There is a moment in "Brooklyn" -- the recently released 1950s period semi-romance -- when one naive and worried young Irishwoman turns to a slightly less naive and worried young Irishwoman and asks her what America will be like. The response is heartfelt, immediate, true and not quite true, all at once: "Like Ireland,…

Today the iconic claddagh ring is, along with the harp and shamrock, one of the most widely recognized and most iconically “Irish” symbols in America. The commercial value of the claddagh ring design is enormous -- and probably impossible to…