Luis Fox, and Mercedes Quesada. Fox was educated at Universidad Iberoamericana and began working for Coca-Cola Mexico at a young age as a route supervisor. Once Fox entered government, his upward climb on the political ladder was steady and quick.

Serving as Federal Congressman for the Third District of León, Secretary of Agriculture in the opposition cabinet, and a state governor, Fox developed a passion for working for the underprivileged, especially children. In 2000, he was elected president, the first opposition president elected in Mexico in 90 years. His term lasted until 2006.

Fox is also the founder of the Amigo Daniel Children's Home Foundation, president of the Loyola Foundation and an avid promoter of the Lux Institute, an educational center where state residents receive training. A devout Roman Catholic, Fox lives with his wife and has four adopted children. In 2007 he published an autobiography entitled Revolution of Hope: The Life, Faith and Dreams of a Mexican President. He was also elected co-President of the Centrist Democratic International in 2007.

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Michael Hogan

Phil Kelly hil Kelly paints with his fingers because he is averse to washing brushes. Born in Dublin in 1950, the Irish painter and traveler studied at the University of Bristol in England before setting off to see the world, living in multiple countries. He eventually found his calling in Mexico City, where he developed his career as a painter. Kelly has been based in the colorful metropolis for the past twenty-six years, working with lively brushstrokes and vibrant colors to portray the daily life of Mexico City’s urban landscapes. Kelly has shown his work in solo exhibitions in various cities in PHOTO: LORENA ALCARAZ Mexico as well as in Dublin, and many of his paintings are in private collections in Mexico, the United States, England, Ireland, Germany and Portugal. Kelly also painted a portrait of Seamus Heaney, fellow Top 100 honoree, in 1999.

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COURTESY PHIL KELLY

Right: La Palerma Azul

ichael Hogan is a novelist, historian, professor, speaker and international consultant who has journeyed from his birthplace of Newport, Rhode Island to his current home in Guadalajara, Jalisco, a state in Mexico bordering the Pacific Ocean. Educated at Boston College, the University of Arizona and the University of Guadalajara, Hogan earned a master’s degree in creative writing and went on to achieve a doctorate in international relations and Latin American history. With roots in Tipperary, Cork and Kerry, he has explored the intersection of Irish and Mexican history in his 1996 book Irish Soldiers of Mexico as well as his novel Molly Malone and the San Patricios. The former, which inspired an MGM feature film as well as an award-winning documentary, records the story of the Irish “San Patricios” who fought on the Mexican side of the Mexican-American War. Hogan has written a collection of essays on Latin America, a collection of short stories, textbooks on teaching, and poetry. He has been awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Creative Writing and two Pushcart Prizes, as well as a PEN award. In 1989, Hogan became the head of the English department at the American School of Guadalajara, a post he held until 2004. In this capacity, he began the magazine Sin Fronteras, which has been honored for several years as the best international student literary magazine by the National Council of English Teachers. In 2004, Hogan became the deputy director of the College Board’s AP Initiative to acknowledge top quality universities in Latin America that admit American and Canadian students to study. Hogan has served as a historical consultant to the Irish Embassy in Mexico and consultant for the land mine removal initiative in Nicaragua. He is currently the Latin American consultant for the U.S. State Department’s Office of Overseas Schools.

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OLYMPIANS

PHOTO/MARK J.TERRILL

Natalie Coughlin (far left) with fellow members of the U.S. women’s swimming team after receiving their silver medals for the 4x100-meter freestyle relay.

The 2008 Olympics in Beijing showcased athletes and coaches from all over the world who excelled in their respective sports.

In this grouping we highlight those with Irish heritage.

Kerri Walsh erri Lee Walsh and partner Misty MayTreanor have been called the greatest beach volleyball team of all time and they have certainly lived up to their title, winning gold medals in both the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing Olympics. Walsh and MayTreanor were undefeated in every set played at both the 2004 and 2008 Olympics.

Irish-American Walsh plays professionally on the U.S. AVP Tour and internationally on the FIVB World Tour. The daughter of a minor league baseball player and a college volleyball MVP, Walsh is a California native and currently resides in Hermosa Beach with her husband. The two are expecting their first child.

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Kenny Egan he Olympics brought three medals to Ireland, with the silver in lightheavyweight boxing going to Kenny Egan.

In the final, Egan fought Chinese champion and local favorite Zhang Xiaping. The Irishman performed brilliantly, but there was some controversy over the scoring system when several punches landed by Egan were not properly scored by judges. The Dubliner’s dignity in handling the affair was truly impressive. The light-heavyweight boxer hails from Clondalkin in Dublin and fights out of the Neilstown Boxing Club. Egan has won eight national titles and hopes to lead the Irish boxing team at the 2012 Games in London.

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Shalane Flanagan

Darren Sutherland arren Sutherland brought home a bronze medal in the middleweight boxing division for Ireland. The twenty-six year old son of an Irish mother from Finglas and a father from the Caribbean has won the All-Ireland title three times, in 2005, 2006 and 2007. His Olympic medal win was his last amateur match as Sutherland recently signed a contract with London-based promoter Frank Maloney and dove into his professional career.

Sutherland’s fans have high hopes for his professional career, especially when his firstround knockout of Georgi Iliev in his first match back in Dublin set the tone for a promising future.

halane Flanagan, Irish-American distance runner, won the bronze medal in the women’s 10,000 meter run at the 2008 Olympics. She holds the American record times in the 3,000, 5,000, and 10,000 meter distances. The Colorado-born and Massachusettsraised athlete excelled in cross country throughout her high school career. She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she PHOTO USOC secured two NCAA cross country titles in 2002 and 2003. Flanagan, the daughter of two accomplished runners, shattered her own American record for the 10,000 meter race when she won the bronze medal in Beijing.

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Natalie Coughlin ichael Phelps was not the only American swimmer setting records at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Natalie Coughlin fought hard to defend several titles she held from the Athens Olympics in 2004 and became the first American female athlete in history to win six medals at a single Olympics. Her gold medal in the 100m backstroke in addition to the two silver and three bronze medals brought her career Olympic medal count to an overall eleven – only one medal away from meeting the record of twelve Olympic career medals in women’s swimming, Coughlin will be one to watch in London in 2012.

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Heather O’Reilly his past summer the U.S. women’s soccer team brought home gold when the women beat Brazil in the final. Striker Heather O’Reilly, only twenty-four years old, now in her sixth year playing for the U.S. National team, was there to share in the glory. O’Reilly started in thirteen out of the fourteen Olympic matches and was the second youngest player at the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup. The New Jersey native traces her Irish roots back three generations to Longford and Cavan. She was named U.S. Soccer's Young Female Athlete of the Year in 2004 and plays for Sky Blue FC in the Women’s Professional Soccer League.

PHOTO: NEIL HODGE

PHOTO USOC

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Eamon Sullivan ustralian swimmer Eamon Sullivan walked away from the Beijing Olympics with a haul of three medals. The sprint swimmer won the silver in the 100 meter freestyle and the 4x100 meter medley as well as the bronze in the 4x100 freestyle. Sullivan hails from Perth, Australia and first began swimming in an effort to ease his asthmatic symptoms as a child. He is a pop icon in Australia and was for a time one half of Australia’s “golden couple” with fellow Aussie swimmer Stephanie Rice. He is the current world record holder for the men’s 50 meter freestyle and 100 meter freestyle.

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COACHES

Paddy Barnes addy Barnes is an amateur boxer from Belfast who has a resume filled with victories including the All-Ireland lightflyweight division in 2006 and 2007 and a three-year Ulster title winning streak. Barnes represented Northern Ireland in the 2006 Commonwealth games in Australia. Barnes’ club is the Holy Family club in Belfast where a warm welcome awaited him this summer when he PHOTO: ASUCLA PHOTOGRAPHY returned home with the Olympic bronze medal in light-flyweight division. Barnes faced Chinese boxer Shiming Zou in the semifinals and impressed many with his determination and effort.

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Cyndi Gallagher n her 21 years as a coach, Cyndi Gallagher has led swimmers to Olympic gold and NCAA glory. A former All-American swimmer, Gallagher coaches at her alma-mater, UCLA, where she once swam her way to several school records. Now, after a successful career as an athlete at UCLA, Gallagher has coached more than 60 All-American athletes and a handful of national team members. Gallagher brings a level of experience to her coaching that is enviable to even those she mentors – she represented the USA National team on several occasions and competed in the Olympic Trials in 1976 and 1980.

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Teri McKeever

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PHOTO: USA SWIMMING

eri McKeever counts multiple Olympic medalist Natalie Coughlin among her students. However, Coughlin is not the only success story to emerge from McKeever’s pool. The California University Head Coach of Women’s Swimming enjoyed a time as the Assistant Head Coach of the U.S. Olympic Swim Team in Beijing this past summer.

McKeever has plenty to be proud of in her seventeen years coaching, including several Olympic swimmers and a slew of national titles, five in 2007 alone. The California native competed as a swimmer herself for four years at USC, where she earned her B.S. in education.

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IRISH AMERICAN OF THE YEAR: DR. KEVIN CAHILL

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By Conn Corrigan

A TV mini-series could be made about the adventures Dr. Kevin Cahill has had in the various countries he has worked in. (After his wife died in 2004, he calculated that he had worked in 65 countries.

She had been to 45 of them with him.)

On a number of occasions, his life was in danger. Caught up in the civil war in southern Sudan in the late 1960s, he received a telegram that – mistakenly, as it turned out – told him that his wife had had a miscarriage. To try to get to a Morse code facility at the Ethiopian border 60 miles away, he sailed up the Sobat River, where he was shot at several times. And in Beirut in 1982, after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, he was “damn near killed by both sides.”

Dr. Cahill, who is 72, has been a colossal force in the world of humanitarianism for many years. His CV is 25 pages long: he is currently the president of the Center for Humanitarian Health and Co-operation in New York City; the director of the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs at Fordham University (from which he graduated in 1957); the director of the Tropical Disease Center at Lenox Hill Hospital; chief medical advisor to the president of the United Nations General Assembly; and president of the AmericanIrish Historical Society.

He also tells me about a “more unusual title” he is particularly proud of:

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Healer on a Global Mission Uachtarain, Cumann-Luachra (the president of the Luachra Club, a historical society based in Sliabh Luachra, a region in Co. Kerry). Sliabh Luachra contains the town of Rathmore where Dr. Cahill’s grandfather was born.

Dr. Cahill wouldn’t tell me about some of the famous people he has treated over the years, aside from very general references, citing patient confidentiality. But the list includes Pope John Paul II; Fidel Castro; Cardinals Spellman, Cook and O’Connor of New York; Leonard Bernstein; as well as every secretarygeneral of the United Nations (with the exception of the incumbent) since U Thant, who took office in 1961. Today, Dr. Cahill counts Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the secretary-general from 1992-1997, as a good friend.

One wall of his office on Fifth Avenue is papered with degrees and awards – he has 27 honorary degrees on the last count, and numerous awards. In all, he has written or edited 35 books and more than 200 articles, on subjects such as tropical disease, health and foreign policy, as well as the occasional meditation on Irish literature.

The doctor, who has five sons and eight grandchildren, first visited Ireland when he was thirteen. “I used to go back more often,” he explained. “But I’ve always stayed in very close touch.”

His grandfather came to the U.S. and became a policeman. He moved through the force from mounted horse corps, to street patrol, to captain, to eventually becoming the NYPD’s first director of the communications center, where he supervised a handful of Morse code operators in a single, sparse room. (A picture of his grandfather in that room lies in Dr. Cahill’s office so that he will never forget “from where I am sprung.”)

The family settled in Edenwald, the Bronx. His father went on to medical school – the day he died, Dr. Cahill himself entered Cornell Medical School. Although he was awarded a medical school scholarship, there was no extra money for room, board or books. So he worked as a chemistry lab technician several nights a week from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and then went to class from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

In 1959, he won a Lehman traveling fellow to the Far East. In India, he worked with a then “unknown Albanian nun in her Hospice for the Dying.” The world would know her in later years as Mother Teresa. Throughout rural Asia, he saw “death and disease on a vast scale,” and “returned completely and forever changed.” Dr. Cahill was drafted into the navy, a posting which saw him and his wife, Kate – they first met when they were fourteen, and he realized he was in love with her two years later –

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Above: Dr. Cahill and his late wife Kate dancing at the wedding of their son Denis in Italy in 2003. Above right: Dr. Cahill’s grandfather (standing) at work in NYPD’s communications department circa 1920. Right: A census form from Rathmore in 1911 that details the Cahill family. Cahill’s grandfather would leave to make a new life in the States.

move to Egypt. They lived there for two years and it was here their son, Sean, was born.

Many countries – and appointments in medical schools around the world – would follow.

In 1982 he visited Beirut, which had been invaded by Israel. After returning, he wrote in The New York Times of Israeli bulldozers wiping away evidence that “Palestinian camps, once home for tens of thousands of families, even existed.”

Before our interview in February, he was due to go to Gaza as part of a mission with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. After he returned, I asked him if he felt a sense of déjà vu. “You could replace the name ‘Beirut’ with ‘Palestine,’” he said.

Dr. Cahill wrote a report on Gaza, as part of his job as chief humanitarian advisor to the president of the U.N. General Assembly. He shared with Irish America a draft copy of the report. “Gaza this week displayed all of the facets of Dante’s Inferno,” he wrote. “Military controls are imposed with a grinding

force and overt disdain that is clearly intended to crush the human dignity of a still proud people.”

He noted the huge disparity of casualties sustained on each side: according to the World Health Organization, 1,366 Palestinians were killed in the conflict, and 14 Israelis. “These are not data of a

“Medicine is that rare discipline that permits almost instant acceptability by all sides in a conflict”

war, but of one-sided slaughter,” he wrote.

On U.S. support of Israel, Dr. Cahill said: “But there was no escape from the fact that this was a war using American weapons of incredible air power and precision guided missiles against the home made rockets, gasoline bombs and rocks that are the major weapons of long oppressed peoples.”

Dr. Cahill also condemned the economic blockade of Gaza, writing, “The fundamental evils of continued forced isolation and economic strangulation have finally come to the fore. American congressmen visiting Gaza in the past week were unable to hide their shock at the levels of destruction.”

I also asked him about Somalia, a country he had visited every year for 35 years, beginning in 1962. Does it depress him APRIL/MAY 2009 IRISH AMERICA 51

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PHOTO MITCH EPSTEIN

Top: Dr. Cahill presents Donald Keough, former CEO Coco-Cola, with The American Irish Historical Society’s Gold Medal at a banquet held at the Waldorf-Astoria, November 7, 1991.

Left: Dr. Kevin Cahill in his Fifth Avenue office.

that Somalia has not seen the lives of its people improve in over four decades?

“Somalia is an example of a country that I was there for when it was born and I was there when it died,” he said. “It’s had no real functional schools since 1992. It’s an appalling story because it was really a very wonderful place when I first went there.”

A consistent theme that arises with Dr. Cahill over the course of our interview is his unswerving belief in the ability of healthcare professionals to transcend boundaries. “Medicine is that rare discipline that permits almost instant acceptability by all sides in a conflict,” he wrote following his 1982 Beirut trip.

In Nicaragua, where he has a house, he recalls doing humanitarian work in 1972, following a major earthquake in Managua. At one point he shared a tent with General Somoza, the Nicaraguan dictator. But he would also become good friends with the Rev. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, one of the leaders of the Sandinistas, the group that overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in 1979. (Today, d’Escoto is the president of the U.N. General Assembly.)

“During the 1970s, a lot of the meetings for the revolution were held in our living room. And yet Somoza knew I 52 IRISH AMERICA APRIL/MAY 2009

knew these people, and they knew that I knew Somoza. And neither one ever asked me about the other. I just thought that that’s what medicine can afford, when you don’t violate confidence or anything.”

He was able to use this gift in relation to Ireland, especially after he was appointed chairman of the tropical diseases department of the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin in 1969. (Today he is professor of humanitarian affairs at the college.) “I’ve always been very interested in the role of health as a common ground,” he explained. “I would go up to Northern Ireland every year and lecture.

The College of Surgeons became my Irish base.”

Another consistent theme with Dr. Cahill is the role his wife, Kate, played in shaping his career. Although she was not a physician or a health worker, she was his “indispensable partner,” his “moral compass” on his trips abroad. She also offered him strong encouragement in his writing. “I can still hear her saying,” he has written, “‘ If you don’t do something – write something, give an interview, take the heat if necessary — then your silence is adding to the problems of those left behind.’”

Finally, as our interview drew to a close, Dr. Cahill pointed to a carving lost

among the drawings, manuscripts and medical instruments that competed for my attention, a small simple figure, with the words “Torture is Barbaric.”

Knowing that he had seen some true horrors, I asked him if he was ever traumatized by his experiences. There was no trace of bitterness or anger in his voice when he replied that while he saw some horrific things, he also saw many things which reinforced – rather than shattered – his faith in humanity.

Last year, in a commencement address, he told the graduate students of The College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, Massachusetts, “Amid the fetid stenches of Indian urban decay, I mainly recall the strong aroma of exotic spices. I closed my eyes but usually saw saffron robes rather than soiled rags . . . I have been caught behind the lines in armed conflicts, and seen senseless slaughter from Beirut to Managua, and all across the scarred landscape of modern Africa. Somehow in the twisted wreckage of war, and in the squalor of refugee camps, the incredible beauty of IA humanity prevailed for me.”

Conn Corrigan is the assistant editor of the website, IrishCentral. A native of Nenagh, Co.Tipperary, he has written for The New York Sun, The New York Observer, The New York Post and The Advocate, as well as a number of Irish publications, including The Dubliner, The Belfast Telegraph and The Sunday Business Post. He also contributes regularly to The Irish Times, and has degrees from Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University, Birkbeck College at the University of London, and Columbia University.

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ENTERTAINMENT

THE IRISH AMERICANS The real heart of the Irish diaspora lies in America where almost 40 million people have Irish lineage. As such, the largest portion of our Global Irish list is devoted to highlighting those who have stood out in 2008 in all walks of life, from the silver screen to public service.

Kelli O’Hara roadway has been abuzz for a year about the revival of South Pacific and its dazzling lead actress, Kelli O’Hara, who was nominated for a Tony as best actress in a musical. O’Hara’s humble Oklahoma roots produced a childhood full of church choir singing and Irish storytelling about her family’s background in County Clare.

Her leap to Broadway occurred shortly after she graduated from Oklahoma City University. She told Irish America, “I found myself packing two suitcases with no clue and moving to New York City ten years ago . . . I just had a feeling that if I didn’t try I would never forgive myself.” Not only did she try, but O’Hara certainly succeeded, starring in musicals such as Dracula, the Musical and Jekyll & Hyde. She also received critical acclaim for her roles in The Light in the Piazza and The Pajama Game.

O’Hara uses honesty and personal history to develop her characters. For Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, O’Hara found inspiration in her grandmother. “I find everything in personal connections,” she told Irish America. “[My grandmother] was feisty. She grew up before the time of civil rights, when children were ‘carefully taught’ as the song says. She was the person in my head when I started thinking about Nellie.” Now with the success of South Pacific pushing her forward, O’Hara is working on a new musical called Writing Arthur, which tells the tale of a man writing a story about a village.

COURTESY: PARAMOUNT

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Mickey Rourke he hands-down comeback of the year is actor Mickey Rourke whose rise to the height of the film industry with The Wrestler has reminded critics why they loved him in the first place. After a stint as a professional boxer in the 1990s, Rourke fell off the Hollywood map for a while, but his Golden Globe win and Oscar nomination have the Irish-American actor returning for what may yet be the pinnacle of his career. Sean Penn, who beat Rourke for the Oscar for Best Actor, concluded his acceptance speech with, “Mickey Rourke rises again. And he is my brother.”

The former professional boxer made his acting debut in Steven Spielberg’s 1941 which he followed with roles in memorable films like The Outsiders and The Pope of Greenwich Village. Rourke is no stranger to expressing his Irish heritage, portraying a Belfastman in A Prayer for the Dying, which followed the moral struggle of an ex-IRA hitman. Rourke, unhappy with the production choices made for the film, told Irish America before the film’s 1987 release, “I’m no Irish Rambo.” Known for his eccentric choices of roles, Rourke is sure to continue to keep Hollywood guessing.

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Trent Kowalik hirteen-year-old Trent Kowalik has gone from Irish dance champion to Broadway star in just two years. The youngest American to win a first place at the World Championships in Belfast, Trent made IA’s Top 100 list in 2006 when he was only eleven.

In order to land the lead role in Billy Elliot, the Broadway musical, Trent had to do a lot more than just show off his dancing skills. The role of Billy is so taxing that the producers decided to hire not one but three young actors to play the part on alternating nights. Aside from the almost three continual hours onstage with six or seven dance numbers, Billy must also act, sing and speak in Northern England’s distinctive Geordie accent. Having played Billy in London’s West End production, Trent had some experience under his belt that helped him win the part on Broadway.

A native of Wantagh, New York, Trent was dancing at an early age; his mother even likes to say he was dancing in the womb. Before he turned three he was discovered wearing his sister’s tap shoes, standing in front of a TV mimicking Michael Flatley’s dance moves. From there it was on to ballet, tap, hip-hop and acrobatic tumbling at Dorothy’s School of Dance in Bellmore, New York with concurrent Irish dance lessons at the Inishfree School of Dance.

Despite all his success Trent remains remarkably humble, glad to share the spotlight with his Billy counterparts and giving credit to his friends, dance instructors and most importantly to his family.

Trent is fifth-generation Irish-American. Both his parents, Mike and Lauretta have Irish roots, with Lauretta’s family coming from County Roscommon.

Though his Irish dancing days might be past for now, Trent notes that they are not forgotten. “I’ve always loved Irish step dancing,” he says, “but I think that after doing this part I want to focus more on acting. But I’ll always remember it.”

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John Patrick Shanley n an interview with Irish America, writer-director John Patrick Shanley said of his play Doubt, “I’m dealing with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and how it deals with a problem that is not really modern, but one that has come to light in a dramatic way only in recent times.” The play won a Tony and the Pulitzer Prize in 2006. Now, three years later, Doubt has continued forging its dramatic path with five Oscar nominations and several awards for the moving film adaptation, written and directed by Shanley. The film, which traces the unnerving story of a determined nun and a possibly abusive priest, has been a critical sensation earning award wins and nominations for all four leading cast members Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis.

Shanley and his cast were all honored this year with Oscar nominations.

The son of an Irish farmer from County Leitrim, Shanley won an Academy Award for Moonstruck in 1988.

The New York City native has almost two dozen plays under his belt and twelve films, two of which he directed in addition to writing. Shanley grew up in an Irish Catholic home and battled his way through school expulsions before joining the Marine Corps. Just as his experiences as a schoolboy influenced his work in Doubt, his time in the Marines stood him to good stead in his more recent play, Defiance.

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Regis Philbin

PETER FOLEY

egis Philbin gained popularity as Joey Bishop’s sidekick on the 1960’s talk show The Joey Bishop Show, but has since gone on to be the leading man on plenty of primetime TV. A New York native and University of Notre Dame graduate born to an Irish-American Catholic family, Philbin next hosted A.M. Los Angeles, bringing the show to number one locally, and The Regis Philbin Show, which won an Emmy for Outstanding Daytime Variety Series. In 1988, he paired up with Kathie Lee Gifford to host Live with Regis and Kathie Lee. In 1999, Philbin began his famous recitation of the phrase, “Is that your final answer?” as the host of ABC’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

In 2001, he teamed up with Kelly Ripa for the show Live with Regis and Kelly, and in 2006 returned to primetime with the hit program America’s Got Talent. Philbin earned a TV Guide Award for Personality of the Year in 2001, as well as a Broadcasting & Cable Lifetime Achievement Award. He was a 2006 inductee into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame as well as the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. Philbin is married to Joy, and they have two adult daughters, Joanna and Jennifer.

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Michael Keaton

George Heslin

ith the future of Bruce Wayne safely in the hands of Christian Bale, Michael Keaton has moved on from his superhero days to a new position behind the camera. At the Sundance Film Festival early this year, Keaton’s directorial debut, The Merry Gentlemen, introduced audiences to a fresh creative side to the actor. Also starring in the film as a suicidal assassin, Keaton slowed the pace of what would typically be an action-packed story of an innocent woman, played by Scottish actress Kelly MacDonald, falling for an amoral hitman into a moody and dark emotional film. Keaton described the story of these two unlikely friends to The New York Times saying, “What I love about this movie is that there’s this island, and two people who happen to wash up on it at the same time, and pretty soon the water’s going to rise, and there’s not going to be that island. What I love is that the most dangerous guy in this world is actually the best guy for her to be with, the safest and, in a weird way, the most noble and honorable.”

Born Michael John Douglas, Keaton was the youngest of seven children in an Irish Catholic family living in a Scots-Irish community in Pennsylvania. After the stardom of actor Michael Douglas, son of Kirk Douglas, Michael realized he needed a different stage name, choosing Keaton after reading an interview with actress Diane Keaton. He broke into film with memorable roles as Batman in several Tim Burton films following the dark hero as well as his title role in Beetle Juice. More recently, Keaton was nominated for a SAG award for his role as James Angleton on the TNT miniseries The Company.

hanks to the efforts of George Heslin, nine companies presented the plays of 13 Irish writers at five locations during New York’s first Irish theater festival called 1st Irish 2008. Heslin, a playwright and actor himself, was no stranger to the New York stage when the idea for this festival came to him. He had been featured in several off-Broadway productions and was once a resident of London’s West End theater scene.

Heslin, in an interview with The Irish Voice, said of 1st Irish, “What inspired me to do this is that I’ve worked on a personal level with a lot of these great new playwrights in Ireland and I never saw their work being produced in America. That was the first spark behind it.”

Heslin, who is Irish born, studied at the Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College Dublin, The Abbey Theatre Dublin Directors Program and The HB Studio New York. His theater company, Origin Theatre, has brought a huge number of European, many of them Irish, writers’ works to America.

Heslin worked in television in Ireland and is moving into film, while planning this year’s 2nd Irish 2009.

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Jimmy Fallon and Conan O’Brien BC’s late-night talk shows are now in the comedic hands of two familiar IrishAmerican jesters. Conan O’Brien replaced Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, and filling his shoes on Late Night is comedian, actor and musician Jimmy Fallon.

Fallon is best known for his years on Saturday Night Live where he played a variety of memorable characters and hosted the longrunning spoof “Weekend Update” along with head writer and actress Tina Fey. Fey, now star of NBC hit 30 Rock, told Broadcasting & Cable of Fallon’s new hosting gig, “I think it’s a great idea. He’s really funny and loves to talk to people; it must be that Irish charm. Hosting a talk show is hard, having to do the comedy and the interview skills, but I actually think he’s really well suited for it.”

Born James Thomas Fallon in Brooklyn to Jim and Gloria, the actor-comedian was raised in the upstate New York town Saugerties with his

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older sister Gloria.

Conan O’Brien made his Irish heritage a regular topic of discussion and a fair amount of mockery on his show Late Night. In one episode the Massachusetts native traveled to County Kerry in search of his Irish roots. In 2008, he was honored by The American Ireland Fund Young Leaders at a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in New York.

On his switch to the earlier time slot and the new L.A.-based set, O’Brien told USA Today, “I physically don’t belong in L.A. I’m not genetically engineered to live that close to the Mexican border…You can’t do something like that and not change the DNA a little bit.”

As Fallon prepared to debut as host he found Conan O’Brien, in his dressing room, still packing up. “I’m about to start my first show,” Fallon told him eagerly.

“Oh, is that tonight?” O'Brien replied. “I was gonna TiVo it, or something.”

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TRADITIONAL MUSIC

Billy McComiskey eared in a musical family in the Catskills and New York City and mentored by legendary musician Sean McGlynn, Billy McComiskey developed into one of the best known box players of his generation. In the mid 1970s along with Brendan Mulvihill and Andy O’Brien, he formed The Irish Tradition, torching the capital with a residency at the Dubliner Pub in Washington, D.C., and producing three exciting recordings. In the 1980s, after marrying Annie Caskey from Baltimore, he set about sparking a scene in the gritty working class harbor town. In 1986, he won a Senior All-Ireland championship on the Accordion. Billy has played for three U.S. Presidents and been recognized for his work with Irish Tradition, Green Fields of America, Trian, and recently, The Pride of New York ceili band. He was a key cog in the revival of traditional music in the Irish Catskills where he teaches at the Augusta Heritage Center and at the Catskills Irish Arts Week. It was here, last July, that he released his second solo album, Outside the Box, to instant acclaim.

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Mike Rafferty ixty years ago Mike Rafferty left his home in East Galway to seek a better life in America. Raised in a fertile traditional area famed for the Ballinakill Ceili Band, he was the son of a fine musician who played the whistle, flute and uilleann pipes and carried the name Tom “Barrel” Rafferty, so mighty was his wind and sound on the flute and whistle. Young Mike showed the most promise of seven siblings up to the time he emigrated in 1949 but the music lay dormant in him for a decade while he established a new life working for Grand Union, marrying Theresa and raising a family of five children in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey. In 1959, fellow Galwegian musicians Joe Madden, Joe Burke and Sean McGlynn and Sligo flute players Mike Preston and Mike Flynn lit the fire back under him. In 1976, Mick Moloney drafted Mike and other top Irish musicians to play at the Bicentennial Celebrations in Washington, D.C. Soon after, the Green Fields of America ensemble was founded and a nationwide tour followed. Mike continued to teach young musicians and was active in the Comhaltas Ceolteoiri Eireann (CCE) Martin Mulvihill Branch in New Jersey, and now a CCE branch is named after him. His daughter Mary is also a talented musician who played the whistle, flute and accordion with Cherish the Ladies for eight years. Mike and Mary have recorded three albums (www.raffertymusic.com) and four years ago, at the age of 78, Mike produced his first solo album, Speed 78. A second CD will be released later this year.

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PATRICK MCCOMISKEY

Bill McEvoy orty years ago, Bill McEvoy, originally from Kilcoke, Ballybrophy, was the first Comhaltas Ceolteori Eireann (CCE) coordinator to organize what became the annual concert tour of North America, the longest-running continuous tour from Ireland featuring traditional music, song and dance. Less than a decade after emigrating with a young family in 1954, McEvoy turned the declining Irish Musicians Association into the nascent North American branch system that would reach 50 clubs throughout the U.S. and Canada. So fruitful were his efforts building CCE’s structure and influence over here that it

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was granted provincial status (along with Ireland’s four provinces and Britain) in 1991.

Still very active in CCE North America and Ireland, Bill stepped down as the first provincial chair in 1997, after steering the operation for 25 demanding years. Now 86, he has more time to spend with his wife of 59 years, Lily from County Kerry, their nine children, 25 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. In 1995, Bill was named Laois Man of the Year (the only American to gain this honor). In 1998 he was inducted into the CCE Mid-Atlantic Regional Hall of Fame.

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RIVERDANCING THE GLOBE Irish dance has truly traveled the globe. Much of the recent upsurge in Irish dance schools can be traced to Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, shows which are still touring and still inspiring. nce banned by the church because it was seen as sinful, Irish dance has since flourished not only in countries with a large population of Irish immigrants like Scotland, England and America, but also in places like South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and even Russia.

The international interest in Irish dance can be attributed to Michael Flatley, and the many shows he has premiered around the world, including the still traveling Lord of The Dance. It all began when Flatley and Jean Butler starred in Riverdance, which was performed during the interval at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994

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Michael Flatley in the midst of a Russian revolution in Irish dancing in Moscow. Right: John McColgan and Moya Doherty.

and went on to be developed into a fully-fledged show by producers John McColgan and Moya Doherty. But before Riverdance was ever heard of, the Irish Dancing Commission promoted Irish dancing with a good measure of success.

Founded by the Gaelic League in Dublin in 1893 as part of the effort to promote all aspects of Irish culture, the Irish Dancing Commission continues to promote and regulate Irish dance competitions around the world and currently has councils in England, Scotland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Australia and New Zealand both claim a large number of Irish immigrants and have very strong Irish dance communities. In 1980, Fiona Gaye Snowden from the Ransley School of Dance became the first Australian to win the world championship in the Under-19 Ladies Competition in the Mansion House Dublin. More recently, in 1996, Conor Hayes became the first Australian man to win a world championship and the first Australian to perform with Riverdance. Meanwhile, New Zealand boasts around 23 registered Irish dance instructors and celebrated the 50th anniversary of the New Zealand National Irish Dancing Championship in 2000.

With a large Irish population of Irish immigrants and a tradition in step dancing, Canada sends several Irish dancers to the World Championships in Ireland every year. Among the Canadian dance 60 IRISH AMERICA APRIL/MAY 2009

schools, the Irwin School of Irish Dancing in Calgary has become one of the most experienced and established. They have had top three podium placings at the world championships in solo categories and numerous National Ceili competitions.

Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus are some of the last places that come to mind when one thinks of Irish dance, but students in these Eastern European countries are not only taking lessons but competing in Feisanna in Minsk, Kiev, Odessa and Moscow. Already the tri-nations of Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine boast more than 20 Irish Dancing schools and five dance Feiseanna. Dancers from the Rooney School of Dance in Moscow not only qualified for the World Championships in Belfast in 2008 but made it to the final rounds, coming in at ninth place in the dance drama competition.

There is even a large population of Irish dancers in Cracow, Poland. The Feis in Cracow in 2008 had 312 competitors including dancers from as far away as Moscow and St. Petersburg, London, Warsaw, Budapest and Paris. The 2009 Cracow Feis will include schools from Prague, Slovakia, Austria, Szczecin, Vienna and Germany.

Irish dancing in South Africa might seem as unusual as it is in Eastern Europe. But the history of Irish dancing in the country dates back as far as the early 1900s. Irish missionaries have been coming to South Africa for over 100 years. In cities like Elizabeth, Kimberley and Johannesburg, Irish immigrants were better off than those who journeyed to Australia and America, and were often professionals such as doctors, lawyers, dentists, Catholic priests and journalists. Much of the success of this type of dancing in South Africa is due to the efforts of An Coimisiun le Rinci Gaeltacha vice president, Dr. John Cullinane, who was instrumental in developing workshop sessions. Formal Irish dancing competitions were launched in 1999, and recently South African Irish dancing teachers were placed under the guidance of the Irish Dancing Commission. In 2007 the first Teagascóir Choimisiúin le Rinci Gaelacha (TCRG), or Irish Dancing Teachers Certification Examination, was administered in South Africa.

It’s a true testimony to the far reach of Irish dance culture that dance associations have been formed in so many different countries.

There are currently websites for the Nordic Society of Irish Dancers, the Danish Society of Irish Dancers and the Japan Irish Dancing Association. Developments such as these are sure to keep Irish dance fresh as it becomes interwoven with other cultures and traditions.

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IRISH DANCE Owen Barrington raditionally dominated by Irish and English competitors, Americans have become powerful contenders in dance in the past ten years. Owen Barrington became the first Alaskan to qualify for and win a World Irish Dance Championship.

The 24-year-old Anchorage-born dancer took first place in the Men’s Over 21 competition in Belfast in April, 2008.

In 2004, Barrington moved to Tacoma, Washington for college while continuing to train at the Comerford School of Irish Dance. Owen’s talents won him a spot in Riverdance that same year. After two years of touring he left the troupe to train seriously for the World Championships. Aside from World Champion, Owen’s other accolades include two-time Western U.S Regional champion and Men’s All-Ireland champion, 2008. He is currently pursuing a business administration degree from the University of Washington and dreams of one day opening his own Irish dance school.

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Trinity & Claddagh Win Ceili Titles s well as producing several individual winners, American dancers also proved successful in World Irish Dance Championship team competitions in Belfast. The Trinity Academy of Irish Dance from Chicago, pictured above, took first place in the minor girls ceili and minor girls figure competitions, and the Claddagh Dance Company from California captured the title in the junior girls ceili competitions.

The Trinity Academy of Irish Dance established itself in the late 1980s as the first American Irish dance team to bring home a gold medal from the World Championships in Ireland and has since dominated the ceili team competitions. This win brings Trinity’s world title count to a whopping 30. The Academy was established by Mark Howard when he was only 17.

The Claddagh Dance Company is the premier dance school in Southern California and includes over 50 North American Championship dancers in solo and team events. The school is under the direction of Moire O’Connell who moved to Ventura from Galway, Ireland in 1978.

This coming April, for the first time ever, the World Championships of Irish dance will be held on American soil, in Philadelphia. Hopefully a home advantage will result in even more American wins in 2009.

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Fiona Dargan irst-place winner in the girls 10-11 competition, Fiona Dargan didn’t have far to look to find a mentor. Her older sister Kevinah won the title in 2005. Both Fiona and Kevinah dance for the Rince Na Tiarna dance school in Buffalo, New York.

Aside from her extraordinary talents as a dancer, Fiona is just a normal fifth grader at Mill Middle School where she enjoys playing travel soccer for Williamsville. Before heading to the World Irish Dance Championship in Belfast, Fiona, pictured right with her teacher Mary Kay Heneghan, suffered a bout of bron-

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chitis that nearly put her out of commission.

Luckily, she pulled through and put in a winning performance.

Another lucky streak saved the lives of Fiona, Kevinah, their mother Tracy, and dance teacher Mary Kay. The group were returning from the All-Ireland’s competition in Killarney on February 12, and were scheduled as passengers on the ill-fated Continental Airlines flight that crashed outside Buffalo. Due to an early arriving Continental flight from Shannon, the four were able to board an earlier flight and arrived home unscathed.

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IRISH AMERICA

COMMUNITY

Major Dan Rooney ajor Dan Rooney, an F-16 pilot, returned from his third tour in Iraq last November and went to work with the Folds of Honor to raise money for scholarships for the families of soldiers injured or killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Rooney, a PGA professional and USGA member, combines his love of golf with his dedication to the cause. The Patriot Golf Day, sponsored by the PGA and the United States Golf Association, is a nationwide campaign for Folds of Honor, which raised $2 million last year. Three thousand four hundred participating golf courses across the country collected an extra dollar in green fees for Folds of Honor, which was able to award almost 200 scholarships in 2008. The third annual Patriot Golf Day will take place this summer.

Rooney earned his undergraduate degree as well as a master’s degree in Performance Psychology from the University of Kansas. The decorated military aviator and major in the Air National Guard was honored with the Presidential Volunteer Service Award as well as an Air National Guard Distinguished Service Medal last year. A father of four, Rooney is a golf course owner and residential developer as well as a certified Sports Psychologist. Rooney’s maternal grandfather John McKoane came form County Clare, and most of the Rooney clan came to the U.S. between 1840 and 1860 from Counties Down and Dublin.

These individuals embody the Irish values of service and activism in giving back to their local and global communities, championing the rights of children across the world, offering support for immigrant struggles and the eradication of polio, and working for the preservation of Irish culture and history.

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Mia Farrow ia Farrow, the daughter of Australian film director John Farrow and Irish-born actress Maureen O’Sullivan, has achieved great success in films, including seven Golden Globe nominations (and one win) and three BAFTA Award nominations. Films such as Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo and Crimes and Misdemeanors have become classics thanks in part to Farrow’s acting talent. However, as memorable as her performance in disturbing but brilliant films like Rosemary’s Baby may be, it is her charity work that she is receiving attention for today.

Farrow is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and has worked for years on various projects focused on children’s rights. Her work has often concentrated on eradicating polio, a disease that she survived at age nine. With three trips to Darfur behind her, Farrow has written several articles, accompanied by photographs she has taken of the suffering of Darfur refugees. She worked with activist group Dream for Darfur, which criticized China’s support of the Sudanese government in light of the Beijing Olympics this past summer. Her website and blog detail her trips to Darfur as well as other African regions. She consistently updates her blog, chronicling the military activities and charity advances made in the regions.

COURTESY FOLDS OF HONOR FOUNDATION

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Vanessa Tobin anessa Tobin works for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), which fights for children’s rights, their survival, development and protection. Vanessa joined UNICEF in 1981. She has been Chief of the Water, Environment and Sanitation Section of UNICEF since May 2001, and now serves as Deputy Director of the Program Division where she is responsible for new roles, functions and responsibilities of the division, with a focus on providing technology that is appropriate and manageable for the people of third world countries.

Born in England of Irish parents – her father was from Drangan, County Tipperary, and her mother hailed from County Laois – Vanessa obtained her BSc in civil engineering from Birmingham University, and an MSC in public health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and went on to earn a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University. She began her career working as a civil engineer for the British government and as a sanitary engineer in the UK and Nepal. She also served as a consultant for the NGO ACORD in Southern Sudan and as a Technical Cooperation Officer for the British government in Lesotho. Since beginning her work with UNICEF in 1981, she has been stationed in Nepal, Pakistan and Egypt where she worked to provide suitable sanitation programs for rural and peri-urban areas. Though her work has spanned a variety of areas, her main focus has been on sanitation and Tobin continues to work through UNICEF, with companies such as Ethos Water to get safe, clean water to those in need.

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he availability of speech and language therapy services in Ireland was a crisis in need of solution when Tara Cunningham, an Irish American from New Jersey, founded Release Communication Ltd. in 2005.

Cunningham recognized “the catastrophic need for speech and language therapy” while working for Down Syndrome Ireland in 2003. Children get 6-12 hours of speech and language therapy annually from the Irish Health Service Executive; Release provides up to 160 hours by empowering parents and teachers to give speech therapy. “Working within existing relationships changes the experience of therapy for the children who now learn core skills through daily playbased activities instead of a high pressure one-on-one system of sounds and repeats,” says Cunningham.

The next step for Cunningham, whose father is from Co. Limerick, is to push Release into the global arena, supported by her election as an Ashoka Fellow. The organization is currently evaluating locations to pilot the program outside of Ireland. New York, Sweden and Malaysia are possibilities. “The faster we expand, the more children we can help,” says Tara.

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he impressions of immigrant struggle have never left Mike Gibbons’ memory.

“As a young boy I watched my mother wrap gifts of food and clothing to send to our Irish relatives who were having a hard time,” he recalls. While he was enjoying corporate success as executive vice president with Estée Lauder, many of his nights were devoted to giving something back to the immigrant community through his work at the International Center in New York City. “My whole family were volunteers there,” he said in an interview with Irish America. “It’s just a great thing to be able to do, to give back to people who really need help.”

Recently retired from Estée Lauder, Mike is still involved in the community, and as an Irish American – his father made his way to New York from Partry, Co. Mayo, while his mother emigrated from Nova Scotia to the U.S. in the 1920s – is very much involved with things Irish.

In 2002 he became president of the Ireland-U.S. Council, founded in 1962 to encourage business ties between the U.S. and Ireland. His wife Cynthia is an enthusiastic participant in Gibbons’ Irish life, as are their four grown children. This St. Patrick’s Day they will proudly march beside him as he makes the trip up Fifth Avenue as Grand Marshal of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

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PHOTO CREDIT: PEWEE FLOMOKU

Tara Cunningham: Release Communication Ltd.

Michael Gibbons

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Kate’s Project usband-and-wife team Andrew McCarroll and Roisin Hall founded Kate’s Project Trust in 2006 in response to a need they both felt.

“After taking care of both sets of elderly and frail parents, there was a visible void in our lives,” says McCarroll. “We both have an innate sense of caring and nurturing in us and realized that there was something calling us to continue in the same vein.” After they sold their home and most of their possessions, the couple’s attention was drawn by a Redemptorist priest to the town of Pattaya in Thailand. They first visited as volunteers at the Pattaya Orphanage, established in the early 1970’s Roisin Hall and and her husband Andrew McCarroll with friends in Pattaya

by Irish-American Fr. Ray Brennan, and were overwhelmed by the “huge problems” that the disencourage adult literacy, and provide aid in the form of food and enfranchised poor, especially women and children, face there. secure housing. Working with Thai coordinator Khun Noi, Kate’s “Pattaya is probably the sex tourism capital of the world and has a Project has built an office in central Pattaya dubbed the “Centre of whole tourist industry based around the millions who flock to the Hope” that provides education in literacy and other skills, a library, city’s hotels and bars for a ‘good time,’” says McCarroll. “Roisin medical care and other assistance. To date the Project has made it found herself working at the Street Kids Project. It was her time spent possible for some 120 children to attend local schools, paying school here where she was introduced to the families that lived in the slums. fees as well as funding daily lunches, school uniforms and classroom It was clear even in those early days that here was a section of the materials. Both lifetime inhabitants of Belfast, McCarroll and Hall Pattaya population that was severely overlooked.” take turns flying back and forth to visit their friends in Pattaya, and Named after Roisin’s mother Kathleen Hall, Kate’s Project has love their work. McCarroll believes “service is an essential part of clearly defined goals to educate children, show support to families, being human, but the Irish are particularly tuned into it.”

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Abigail Disney and Gini Reticker: Pray the Devil Back to Hell n the feature-length documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell, producer Abigail E. Disney and director Gini Reticker bring us the extraordinary story of a small band of Liberian women who came together in the midst of a bloody, decades old civil war to demand peace for their nation. Through moral courage and non-violent resistance, these women took on the brutal warlords and corrupt Charles Taylor regime, and were instrumental in achieving peace for their shattered country in 2003.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell, Abigail Disney’s film debut, won the Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008 and was short listed for an Academy

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PHOTO CREDIT: GREG KESSLER

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Award. Disney is currently developing a four-hour project for WNET/Wide Angle called Women, War & Peace.

Disney is also the Founder and President of the Daphne Foundation, a progressive, social change foundation that makes grants to grassroots, community-based organizations working with lowincome communities in New York City.

A multiple Emmy and Gracie award winner, Gini Reticker produced the Academy Award nominated short Asylum, and the Emmy-nominated A Decade Under the Influence. Directing for the PBS series Wide Angle, she took home an Emmy for Ladies First, which focused on the role of women in rebuilding post-genocide Rwanda. The Class of 2006 spotlighted the first fifty women in Morocco to graduate from an imam academy in Rabat.

Because of their ancestral ties to Ireland, both Disney and Reticker were moved when Leymah Gbowee (the lead activist featured in Pray the Devil Back to Hell) of Liberia told them how the women of Ireland had inspired the Liberian women to bring peace to their country. In October 2008, the two stayed at the Disney family home in Ireland to celebrate the opening of Pray the Devil Back to Hell at the 53rd Corona Cork Film Festival.

Left: Protesting in front of UN envoy at Mamba Point Monrovia, Liberia.

Above: Director Gini Reticker (left) and Producer Abigail E. Disney (right).

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Don Keenan on Keenan spearheaded the drive to provide a new home for the Murphy family of Atlanta, who since 1983 have adopted 23 children ranging in age from 13 months to 34 years. Although all adopted children have some sort of special needs, the majority of the Murphy children have Down syndrome. John and Jeanette Murphy have a passion to teach these children both independence and teamwork, and for them to grow into thriving adults.

Now, thanks to Don, and the efforts of a team of volunteers, the family entered their new home in early March.

Dr. Austin Fragomen, Don has been raising awareness of chilSergeant John Borders, Flip Mullen dren’s issues for over 25 years. A lawyer and Dr. John who has received numerous honors, Kennedy. including the Chief Justice Award for Below right: A Civility and Professionalism, he formed veteran on the ski slopes. the Keenan’s Kids Foundation in 1993, to raise community awareness about child issues on everything from playground safety to trigger locks for guns.

Raised in Morehead City, North Carolina, Keenan knew from an early age that things did not come easy to everyone. After his father died, he was raised by his grandfather who told him stories of “No Irish Need Apply” signs and Keenan never forgot those stories.

In a nod to both his Irish and Southern roots, Keenan has been the driving force behind this magazine’s annual “Stars of the South” gala in Atlanta, which honors Irish-Americans and Scots-Irish from the Southern United States.

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Dr. John Kennedy and Flip Mullen lip Mullen and Dr. John Kennedy met and began talking at Irish America’s Top 100 awards evening two years ago.

Mullen told Dr. Kennedy, director of the Running Clinic in the Gait Laboratory at the Hospital for Special Surgery, New York about his work as the organizer of a fourday summer sports festival in Rockaway, New York for wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mullen, whose Irish roots lie in western Ireland, is a retired NYPD and FDNY officer who became involved with the Wounded Warriors Project – an organization set up by John Melia to provide programs and services for wounded veterans and their families.

Kennedy is a Dublin native who continues his charity work in Santo Domingo where he performs 15 to 20 orthopedic surgeries free of charge each year. After the two men met, Mullen and other members of the Wounded Warriors Project began to advise injured soldiers who may require a second medical opinion to seek the advice of Dr. Kennedy. Speaking about meeting Kennedy, Mullen said, “Thanks to fate and Irish America magazine, we are able to help a whole lot of fellas. . . . Kennedy is not just a second opinion. He is a wonderful top-notch surgeon.

There is normally a two-year waiting list for patients to have a consultation with the doctor, but he makes huge exceptions for our soldiers.”

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The Aisling Center t the heart of the Irish community in Yonkers, New York lies the Aisling Irish Community Center, a hub for Irish immigrants and ex-pats. The center, which was established in 1996 to provide assistance to the wave of Irish immigrants, has over the years become a fully fledged social services organization delivering a vital range of social, Elizabeth Donnelly, Orla Doherty and Maura Jordan. educational and recreational services and programs for the entire community. On an average week, some volunteers can be found preparing food at the center that is later dis300 people contact the center either on the telephone, through e-mail tributed to homeless on the streets of New York. or in person. Executive Director of the Aisling Center, Orla Doherty Although the center only has three full-time staff (pictured above), from Co. Kerry, is the backbone of the organization. She told up to 40 volunteers help out with various projects. Sr. Christine Irish America that they endeavor on a daily basis to help the Irish Hennessy of Project Irish Outreach and Catholic Charities is also community as best they can. “We help people out with a wide number based at the center. Sr. Christine is a social worker who spends most of issues ranging from unemployment to medical assistance to of her time visiting elderly and ill members of the community and substance abuse,” said Doherty. providing support to persons experiencing difficulties. Last year the As the Celtic Tiger roared in Ireland, the center’s focus shifted center produced Memory Brings Us Back, a 60-minute documentary from solely providing assistance to new immigrants to those already featuring the captivating stories of 10 children of Ireland who immiestablished in the country. In recent years the center has become an grated to the U.S. between 1927 and 1964. It was based on a book educational vessel and social club for senior members of the Irish created at the center in 2006 called While Mem’ry Brings Us Back community. On any given day, more than a dozen men and women, Again, which stemmed out of a writing class for the elderly. It began sometimes double that, can be found laughing and sharing stories of with the words “I remember…” The project ignited a torrent of recoltimes past in the back room of the center as the Irish elderly sip their lections about sailing on ships such as the SS America, SS Barry’s tea and nibble fresh scones from a local Irish restaurant.

Washington, the Britannica, the Olympia, and the Queen Elizabeth.

The center is also home to numerous cultural programs including The Aisling Irish Community Center is located at 990 McLean Irish language, music and dance. Every Monday, a dedicated group of Avenue, Yonkers, NY 10470. www.aislingcenter.org (914) 237 5121.

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Mother Margaret and The Little Sisters of The Poor he Little Sisters of the Poor arrived in San Francisco on March 14, 1901, taking up residence at 2030 Howard Street. They were welcomed by George Doherty, an Irish laborer and widower; within weeks they were joined by the first woman resident, Anne Doyle. Over the years thousands of elderly men and women, of all faiths, nationalities, and backgrounds of society, have been welcomed through the doors of St. Anne's Home, which was rebuilt in 1982 and is now on Lake Street.

Today, St. Anne’s is in the capable hands of Mother Superior Margaret Lennon. As a teenager Mother Margaret decided that she had found her life’s calling when she came across an article on the Little Sisters in a magazine, and she has never regretted her decision. In fact, she says of her life of service that she’s gotten back “a hundred fold.”

Margaret, who grew up on a farm in County Kilkenny with one brother and four sisters, began her religious life in the novitiate in Dublin, where she took the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience,

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Mother Margaret with St. Anne’s resident Guadeloupe Robbins.

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to which the Little Sisters of the Poor add a fourth, hospitality. She entered the order on September 8, 1960, as is traditional, the day before the birthday of the Blessed Mother, and will celebrate her 49th anniversary this year.

Margaret’s parents supported her decision. “My father said, ‘As long as you are happy. Because if you are not happy you will be miserable and make life miserable for everyone else,’” she recalls with a chuckle.

The Little Sisters have several homes in Ireland, and some 35 homes in the U.S. In 1963, Margaret was sent to Savannah, Georgia. She still recalls with horror her first experience of racism, and the “separate lines” for whites and blacks. “We had a black driver, a wonderful man named David Shepard, but in certain areas we had to duck down in the car lest the Ku Klux Klan shoot at us for having a black man as a driver,” she remembers. She has spent time in several of the homes in the U.S., including Chicago and Ohio, and is now back for her second tour in San Francisco.

The news that the foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor, Jeanne Jugan, is going to be canonized this October is “wonderful – something that I did not expect to happen in my lifetime. It’s a great, great honor for our congregation. “[Jeanne] picked the name of the congregation, ‘little’ meaning humility, unassuming, the opposite to being proud and haughty.”

The Little Sisters depend on donations. “We depend solemnly on divine providence – St. Joseph is our father, protector and provider – we depend on what people give us,” she said.

Mother Margaret says she has found “great job satisfaction” in serving the elderly. “We value their life at every stage, not just when they are in their productive years. Their ‘suffering lives’ still have a very redemptive value.”

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Don Keough

Loretta Brennan Glucksman s National Chairman of The American Ireland Fund, Loretta Brennan Glucksman has been called “Ireland’s greatest advocate” in the United States. Focusing on the revival of Irish culture and the nurturing of Irish-American culture, Glucksman is the co-founder of Glucksman Ireland House (the Center for Irish Studies at New York University), where more than 700 students engage in Irish and IrishAmerican studies on subjects of art, literature, history and language.

Education has been at the forefront of Gluckman’s efforts. Ireland House is a townhouse just off Washington Square in New York, donated to New York University by Loretta and her late husband Lew Glucksman, who passed away in 2006. She also supports educational programs at the University of Limerick and University College of Cork.

The American Ireland Fund has worked extensively to fund the integration of Protestant and Catholic children in Northern Ireland. Glucksman said to The Irish Examiner of her work with the Fund, “When people see children who have never been allowed to be educated together doing just that, they want to be involved. I have every optimistic hope that our efforts will help in a very real way towards peace and opportunity.”

A third-generation Irish-American, Glucksman grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania in a predominantly Irish community. Her maternal grandparents immigrated from Leitrim in Famine times. Her paternal grandparents hailed from Donegal.

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Chuck Feeney

Niall Mellon Township Trust

huck Feeney was never one for the limelight, but his selfless actions over the years have brought him recognition whether he liked it or not.

In 1996, it emerged that he had donated over $600 million, a huge portion of his personal wealth, to create Atlantic Foundation, the fourth-largest philanthropic organization in the U.S. The co-founder of Duty Free Shops, Feeney, a New Jersey native, was identified as the donor only after the sale of the chain of stores.

Innumerable charities and organizations have benefited from this donation, three Irish universities among them – Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University, and the University of Limerick. Feeney has always gone to bat on all things Irish, from lending his considerable support in bringing American involvement to bear on the Irish peace process to supporting efforts to help illegal Irish immigrants.

In 2007, Feeney’s life story was told in The Billionaire Who Wasn’t: How Chuck Feeney Made and Gave Away a Fortune Without Anyone Knowing by Conor O’Clery, which told his incredible story. Feeney’s Irish roots go back to County Fermanagh, and he holds dual citizenship in Ireland and the U.S.

ince 2002, the Niall Mellon Township Trust has constructed over 10,000 homes for impoverished communities in the townships of South Africa.

The trust was founded by property developer, entrepreneur and humanitarian Niall Mellon, who was only 35 at the time. It offers training in construction skills year-round, providing employment opportunities for 2,000 South Africans, mostly from the townships in which houses are built. The trust’s “Building Blitz” is an annual event where Irish volunteers build hundreds of houses in just one week. The Building Blitz 2008 participants surpassed their goal of 250 houses, erecting 253 homes for families who waited up to 25 years for a residence.

Over the past seven years, over 5,000 Irish volunteers have played a vital role in the NMTT’s Building Blitzes. Upon accepting a new house on her family’s behalf last November, one woman said, “Both my children have HIV. Now this house has given them a future . . . they cannot take the smile off their faces. We used to fear the rain because it made us wet and cold. Not anymore! Now I will have to go outside to see if it is raining. I hope the Irish will come and visit me next year.”

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PHOTO: PETER FOLEY

onald Keough was born in a small town in Iowa, but when the Depression hit, Keough’s father lost most of his money in the cattle market. The family had to move to Sioux City, where Keough’s father struggled to start over again.

The young Keough enlisted in the Navy and after serving two years, went to Creighton University on the G.I. Bill. He began his career in television and radio, and moved to marketing for a food company, which was acquired by CocaCola in 1964. Ten years later, Keough was named president of Coca-Cola. He left Coca-Cola in 1993, having served as president, chief operating officer, and director of the worldwide Coca-Cola Company, and is now the chairman of the board of Allen & Company Incorporated, a New York investment banking firm.

After a career in corporate America, he turned to a venture of a different kind – investing in Irish studies. In 1993, with an endowment of $2.5 million he established the Keough Institute of Irish Studies at Notre Dame, his alma mater, and the Keough Notre Dame Centre in Dublin, Ireland. “Notre Dame didn’t have any type of academic Irish Studies program. It just seemed like a natural fit to me,” Keough said at the time.

Notre Dame’s highest honor, the Laetare Medal, was presented to Keough in 1993.

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CORPORATE CHIEFTAINS Denis Kelleher

John Dooner

he son of a shoemaker, Denis Kelleher moved from his home county of Kerry to New York in search of employment after the death of his father. Kelleher was not in New York more than two days before he landed a job as a messenger for Merill Lynch, a job through which Kelleher gained tremendous experience.

He would eventually pursue undergraduate studies at St. John’s University and in 1981 he founded Wall Street Access, a financial services organization with expertise in money management and trading for institution and hedge funds. He is now a member of the Independence Community Bank and The New Ireland Fund.

“Growing up in Ireland, I thought New York was the city of possibility and now I know that’s a reality,” Kelleher told the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities. “Helping others is the greatest high you can get. That’s what business is about too. If you just go into business to make money, then you have missed the boat.”

Kelleher has certainly done his share of helping; he and his wife established “The Good Deeds” foundation, which provides financial rewards for those in Ireland involved in altruistic work. He also funds suicide prevention efforts in rural Ireland and has worked behind the scenes to advance political stability and peace in Northern Ireland. In 2005, Kelleher was the Grand Marshal of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City.

He is married with three children.

s chairman and chief executive officer of McCann Worldwide, John Dooner has led the company in its transformation from the leading global advertising agency to one of the largest and fastest-growing integrated marketing communications organizations. He has also been the chairman and CEO of McCann Worldgroup since 1997. The company was named “Agency of the Year” by several advertising publications in the U.S. and Europe under Dooner’s guidance.

Dooner entered the world of advertising with Interpublic’s Marschalk (now Lowe & Partners Worldwide) where he eventually was named Executive Vice President and Director of Account Management. Dooner joined McCann in 1984 as a Worldwide Account Director and rose through the ranks with stints as General Manager and President of McCann North America before acquiring his current position.

The New York native is on the boards of the South Shore Medical Center and St. Thomas University, his alma mater.

His philanthropic efforts are as worthy of praise as his climb through the corporate field. He is a Charter Member of the President’s Advisory Council of CARE, a leading humanitarian group focused on eradicating poverty. Also remaining in touch with his Irish roots, which can be traced back to County Clare, Dooner is a member of the Ireland Council of the University of Notre Dame.

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Tom Moran, Anne Mulcahy and Dennis O’Brien

he CEOs Dennis O’Brien, Anne Mulcahy and Tom Moran, pictured above with Concern Worldwide’s CEO Tom Arnold (far right), span the spectrum of public service from charity work to political activism. The effects of Tom Moran’s work can be seen from Northern Ireland to Ethiopia. Known in the corporate world as a savvy businessman—he is the chairman, president and CEO of Mutual of America – he is also chairman of Concern Worldwide (U.S.), dedicated to serving the poorest people throughout the world.

Anne Mulcahy, Chairman and CEO of Xerox was honored by Concern at its annual Seeds of Hope dinner in December, and made a $250,000 donation on behalf of Xerox to Concern’s “Innovative Solutions Award,” a new initiative to find creative ways to combat poverty. Mulcahy, who was born in Rockville Centre, New York, is a second-generation Irish-American with roots in Counties Cavan and Mayo.

Irish businessman Dennis O’Brien heads up Digicel Limited, which has more than six million mobile phone subscribers in the Caribbean and around the world.

O’Brien has lent his considerable heft to such causes as the Special Olympics and serves on the board of Concern Worldwide.

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IRISH STUDIES

Seamus Blake manating out of Keating Hall on the Bronx Fordham University campus every Saturday morning for the past 17 years is the only bilingual radio program in North America devoted to fostering the Irish language. Called Míle Fáilte, the show is the brainchild of its sole producer and host, Dr. Seamus Blake. A noted literary scholar in Irish Studies, retired now from active teaching, Blake’s thematic programs are artfully blended with Irish language music recordings. He uses a touch of sardonic wit to keep things light while maintaining focus and depth.

Blake’s parents Patrick and Mary were Gaelic speakers from County Clare. Their love of the language engendered Blake’s lifetime devotion to Irish Studies.

He earned master’s and doctorate degrees from New York University, and as a Yeats scholar, attended Trinity College on a Fulbright scholarship. He was a faculty member at NYU, Nassau Community College on Long Island and City University of New York.

Once active in the Gaelic Society of New York, Blake plays a vital role today in promoting Irish language learning through Daltaí na Gaeilge and other programs stimulating the growing Irish-speaking community in North America and Ireland.

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John L. Lahey resident of Quinnipiac University for the past 22 years, John Lahey has spearheaded the university’s emergence as one of the leading eduational institutions in the U.S. He has increased Quinnipiac’s endowment from $5 million to $175 million, guided a comprehensive building program, and directed a more than 300 percent increase in student enrollment. Quinnipiac is now listed among The Princeton Review’s “Best 361 Colleges.”

A member of the NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee for more than 20 years, and the 1997 Grand Marshal of the parade, Dr. Lahey has devoted much of his time to educating the public about Ireland’s Great Hunger. Under his leadership, Quinnipiac has

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Lori Meghan Gallagher ori Meghan Gallagher is the Director of the Center for Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. She has served in that position since the Center opened in January 2003. As director, Gallagher oversees the Irish Studies academic program, which consists of an undergraduate minor program and a graduate concentration in the Master in Liberal Arts program, and the Ireland Study Abroad Program. The university offers five or six interdisciplinary Irish Studies courses each semester.

Gallagher is a fourth-generation Irish-American whose family immigrated to America in the 1860s from Donegal. They settled in New Mexico, where they became cattle ranchers. She received her undergraduate degrees in English and journalism as well as her Juris Doctorate degree from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

Lori was a member of Phi Beta Kappa as an undergraduate and the Editor-in-Chief of the New Mexico Law Review in law school. She received a postgraduate diploma in Anglo-Irish literature from Trinity College, Dublin on a Rotary Foundation scholarship.

Her career at the University of St. Thomas enables Gallagher to combine her Irish heritage and love of Irish literature, history, politics and culture with her legal background. She also is a director of The Irish Society, a local non-sectarian, non-partisan cultural group that was instrumental in the creation of the Center for Irish Studies at UST and that co-sponsors many Irish cultural events with the Center.

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Above: Jessica Stachyra, Irish Studies student, Lori Meghan Gallagher, Aoife Ní Ghloinn, Visiting Scholar in Irish Language and Music, Carlow, Ireland, and Jessica Smith, Irish Studies student.

developed one of the largest collections of books, educational materials and art on the subject.

Lahey, who was raised in the Bronx, resides in Connecticut with his wife Judy and his two sons, Brent and Robert. His paternal grandfather, Daniel Lahey, was born in County Kerry. His paternal grandmother, Agnes Roche, hails from Cork and his maternal grandmother, Nellie Griffin, is from Clare. His mother, Caroline, taught at St. Margaret’s School for 40 years, and his late father Herb was a long-time member of the New York City bricklayers’ union and founder of the Riverdale Little League.

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POLITICS & PUBLIC SERVICE There will never be an election year like 2008 again. At the end two men were left standing, and both claim Irish heritage.

President Obama & Vice President Biden

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Biden made a bit of a confession as he introduced the stationmaster he saw just about every morning as he caught the “Acela” train from Wilmington to Washington: “Occasionally, [Ron would] be standing outside the door as the Acela came up,” Biden said. “I’d be coming down Martin Luther King Blvd. I’d call in here to Ron and say, ‘Ron, I can see the light. I’m only two [minutes] away. Whadd’ya say?’ He’d say, ‘I’ll check the train.’ [And Ron would see to it that] there was always some ‘mechanical difficulty’ that lasted a minute or two.”

As the crowd roared with laughter, Biden said, “I can admit that now.”

Biden and Obama boarded the train and rode into Baltimore, then Washington, as people came out in their backyards and stations along the way to wave their hands and their American flags at the passing train.

– By Abdon M. Pallasch

AP PHOTO/CHARLES DHARAPAK

oth President Obama’s and Vice President Biden’s Irish roots go back to the Irish Famine – that calamitous period of starvation that saw mass emigration between 1845-52. President Obama’s maternal great-great-great-grandfather Falmouth Kearney emigrated from Monegall, County Offaly in 1850 and settled, first in Ohio, and later Indiana.

Vice President Joe Biden’s family also emigrated during the famine – his mother’s family, the Finnegans, hailed from County Mayo. Biden himself grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania in “a predominantly Irish neighborhood and an overwhelmingly Irish parish. The centerpiece of life in Scranton was the church, the nuns, the priest, the monsignor,” he recalled in an interview with Irish America. His father always said that Biden was an Irish name, and it’s thought that the family may have been French Huguenots who settled in Ireland.

Biden’s Irish ancestry was much on his mind as he and his family joined President Obama on symbolic journey by train from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., on the Saturday before the inauguration.

WILMINGTON, Del. — The 20-degree chill did not dissuade about 8,000 people from massing to send off Vice President-elect Joe Biden at the train stop where he left for work and returned each day for 36 years. It was the Saturday before the inauguration and President-elect Barack Obama had ridden in from Philadelphia on a vintage 1930 Pullman car to pick Biden up on the way to Washington.

“I know you’re always kidding me, Delaware, you’re always kidding me for quoting Irish poets and Irish authors but I’m about to do it again,” Biden told the crowd, the steam of his breath rising. “James Joyce once wrote, ‘When I die, Dublin will be written in my heart.’ But when I die, Delaware will be written in mine.”

The crowd cheered.

“Folks, this is more than an ordinary train ride — it is a new beginning,” Biden said as he introduced the president-elect.

Obama reminded Biden’s constituents all the reasons he chose the “scrappy Irish Catholic kid from Scranton” to be his vice president.

“Those are values that the President-elect Barack American people hold in common,” Obama, accompanied by his wife Michelle, right, Obama said. and Vice President-elect “They are shared by Irish Joe Biden and his wife, Catholics from Wilmington and Jill Biden, wave from their train car after a African Americans from the South stop on their inaugural Side of Chicago, and by Hispanics whistle-stop train trip in and Asians and Native Americans Wilmington, Del., all across this great land.”

Saturday, Jan. 17, 2009.)

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Ellen Moran llen Moran is the White House Director of Communications. She replaced Kevin Sullivan, who held the position in the Bush Administration. Though she was a staunch Hillary Clinton supporter during primary season, Moran has worked in the past with David Plouffe and David Axelrod, both of whom were key players in the Obama campaign.

Ellen managed advertising and other campaign activities for the Democratic National Committee and directed a $50 million issue advocacy campaign for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and most recently, she worked as the executive director of EMILY’s List, a political action committee that supports the efforts of prochoice female candidates. Her political experience includes working on the national campaign staff of Tom Harkin’s 1992 presidential campaign; helping plan both Clinton inaugurals; and conducting democracy work in Indonesia for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Moran, who is “almost all Irish American,” was born in Troy, New York and grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts.

She was educated at Wheaton College where she studied political science and English literature. She is married to Kirk Fabel, with two children.

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George Mitchell eorge Mitchell, former Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, and the man who helped broker the peace in Northern Ireland, has been named American Special Envoy to the Middle East.

Mitchell is a name synonymous with the Northern Irish peace process since he chaired the talks which led to the Good Friday Agreement. He also served as Chairman of the International Commission on Disarmament in Northern Ireland.

“There can be no doubt that without his patience and stamina the outcome could have been very different,” said Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams. For his work on Northern Ireland, Mitchell was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Mitchell, whose grandparents emigrated from Ireland in the 1800s (he is Lebanese on his mother’s side) was first elected to the Senate in 1980.The Maine native graduated from Bowdoin College and the Georgetown University Law Center. Mitchell has served as Chairman of the International Crisis Group, and is the Chancellor of Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

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Edward Kennedy n January 20, 2009, despite his ongoing battle with brain cancer, Ted Kennedy was able to see President Obama being sworn into office in Washington. In May 2008, Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant glioma, a type of cancerous brain tumor, and has borne the ailment with quiet dignity amidst huge support from both sides of the political divide.

Kennedy continued post-surgery to support Obama’s run for the presidency, speaking at the Democratic National Convention in August.

Kennedy is now the second-longest member of the Senate. During his years in the Senate, he served as the Majority Whip, Chairman of the Committees on the Judiciary, Labor and Human Resources, Health, Education, Labor and Pension. Having served since 1962, Kennedy made an unsuccessful run for President in 1980, losing out to Jimmy Carter in the Democratic primary. It cannot be doubted that his years of service have made him a Democratic Party icon. Time magazine named Kennedy one of America’s best senators, praising not only his strong ideals but also his ability to compromise.

“Over 43 years in the Senate, Democrat Ted Kennedy has fought serial battles on behalf of the working class—from defending overtime pay and workplace-safety regulations to expanding health-care availability and penalizing discrimination,” Time wrote.

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Shaun Donovan

AP PHOTO/CHARLES DHARAPAK

resident Barack Obama has chosen housing commissioner for New York City, Shaun Donovan, to be the secretary of housing in his cabinet. Formerly an architect in New York and Italy, Donovan will be returning to the department where he worked extensively under the Clinton administration. The current housing crisis poses an enormous challenge for Donovan, but he is widely respected in the political world and his experience in New York injects some confidence in his ability.

Most recently as chief of New York’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Donovan oversaw the $7.5 billion New Housing Marketplace Plan to build or preserve 165,000 units for low to moderate-income families, housing up to 500,000 residents under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

New York Senator Charles Schumer told The New York Times, “Shaun Donovan has been one of the most effective housing commissioners in New York City’s history. At this time, with the housing crisis raging, he is exactly the kind of person we need as secretary of housing.”

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WRITERS & MEDIA The Irish love of language, written and spoken, is reflected in the following honorees.

Peter Quinn eter Quinn is a master storyteller, essayist, speechwriter and an esteemed chronicler of Irish America whose books have received popular and critical acclaim. He is a third-generation Irish-American and New Yorker whose grandparents were born in Ireland. His historical novel Banished Children of Eve: A Novel of Civil War New York, published in 1994, won the 1995 American Book Award. Since 1979, Quinn has worked as a speechwriter for clients that include New York Governors Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo as well as Time Warner, where he was hired as chief speechwriter in 1985. Educated by the De La Salle Christian Brothers at Manhattan Prep and Manhattan College, Quinn went to graduate school at Fordham. He has written for The New York Times, Commonweal, American Heritage, The Philadelphia Enquirer, The Los Angeles Times, Eiré-Ireland, and Irish America. In 2005, Quinn published the historical thriller Hour of the Cat, and in 2007 switched gears with Looking for Jimmy: A Search for Irish America, a collection of essays about the Irish in New York. Banished Children of Eve was re-released in 2008, and Quinn recently wrote a treatment for a six-part documentary for RTE on Irish America’s political history entitled, The Road to the White House: From the Great Hunger to JFK. He lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York with his wife, Kathy.

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CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ

Kay Ryan ollowing the great Irish tradition of finding beauty in words, Irish-American Kay Ryan was named the sixteenth U.S. Poet Laureate in 2008. The California native’s poems are known for their concise form and daring intensity. In a few short lines, Ryan manages to inject intelligent wordplay and biting wit in a way that baffles her contemporaries . Though Ryan’s connection to her emotions is the envy of many poets, that ability to explore depths of feeling and spirituality proved difficult for Ryan growing up. She told Charlie Rose in an interview, “You know how in Oliver Twist the image is him holding his bowl of porridge saying ‘More please’?

You could think of me as someone standing with my bowl saying ‘Less please.’ Take away some of the intensity. I think I was born with too many nerve endings. And so a lot of my poems are saying ‘Couldn’t we quiet it down a little bit?’”

Her poetry has been honored with many awards over the years and she has published several collections of poetry including her most recent release, The Niagara River. One of her poems, “How Birds Sing,” is permanently featured on a plaque in the Central Park Zoo. The honor of the title Poet Laureate has changed Ryan’s life tremendously. Ever witty and full of humor, she described the change, “Well, your life is turned upside down. The method by which you attain the Laureateship is of course no longer useful in your life. My habits are to stay in bed until noon in my pajamas, and now I have to get dressed. So just in terms of wardrobe my life has been turned upside down.”

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Thomas Cahill

Gail Collins

homas Cahill is a bestselling Irish-American author and scholar whose most recent book, A Saint on Death Row: The Story of Dominique Green, chronicles the true story of a young Houston man who was executed after eleven years on death row. This is a departure from Cahill’s Hinges of History series, a seven-volume collection of which he has published five. The series, elaborating on formative moments in Western civilization, includes 1996’s How the Irish Saved Civilization, 1999’s The Gifts of the Jews, and 2006’s Mysteries of the Middle Ages.

Born in New York City and educated at Fordham University, where he earned a B.A. in classical literature and philosophy, Cahill went on to earn his M.F.A. from Columbia University in film and dramatic literature. He studied scripture at New York’s Union Theological Seminary and studied the Hebrew Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where he spent two years as a visiting scholar. In 1999, Cahill was awarded an honorary doctorate from Alfred University in New York.

He has written for the Times of London and the Los Angeles Times Book Review, and has taught at Queens College, Fordham, and Seton Hall University. Before retiring to write full time, he served as the Director of Religious Publishing at Doubleday.

Cahill and his wife Susan live in New York and Rome.

ail Collins is an author, a journalist, a columnist, and in 2001 became the first woman to be appointed editor of The New York Times editorial page. Her work at the Times began in 1995, when she signed on as a member of the editorial board and later as an op-ed columnist.

Prior to that, Collins worked as a columnist at New York Newsday and the New York Daily News, and as a reporter for United Press International.

Her journalism career began in Connecticut, where she founded the Connecticut State News

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Jim Dwyer ince April 2007, Pulitzer Prize winner Jim Dwyer has been writing the “About New York” column for the New York Times, a gig he took over from fellow Irish-American Dan Barry.

Dwyer has been with the Times since May 2001, and he has been on assignment to both Northern Ireland and Iraq. Along with his former Times colleague Kevin Flynn, Dwyer wrote 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers, perhaps the most detailed account of what happened between the time the first plane hit one of New York’s twin towers and when the second tower collapsed.

Prior to his work at the Times, Dwyer wrote for, among others, Newsday and the Daily News.

Dwyer’s parents Phil and Mary were born in Kerry and Galway respectively. He attended Fordham and Columbia University. He and his wife Cathy live in New York with their daughters, Maura and Catherine.

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Bureau to provide coverage of the state capital and Connecticut politics.

Collins is also a prolific writer who took a sixmonth leave from the Times in 2007 to finish a sequel to her 2003 book America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines.

The 556-page volume is packed with history and storytelling from 1587 to 1970, and includes valuable insight on the struggles of Irish immigrant women in the 1800s. Collins also wrote 1998’s Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity and American Politics and 1991’s The Millennium Book, a project co-authored with her husband Dan Collins, an editor at CBS News. Born Gail Gleason in 1945, Collins traces her Irish roots to both her maternal and paternal ancestry. Her mother Rita, to whom Collins dedicated America’s Women, kept Irish stories and traditions alive in their household. Collins remains at the Times as a columnist, and her new book focuses on American women since 1960.

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Mary Alice O’Rourke ary Alice O’Rourke, a 29-year veteran of NBC News, is the Special Events producer of NBC News’ Today show, a position she has held since 1992. She plans and oversees all major trips the program makes to locations around the world, such as Today’s travels to Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games and the “Today Goes to the Ends of the Earth” trip to Australia last November.

O’Rourke plans and produces the show’s most popular series, “Where in the World is Matt Lauer?” She also coordinates special news events.

From 1990 to 1992, O’Rourke was the Domestic Producer for NBC Nightly News, where she coordinated daily scripts and stories in the United States for each evenings broadcast. During that time, she oversaw the program’s visit to Pearl Harbor for the 50th anniversary of the bombing, covered the Gulf War, and also the reunification of Germany. She also served as a producer for the network’s Specials and Documentary unit.

O’Rourke began working on the Today show in 1980 as a researcher and then segment producer, working on daily news segments such as the Beirut barracks bombing, Election coverage and political conventions. She produced stories for trips to Brazil, London, Indonesia, and major cities in the U.S. In 1986, she was appointed European producer for Today based in London. From there, she covered a wide variety of news stories in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Yugoslavia, Romania and China.

A native New Yorker, O’Rourke graduated from St. John’s University and received a master’s degree from Hunter College in New York.

Her father was born in Co. Leitrim, and her maternal grandparents came to the United States from Ireland.

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Mary Pat Kelly s she etches a variety of job titles in the world of art and entertainment onto her professional belt, producer, director, screenwriter and novelist Mary Pat Kelly’s list of achievements seem to go on and on. Kelly holds a Ph.D. in Irish literature and is a frequent contributor to Irish America. A former associate producer of Saturday Night Live and Good Morning America, Kelly is no stranger to the world of television and film. She has directed several award-winning documentaries including To Live for Ireland, a portrait of Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume and Home Away from Home: The Yanks in Ireland, a history of U.S. forces in Northern Ireland during World War II. She wrote and directed the film Proud, a story she first came upon while researching World War II American soldiers in Ireland.

From Martin Scorsese to Bosnia, the topics of her several books are always captivating. Her novel Special Intentions was based on her experience as a nun. Most recently, Kelly published a novel entitled Galway Bay which follows the lives of Honora Kelly and her sister as they embark on an epic journey away from the starving shores of Ireland to a new life in Chicago. Like Special Intentions, Galway Bay has a strong personal connection to Kelly. While the story itself is fiction, the basis of the novel is the life of the real Honora Kelly, Mary Pat’s great-great-grandmother. On her website, Kelly writes, “We are all descended from people forced from their homes who turned the tragedy of exile into triumph by simply surviving.” Mary Pat and her husband, Martin Sheerin, live in New York City.

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John Grogan his past November, John Grogan, acclaimed author of Marley & Me, released his third book, another memoir called The Longest Trip Home. In this heartfelt story of a young man growing up Irish Catholic outside Detroit in the 60s and 70s, Grogan intertwines the humorous tales of his first confession with serious struggles with ethics and values. The Longest Trip Home tells Grogan’s story in the days before Marley, the beloved Labrador that found fame this past fall on the silver screen.

Grogan works as a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and has won numerous awards, including the National Press Club’s Consumer Journalism Award. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife, Jenny, their three children and a new puppy, Woodson.

Of his Irish roots, Grogan said, “My father did quite a bit of genealogy research, and we believe our line of Grogans came to Pontiac, Michigan, from Broadford, County Limerick, in about 1850. I visited in 1991 and sure enough there was a Grogan family in the tiny town. We compared notes and were both convinced we came from the same family line.”

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THOSE WE LOST Each of these luminaries brought their skill, passion and talent to the world.

They made their mark, and they will be missed.

George Carlin 1937-2008 eorge Carlin, whose father was born in Donegal in 1888, died of heart failure on June 22. Born and raised in Manhattan, Carlin served in the Air Force before embarking on his comedy career as a radio DJ. In the 1960s he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and was a regular on Johnny Carson and other talk shows. In the 70’s he was arrested for his “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” routine, which led to a Supreme Court decision forbidding obscene language on television. Carlin was also the host of the first Saturday Night Live show in 1975, and over his career released 23 comedy albums. He is survived by his wife Sally Wade, daughter Kelly, son-in-law Bob McCall, brother Patrick, and sister-inlaw Marlene Carlin.

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after succumbing to throat cancer in August.

Best known as vocalist with The Dubliners, his passing was mourned by all who love Irish music and culture.

Ronnie Drew was born in Dun Laoghaire and after a stint teaching English in Spain he teamed up with Barney McKenna to play traditional sessions in O’Donoghue’s pub in Dublin. The duo were joined by Luke Kelly, John Sheehan and Ciarán Bourke to make up The Dubliners, a five-piece traditional band that enjoyed huge success at home and abroad. A friend and mentor of many contemporary musicians, Drew’s gravelly voice and unique delivery will live long in memory.

Thomas Flatley 1931-2008 homas Flatley, a Massachusetts real estate icon and philanthropist, died on May 17. He arrived in New York from Ireland penniless and went on from his first job as a deli clerk in the Bronx to become a billionaire. Flatley’s death comes after a year of suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Flatley served in the Korean War before moving to Boston and founding the Flatley Company, the largest sole-proprietor business in the U.S. at the time. Flatley raised $2 million to build Boston’s Irish Famine Memorial and to establish the Famine Institute.

Upon Flatley’s death, Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen

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praised him as “an inspiration to countless Irish emigrants who followed this same route and who demonstrated similar courage and perseverance in the face of adversity and hardship.”

Thomas Flatley is survived by his wife Charlotte, five children and eighteen grandchildren.

Jim McKay 1922-2008 egendary TV sports journalist Jim McKay passed away on June 7 of natural causes at his horse farm in Monkton, Maryland, at age 86.

Born James McManus, Jim McKay worked for the Baltimore Evening Sun before transitioning to television as WMAR-TV’s sports reporter,

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Ronnie Drew 1934-2008

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egendary singer Ronnie Drew was laid to rest

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Above: Sportscaster Jim McKay with his son, Sean McManus. Left: Ronnie Drew.

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three more books: My Dream of You, Almost There and The Story of Chicago May. In recent years, O’Faolain spent much of her time in New York, and was covering the presidential primaries when she was diagnosed with metatastic cancer. She died at age 68.

Tim Russert 1950-2008 im Russert, one of America’s leading political journalists, died after suffering a heart attack on June 13. He was 58. Russert began hosting NBC’s most watched Sunday morning interview program Meet the Press in 1991, and was the show’s longest serving moderator. In addition, Russert anchored Tim Russert, a weekly interview program on CNBC. He was a contributing anchor for MSNBC, a regular for NBC’s Nightly News and The Today Show, and served as NBC News' Washington Bureau Chief.

In 2004, Russert wrote the memoir Big Russ & Me, sharing the story of his WWII veteran father’s life and how it impacted on his own.

He is survived by his wife

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writer, director, and producer.

In 1961, McKay became the host of ABC's Wide World of Sports.

During his time with ABC, McKay covered 12 Olympics, including the Games in Munich in 1972. McKay won two Emmys for his reporting on the Munich Massacre, and Walter Cronkite sent him a telegram that read: “Dear Jim. Today you honored yourself, your network and your industry.”

He is survived by his wife of

59 years, Margaret Dempsey McManus, daughter Mary Guba, son Sean, and three grandchildren.

Nuala O’Faolain 1940-2008 rish journalist, author and broadcaster Nuala O’Faolain died on May 9.

Daughter of journalist Terry O’Sullivan, O’Faolain worked for many years as a TV producer and a journalist with The Irish Times. In 1996, O’Faolain wrote Are You Somebody?, her memoir which became an international bestseller. She penned

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Maureen Orth, a writer for Vanity Fair magazine, and his son Luke.

James Brady 1928-2009 riter James Brady died at age 80 on January 26 after collapsing in his Manhattan home. He was best known for his accounts of the activities of New York’s power elite in his columns, and played a vital role in the creation of the New York Post’s Page Six gossip column, giving it its name as well as acting as its first editor. His publishing credits include a memoir about his experience in the Korean War as well as several other books about the Marines, a publishing memoir

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and several novels set in the Hamptons. Upon his return from Korea, Brady was hired as a business news reporter for Women’s Wear Daily, which he eventually returned to as its publisher and started its offshoot publication, W. Over his career, Brady served as the editor of New York magazine, the editor of Harper’s Bazaar, and worked interviewing Hollywood celebrities for Parade magazine. He is survived by his wife, Florence Kelly, daughters Fiona and Susan, a brother, Tom Brady, and four grandchildren.

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IRISH The Thelegacy legacyofofthe theClancy ClancyBrothers Brothers and andTommy TommyMakem, Makem,and andhow howone onehistoric historic night nightcaptured captureda aseismic seismicshift shiftinin Irish-American Irish-Americanmusic. music.

By Tom Deignan

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As Liam Clancy remembers it, being asked to perform on The Ed Sullivan Show did not seem like a big deal.

“We just did not understand the significance,” he told Irish America in a recent interview, during a publicity tour to promote a brilliant rerelease of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem performing live at New York City’s Carnegie Hall in 1963.

Two years before that historic performance, as Clancy recalls, they were a group of slightly shady characters best known in that bohemian redoubt, Greenwich Village.

“Irish-Americans weren’t really interested in us,” said Liam, the youngest of the Clancy brothers. “Pete Seeger played with us. A lot of people said: ‘They’ve got a Communist up there.’ So most of our audience were folkies and liberal Jews.”

That all changed in March of 1961. The Clancys and Makem had already moved uptown to the Blue Angel on East 55th Street, a more respectable establishment frequented by TV talent scouts.

Sure enough, the Irish musicians impressed one of Ed Sullivan’s scouts.

The quartet later showed up at the Sullivan show studio for a Sunday rehearsal, only to be told that the evening’s scheduled headliner, Pearl Bailey, had bowed out.

Could the Irish men perhaps substitute?

That night, 80 million Americans from Boston to L.A. heard the revolutionary sounds of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem – the performance lasted a record-breaking 16 minutes.

“It was like getting a blessing from the Pope,” recalled Liam with a laugh.

Two years later came the historic concert at Carnegie Hall, where they cracked jokes about the new Irish Catholic president and earned loud applause simply by mentioning the IRA. Clearly, something momentous had changed in Irish America.

With their Aran sweaters, tin whistles and banjos, The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem might seem to be the quintessential Irish trad artists. But they were, in many ways, a radical departure, who then went on to change IrishAmerican culture. How did they arrive at

Left: The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem in full flow .

Below: The concert cd.

their unique musical sound? Why did some Irish-Americans consider them threatening? And how did they fit into an extraordinary moment in musical history, crossing paths with the likes of Bob Dylan?

The Clancy brothers – Paddy, Tom, Bobby and Liam – were born into a musical family of nine children in Carrick-onSuir, Tipperary. Paddy and Tom served in Britain’s Royal Air Force during World War II before immigrating to Toronto, Canada. After crossing the border and living in Cleveland, Ohio for a spell, the duo moved to New York City, where they planned to work as actors. They had some success on the stage and screen, but also felt the need to raise a little money. So they turned to an art form that came so naturally to them: music. Particularly memorable were some of their “midnight special” performances in the early 1950s at the Cherry Lane Theatre, where they were joined by their brother Bobby, who had also served in the RAF and traveled

widely in Europe before ending up in New York.

As luck (or fate) would have it, New York in the mid-1950s was turning into a breeding ground for a new kind of folk movement.

It was in the mid-1950s that Liam, the youngest brother, joined Tom and Paddy in New York when Bobby returned home to Ireland to take over his father’s insurance business. Liam too wanted to act, but he had also spent time performing, as well as studying and collecting the traditional music of Ireland. During his travels, Liam had become familiar with a particularly talented musician from Armagh — Tommy Makem.

Many members of the Makem family had made their way to the U.S., to work in the textile mills of Dover, New Hampshire. Tommy did the same. He was injured on the job, however, and so joined the three Clancy brothers in New York.

When it came time to record their first album, The Rising of the Moon, in the Bronx apartment of a young folklorist with the fine Irish name of Kenny Goldstein, they turned to a reliable formula: songs about drinking and Irish rebels.

But it was clear from the beginning they were also breaking from the past.

Not only did the quartet avoid sentimental ballads, they also infused traditional Irish songs of rebellion and revelry with strands of fast-paced American folk, the improvisational feel of jazz and even the banter of cutting-edge beat poets and APRIL/MAY 2009 IRISH AMERICA 83

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comedians.

The result was something familiar, yet very different. As the 1960s dawned, the group had a following, but nothing like mainstream success.

Maybe it was the unique style of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.

Maybe, with one of their own in the White House, Irish-Americans were ready for a new kind of Irish music.

Or maybe it was the sweaters.

As legend has it, the Clancys’ mother Johanna sent over four thick, white Aran sweaters so the boys could stave off New York’s winter chill. Now, Makem and the Clancys may not have been willing to play the stage Irish card. But their manager, Marty Erlichman, knew that if this act was going to hit the big time, they would have to appeal to some degree to IrishAmerican traditionalists.

Either way, when the quartet hit the stage on The Ed Sullivan Show, they became at least as well known for their sweaters as for their tunes.

But on the recently released recording, The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem In Person at Carnegie Hall: The Complete 1963 Concert, something more than fashion or even music shines through. This recording captures the boys at the top of their game, but it also captures a unique moment in American history.

Between tunes, Makem gleefully cracks jokes about JFK – “big bad John in the White House” – as well as the American establishment.

“Hail Mary, full of grace –- the Masons are in second place!” Makem cracks.

Then there is the hilarious tune, “Mr. Moses Ri – Tooral – I Ay,” about a Jewish-Irish merchant who is arrested for posting a sign with his name written in Hebrew -– which is swiftly mistaken for Irish Gaelic by an ambitious British police officer.

“The song was written not so much to show the love between the Irish and the Jews so much as to show the stupidity of the British,” Makem cracks.

Finally, introducing the rebel ballad, “The Patriot Game,” a mention of the Irish Republican Army -– which, in 1963, had not yet earned the mythic status it later would when the Troubles heated up in the late 1960s -– earns lusty applause.

Loud applause for a guerilla army defined as terroristic by the British? This is not exactly what you’d expect at Carnegie Hall. But this is the new world 84 IRISH AMERICA APRIL/MAY 2009

The quartet later showed up at the Sullivan show studios for a Sunday rehearsal, only to be told that the evening’s scheduled headliner, Pearl Bailey, had bowed out.

Could the Irish men perhaps substitute?

That night, 80 million Americans from Boston to L.A. heard the revolutionary sounds of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.

the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem helped create.

Following Ed Sullivan and Carnegie Hall, it might seem as if The Clancys and Tommy Makem were suddenly famous.

They even performed for JFK himself in 1963. But they were overnight sensations well over a decade in the making.

Along the way, they became famous in Greenwich Village pubs such as The White Horse as well as their “home away from home” (as Liam puts it) The Lion’s Head. Pete Hamill, Frank McCourt and so many others made The Lion’s Head the famous “bar for drinkers with writing problems.”

Along the way, Bob Dylan became a huge admirer of the Clancys, particularly Liam. At The White Horse, Dylan and Liam would imitate the other’s, uh, unique singing style. It’s great to have this Carnegie Hall recording, but a real treasure would be to hear Dylan imitating Liam, and vice versa, on “Eileen Aroon.”

In the end, the Clancys found a way to both change, and absorb, American musical styles. Thus, their work is truly Irish and American.

Meanwhile, it was not just Irish-

Americans who were initially surprised by their work.

As Liam told Irish America: “Irish people in Ireland were surprised. They’d never heard these songs this way.”

When rock ’n’ roll eclipsed folk music in the late 1960s, the Clancys often went their separate ways. After a year’s notice, Tommy Makem left the group in 1969 to pursue a solo career. Bobby Clancy came back to fill his spot for a while and the four Clancy Brothers, sometimes with the addition of the two Furey Brothers, performed together on-and-off for the next couple of years. Tom found a lucrative career acting on TV, and Paddy devoted more time to his farm back in Ireland.

In 1975 Liam and Tommy Makem reunited to form Makem and Clancy, performing in numerous concerts and recording several albums as a duo, until 1988.

The other three brothers united with their sister’s son Robbie O’Connell and went on to perform as The Clancy Brothers and Robbie O’Connell, spending several months in America each year.

In 1984, Makem & Clancy’s manager, Maurice Cassidy, brought the original foursome together for a concert at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City – the show sold out all 3,000 seats in a week.

In May of 1990, Tom Clancy died at the age of 66; his brother Paddy died eight years later. Tommy Makem passed away in 2007.

But the Clancy Brothers’ legacy is alive and well in the 21st century. Liam not only has the Carnegie Hall show to promote. He also has a new documentary film, The Life and Times of Liam Clancy, as well as a new album, The Wheels of Life.

He continues to tour the world, with no thoughts of retiring.

“You can’t retire from living,” says the IA 74-year-old with a laugh.

The Carnegie Hall Concert was previously released in abbreviated versions.

This new release, The Legacy Edition, includes the entire concert.

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{music}

By Ian Worpole

Spreading the Music!

Ian Worpole casts his eye over the latest CD offerings in the world of trad/folk music. ots of great CDs this month, and by way of a preamble, I’ve been thinking lately about how the great fiddlers, accordion players and, well, all those instrumentalists who make up the sound that we know and love are often great teachers as well.

This phenomenon, I believe, has become an integral part of the dissemination of traditional Irish music.

From music workshops such as the famous East Durham Arts Week, where I got my start playing the tunes on my newly open-tuned guitar at a Ged Foley workshop while my fiddling pals were soaking up Kevin Burke’s wisdom next door, to private lessons and sessions led by one of these players, it’s a fantastic way to spread the musical word, interact with fans and help the bank balance a little. With that in mind, first up today is a new release from Brian Conway, the Bronx-born, Sligostyled fiddler who was named Irish Echo’s trad artist of the year 2008.

Conway’s latest CD, Consider the Source, is a continuance of his virtuoso, note-perfect playing of traditional tunes that we first heard on First Through the Gate (2002) and A Tribute to Andy McGann (2007).

Brian grew up in a household that entertained fiddle legends such as McGann, Martin Wynne and Joe Burke, and it obviously rubbed off.

Along with the likes of Joanie Madden (one of many guests on the

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new CD) and John Whelan, I’ve had the pleasure of being a guest at Conway’s weekly Wednesday session at Dunne’s in White Plains, New York (okay, so I was the accompanist for accordion player Dan Gurney, the real guest star, but it counts!), so I’ve been witness not only to his musical qualities but also to his teaching skills.

Part of Conway’s musical career is devoted to discovering and nurturing talented students to the highest level.

His sister Rose Flanagan is also widely recognized as a teacher of high degree. She takes a group of students to Ireland each summer to attend Scoil Eigse, a week of master classes, and also to compete in the All-Ireland championships where many of her young fiddle players have gone on to win. Her daughter Maeve has taken first place in the under-12s and placed in the seniors.

Dylan Foley, whom I wrote about in a recent Irish America issue, is one of Brian and Rose’s most celebrated students. Dylan continues to storm the fiddling world with a first in this year’s under-18 competition, and a group of Rose’s alumni have formed a band, Girsa, and are releasing their first CD: www.girsamusic.com.

Rose herself is working on her first CD — I’ll keep you posted!

The new Tony McManus CD landed on my desk just in time for this issue, and it is a guitar masterpiece.

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I’ve been playing it non-stop, even as I write. The Maker’s Mark, subtitled The Dream Guitar Sessions, on Compass records, is a collection of 15 sets of mostly traditional tunes played on 15 different acoustic guitars, all being supreme examples of the luthiers’ art of hand-crafted instruments. Just one case in point is a set of Eastern European tunes played on a sitar-guitar made by Linda Manzer, a luthier who has been making guitars for Pat Metheny for over 25 years.

Dubbed “The Delhicaster” by Tony, this extraordinary instrument is just one of a mind-boggling array of guitars used to perform elegiac masterpieces by the greatest Celtic guitarist of our age (John Renbourn said so, and having seen Tony perform a few times, I agree, with the possible exception of Martin Simpson).

Guitarists will weep; all will listen in awe; everyone wants Tony to play on their CD when he’s not busy touring the world. Oh, and a beautiful booklet is included showing each of the instruments and providing notes about their makers, a wonderful nod to these craftsmen and women.

Another master guitarist always in demand, John Doyle joins up with Mick Moloney to play on and produce the latest of Mick’s long-running showcase series, Green Fields of America, this release being titled just that. On the Compass label, Mick and John are joined this time around by Robbie O’Connell, Billy McComiskey (whose recent CD Outside the Box is essential listening) and Athena Tergis on fiddle for trademark rousing sets of

tunes and songs. (I’m assuming you all know that the alumni of Green Fields of America are a who’s who of Irish music.) Doyle’s percussive guitar drives the sound along and anchors the flightier banjo and accordion, with Tergis’s fiddle taking some formidable and lyrical solos. O’Connell, as always, sings and writes beautifully of love, loss and longing, and most of the others take a singing turn, all to great effect. This is a grand album from virtuoso players, musicologists and teachers all, with extensive notes on the material that ranges from Percy Granger to Stephen Foster. I love these booklets tucked in the sleeve! (I must think about writing a column devoted to the pros and cons of iTunes — instant gratification versus no booklets!)

Beoga, a 5-piece Irish band based in County Antrim, just released its third album, The Incident, a rollicking mix of tunes and songs. High energy is an understatement, with two driven accordion players, percussion, strings and any number of guest musicians creating a heady mix of traditional tunes, gospel, folk, cafe jazz (I love the guest clarinet!) and multi-layered vocals recalling by turns the likes of Jamiroquai, Abigail Washburn and Sandy Denny — quite a feat from lead vocalist Niamh Dunne, and great, great fun. Beoga has performed across Europe and at the prestigious “Last Night of the Proms” with the BBC Orchestra, and is a tour de force to be reckoned with.

One of my favorite Scottish bands, Malinki, have a new CD, Flower &

Iron on Mad River Records. Fiercely acoustic and traditionally grounded, Malinki weave a powerful spell of dark, lyrical contemporary and traditional song and complex sets of tunes.

The wonderfully haunting vocals of Fiona Hunter backed by multi-stringed bouzoukis, guitars, whistles and cellos creates a bombast-free, Boys-of-theLough-style sound. My favorite track, “When Margaret Was Eleven,” is sung

by Steve Byrne; in fact the whole band are mighty fine singers.

Emma Kate Tobia is a classically trained soprano, and her CD Aisling na nGael (An Irish Dream) is a haunting fusion of sean-nós singing and choral and orchestral backing that includes the Cork Male Voice Choir and Chorus of Opera Cork. Aisling means Dream Visions, and these songs are translations of 18th-century Irish verse from sources such as Cas Ambrán and the Veritas Hymnal, and including the powerful “Glory O to the Bold Fenian Men.” Somewhat in the vein of the Celtic Women in music sound, but with less reverb, this is a beautiful album perfect for the quieter side of St. Patrick’s Day festivities.

And finally, a salute to James Byrne who passed at the age of 62 this past November. Widely considered one of the greatest Donegal fiddlers of all time, the reclusive James rarely left his native Glencolmcillie for America, but is credited with reviving the style of the region and hugely influencing the playing of the band Altan and many others; a true teacher!

IA Farewell, Slán.

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Ulster Scots at Stone Mountain Highland Games

By Turlough McConnell

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or 38 years, Stone Mountain Park, northeast of Atlanta, Georgia, fills with the sounds of bagpipes, fiddles and harps during the third weekend in October for the Stone Mountain Highland Games and Scottish Festival.

Expect thousands of Scots to don their family tartans for this year’s festival October 16-18. Last year the Ulster Scots were there in full force; their pavilion was the festival’s showstopper and offered ways to track Scots-Irish connections to Northern Ireland.

Among the Ulster Scots present was Billy Kennedy, author and editor of The Ulster Scot. “Of all the strains of Irish immigrant heritage in the United States,” says Kennedy, “the Scots-Irish culture is perhaps more distinctive and deeply rooted than many realize. Today’s ScotsIrish or Ulster Scots are direct descendants of those who emigrated from the north of Ireland or the province of Ulster in the 18th century. For over 300 years, Scots-Irish influences have found expression in various ways throughout the United States.

“As early as the 1630s, shortly after the voyage of the Mayflower, the mainly Presbyterian Ulster Scots reached North America in wooden ships that somehow managed to endure the wrath of the Atlantic. The early Scots-Irish settlers, who had originally moved from lowland Scotland to Ulster in the 17th century, assimilated into American life and left an enduring legacy.”

Kennedy has written extensively— including in the Oct./Nov. 2007 issue of Irish America—on the impressive imprint left by three centuries of ScotsIrish immigration. During the 18th century, more than 200,000 Scots-Irish fled economic deprivation and religious persecution by the British to make a new life in America. After crossing mountains, cutting through forests and surviving Native American tribal attacks, they 88 IRISH AMERICA APRIL/MAY 2009

founded frontier townships and forged a civilization on the western frontier. They laid the foundation for a structured society in the cities and towns of 18th-century America that valued home, church and school.

The Scots-Irish have a reputation for being the first to start and the last to quit.

Three centuries later, these qualities remain central to the American psyche. According to the 2000 census, 56 percent of the estimated 44 million Americans with Irish heritage can trace roots back to the 18th-century movement from Ulster.

Though the Scots-Irish are scattered across America, their influence is most evident in the eastern half of the country.

Kennedy catalogues the numbers of Ulster place names in the United States: There are 18 American towns named Belfast; seven Derrys, nine Antrims, 16 Tyrones; four Hillsboroughs. In 12 states there are 12 Milfords—plus Coleraine in Massachusetts and Dungannon in Virginia!

The story is one of greatness as well as sheer numbers. Descendants of these 18th-century Ulster settlers include 17 American presidents. The ancestral cottage of Andrew Jackson is located at Boneybefore, Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim.

Chester A. Arthur also hails from County Antrim, while County Tyrone boasts the ancestral residences of Ulysses Grant and Woodrow Wilson. Other presidents with Ulster family links include James Knox Polk, Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and both Presidents Bush.

Beyond the White House, Scots-Irish heritage is common to Vice-President

Top: James Hamilton, the Duke of Abercorn, meets kinsmen at the Clan Hamilton pavilion. Center: Tourism Ireland’s Fiona Dunne with visitors to the Scots-Irish Pavilion. Above: (From left) Marie Fullington of Tourism Ireland with Dick Swanson, President, Stone Mountain Games and his wife Ruth.

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John C. Calhoun; frontiersmen Davy Crockett and Kit Carson; Texas governor Sam Houston; Samuel Langhorn Clemens (the author Mark Twain); poet Edgar Allan Poe; agricultural inventor Cyrus McCormick; songwriter Stephen Collins Foster; land surveyor William Clark; astronauts Neil Armstrong, James Irwin and Edward H. White, and American Civil War generals Thomas Jonathan ‘Stonewall‘ Jackson, J. E. B. Stuart., George Brinton McClellan,

The UlsterScots Agency

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Author Billy Kennedy signing books.

the North’s second largest city, also has close economic and social ties with Boston, as does Newry with Pittsburgh.

Each year, more Americans visit Northern Ireland. Whether they come on business or on vacation, or to do genealogical research, the cordial reception they get inevitably makes them want to return.

The growth of tourism in Back row: L-R: Aubrey Irwin,Tourism Ireland; Fintan Northern Ireland is illustrated Mullan, Ulster Historical Foundation Belfast; Maynard by the success of the Belle Isle Hanna, The Ulster-Scots Agency,Belfast; George Patton, The Ulster-Scots Agency Belfast. Front Row: L- Castle Estate & Cookery R: Fiona Dunne, Tourism Ireland; Colin Magee, Belfast School in County Fermanagh.

Nashville Songwriters Festival; Gillian Hunt, Ulster The 400-acre estate on Lough Historical Foundation Belfast; Anne Coulter, Belfast Erne is owned by the 5th Duke Nashville Songwriters Festival. of Abercorn, James Hamilton.

Joseph Eggleston Johnston and Ambrose He was Tourism Ireland-sponsored Everett Burnside. keynote visitor to the Stone Mountain Three of the 56 signers of the Games and the keynote speaker at Irish Declaration of Independence were born America’s Stars of the South event at the in the north of Ireland. Others with direct Commerce Club in Atlanta. family links included Edward Rutledge The annual Stars of the South dinner and Thomas McKean. John Dunlap, celebrates the best and brightest Irish printer of the Declaration of Americans in the Southern U.S. and also Independence, came from Strabane, Co. hails Northern Ireland’s links to the Tyrone.

Scots-Irish. Previous honorees have Today, the rich Scots-Irish inheritance included philanthropists, artists, business is evident in all aspects of American life. leaders, charity workers and volunteers; Mutual interests in culture and historical members of the service industry and research on aspects of the Scots-Irish armed forces; members of police and fire diaspora are maintained through shared departments, and members of academia. educational programs and projects.

This year over 200 luminaries were in Towns in the United States and Northern attendance. Don Keough, former presiIreland which are officially twinned dent of Coca-Cola and now chairman of include La Grange (Georgia) with Allen and Company, accepted a wellCraigavon (Co. Armagh); Moorhead deserved Lifetime Achievement Award.

(Kentucky) with Ballymena (Co. James Hamilton, the Duke of Abercorn – Antrim); Clover (South Carolina) with a peerage that dates back to 1603 – said Larne (Co. Antrim) and Drumore that he was delighted to be keynote (Pennsylvania) with Dromore (Co. speaker at the Stars of the South dinner.

Down). Belfast has also had a capital city “I enjoyed sharing my insights on the twinning arrangement with Nashville extraordinary progress that has been (same population of 500,000). Derry, made in Ireland’s hospitality industry in

he Ulster-Scots Agency, or Tha Boord o Ulstèr-Scotch as it is known in Ullans, aims to promote the study, conservation, development and use of Ulster-Scots as a living language, to encourage and develop the full range of its attendant culture, and to promote an understanding of the history of the Ulster-Scots.The agency is part of the North/South Language Body (Tha Boord o Leid), one of six new cross-border bodies born out of the Belfast Agreement on Good Friday, 10 April 1998.

This body comprises two agencies,The Ulster-Scots Agency and Foras na Gaeilge, the agency responsible for the development of the Irish (Gaelic) language.

Each agency has its own board, whose members together constitute the board of the North/South Language Body.

The agency is jointly funded by the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure in Northern Ireland and the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs in the Republic of Ireland.The Agency’s headquarters are in Belfast with a regional office in east Donegal, an Ulster-Scots heartland area.

The agency publishes an English language newsletter, albeit with some token Scots, several times a year entitled “The Ulster-Scot” as a supplement to the Belfast News Letter.The publication is also made available free of charge upon request.

For more on The Ulster-Scots visit www.ulsterscotsagency.com

the field of culinary excellence. This splendid event is a sparkling celebration of the bonds of heritage and kinship that Ireland shares with America’s South.”

Joe Byrne, Executive Vice President in the United States for Tourism Ireland based in New York, said “Tourism Ireland is pleased to participate as a sponsor of the Stone Mountain Festival and at Irish America magazine’s Stars of the South Awards Dinner. We know that Ireland has experienced strong growth in visitor numbers from many of the states in the southeast of the U.S. We believe that sponsorships such as this contribute in a meaningful way to building future tourism traffic growth to Ireland from IA this important region.”

APRIL/MAY 2009 IRISH AMERICA 89

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{roots}

The Famous Flynns Politicians, scientists, soldiers and swash-bucklers, the Flynn clan have produced some very interesting folk.

By Elizabeth Reilly

F

lynn, or O Floinn in Irish, is high on the list of the most popular names in Ireland. It is derived from the Gaelic personal name Flann, which, when applied to a person, connotes a ruddy complexion. The name can be traced throughout Ireland, but is more frequently found in the south around Cork and Waterford and in the north in Counties Roscommon, Leitrim and Cavan.

The Flynns from County Cork separated themselves into two main factions; one living at Ardagh Castle between Skibbereen and Baltimore while the second were once lords of Muskerrylinn, until they were forced east by the McCarthy clan.

The clan’s northern counterparts situated in Kiltullagh and Kilkeevin in County Roscommon were erenaghs, in charge of maintaining lands and collecting taxes in the Parishes of St. Dochonna near Boyle, and the Parish at Errew by Lough Conn. The Flynns also owned land in South Armagh; here they were the senior branch of the Clanna Rury of Ulidia and traced their lineage all the way back to Colla Uais, King of Ireland in the fourth century.

Flynns have always been prominent in the religious world; in 1255, Fiacha O’Flynn became Archbishop of Tuam and, in 1820, Reverend Jeremiah O’Flynn played an instrumental role in sending the first Catholic missionaries to Australia. Modern members of the clan are still active in the religious field; Harry Flynn is the Archbishop Emeritus of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, a position he has held

90 IRISH AMERICA APRIL/MAY 2009

since 1995.

Flynn descendants are also medaled soldiers, with two members of the clan receiving Medals of Honor during the Civil War. Sergeant James E Flynn of the 6th Missouri Infantry was awarded the Medal of Honor for gallantry in the charge of the volunteer storming party at

Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Sergeant Christopher Flynn of the 14th Connecticut Infantry received the award after he captured the flag of the 52nd North Carolina Infantry at the Battle of Gettysburg.

A soldier in a different sense, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was a labor leader, activist and feminist. At the age of 16, Elizabeth gave her first political speech on “What Socialism Will Do for Women,” and though she was expelled from high school as a result, the speech

set off a long career in the field of social activism. From 1907 until 1916, she became involved in the International Workers of the World, organizing campaigns for factory workers, restaurant employees and miners. Elizabeth was so passionate about her work that during this period she was arrested on ten different occasions. She was also a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union and an avid supporter of the Birth Control Movement and Women’s Suffrage.

In the field of science and technology, James Robert “Jim” Flynn (born 1934 in Chicago), as a professor of political studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, researched the year-after-year rise of IQ scores in all parts of the world, giving us the term “the Flynn effect.”

Meanwhile on the sports field, another famous Flynn tore up the tracks in the 1980s. Irish mile great Ray Flynn, who ran 89 sub-4-minute miles, now owns and operates Flynn Sports Management, a firm that represents a number of top American runners.

The phrase “in like Flynn” is attributed by some to American politician and lawyer Edward J. Flynn — “Boss” Flynn (1891-1953), who was a campaign manager for the Democratic Party during FDR’s presidency. Flynn’s machine in the South Bronx in New York was so successful at winning elections that his candidates seemed to get into office automatically.

One of the more famous contemporary Flynns in politics is former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, who was elected as Boston’s 52nd mayor in 1984 and served

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LEFT: Errol Flynn was a swashbuckler both on and off the silver screen. He is pictured here with Paul Lukas (rt.) in a movie poster for Uncertain Glory.

BELOW: William Flynn, chairman emeritus of Mutual of America, played a huge role in the Irish peace process.

Flynn was grand marshal of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City in 1996

until 1993. A devout Catholic, Flynn was appointed by President Clinton as the American Ambassador to the Holy See. He held this position from 1993 until 1997 and currently is the National Chairman of Catholic Citizenship, a group he started in 2004.

Members of the Flynn family have also crossed the divide from the political world to the literary. John T. Flynn became one of the premier American political commentators during his career as a journalist in the 1920’s and 30’s. In the early 30’s Flynn was an avid supporter of FDR during his initial bid for the presidency; however, Flynn split from Roosevelt in 1936 due to differing opinions on FDR’s New Deal. He went on to become a founding member of the America First Committee, which opposed Roosevelt’s foreign policy. A more contemporary political writer is Vince Flynn, who has written six New York Times best-sellers since 1998.

One of the clan’s most flamboyant members was actor Errol Flynn, who owing to his seductive powers, is also an alternative candidate for the expression “in like Flynn.” A swashbuckler both on and off the silver screen, he was immortalized in films like The Adventures of

Robin Hood and The Sun Also Rises. In 2004, Flynn was portrayed by Jude Law in the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator. A more modern-day actor with a connection to the Flynn clan is Lara Flynn Boyle, the attractive actress who made a name for herself on the drama series Twin Peaks and the Emmy Award-winning show The Practice.

Flynns also made their way in the world of music.

The renowned jazz pianist Frank Emilio Flynn (19212001) was born to Digna Maria and Francis Joseph Flynn in Havana, Cuba. In the business sphere, IrishAmerican William Flynn is Mutual of America’s Chairman Emeritus and the first Irish-American chairman of the NCAFP (National Committee on American Foreign Policy). Flynn received the National Committee’s first Initiative for Peace Award in 1997 for his work in promoting peace in Northern Ireland. He

was this magazine’s Irish American of the Year in 1995 and was also honored as one of Irish America’s Irish of the IA Century.

2009 APRIL/MAY IRISH AMERICA 91

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{ review of books}

Tom Deignan reviews a selection of recently published books of Irish and Irish-American interest.

Recommended ack in the mid-1990s, it seemed like everything Irish was cool. Bono was a global rock star, Riverdance was an international sensation, and Frank McCourt sold millions of books. Then, there was Seamus Heaney. The notion of a popular poet seemed almost quaint in the digital age. Yet when Heaney won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995, he became yet another Irish star.

Heaney was never the subject of a conventional biography, but Dennis O’Driscoll – himself a poet – has done the next best thing. He has gathered years of wide ranging interviews with Heaney in Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney. This may sound like a biography which has cut some corners, and maybe it is. But the revelations are nevertheless illuminating. O’Driscoll

B

Catholics during his youth are like most of the material in this book – complex and fascinating.

actions. Malone commendably explores the decisions Chalkey has made, and reveals that he may not be motivated merely by love of country.

($32 / 560 pages / FSG)

($24.95 / 255 pages / New Island Books-Dufour)

Fiction rank Delaney’s novel Shannon is about a man and a river who share the same name and roots in Ireland. Frank Shannon is a Boston priest who served in World War I and remains so traumatized by the experience that he goes to Ireland in search of peace. On the surface, he is there to find out where his Irish ancestors came from.

But it soon emerges that a powerful Boston church official also sent him because Shannon may know a little bit too much about a scandal. Since this is postWorld War I Ireland, the Irish Civil War has broken out, so Shannon has essentially traded one conflict for another. In what

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hristian Moerk’s Darling Jim is about two Dublin sisters who are found dead, along with an aunt. The investigation into the killings is at a standstill until the local mailman discovers a secret diary which not only reveals a forbidden love story, but may or may not help solve the killings.

This is a lush, exotic story told by a fascinating young writer. Moerk was born and raised in Copenhagen before moving to the U.S. in his 20s. After graduating from Columbia University, he worked in the film industry before writing Darling Jim, his first American novel.

Moerk has captured Dublin in an intriguing way. This story not only involves the dead sisters but also a mysterious postal worker and the wandering storyteller who gives the novel its title.

Some of the mythic elements of Darling Jim might strike some readers as “excessively Irish,” but overall this is a good effort.

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($25 / 304 pages / Henry Holt & Company)

gets Heaney to open up about the artistic process as well as topics as far-reaching as marriage, memory, Polish poetry and the brother he tragically lost at a young age (an event which inspired one of Heaney’s most gut-wrenching poems, “Mid-Term Break”).

Stepping Stones does weigh in at over 500 pages, but the interview form allows readers to pick and choose topics.

What is amazing about Stepping Stones is that Heaney comes across as a down-toearth guy who happens to be brilliant with words. Particularly interesting is the way Heaney has tried to express what you might call his moderate nationalism when it comes to Northern Ireland and the Troubles. This topic is of particular interest to Heaney who was born and raised in Derry. His comments about everyday interactions between Protestants and 92 IRISH AMERICA APRIL/MAY 2009

can be called a rather large coincidence, in this otherwise impressive novel, Shannon meets up with an Irish nurse he knew during the war. A complex form of love grows between the duo, at the same time as Shannon’s life is threatened by the Boston scandal he may or may not remember.

Delaney (a Tipperary native whose previous best-sellers include Ireland: A Novel) has ultimately written an engaging story which explores not just interesting characters but the ties that bind Ireland and America. ($26 / 560 pages / Random House)

artin Malone’s The Silence of the Glasshouse is also set during the Irish Civil War. This novel revolves around an IRA soldier named Chalkey who has been sentenced to die, and his mother’s efforts to come to terms with his

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Non-Fiction

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ust in time for St. Patrick’s Day, three new books feature Americans in search of how the old and the new are clashing in 21st century Ireland. In A Pint of Plain: Tradition, Change and the Fate of the Irish Pub, Bill Barich wonders how the Celtic Tiger has changed Irish pub life.

Barich admits he is going to Ireland with an outlook shaped as much by The Quiet Man as any other form of research.

Not surprisingly, he is initially disappointed by the high-priced Dublin pubs which rely heavily on the dollars of tourists and yuppies. In the end, however, Barich has some interesting insights when it comes to modern Ireland, as well as how companies have taken generic Irish pub concepts and sent them out into far-flung places on numerous continents. Barich could have

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explored new immigration in more depth, but he more than makes up for it by profiling some of the colorful characters who populate the great pubs that remain in Ireland, and have made Barich’s trip more than worthwhile. ($25 / 256 pages / Walker)

f you think heading to Ireland to research pubs is a plum assignment, listen to what Tom Coyne did. In A Course Called Ireland: A Long Walk in Search of a Country, a Pint and the Next Tee, Coyne walked the entire island of Ireland, playing waterfront golf.

True, he does cover some of the same ground as A Pint of Plain. But A Course Called Ireland’s descriptions of playing some of Ireland’s famous courses make the book a treat for golf enthusiasts.

There are also some great moments about Coyne’s father, as well as a hilarious meeting between a group of people Coyne believes to be distant cousins.

Coyne brings a pair of American eyes to his view of Ireland, so some observations might strike Irish readers as familiar.

Still, there are plenty of passages about golf – and Ireland – to make this a worthwhile read.

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($26 / 320 pages / Gotham Books)

he final book of the season about Americans in search of something in Ireland is At the Edge of Ireland: Seasons on the Beara Peninsula by David Yeadon. Whereas Barich and Coyne are exploring how beloved Irish institutions have been affected by recent changes, Yeadon is looking for a place that has not changed so much. This volume includes beautiful descriptions of the area, as well as striking pencil drawings by the author.

prove it) to the way John and Paul expressed nationalist sentiments in songs such as “Give Ireland Back to the Irish,” this book valuably puts all of the Beatles’ Irish information in one volume.

Contemporary Irish American Women Writers. Edited by Sally Barr Ebest and Kathleen McInerney, this is a valuable study of Irish America as seen by some of the best writers working today.

($30.95 / 230 pages / The Collins Press-Dufour Editions)

($29 / 254 pages / University of Notre Dame)

he Beatles may have changed pop culture forever, but they are just one group of Irish folks who have done so.

This is clear from Stephanie Rains’ The Irish American in Popular Culture 19452000. The author explores gems from The Quiet Man to The Brothers McMullen, and how stereotypes were first reinforced by pop culture, then how Irish-American artists themselves began playing with stereotypes.

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($30 / 252 pages / Irish Academic Press)

lice McDermott and Joyce Carol Oates are just two of the best known authors whose writing appears in Too Smart to Be Sentimental:

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Children ichael Garland’s King Puck is a slim, colorful volume about Seamus, a lonely boy who loves to read to his pet goat. When this eccentric duo are granted a very special wish, they head off the famous festival that gives this book its title. Garland illustrated as well as wrote King Puck, and it is a joyous effort that should enchant children between the ages of 4 and 8, as well as their IA parents.

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($6.99 / 32 pages / HarperCollins)

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($16.99 / 402 pages / HarperCollins)

peaking of beloved institutions, the Brits can claim the Beatles themselves, but the Irish can call most of the Beatles’ grandparents their own. There is no need to fall into that famous trap some bitter Irish folks do, when they claim Shakespeare must have really been Irish.

In The Beatles and Ireland, Michael Lynch and Damian Smyth outline how very Irish the Beatles really are. From their ancestral roots (all the Beatles except Ringo have clear Irish ancestry, and this book prints the family trees to

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Gift Books

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he Irish B&B Cookbook by Ann Mulligan features dozens of recipes from the Washington-born author who attended Ballymaloe Cookery School and operates An Bohreen B&B in Waterford. This book also includes a Foreword by acclaimed chef Darina Allen, who lauds Mulligan for her “eclectic mix of [the] traditional and contemporary, a microcosm of Irish food today.” ($16.95 / 191 pages / Mercier-DuFour)

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avourite Irish Proverbs is an inventive little collection compiled

by Jo O’Donaghue which can be breezed through at first, but should also be savored more slowly later on. It includes striking photos by Lily Lenihan. ($25.95 / 96 pages / Currach-Dufour)

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t. Patrick’s Day in Savannah by Polly Powers Stramm and Janice Shay is a vivid, colorful introduction to one of the largest – yet less well-known outside of the South-ethnic parades in America. The book includes not just outstanding photos, but also the history of the Irish in the region, as well as an inside look at the parade’s operation, leading up to the big day. ($24.95 / 160 pages / Pelican) APRIL/MAY 2009 IRISH AMERICA 93

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{crossword}

By Darina Molloy

ACROSS 1. Symbol associated with Gemini (5) 2. See 2 down (8) 5. Amount earned (6) 7. See 24 across (8) 9. Claddagh is a type of one (4) 10.Homer Simpson's novel Irish souvenir (10) 12. (& 30 down) Author of Gulliver's Travels (8) 14. See 32 down (5) 15. Cork's river (3) 17. Ireland's northernmost tip is in this county (7) 19. Family name of Monaco royals (8) 22. County near Dublin (7) 24. (& 7 across) Obama mother-in-law (6) 25. In short, assistant district attorney (1, 1, 1) 26. Ireland is one (6) 27. (& 47 across) Potential next U.S. Ambassador to Ireland? (3) 28. See 45 across (5) 31. Short for identity (1, 1) 33. Juno and the _____ (7) 36. Short for mother (2) 37. This head is the southwestern-most point in Ireland (5) 38. See 13 down (5) 40. Untruth (3) 42. Wasted on the young, apparently (5) 43. See financial institution bailed out (5) 45. (& 28 across) Protagonist of Hunger movie (5) 46. Shrek is one of these (4) 47. See 27 across (6)

DOWN 1. Former name of the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge in NYC (10) 2. (& 2 across) The wise woman of Lost (8) 3. Grape varietal (6) 4. (& 16 down) Irish playwright who died in February (4)

6. Offaly home of Obama ancestor (9) 8. Political building in Northern Ireland (8) 11. One of the seven deadly sins (5) 13. (& 20 down, & 38 across) Real name of 4 down (4) 16. See 4 down (7) 18. The 'A' in AOH (7) 20. See 13 down (5) 21. Giants Causeway is here (6) 22. ___ Harbor in Co. Mayo is a fjord (7) 23. Round flatbread, common in Central and South Asia (4) 29. Regarded as Ireland's national theater (5) 30. See 12 across (5)

Win a subscription to Irish America magazine Please send your completed crossword puzzle to Irish America, 875 Sixth Avenue, Suite 2100, New York, NY 10001, to arrive no later than April 17, 2009. A winner will be drawn from among all correct entries. If there are no correct solutions, the prize will be awarded for the completed puzzle which comes closet in the opinion of our staff. Winner’s name will be published along with the solution in our next issue. Xerox copies are acceptable.

Winner of the February/March Crossword: Irene McLaughlin, New York 94 IRISH AMERICA DECEMBER / JANUARY 2009

32. (& 14 across) Oscar director with Ballinasloe roots (5) 34. Book of ____ (5) 35. (& 43 across) The financial institution bailed out by the Irish govt. (5) 38. Regular website commentary (4) 39. Galway square (4) 41. See 10 across (3) 44. Human resources (1, 1)

February/March Solution

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{sláinte}

By Edythe Preet

The Tree of T

PHOTO: PATRICIA HARTY

hough I am at most times a mild-mannered pacifist, last week I had a meltdown.

But I had a good reason. I was fighting to save a tree.

Every winter since moving into my Fifties Bungalow in 2002, I have pleaded with the owner not to prune the 50-plusyear-old 60-foot-tall poplar tree on the front lawn. The last ‘pruning,’ just before I moved in, had almost killed the tree. It had suffered a ‘topping’ equivalent to a guillotined decapitation and all the secondary branches had been lopped off to within three feet of the main trunk. For the first few years the tree could only produce deformed shriveled leaves, but slowly new branches grew to replace the amputees, until finally it again appeared to be thriving.

Then, last Monday, my landlord (who knows as much about pruning trees as he does about astrophysics) dropped off an An ancient oak tree on Patrick Harty's farm (the editor’s brother). ‘expert’ he had picked out of a work gang in the parking lot of Home Depot. My heart sank. A icent ancient oak forests to build English ships. I hit a nerve. brief conversation evidenced the fellow actually did know what Fiercely Irish-American, he shot me a withering ‘that’s not fair’ he was about, but still I watched eagle-eyed as he began to thin look and told the trimmer to stop. out the canopy. When I was satisfied that he wasn’t going to Some might call me crazy for hazarding eviction just to butcher the tree after all, I went back inside the house. defend a tree, but even the most die hard global warming Somewhat later my landlord returned and, even though I naysayers are finally admitting we’d be in big trouble if we lost could hear him bellowing that it was his tree not mine, I felt conall our arboreal allies. Anyone with just a drop of Irish blood fident that the trimmer would continue pruning properly. would say that’s a no-brainer. Referring to the deforestation of Suddenly something hit the roof so hard that the whole house Ireland that occurred more than four hundred years ago, “Cill shook and my cats jumped three feet into the air. Dashing outCais,” the most often quoted Gaelic poem laments: Cad a dheanfiamid feasta gan adhmad? Ta deireadh na gcoillte ar side, I saw that all the lower branches had been whacked off and lar…(What will we do for timber? The last of the woods are the trimmer was hanging onto the stub of what moments before gone…)” had been a thick triple branch arcing high above the house. That When humans first appeared on earth, dense forests covered was when I lost it. the land masses. The earliest hunter/gatherers relied heavily on In a rather loud voice (some might say a shriek), I begged and found nuts and fruits, bird nests that yielded eggs, and beehives rationalized with every argument I could think of to stop the that dripped honey. Leaf cycles marked the passage from fertile massacre. Finally, in desperation I compared my landlord to the to barren times. In spring, green buds signaled the sun’s return.

Anglo invaders who completely denuded Ireland of its magnif-

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1 salmon steak 4 ounces butter, soft 2 ounces hazelnuts, toasted and chopped fine lemon juice to taste

Combine butter, hazelnuts and lemon juice. Grill salmon steak, and when cooked to personal preference just before serving place 1 tablespoon hazelnut butter on the steak.

Recipe: Irish Traditional Food, Theodora Fitzgibbon.

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Apple-Walnut Muffins 2 2 1 3 ⁄4 1 ⁄2 1 ⁄8 8 1 1 ⁄2 4 1 1 1

cups flour teaspoons cinnamon teaspoon baking soda teaspoon salt teaspoon nutmeg teaspoon cloves tablespoons (1 stick) soft butter cup sugar cup light brown sugar large eggs cup walnuts, chopped package cream cheese, softened stick butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350F. Line muffin tins w/ paper. Sift flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cloves together; set aside. Cream butter and sugars, add eggs and beat to combine.

Stir in walnuts and applesauce. Fill muffin cups 3/4-full. Bake 15-20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Beat cream cheese, butter and sugar until thoroughly combined. Spread icing on muffins.

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In autumn a kaleidoscope of color announced winter’s coming.

And in the cold months, early humans had many hours to muse about the giant plants that not only provided them with shelter, tools, food and fuel, but outlived everyone as well.

In ancient Ireland, trees were believed to possess magical powers, and their importance is reflected in the Brehon Laws.

An early legal poem, translated by D.A. Binchy, states: “A danger from which there is no escape is the penalty for felling a sacred tree…the fine of three cows is fixed for cutting the stem [trunk].” The many rules, sanctions and penalties regarding treatment of trees were divided into four classes according to each type’s usefulness and symbolism.

Most important of the ‘chieftain’ trees were the mighty oak that could withstand a lightning strike, provide bark for tanning animal hides, and was the primary source of construction timber; the hazel which was revered as the Tree of Knowledge and whose nuts fed the salmon that was eaten by Finn who then became the wisest of men; and the yew, that kept its evergreen leaves even in the darkest depth of winter, assuring all that the sun would return and life would continue. Other chieftain trees included holly, with red berries that appeared in mid-winter; ash, symbolizing health; pine, with its phallic-shaped cones; and apple, whose fruit provided drink for the gods. The ‘peasant’ trees were alder; willow; hawthorn, associated with spring fertility rites; rowan; birch, whose leaves heralded the coming of spring; and elm, associated with fairies and the passage from life to death. The ‘shrub’ trees were blackthorn, which heralds spring and guards autumn; elder, which provides bounty and health; aspen, symbolizing the wind; and juniper, offering purification. The ‘bramble’ trees were dog-rose, bramble, fern and spindle, among others.

In these modern times so much of what we use comes in tidy packages, purchased in antiseptic shopping malls or supermarkets, that we are very often blind to the original sources of the materials we consume. The list of tree foods is impressive, and so many products come from trees – from chewing gum to turpentine – that it boggles the mind. We still rely on forests for fuel, paper and lumber, and recently it has come to light that the daily destruction of our remaining rainforests threatens our continuing supply of the most vital tree product of all: oxygen.

With the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, humanity lost touch with the trees that had witnessed its birth and nourished its evolution. It is vital to remember that a worker with an ax can lay low in just a few hours what Time will take centuries to reproduce. While many of earth’s resources once used can never be replaced, trees are forgiving.

The forests can be replanted. Thirty-five years ago, I promised the trees of the world that I would never again use a paper napkin. My mouth-wiping collection today fills several drawers and

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Life!

RECIPES Grilled Salmon w/ hazelnut butter

Dirty Martini 2 1 2 2

oz gin tbsp dry vermouth tbsp olive juice olives

Place an ice cube and a small amount of water in a cocktail glass.

Place in freezer for 2 - 3 minutes. Fill a cocktail mixer with all ingredients including olives. Cover and shake hard 3 - 4 times.

Remove cocktail glass from freezer, and empty. Strain contents of the mixer into the cocktail glass. Makes 1 cocktail.

Note: The distinctive flavor of gin comes from Juniper berries.

consists mainly of tough as nails, beautiful as a butterfly, soft as silk Irish linen. I figure that I’ve saved at least one tree so far, plus the one on my front lawn last week. May I suggest that this April, in honor of Arbor Day and Earth Day, you dip into your inherited Irish reverence for trees and take the No Paper Napkins Pledge too? Sláinte!

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{photo album} Family Pictures

The Duffy Girls n this photograph, taken in Boston in 1922, my grandfather James J. Duffy is pictured with his three daughters (left to right) Margaret, Catherine and Rita. Not shown are his sons James, Hugh, Daniel and George.

James J. Duffy was born in Moville, Inishowen, Co. Donegal between August and November 1882. He married my grandmother, Margaret A. Doherty from Culdaff, Inishowen, in Boston on November 29, 1909.

My grandfather James was a fireman and a longshoreman; my grandmother Margaret was the head waitress at the Hotel Vendrome in Boston. Immigration papers show they came to America May 2, 1905 on the SS Caledonia and settled in Charlestown, Boston. The girl on the right, Catherine R. Duffy, married my father, James B. Fitzgerald, and was my IA mother.

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– Submitted by James B. Fitzgerald, Charlestown MA

Please send photographs along with your name, address, phone number, and a brief description, to Declan O’Kelly at Irish America, 875 Sixth Avenue, Suite 2100, New York, NY 10001. If photos are irreplaceable, then please send a good quality reproduction or e-mail the picture at 300 dpi resolution to Irishamag@aol.com. No photocopies, please. We will pay $65 for each submission that we select.

98 IRISH AMERICA APRIL/MAY 2009