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Publisher's Notes:
World Series Special On Tap – at Greystones in Wicklow!
Baseball fans who find themselves in Ireland in October are well advised to find their way to Greystones (Irish: Na Clocha Liatha), a little town in County Wicklow on Ireland’s east coast, five miles from Bray and a half hour south of Dublin.
There, on the evening of Thurs., Oct. 29, fans of the great American pastime, baseball, will gather in the town’s sparkling new Greystones Theatre to watch Game One of the 2010 World Series! Read more
Boston Irish Commentary
At Last, After 38 Long Years, People of Derry Absolved
July 2, 2010 by by Joe Leary, Special to the Reporter, special to the BIR
The tragedy of British arrogance towards Catholic Ireland over the past many centuries has never been more thoroughly revealed than in the official government report issued on the “Bloody Sunday” shootings and killings in Derry, Northern Ireland, on Jan. 30, 1972. Twenty seven unarmed Catholic protesters were shot by British soldiers just after four o’clock that afternoon – and 14 of them died. Read more
Review, Apology ‘Transformative,’ says U.S. Rep. Neal
July 2, 2010 by Reporter Staff, special to the BIR
By Robert P. Connolly
Special to the BIR
It is perhaps more than appropriate that the echoes of the gun shots fired in Derry on Jan. 30, 1972, have reverberated down through the decades. Read more
A death in Our Family: Aunt Elinor (1914-2010)
June 3, 2010 by , special to the BIR
By Tom Mulvoy
Associate Editor
Last Saturday morning, two days shy of her 96th birthday, Elinor (Harrington) Barron died where she had prayed she would – in her home of 52 years in the Waban neighborhood of Newton. It was the end of a life that began in May 1914, three months before the Guns of August announced the beginning of The Great War, and that endured through close to a century’s worth of turmoil and high drama in the larger world. Read more
Whatever Became of John McCain?
June 3, 2010 by , special to the BIR
By James W. Dolan
Special to the Reporter
There is no denying that Senator John McCain is a true American hero. He was badly injured when shot down over North Vietnam and then endured five years of imprisonment, deprivation, and torture. He said he “broke,” but if so, it was only after resisting to a point far beyond what could reasonably be expected of anyone. Read more
Positive Change in Northern Ireland: A Steady Rise in Nationalist Vote
June 3, 2010 by , special to the BIR
By Joe Leary
Special to the BIR
The recent British Parliamentary elections indicate a dramatic new phase in Northern Ireland’s journey towards peaceful change. New leaders in London, a continuing increase in National/Republican votes, Unionist parties in disarray, and the promise of lower corporate tax rates all portend change. It appears much is happening to set the stage for movement towards a United Ireland.
The success of the two Nationalist/Republican political parties, Sinn Fein and the Social Democratic Labor Party (SDLP), both aggressively advocating Northern Ireland unity with the Republic of Ireland, was seen in many of the 18 constituencies where the election was fought. Read more
Election Fallout Stirs Talk of a Union of Unionists
June 3, 2010 by , special to the BIR
By Robert P. Connolly
Special to the BIR
For years, the political playbook for Northern Ireland’s unionists stressed saber-rattling and offering up the hardest of hard-line stands. After all, the party that dominated unionist politics for decades, the Ulster Unionist Party, once had its armed wing and in the aftermath of partition made clear that Northern Ireland was a Protestant state and that Catholics were a barely tolerated and little-trusted enemy within the North’s borders. Read more
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