An Irish festival in a suffering parish brings the community back together again.
June 9, 20135,000 Irish Americans gather to help Rockaway recover from Hurricane Sandy – An Irish festival in a suffering parish brings the community back together again
Rockaway Beach: Close to 5,000 Irish Americans came together this weekend to help a shattered Catholic congregation in Rockaway, New York come together.
Many wore t-shirts emblazoned with the AOH logo and “Rockaway Beach, Breezy Point Strong” and that said it all.
Amazingly, in an mayoral election year, no politicians showed up, though City Council Speaker Christine Quinn did provide some buses. As for Mayor Bloomberg, “He wouldn’t dare show his face around here,” one festival goer said to me.
Sure, the Irish have long memories but when you consider Bloomberg prioritized holding the NYC marathon after Sandy and not local relief efforts it is easy to see why.
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Posted in news | Comments Off on An Irish festival in a suffering parish brings the community back together again.Dublin: a literary heritage
March 30, 2013A tribute to Ireland’s writers is tranformed into the largest international literary award in history
By Turlough McConnell
Dublin is a city of words. More precisely, it is a city of wordsmiths, of men and women whose work uplifts everyday reality in a variety of literary forms. Everyone is Dublin, or so it seems, has a story to tell – and so it has been for centuries, Story telling is a way of life in Dublin, and Flourishes among the city’s famous as well as its ordinary citizens. It links this youthful, contemporary capital city with one of the most ancient cultures in Europe. …
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Posted in news | Comments Off on Dublin: a literary heritageA Hallowed Place
March 30, 2013Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art
By Turlough McConnell
There is something of common race instinct in the work of all original Irish writers today, and it can hardly be absent in the sister art. – Sir Hugh Lane
True to the spirit of its founder, the Hugh lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art remains dedicated to bringing work of art to public attention. Thanks to Barbara Dawson, the gallery director, and her colleague, Christina Kennedy, the Huge Lane Gallery will open its doors on June 19th to “America’s Eyes: Irish Paintings from the Collection of Brian P. Burns” considered one of the most extensive and distingushed collections of Irish piantings in the United States. ….
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Posted in news | Comments Off on A Hallowed PlaceAmerica’s Most Irish Towns
March 30, 2013On St. Patrick’s Day, everyone is Irish. But what about the rest of the year?
Twenty-two million Americans — 7.2% of the population — say their “primary ancestry” is Irish, according to the Census’s American Community Survey. Another 13.5 million Americans claim at least some Irish ancestry, bringing the total to 35.5 million Americans — 11.6% of the population — with at least partial Irish ancestry. If that sounds low, remember that Ireland’s population today is just 6.4 million — 4.6 million in the Republic of Ireland and 1.8 million in Northern Ireland. So there are more than five times as many Americans with at least partial Irish ancestry as there are people who live in Ireland.
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Posted in news | Comments Off on America’s Most Irish TownsIreland’s Great Hunger Museum
March 30, 2013Quinnipiac Univeristy, Hamden, Connecticut, USA
by, Meredith Meagher
In his painting Departure, Padraic depicts an apocalyptic human procession trudging across a blighted and bloodies potato field, the emaciated dead lying beneath the feet of the mourners, the living marching towards perpetual exile on a famine ship. The anger of the piece encapsulates the mood of the inaugural exhibition of the newly opened Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. Like many of the works by contemporary artists on display, the characters in Reany’s painting appear suspended between what has been lost and what lies ahead, neither memorial nor chronicle, transcending tired historical debates, unapologetic in their rage…
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The Guide Exhibition Catalog
March 21, 2013
The museum juxtaposes paintings and sculptures in ways that begin to reinterpret this human tragedy. The historians, curators and designers of this exhibition thought carefully about what you, the visitor, would experience in these galleries. The purpose of this guide is to build on their work by highlighting the richness of the collection and introducing its main themes.
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Additional images: Click for larger views
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Irelands Great Hunger Museum | The New York Times
March 9, 2013Mournful, Angry Views of Ireland’s Famine
A Review of Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum, in Hamden
Mark Stanczak/Quinnipiac University
PROCESSION A print of a grieving family is projected on a video wall.
By SYLVIANE GOLD
Published: January 4, 2013
Most museums that bear witness to a nightmare, like Yad Vashem in Jerusalem or the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima, are hard to visit. Caught between our need to understand the history and our wish to turn away from the horror, we don’t quite know where or how to look.
But Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum, which opened in October in Hamden, is a different kind of place. For one thing, the event it commemorates, the Irish potato famine, …
Posted in news | Comments Off on Irelands Great Hunger Museum | The New York TimesSpecial Features for Irish America Magazine
January 18, 2013A Living Legacy: Irish Art from the Collection of Brian Burns
A special supplement to Irish America by Turlough McConnell delving into 
the genesis of Brian Burns’ collection of Irish art and the subsequent sale of his collection at the world-renowned London auction house, Sotheby’s in November 2018.
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Irish Scholarship Landmark at Boston College
A special supplement to Irish America by Turlough McConnell celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Boston College’s Burns Visiting Scholar in Irish Studies Program. Featuring interviews with Mary McAleese, Mick Maloney, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, and more former Scholars. Original photography by Kim Haughton.
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1916 – 2016: Proclaiming the American Story
A special supplement to Irish America by Turlough McConnell highlighting the recent scholarship on the Easter Rising and how it will come together at a new photo exhibition in partnership with the Consulate General of Ireland in New York.
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Boston College: Guardian of Irish Culture
In this feature for Irish America Magazine, Turlough McConnell reports on Boston College’s broad commitment to Irish Studies through its Irish Studies Programs, Irish Institute, Burns Library Irish Collections and the Centre for Irish Programs-Dublin.
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The Four Irish Nobel Laureates
“Without the titanic vision of one man, Brian P. Burns, one of this would have been possible,” writes Roger Kohn of “The Four Irish Nobel Laureates,” a serious of sculptures created by noted Irish artist Rowan Gillespie, now permanently housed in the John J. Burns Library.
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A River Runs Through It
Turlough McConnell reviews the new home and history of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota designed by architect, Jean Nouvel and completed in 2006. Including an interview with Joe Dowling, the Guthrie’s seventh artistic director.
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Commemorating the Great Irish Famine 1845 – 1850
On the occasion of an 1996 exhibition on the Irish Famine traveling through the United States, Turlough McConnell provides a closer look.
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