The Boston Prelim Election: Where were all the voters?

By Bill Forry
October 9, 2013
Bill Forry

The first of two elections to choose the next mayor of Boston has come and gone. Two finalists have been chosen. It’ll be an exciting and informative six weeks until the Nov. 5 balloting.
A little more than 30 percent of Bostonians who are registered to vote in the city made their ways to the polls on Tuesday, a day that dawned with blue skies that persisted through a glorious, 60-degree mid-September day.

All-Ireland first for Attleboro’s Torrin Ryan

By Ed Forry
August 30, 2013

Attleboro native Torrin Ryan took first place in the over-18 uilleann pipes slow-air competition at the recent All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil held in Derry, Northern Ireland. Ryan also finished third in the uilleann pipes competition. A former student of Patrick Hutchinson in BostonAs Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann Music School, Ryan performs regularly with the bands Core 4 and NØÍR and plays frequently at sessions in Eastern Massachusetts.

Communicating outside the circle in “Tribes”

By Ed Forry
August 30, 2013

By R. J. Donovan
Special To The BIR
Whether it’s family or church or the clique we cluster with at the office, we all belong to one group or another that imposes its own rules and rituals upon us. That’s the concept at the very heart of “Tribes,” Nina Raine’s acclaimed dark comedy that won the 2012 Drama Desk Award for Best New Play.

RIP Democracy; it worked, for a while

By Ed Forry
August 29, 2013

By James W. Dolan
Special to the Reporter
Democracy has failed. Despite all the promise it demonstrated early on, like all other forms of governance it ultimately relies on flawed human beings to set aside self interest and act for the common good.
It seemed to work for a while, but lately the glue that held the process together has hardened into cement. Money, greed, power, and political survival at all costs are toxic lubricants in a system that depends for success on good will, understanding, compromise, wisdom, and, occasionally, self sacrifice.

Self-destruction reigns in Belfast; government can’t control mayhem

By Joe Leary
August 29, 2013
Joe Leary

By Joe Leary
Special to the BIR
On Friday night, Aug. 9, more than 1,000 rioting Unionist/Loyalist supporters attacked Belfast police while protesting a Sinn Fein parade memorializing the martial law internment of 342 Catholic Nationalists and Republicans by British soldiers 42 years ago to the day. The Sinn Fein parade was rerouted to avoid direct trouble between the two sides.

Looking at the All-Ireland Fleadh in a new light

By Ed Forry
August 29, 2013

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 conclusions about traditional music and innovation over a newspaper and coffee in a Kuala Lumpur hotel.

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