Boston Irish Commentary
Irish citizens faced a critical choice early this month and they bolstered the country's status in the European Union with a resounding vote in favor of accepting the "Lisbon Treaty" amendments to the European Union Charter just 16 months after rejecting... Read more
It wasn't supposed to happen. It was by accident, or maybe providence. Truth be told, I never liked children all that much. Or, more to the point, they never liked me. But it all started with something I like enormously: a holiday.
During eight years... Read more
Following are excerpts from a letter exchange between Edward M. Kennedy and Pope Benedict XVI in the weeks before Kennedy’s death:
SENATOR KENNEDY
"Most Holy Father, I asked President Obama to personally hand deliver this letter to you. As a man of deep... Read more
These are parlous times in the news profession, print division. No one is sure where things are headed as newspaper proprietors work at fashioning a 21st century business model that will link news gathering and advocacy, advertising, circulation/... Read more
For more than a quarter of a century, the Irish republican party, Sinn Fein, has had a clear and undisputed leader, Gerry Adams.
To be sure, Adams has had a leadership partner, Martin McGuinness, but fundamentally, it has been understood that Adams... Read more
An old Irish proverb graces Bridget Shaheen's modest office in Lawrence: "It is in the shelter of each other that the people live." In the shelter of Lazarus House Ministries on humble Holly Street, executive director Shaheen, who walks the Christian talk... Read more
While the season has not taken Northern Ireland to brink of civil war, as happened all too often during the turbulent 1990s, this summer certainly illustrates that many tensions, sectarian and otherwise, continue to bubble in the Northern cauldron.
Summer... Read more
The terrain onto which the four major candidates for governor of the Commonwealth tread is one fundamentally different-looking than the turf onto which a former Justice Department official and corporate attorney named Deval Patrick trod in early 2005.
And... Read more
Ominous may be the right word to describe Northern Ireland conditions today:
On Saturday evening, March 14 this year, two British soldiers, Mark Quinsey, 23, and Cengiz Patrick Azimkar, 21, were shot and killed by automatic gunfire as a pizza delivery... Read more
He had his devotees and his detractors, but as far as this reviewer is concerned, one thing about Frank McCourt is and remains indisputable. Frank McCourt could flat out write. He had battled hard against melanoma and meningitis in recent months, but... Read more
At 92, Francis Patrick Brennan, dean of Boston's banking community, a first-generation Irish American who elbowed his way into the core of the once Yankee-dominated financial world where Irish need not apply, a vigorous, brassy, high-octane individual... Read more
By Thursday afternoon, June 25, the capitol had grown weary of waiting for Gov. Deval Patrick to pass judgment on bills on his desk re-wiring the transportation bureaucracy, tightening ethics laws, and escalating the state sales tax by 25 percent.
Senate... Read more
As Ireland sinks deeper into the agonies of depression, Fianna Fail government leaders are working desperately to correct the problems caused by, "the most overheated of all advanced economies," according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) report... Read more
On a cloudy and rainy weekday morning that makes this particular corner of the city look more like Seattle than Boston, City Councillor Michael F. Flaherty arrives at the Forest Hills T Station and starts saying hello to campaign workers and greeting... Read more
Meet Michele O'Connor, a VP at all-boys BC High: A fund-raiser with panache in academia and politics
The daughter of an ex-nun and an Iowa farm boy, a devout young Republican in a state dominated by Democrats, the vice president for institutional advancement at the iconic all-boys Boston College High School, and a woman with a knack for fundraising... Read more
RIP, Dave Burke, A Legendary Hibernian
David R. Burke, the leading voice in the Lawrence Hibernian community for more than a half century, died on Wed., May 27, at Caritas Holy Family Hospital in Methuen, of cancer.
A highly decorated and respected member... Read more
NEW YORK – With three decades of struggle behind them, it must be said that Gerry Adams and his republican supporters are patient and methodical.
And very tactical.
The fruits of their patience and tactics are now on display in Northern Ireland, where... Read more
At the time of Sputnik - first space orbit - the cosmonaut hailed as a hero by many blatantly observed that in his travels, he did not find "heaven." It would seem that technology proved that heaven was a myth. Some discussion took place. However, this... Read more
Despite the worldwide nature of the economic recession, Irish voters are charging their own political leaders with the responsibility for their country's problems. It is often said that perception frequently becomes reality. Ireland's leading political... Read more
A sporting equivalent of Mayor Thomas Menino's poll numbers reported May 10 in The Boston Globe would perhaps be sitting in the audience of a heavyweight fight watching the reigning champ flex and shadowbox, then realizing that you're the one due in the... Read more
