Nellie was able to fool the doctors at Bellevue into believing she was mentally incompetent and was transported out to Blackwell’s Island (in a 19th century illustration, above). After ten harrowing days there, the paper managed to get her out, but she admitted to feeling a lot of anxiety waiting for it to happen.…

The very subtlest eloquence

That injured men can show,

Is the pathos of a pike-head,

And the logic of a blow.

Hopes built upon fine talking

Are like castles built on sand

But the pleading of cold iron

Not a tyrant can withstand.

In antebellum America, many former…

When I entered the University of Notre Dame in 1965, the first thing I had to do was make some close friends. Notre Dame has no social fraternities and in 1965 no women. So one had to fish around your residence halls and classes to find some friends with mutual interests.

During the…

Carmel, California -- Before I get to the acclaimed Irish traditional musicians from Donegal who comprise the band, Altan, I’m going to editorialize to put the show I saw the other night into context. When I lived on the western coast of Ireland, it fascinated me to realize that in the…

“Have you ever been to Mars?” I was asked one morning at 2am as I made my way up east 81st. street in Manhattan. I was returning home from a night out at Manny’s Car Wash, a favorite blues bar on 2nd avenue. I stopped and heard it again, louder this time, “Have you ever been to Mars?” Looking around I couldn’t see anyone and…

(Scroll down to read the English translation of this post.)

Bhuel, bhí sé go h-iontach a bheith i láthair i Ros Muc i mbliana le hÉirí amach na Cásca a chomóradh, céad bhliain níos déanaí.  Bhí brat na hÉireann ag foluain i ngach gáirdín agus cuma álainn ar an cheantar ar fad.  Bhí gach sórt…

Speech by John Bruton, former Taoiseach, at 11 a.m., Monday 28^th March, in Iveagh House, Dublin, as part of RTE's “Reflecting the Rising” series.

President John Kennedy once said that a “nation reveals itself “ by the events and people it chooses to commemorate.

This state is a rule of law based, parliamentary democracy, which has…

My friends kid me about one of the websites I frequent, a place called Banjo Hangout (dot Org). It’s a place where banjo geeks like me go and talk about strings and rings, and pots and picks, and necks and woods and, well, banjo makers! And occasionally I receive messages from those fellow Banjo geeks – so I wasn’t too…

The GPO, Mount Street Bridge, The South Dublin Union -- these are names that resonate when it comes to Easter 1916 as the battlegrounds for what became Padraig Pearse’s ‘glorious failure.’ However, for some quirk of history, the success that took place in the sleepy town of Ashbourne, County Meath, during the Rising has…

Mayo born singer songwriter Seamus Ruttledge has recorded a new version of 'James Connolly' to mark the centenary of the 1916 Easter rising.

Ruttledge has adapted, arranged, and written new verses for this 2016 interpretation of the famous…

Although the first census of the United Kingdom was held in 1801, it was not until the 1841 census that respondents were asked to state their country of birth, thereby enabling us to see the size of the Irish population in Britain. We cannot, therefore, accurately judge how many Irish refugees had flooded into England, Scotland…

Invite a seanchaí into your home . . . you will be glad that you did. With Jim Hawkins new CD, My Own Native Land: Stories and Songs of Ireland, that has never been easier. Hawkins’ debut album will carry you across the miles, over the waters and back in time.

When a colleague suggested that I review “My Own…

Irishmen everywhere celebrate the

1916 Easter Risings 100-Year Anniversary

Where was Irish Patriot Tom Barry during the Easter…

Even on the best of days, when the weather is temperate and the sky soft and cloudless, Galway City has a worn, secondhand feel to it: an historic, pensive, erudite quality everywhere you roam down its serpentine streets. But there’s also an energetic undercurrent to Galway that seems to thrive on the idea of opposites,…

Photo of window at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, courtesy of George R. Doyle, 2014

I bind to myself today

The strong virtue of the…

In the next few hours a large chunk of the world will go green – not out of a love for the environment, but because that’s what you do on March 17.

Forget about any sense of style, every shade of green you can envisage will be flown, painted, worn and waved on St Patrick’s Day. All those inner Irishmen and women will…

When the Tuatha system of rule was replaced by Gaelic rule the areas of Ireland were known as 'cúige',  which in Irish means 'portion' or 'fifth', indicating the original division of the five areas:

Mide * Ulster * Munster *…

In days gone by, there was a popular Irish…

Saint Patrick’s Day as been celebrated on March 17th since the early seventeenth century. The day commemorates Saint Patrick and the arrival of Christianity in Ireland, as well as the celebration of all things Irish; culture and heritage. It is widely celebrated all around the…

I am NOT advocating revolution or organization in any manner but I do have something I would like all of us to consider if you will.

Do you not find it to be a bit insulting to have the Irish alway characterized as brawling stiffs and drunkards?

Why, everywhere I travel I find novelty shops selling items show…