Doing ‘research’ shopping in Ireland’s jewelry stores a delight: Culture rules in so many excellent shops

There is so much to enjoy when visiting Ireland and it’s always nice to remember your trip with a souvenir or two. But as seasoned travelers know, there is limited space and weight allowed in homebound suitcases and that could curb your urge to spend. I’ve found that handmade cards, jewelry, and small knitwear pieces – like scarves, gloves and hats – are lightweight, pack easily, travel well, and are fun to have at home.

AIDAN BREEN

September CD Reviews

Dan Gurney, “Ignorance Is Bliss” • A native of New York’s Mid-Hudson Valley, Gurney is a cross-platform app developer, co-founder of the live web-broadcasting site Concert Window, and not so incidentally, one of the country’s finest traditional Irish accordion players. “I like knowing how things work – finding answers,” he writes in the sleeve notes of this album, his second solo release.

First-time author delves into Boston’s racial divide

BY DAN SHEEHAN
REPORTER STAFF
Michael Patrick Murphy knows that history is cyclical. The South Shore native spent the formative part of his adolescence in South Boston and Dorchester, attending Boston College High School and UMass Boston. At that time, running from the late ‘80s through the early ‘90s, racial tension was at a high level. Although the desegregation of the city’s public schools had been happening since the mid-1970s, it was just starting to take place at private and parochial schools, which at that point were almost exclusively white.

‘Hamnet,’ Shakespeare’s Lost Boy, at ArtsEmerson

BY R. J. DONOVAN
SPECIAL TO THE BIR
Shakespeare stands as one the world’s most famous writers, yet much of his personal life lies blurred in mystery. The Bard had only one son, Hamnet, born in 1585 and named for a local friend. The playwright reportedly spent little time with his family in Stratford-upon-Avon, abandoning them to further his career in London. In 1596 he received word that Hamnet, then 11-years-old, was seriously ill. By the time he returned to Stratford, the boy was gone, never having had the opportunity to know his father.

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