On Saturday, October 5, Long Beach had it annual St. Brendan's Day parade and celebration. A very significant event this year considering the town is still recovering from Hurricane Sandy!

It was a wonderful Day! The weather was perfect and everyone seem to be having a good time. There was the parade of pipe bands from Long Island and New York City and their music could…

It was the site of an infamous cavalry charge that was either an act of supreme bravery or one of sheer stupidity or both. It inspired a famous poem that is still drilled into schoolchildren. A young woman in London, Florence Nightingale, was so moved upon reading the reports of…

Hi all I have just made a video for a new song called "you in his eyes" the song is based on Milton's paradise Lost poem and has been reviewed in Irish Music Magazine. The video and song can be heard on my site at:

http://www.padraiglalor.com

Here is text of the review plus lyrics:

STORY BEHIND THE SONG…

The Sister Cities Program - 500 US Cities - 1900 connections worldwide - 140 Countries

A sister city organization is a volunteer group of ordinary citizens who, with the support of their local elected officials, form long-term relationships with people and organizations in a city abroad. Each sister city organization is independent and pursues the…

When International Coffee Day came and went at the end of September, it got me thinking about the odd coffee culture here in Ireland.  Why do I call it "odd"?  

I'm an Irish-American now living in Ireland -- I…

This was originally posted at artofneed, Blog for the Auld Irishtown trilogy here.

The history of …

This is a postcard of William Street in Galway City, circa 1930. The keen eye will see "DUBLIN TIME" underneath the clock at Dillon's Jewellers (the building on the right of the photo with the striped awning). In the past, Galway, like other Irish towns, operated according to local time, which was relative to its distance from Greenwich. Dublin time was twenty-five minutes…

She even calls her puppy Seamus. 

Linda Opyr began her tribute to Seamus Heaney with the story of her naming her new dog after the recently deceased Seamus Heaney, the Noble Prize Laureate in Literature in 1995, a native of Derry.  Dr. Linda Opyr presented her tribute to Heaney at the October 16 meeting of the Irish Cultural Society at the Garden City…

Our Wild Geese teammate Anna Porter took me to two 'famine' graveyards in the county of Leitrim.  At first sight there are just stone walls enclosing areas of beautiful Irish green grass, but once inside the intensity is immediately felt.…

Ireland: In Word and Image

By Jay Ben Adlersberg

Welcome Books, 272 Pages

On Sale Via Amazon.com October 22, 2013

Pre-Order Price: $42.70 (List Price $60.00)

A Review by Catherine Lilbit Devine

There is…

Lebor na gCeart, the "Book of Rights", details the rents and taxes paid by the King of Cashel to various others in Ireland.  The original manuscripts date to the 11th or 12th century, and it contains a treasure trove of references to the customs and practices of Irish nobility in the Middle Ages.  This collection of manuscripts was…

I wanted to share this very nice (and potentially useful) map created by Kingston University, London.  The Irish surnames plotted on this map have either historic or numeric importance to the counties of Ireland.  Of numeric importance are the birth counts from the 1891 census.…

In both 2012 and 2013, it was my honour to provide the engraved glass bowl in which the bouquet of shamrock was presented to President Barack Obama by Irish Taoiseach, Enda Kenny.  Here's a radio interview I did earlier…

Ok, here is the story of my winning a trip to Ireland!

Around St. Paddy's Day, some advertisements started popping up in my news feed on facebook (as I love all things Irish) and I noticed a couple that said "Win a trip for 2 to Waterford" in Ireland and as much as I don't like giving out my info to contests, I dearly wanted to see Ireland somehow and I figured it was worth the risk to possibly win a trip there. You can't win if you don't enter right? So I went to the site and you were…

The Doegen Records Web Project (Tionscadal Gréasáin Cheirníní Doegen) has made available a treasure trove of audio recordings from the 17 counties of Ireland, mostly concentrated in the northwest.  This multi-media archive is a project of the Royal Irish Academy Library in collaboration with the Digital Humanities Observatory, and…

We've rescheduled our community hangout with  Derek Warfield the Young Wolfe Tones in The Wild Geese Virtual Síbín for the week of October 28th. Logistical challenges…

Enjoy this video of Derek Warfield and The Young Wolfe Tones performing one of the quintessential Wolfe Tones songs, "The Streets of New York."  Derek Warfield and one of his Young Wolfe Tones, banjo player Damaris Woods, will be joining us for a LIVE hangout in The Wild Geese Virtual Síbín in November.

Click here for…

Check out this absolutely brilliant history of Ireland in six minutes created by Wild Geese member …

Being new to this site, I have not been able to 'respond' to mail sent to me from this site, specifically the invitation for  members to review the upcoming major motion picture "Philomena." (Whenever I click on a link that is supposed to allow me to send email to this site, my computer asks for information which I haven't the answer to...thus, trying this avenue.  If anyone reading this knows a direct email address where I may send my information…

Yes it's definitely a British Army Marching song. I have been in the club near Manchester where it was written.Next time I will take a photo. i think there is some kind of plaque there.

It was not very popular in Mayo in my time but as time has gone by we can just say it may have given Tipperary some promotion, and of course it is a catchy tune.