Boston Irish Commentary

By Joe Leary Special to the BIR DUBLIN – Foreclosures, higher taxes, higher health insurance costs, and huge pay cuts for most everyone over the last several years had created an Irish anger that demanded change, and right away. In addition to those woes... Read more
By James W. Dolan Special to the Reporter Love is the all-encompassing virtue. Yet in our culture it is corrupted, distorted, and debased. Emphasis is placed on the self rather than the other. Self-absorption and self-seeking replace the essential... Read more
By Joe Leary Special to the BIR Whether it was the fault of Ireland’s unscrupulous bankers, greed-driven businessmen, or incompetent politicians, the country is now experiencing a traumatic collapse of its ruling government. Prime Minister Brian Cowen... Read more
By Joe Leary Special to the BIR Unemployment is high, existing salaries have been cut, taxes are being increased, furious bitter criticism is everywhere, politicians are screaming at each other, and amateur economic experts are demanding their economic... Read more
Minister’s Call to Cut Funds for Catholic Schools a Case in Point By Joe Leary Special to the BIR Many Irish Americans express wonderment as to why, after all the progress towards peace and understanding, Northern Ireland still has sporadic violence and... Read more
By Greg O’Brien Special to the BIR “Ireland sober is Ireland stiff,” wrote James Joyce. And so we toast the Isle of Mists in throaty zest after the Shannon-bound Aer Lingus flight finally lifts off a rain-soaked JFK runway at 10:30 p.m. on Sun., Aug. 22... Read more
By Joseph F. Leary One of Britain’s most respected commentators, Chief Editorial Writer and columnist Mary Dejevsky of The London Independent has written a provocative article on Northern Ireland and the prospect of a United Ireland. In a column published... Read more
Like most of the world today, Northern Ireland is facing an uncertain financial future. But unlike most countries, it is an unsettled society, just emerging from 40 traumatic years of tragedy after tragedy. Although Northern Ireland now has its local,... Read more
Today, it sits just outside the most ethnically Irish of American cities, but in the mid-19th century, Boston College was basically a local school in Boston's South End neighborhood providing a Jesuit-Catholic education to the sons of recent Irish-... Read more
Philip W. Johnston, a former chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, always knew how to spot a winner. The knack surfaced as a teenager. At 14, he wrote to a junior senator from Massachusetts, urging him to run for president. The senator promptly... Read more
At a time when the nation faces severe financial depression, bank failures, and high unemployment, it should come as something of a consolation to recall that over the course of some 350 years New England has demonstrated an uncanny ability to adapt well... Read more
The July parades in Northern Ireland celebrate a Protestant military victory over a Catholic army at the Battle of the Boyne in the Republic of Ireland over 300 years ago. The marches are an in-your-face expression by some of Northern Ireland's... Read more
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.... Read more
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. On a literal level, the shots fired by British soldiers that day... Read more
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... Read more
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... Read more
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... Read more
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... Read more
Giving new definition to irony, Rob O'Leary's academic pedigree in the spirited arena of Boston politics reads like one from central casting: Kimball Union Academy in New Hampshire; The School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University where he rubbed... Read more
The results of the upcoming British Parliamentary elections will have a profound effect upon peace and understanding amongst the conflicted people of Northern Ireland. The people of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, will elect 650 members of... Read more

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