September's Here & There

By Bill O'Donnell
August 30, 2017
Bill O'Donnell

 Armagh Family World’s Oldest, Says Guinness – A family of siblings from the Armagh/Tyrone border in the North has been named the world’s oldest by Guinness World Records. The Donnellys from Collegelands on the border of Armagh and Tyrone have a combined age of 1,073 years. The siblings are the children of Peter and Ellen Donnelly. Peter was a successful farmer with a prosperous apple business, and his family today accounts for almost 200 grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Mending walls after ‘The Troubles’

By Christopher J. Muse
August 30, 2017
Christopher J. Muse

As the poet Robert Frost famously penned, “Something there is that does not love a wall.” And, as experience teaches, walls can be made of stone, wire and, often, attitudes.

I was recently invited to join a “Trek” involving a dozen graduating students from the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University on a tour through Northern Ireland to learn about intractable conflicts and obstacles that hinder reconciliation almost 20 years after the Good Friday/Belfast Peace Agreement.

Reflections on an afterlife; two views

By James W. Dolan
August 30, 2017
James W. Dolan

My brother and I have a friendly dispute on the existence of an afterlife. He poetically defines the soul as “a power borrowed from the wheel of fire that animates the cosmos.” He compares it to an “ember of that cosmic fire” that one rides until death “when the ember is consumed again in the fire.” He describes life as participation “in a sacred, cosmic, evolutionary process striving toward wholeness,” which “may be called God.”

Auld lang syne for ‘Old Harbor’

Ed Forry
By Ed Forry
August 30, 2017

A group of current and former South Boston folks who grew up in Old Harbor Village are planning a reunion at Florian Hall in Dorchester on Sun., Sept. 24, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. They will gather that afternoon, even as plans advance for a massive demolition and reconstruction of the historic complex.

Now called the Mary Ellen McCormack development, it sits on 31 acres on the northern edge of Southie between Old Colony Avenue and Dorchester Avenue. It was the first public housing development built in New England, and remains to this day among the largest ever built.

Martin’s Park, due to open next fall, called place of ‘light, hope, positivity’

By Jonathan Innocent, Reporter Correspondent
August 30, 2017
Jonathan Innocent, Reporter Correspondent

The family of eight-year-old Martin Richard, the youngest Boston Marathon bombing victim, offered heartfelt remarks alongside Mayor Martin Walsh and Gov. Charlie Baker at a groundbreaking ceremony for Martin’s Park on the South Boston waterfront last Wednesday afternoon (Aug. 17). The park is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2018.

Jane Richard, who lost her left leg in the explosion that claimed her brother’s life, said, “This park is going to include everything that I wished for.”

From two Neponset boys, a vote for ROTC and the value of a military life

By Rowan Walrath, Reporter Correspondent
August 30, 2017
Rowan Walrath, Reporter Correspondent

Michael and Patrick Murray are cut from the same cloth: The brothers live in Neponset, they play hockey, they are Harvard men, and they both joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) on the campus in Cambridge.

With full-tuition ROTC scholarships for Ivy League educations, and an upcoming four-year-minimum service commitment, both young men, the latest in a long line of military Murrays, are eager to carry on the family tradition.

From two Neponset boys, a vote for ROTC and the value of a military life

By Rowan Walrath, Reporter Correspondent
August 30, 2017
Rowan Walrath, Reporter Correspondent

Michael and Patrick Murray are cut from the same cloth: The brothers live in Neponset, they play hockey, they are Harvard men, and they both joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) on the campus in Cambridge.

With full-tuition ROTC scholarships for Ivy League educations, and an upcoming four-year-minimum service commitment, both young men, the latest in a long line of military Murrays, are eager to carry on the family tradition.

A Makem and a Clancy honor music past while they frame music present

By Sean Smith
August 30, 2017
Sean Smith

Yes, they’re called “Makem and Clancy,” but they’re not that Makem and Clancy. Not exactly, anyway. Rory Makem and Donal Clancy – the sons of, respectively, Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy – are justifiably proud of their families’ storied place in Irish music, and both had the opportunity to perform with their famous fathers over the years. They’ve also forged their own musical paths:

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