Skip to content

Subscribe to the BIR

Get your copy delivered fresh every month. Order online.

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

Carol Beggy - Around the Town

Irish Government Announces $.5M funding to Mass Irish groups

July 21, 2010 by Ed Forry

Consul General Michael Lonergan (center), presents grants totalling $.5mil in ceremomies at the Irish Consulate on July 20, 2010.Consul General Michael Lonergan (center), presented grants totaling $ 0.5 million in ceremomies at the Boston Consulate on July 20, 2010. Also pictured from left: Mike O'Connor, Irish Cultural Centre of New England; Beth Keenan, Worcester Hibernian Cultural Center; Sr., Lena Deevey, Irish Immigration Center; and Sr. Marguerite Kelly, Irish Pastoral Centre.

The Consulate General of Ireland has announced continued Irish Government support for Irish groups from the Emigrant Support Programme. The total amount awarded by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mícheál Martin, this year to four Massachusetts based organisations is over $500,000. Read more

BIR News Blog

“Boston Irish Family Honors” Luncheon Set for October 7

July 22, 2010 by Ed Forry

Event Summary- The Boston Irish Reporter, the region's leading chronicler of all things Irish-American, will celebrate 20 years of chronicling “The Stories of Boston's Irish”. The Reporter will observe this important milestone with a Celebratory Luncheon on Thursday, October 7, 2010 at Boston's Seaport Hotel/World Trade Center. 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

Here and There

Derry Shows The World

July 2, 2010 by By Bill O'Donnell

Derry Shows The World – The good people of Derry – victims all in so many ways of the murders on January 30, 1972 -- showed a face to the world that will be hard to forget. It was the patience, civility, and loyalty of the citizens of Derry, with an enormous helping of dignity thrown in, that were easily the equal of the graceful words of the Tory Prime Minister when he described the events of 38 years ago as “unjustified and unjustifiable.” Read more

AdaptiveThemes