MÁIRT -- On July 8, 1770, Mary Ann McCracken -- patriot, philanthropist and sister of United Irish martyr Henry Joy McCracken -- was born in Belfast. Mary Ann was the fiercely independent daughter of a Presbyterian sea captain. With her sister, Margaret, she started a small muslin business while only in her…

Avoca Cafés and restaurants, with 14 locations throughout Ireland from Mount Usher in County Wicklow to Moll’s Gap in County Kerry, serve luscious lunches, dreamy confections, and sweet treats to eat-in or to take- away. Even some of the best cooks in the country supplement their own baked goods…

            It may be a cliché, but everyone really is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day! Aran knits, tweed caps, and shamrock-emblazoned scarves come out of the closet on the 17th. If you’re cooking, that means your treasured Irish recipes emerge, too, ones that everyone loves and expects on the most celebratory day on the…

It was mid-afternoon of July 22, 1864, and the Confederate infantry of General Cheatham’s Corps of John Bell Hood’s Army of Tennessee was breaking through the Federal…

At the Commemorative mass for Anne Devlin in St. Catherine's Church, Meath Street, Dublin on Sunday 14 September, 2014 I gave the following Eulogy:

"As we celebrate this decade of centenaries, it is easy to forget those who went before, and without whom many of these events would not have happened.

One such person was Anne Devlin, in…

     In my latest cookbook, Delicious Ireland: Forty Years of Fabulous Food, I wrote about experiencing my first Irish breakfast: “We all treasured Ireland for reasons of our own, but none of us thought much about the food then — except breakfast, perhaps, when we would sit down with…

Most of the stuff in my novels comes from my imagination but I owe a fair amount of what I write to a pub called The Rocking Chair where there’s such a variety of characters that you’d need to be brain deaf not to pick up some nuggets. …

            It’s peach season in most places around the country, a time for crisps, cobblers, pies, upside-down cakes, and these delicious baked peaches. No crust or crumble required, just stuff and bake for an easy, elegant dessert.

Baked…

Round Lough Derg's holy island I went upon the stones,

I prayed at all the Stations upon my marrow bones,

And there I found an old man, and though, I prayed all day

And that old man beside me, nothing would he say

From “The…

"Every civilization in this world built on top of the one they conquered. You go to Rome or Jerusalem or Paris, France, and it's cities stacked on top of towns, stacked on top of villages, stacked on top of one man's house built on top of one man's…