When Shivaun O’Casey first met Irish-born Nobel Literature Prize winner Samuel Beckett, she was a shy young girl of 16 studying acting in London. In the 32 years that have followed that meeting, she ...

Cohan’s father, Jerry Cohan, was widely known as one of the best traditional Irish dancers in all of New England. According to the Cohan biographer, John McCabe, Jerry Cohan’s specialty was working ...

This month we are featuring the families of our new Taoiseach [Prime Minister] Albert Reynolds, and our previous Taoiseach Charles Haughey. Both names are Gaelic in origin and both exemplify the ...

As Larry Kirwan, the wiry lead guitarist and singer drags out this melodramatic emigration song, the eyes of the young Irish woman beside me mist over. She silently mouthes the words to herself as ...

Remember that last scene in Yankee Doodle Dandy? An elderly George M. Cohan, played by an artificially aged Jimmy Cagney comes from an audience with Franklin Roosevelt. The U.S. has just entered World ...

Thomas Moore was the most popular Irish poet of his day. His famed “Irish Melodies,” with exquisite lyrics by Moore composed to traditional airs, were translated into many languages and won him ...

On December 4, 1154, Nicholas Breakspear, the first and only Englishman to ascend to the papacy, was unanimously elected the Catholic Church’s 107th pope. He chose Adrian IV, a posh name for a pope ...

Nellie Bly’s biographer, Brooke Kroeger, captured the essence of his admirable subject when he wrote: “In the 1880s, she pioneered the development of ‘detective’ or ‘stunt’ journalism, the ...

His mother was Irish born Emma Jane Whelan. His father’s mother was also Irish. Hitchcock was educated at a Jesuit school and remained a devout Catholic through out his life. Hitchcock also adapted ...

In 1997, Irish people around the world will remember the 150th anniversary of the Famine that resulted in one million deaths and forced one million and a half to emigrate to Canada and the United ...

The O’Briens are one of the great Gaelic families of Ireland, and were the rulers of the ancient kingdom of Thomond, which takes in much of the modern county Clare and also the adjacent parts of ...

Burke (or Bourke) is one of the most popular Irish names of Norman origin. The name was introduced to Ireland through the person (and presumably extended family) of William Fitzadelm de Burgo, who ...