Arts and Entertainment
“The Importance of Being Earnest” stands as one of the world’s most enduring plays. Written by Dublin-born Oscar Wilde in 1895, the witty comedy of good manners is set in Victorian London and filled with mistaken identities, secret engagements and... Read more
Next stop in a busy life: Teaching at Boston College
By Sean Smith
Special to the BIR
The way Sheila Falls sees it, playing Irish fiddle and classical violin doesn’t have to be an either/or proposition.
For a goodly part of her life, Falls — a Rhode... Read more
By Susan Gedutis Lindsay
Special to the BIR
While her Irish music colleagues were still coming down from the high of the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Derry this August, the author and occasional BIR contributor Susan Gedutis Lindsay was drawing her own... Read more
Heatons, McEvoy, Gaelic Storm top lineup
By Sean Smith
Special to the BIR
Eleanor McEvoy
Performances by Boston/New England acts Matt and Shannon Heaton, Lissa Schneckenburger and Annalivia, the return of popular Celtic rockers Gaelic Storm, and rare... Read more
Q. How do you make a concertina?
A. Cross an accordion with a stop sign.
It’s not as if the concertina has never gotten respect in the traditional Irish music world – maybe it’s just overlooked, in comparison with, say, the fiddle, uilleann pipes, flute,... Read more
BY MARY E. CHOPPA
SPECIAL TO THE BIR
First the disclaimer: I am the current president of The Irish Ancestral Research Association (TIARA). If you haven’t heard of us, we’re a group of like-minded Irish genealogists who try to help each other find our... Read more
Two family-based bands with different approaches to Irish music will make appearances this month at the Irish Cultural Centre of New England in Canton.
On Aug. 3, the ICCNE will feature Michigan quartet Finvarra’s Wren as part of the center’s Tiny Cottage... Read more
Dust off your dancing shoes, because several of the professionals from “Dancing With The Stars” are hitting the road and bringing the sizzle straight to New England. From the Samba to the Waltz, Foxtrot, Quickstep, Jive and more, the evening promises a... Read more
Devri, a band? Don’t tell them that – they’re too busy having a good time.
OK, yes, Devri is in fact a band, for all practical purposes. But Devri also defies the conventional idea of the “Irish band from Boston” in a few ways:
Start with the band’s name... Read more
BY SEAN SMITH
SPECIAL TO THE BIR
It was a promising debut for Féile Cheoil Boston, as some 60 musicians and singers from greater Boston and eastern Massachusetts signed up to take part in instrument and vocal competitions among several different... Read more
BY R. J. DONOVAN
SPECIAL TO THE BIR
Where do tomorrow’s actors, directors, and theater professionals come from? Many teenage theater students start in programs such as that of Lyric First Stage.
Lyric First Stage is a unique, five-week summer program... Read more
BY SEAN SMITH
SPECIAL TO THE BIR
For some Boston-area Irish musicians, early summer might be called Between-the-Fleadhs season. It’s the period following the Mid-Atlantic Fleadh Cheoil – the annual regional Irish music competition, which this year took... Read more
BY R. J. DONOVAN
SPECIAL TO THE BIR
From Hollywood to Broadway, the world has long romanticized the sinking of the Titanic. Further, the story of the 1912 tragedy has focused strongly on the ship being a luxury liner that took to its watery grave a... Read more
BY SEAN SMITH
SPECIAL TO THE BIR
A New York City-based Irish band called The Yanks might seem a tough sell in the hub of Red Sox Nation, but Bostonians shouldn’t leap to conclusions: As fiddler Dylan Foley explains, he and his mates did not choose the... Read more
BY THOMAS O’GRADY
SPECIAL TO THE BIR
I am sitting on the terrace of a café in Paris—in Place de la Contrascarpe, to be exact. In 1921, when James Joyce was putting the finishing touches on Ulysses, he lived just around the corner, in a flat loaned to him... Read more
‘Everybody Matters’ mirrors an Irish woman and world humanitarian named Robinson
By Peter F. Stevens
BIR Staff
“Everybody matters” – surely those are two words with which countless people agree. What truly matters, however, is how few live up to those... Read more
By Sean Smith
Special to the BIR
Even by Green Briar standards, it was a big crowd. “There’s more musicians here than people,” quipped one visitor, gazing at the various instrument cases in evidence among the throng that had filled the Brighton pub.... Read more
By R. J. Donovan
Special to The BIR
Karen MacDonald is one of Boston’s most accomplished and awarded actor-director-teachers. From the angst of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” through the struggle and survival of Brecht’s masterpiece “Mother Courage,” the... Read more
‘25 years of persevering and surviving, and enjoying it.’
By Sean Smith
Special to the BIR
Their name evokes a wild and whirling dance so frenzied and transformative that it cannot possibly last. But even with almost 25 years behind them, for Dervish the... Read more
A musical disaster en route to a picturesque island off the coast of Galway may seem an unlikely inspiration for a play, but these elements suited the imagination of long-time local Irish music personality Tommy McCarthy.
A West Clare native, McCarthy is... Read more
