A new Taoiseach assumes office

By BIR News Room
June 29, 2017

DUBLIN (AP)– Leo Varadkar took office on June 14 as Ireland’s youngest Taoiseach, or prime minister. The son of an Indian immigrant, he is the first openly gay politician to serve in that post. “I’ve been elected to lead but I promise to serve,’’ the 38-year-old doctor said.
Varadkar defeated rival Simon Coveney in a contest to replace Enda Kenny, who resigned. Coveney won the votes of a majority of party members, but Varadkar was backed by enough lawmakers to give him victory under the center-right Fine Gael party’s electoral college system.

With a Brighton man under arrest, Irish community on a nervous watch

By Ed Forry
June 29, 2017

Boston’s Irish community is on edge after the arrest by immigration police of a Brighton businessman who was charged with being an undocumented immigrant.

John Cunningham, the 38-year-old former chairman of the Boston Northeast GAA and the owner of an electrical contracting business, was charged with violating the visa waiver program, which allows foreigners to enter the US for 90 days. The Donegal native is said to have come to Boston in 2000 under the program, and has lived in this country without documentation since that time.

Hurling returns to Fenway in November

By Jonathan Innocent, Reporter Correspondent
June 29, 2017
Jonathan Innocent, Reporter Correspondent

Galway vs. Dublin rematch set; Tipperary will face Clare
The AIG Fenway Hurling Classic and Irish Festival will return to Fenway Park this fall with a double header featuring four of the world’s most prominent teams. The first match on Sunday, November19, the will be a replay of the first edition of the Fenway classic in 2015 with Galway facing off against Dublin, with the Dubs looking to avenge their Boston loss. The second match is being dubbed as ‘the clash of the champions’ as 2016 National Hurling League Champions Clare will go up against 2016 All-Ireland Hurling Champions Tipperary.

At an announcement ceremony, hosted on the diamond at Fenway Park, executives from each of the partnering companies were present to express their enthusiasm for bringing the exciting sport of Hurling to Fenway.

Speaking on behalf of the Red Sox organization was club president Sam Kennedy, who remembered his experience watching Hurling for the first time during the 2015 Classic match between Galway and Dublin.

“The game was incredibly entertaining and I think our fans reactions, about 27,000 of them, indicated how excited they were about what transpired,” said Kennedy.

Fourth Annual Boston Gathering visits Co. Roscommon

By Ed Forry
June 15, 2017

Seated in the front row are Fr. Michael Finneran, Patty Kenny, and Fr. Peter Nolan who are surrounded by other members of the group. On their nine-day Crystal Travel tour of Ireland, the group visited Tipperary, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Galway, Clare, Mayo, Roscommon, Westmeath, Dublin, Cavan, Fermanagh, and Donegal. The fifth annual Boston Gathering tour is being planned for August 2018.

Joe Finnegan Park— Decades of faith in Port Norfolk are finally realized

By Jennifer Smith
June 1, 2017
Jennifer Smith

The 15-acre stretch along the banks of the Neponset River has long ridden the razor’s edge of becoming a dumping place for hazardous waste, home to gas tanks, a docking site for natural gas tankers, or adjacent to a proposed site of a stadium for the then-Boston Patriots.

Saluting Westport House in Mayo, a many-splendored delight

By BostonIrish.com... (not verified)
June 1, 2017

by Judy Enright
Special to the BIR

As most homeowners know, it can be very expensive to protect property from the ravages of time and weather.

So, imagine how costly it must be to maintain a huge 18th Century mansion such as Westport House in Westport, Co. Mayo, in the damp, coastal Irish weather.

The ingenuity of its owners back in the 1960s was the key to this old house’s salvation. Thanks to the insight and marketing skills of the late Jeremy Altamont, his wife Jennifer, and other members of the resident Browne family, Westport House became the first stately Irish home to be opened to the public. That was in 1960 and, since then, the house and grounds have welcomed more than four million visitors. And, Westport House has survived and flourished while many other historic Irish homes have been burned, demolished, or simply abandoned.



ADDITIONS
Over the years, the Browne family has enhanced the property’s appeal to all ages by adding a series of colorful, multi-generational attractions to the grounds. A ferris wheel, merry-go-round, miniature train, and fairway-type games and rides give Westport House somewhat of a carnival atmosphere, making the landmark a major tourist draw that adds millions annually to the town and the area’s economy.

And Westport House is a great place to spend the day. It’s great fun albeit a dichotomy in many ways. There is the frivolous atmosphere from games and rides on the extensive grounds that contrasts with the quiet elegance of a magnificent mansion chock full of priceless antiques and paintings from a gentler era of long ago.

Connecting With the Dancin’ Man, J. Michael Winward

By R.J. Donovan
June 1, 2017
R.J. Donovan

 J. Michael Winward is a man on the move, literally, an award-winning independent dance artist and choreographer with an active month ahead of him.  When not creating new work for himself and others, he maintains a busy private teaching schedule, is Project Lead at The Dance Complex in Cambridge, and dances as a member of the Peter DiMuro / Public Displays of Motion company.

June's Here and There

By Bill O'Donnell
June 1, 2017
Bill O'Donnell

  Living Through the Kennedy Years – I never gave much thought to John Kennedy before his razor-thin win in the1952 US Senate race against the better-known Republican incumbent, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. Kennedy, then a congressman, was 35, a war hero, handsome, well-financed, and a middling long shot who caught and passed a distracted Lodge, who was busy managing Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidential campaign. Kennedy was elected by a paltry 70,000 votes out of 2.4 million cast. It was a big victory, though, and the myth began to take on weight.

Lehane remains ‘stunned’ that people pay him well to do what he loves best

By Ryan Daly
June 1, 2017
Ryan Daly

LehaneLehaneDennis Lehane, the Dorchester native who writes for print, television, and the movies, and who calls his own work “a bizarre bastard child of pulp and literary influences,” launched his latest novel, “Since We Fell,” last week.

His decision to write as a female protagonist, Lehane says, presented some challenges—“There were moments when I was seeing through ‘guy goggles’ ”—but, for the most part, he says, he doesn’t feel hemmed in by gender or race when constructing his characters; identification comes with irreverence.

“The characters I understand are the outsiders,” Lehane says. “The square pegs in a round hole,” an archetype Lehane himself identifies with, saying it’s for this reason that people become writers.

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