In 2007, the Irish independent film, Once, won an Oscar for the best original song, “Falling slowly;” a song created especially for the film. The song accentuates the film’s humanistic elements: the chance encounters and surprising intimacies that sometimes come when strangers meet. The film is about two musicians trying to survive in Dublin, who share a passion for music and a desire to have […]
Ireland, a country of fighters, union supporters and individuals coming together to optimize power, has recently passed a unanimous vote to legalized gay marriage. From the May 22nd referendum, Ireland has become the first country to embrace homosexual love coast-to-coast. And if the parades in the streets aren’t enough, there is evidence of a town, Dublin town, being painted with […]
The 19th Century Irish Ballad “The Rose of Tralee,” was written by William Mulchinock a wealthy protestant merchant who fell in love with Mary O’Connor, his maid, and a woman who was considered below his station. In the lyrics, Mulchinock tells a tale about his voyage to India–about leaving his love behind. Upon return, he […]
Read More… from The Rose of Tralee- The Naming of a Rose in Song and Pagaent
The New York City Museum of Moving Images currently features an emotion-simulating piece of artwork that at first appears static, yet changes to reflect the expressions of the onlooker (Exhibitions). On the wall it hangs. A representation of Caspar David Friedrich’s painting The Wanderer. A viewer stands from a distance, with his face to a […]
Read More… from A Bere Island Retreat into the Spiritual Sublime
It might come as a shock to expecting mothers, when searching the web for baby names, to come across the voice of the well-known writer, Frank McCourt. The website Baby Names of Ireland features McCourt’s voice pronuncing and defining hundreds of Irish names–each in his musical accent. McCourt’s first memoir, Angela’s Ashes reflects on the harsh conditions of his childhood in Limerick, […]
Read More… from Frank McCourt: the Voice of the Future is in the Past
Cork, the southernmost county in Ireland, is separate from the others not only in region. The “rebel” in its name seems to indicate an anti-authoritarian spirit that puts opposition against a higher power. Cork, the incubator for the gritty, hard-stanced Irish that would soon take no comment lightly, also becomes the homeland of those most proud […]
For the rural Irish immigrating to New York for the first time, it’s hard to imagine what mighty impact the big city left on them or what they noticed first. It could have been The Statue of Liberty, of course; or Ellis Island; the amass of lights, or the fast pace of the people. Onlookers, later to become […]
Irish travelers, also referred to as tinkers or gypsies, are said to have broken off from the “settled” Irish about a thousand years ago. They have a long history as craftsmen and tradespeople. As one source notes, “the sound of a hammer hitting an anvil,” warranted them the nickname of “tinkers” (Rock, Lauren). The […]
Read More… from The Itinerant Irish–Macweeney’s story of the Irish at Large
In leaving Ireland, I remember a song I heard on RTÉ radio a few days before returning to the United States. Its lyrics went: I left my heart in Athlon, my heart is an empty stone.” Still, I think of those lyrics today and envision the images of the place that captivated me as a stranger to the land. There is a […]
Read More… from Near the heart of Ireland–Athlone and Beyond
To some, Saint Patrick and the myth of riding Ireland of snakes is an allegory where the snake represents evil and Christianity is the cure—the eradicator—to that evil. Yet, others trust the geography of the island in answering the no snake question. Before the Emerald Island was an island, it was covered by ice. According […]
