SALUTING A SCHOLAR FOR A JOB WELL DONE; A fond adieu to Robert O’Neill, Director of Burns Library at BC

By Peter Stevens, BIR Staff
December 2, 2013
Peter Stevens, BIR Staff

For the last 26 years, Robert O’Neill has been the director of the John J. Burns Library at Boston College. Now, as he prepares to retire this month and head for the warmer clime of Arizona, he leaves a deep legacy. The library, under his and his staff’s tutelage, stands as one of the finest university research institutions anywhere. Its rich Irish collections have garnered worldwide acclaim, due in no small measure to the foresight of Robert O’Neill.

When Northern Ireland was at war Remembering can help prevent future horror

By Joe Leary
December 2, 2013
Joe Leary

The tragedy of the people of Northern Ireland killing each other was memorialized this past October by the families and friends of the 18 victims who died 20 years ago in two of the most tragic atrocities in the North’s difficult history.

Today, as American observers sometimes become frustrated by the sporadic rioting and slow progress on agreement on nearly everything in Northern Ireland, we should recognize that going back to the old days is not an option. Interested Irish Americans should have patience and always focus on improving the hard-won peace.

JFK, Marty Walsh- strong, deep Irish ties with Boston

Ed Forry
By Ed Forry
December 2, 2013

The ancestral bonds that will forever link the town of Boston with the Emerald Isle were in great evidence last month as Ireland’s citizenry and its media were riveted with two huge stories from our city’s Democratic politics.

The first, of course, was the anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination, an event that even today occasions spasms of tears from the Irish. In New Ross, where JFK had greeted his cousins just months before his death, a special commemoration was held on Nov. 22.

Strong base and key alliances fueled Marty Walsh’s win over John Connolly

By Bill Forry
December 2, 2013

It was a long time coming. Many skeptics thought it would never happen. And, yes, it could prove fleeting. But for one day in November 2013, residents of the city’s largest neighborhood put aside long-standing differences to elect one of their own to the most powerful job in Boston and, arguably, the state.

Marty Walsh didn’t win white Dorchester. He didn’t win black Dorchester. He won Dorchester. Period. And he did it in convincing fashion, carrying more than 60 percent of the vote in his home neighborhood.

Mayor-elect Walsh opens up on immigration, Secure Communities

By Matt Murphy, SHNS
November 26, 2013
Matt Murphy, SHNS

By Matt Murphy, State House News Service
Nov. 26, 2013
Hoping to meet in the next few weeks with other new mayors from around the country to discuss immigration, Boston Mayor-elect Marty Walsh on Tuesday said if he could "get around" enforcing the Secure Communities Act he would.
Walsh attended the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition's annual free Thanksgiving luncheon and spent some time serving mashed potatoes before dishing on how immigrants would have a "friend" in City Hall.

In sit-down, Mayor-elect Walsh talks Election Night to chief-of-staff

By Gintautas Dumcius
November 8, 2013
Gintautas Dumcius

By Gintautas Dumcius
Nov. 8, 2013
Marty Walsh arrived at the Park Plaza Hotel around 6 p.m. on Election Night and headed up to the 15th floor. For the first time during that day, he was nervous. West Roxbury, Beacon Hill and Back Bay, friendly turf for his opponent, John Connolly, had seen a high number of voters turn out.

Fiddler of Dooney (Boston) is an artist of the Midwest

By Sean Smith
October 31, 2013
Sean Smith

Irish literature fans know “The Fiddler of Dooney” as one of W. B. Yeats’s most famous works, with its memorable opening lines: “When I play on my fiddle in Dooney/folk dance like a wave of the sea.” But the poem also is the namesake of a venerable Irish fiddle competition in Sligo whose winners have included such luminaries as Seamus Connolly, Kathleen Collins, Seamus McGuire, Paddy Glackin, and Cathal Hayden.
And now, the Boston area has its own Fiddler of Dooney.

Confronting doubt about God’s existence

By Ed Forry
October 31, 2013

BY JAMES W. DOLAN
SPECIAL TO THE REPORTER
It would be disingenuous not to question the existence of God or the validity of those institutions that purport to represent him. To be “born again” into a complete and permanent acceptance of God, while perhaps comfortable, seems more emotional than rational.
Doubt is the natural product of an inquisitive mind. Courage is overcoming fear – without the one, the other is suspect. So, too, faith is the affirmation of hope – without doubt, it is blind acceptance.

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