Childsplay en route to Lexington this month

By Sean Smith
November 2, 2012
Sean Smith

Childsplay, the all-star fiddle ensemble featuring many musicians with ties to the Boston area, makes its annual visit later this month to the National Heritage Museum in Lexington and perform three concerts.

The group – whose repertoire is taken mainly from Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton, French Canadian, Scandinavian, and American folk traditions – will appear at the museum on Nov. 29 at 7:30 p.m., then return on December for two shows, at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Cathie Ryan’s time to look within

By Sean Smith
November 2, 2012
Sean Smith

It has been an eventful last few years for Cathie Ryan. Among other developments, she moved back to the US after living for nine years in Ireland, got inducted into the Irish American Hall of Fame in her native state of Michigan, was named as Irish Female Vocalist of the Decade by liveireland.com, and recently released “Through Wind and Rain,” her first album since 2005 – all of this taking place in the 25th anniversary year of her debut as lead singer with Cherish The Ladies, which put her firmly in the spotlight as one of the Irish music scene’s most endearing and talented performers.

Playing the Grinch at the Wang

By R.J. Donovan
November 2, 2012
R.J. Donovan

When “Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical” brings its tinsel and bows into The Citi Wang Theatre for a two-week run (November 23-December 9), it’s unlikely you’ll recognize Jeff McCarthy in the lead role.

It’s not that you haven’t seen the six-foot-two baritone before. He’s got 250 theater productions under his belt, eight starring roles on Broadway – including “Les Miserables,” “Chicago,” “Side Show” and “Urinetown” – six feature films, and almost four dozen TV appearances to his credit.

Irish Role In Australia Changes

By BostonIrish.com... (not verified)
November 2, 2012

Almost a century and a half has passed since those early convict ships filled with the Irish sailed from English prisons like Dartmoor and Portsmouth bound for Australia. The Fenians constituted the first wave in the 1860s of a British solution to a British problem: What to do with the overcrowded prisons filled with minor criminals, many of whom were Irish convicted of petty crimes amidst the anti-Irish fervor of the day? The answer was to create a prison colony in distant Australia to accommodate the criminal Irish, in a phrase: to “export” the problems at home.

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As Abbey Theatre looks ahead, it is asking for help fulfilling its mission

By Ed Forry
November 2, 2012

Abbey Theatre in Boston: Director and CEO of the Abbey Theatre, Fiach Mac Conghail, Shelly O’Neill, the Irish actor Bosco Hogan, the Irish actress Brid Ni Neachtain, Tom O’Neill, and Bryan McMahon, chairman of the board of the Abbey Theatre.Abbey Theatre in Boston: Director and CEO of the Abbey Theatre, Fiach Mac Conghail, Shelly O’Neill, the Irish actor Bosco Hogan, the Irish actress Brid Ni Neachtain, Tom O’Neill, and Bryan McMahon, chairman of the board of the Abbey Theatre.Officials and two artists from The Abbey Theatre were in Boston last month for the launch of a support group for a charitable foundation to support the enterprise.

The Oct. 18 launch was held at the Beacon Street home of Tom O’Neill, who has been named the first president of the Boston Irish Abbey Theatre Association as the Dublin-based theatre approaches its 110th anniversary next year.

The Abbey Theatre Foundation is a New York-based 501 © (3) non-profit organization that supports the work of the Abbey Theatre in Ireland and in the United States.

Let’s call political debate winners by tallying the vote at ringside

By James W. Dolan
November 2, 2012
James W. Dolan

Saturday Night Live should come up with a new formula that combines debating and prizefighting as a way to give viewers a definite winner and loser instead of the endless “spinning” that occurs under the traditional debate formula. Both sides now claim to be victorious.

This process would at least provide some finality to the annoying speculation that now surrounds political debates. Something like what follows would make future contests more amusing:

As the wide world watches us, the Irish say, ‘Obama’s the one’

By Joe Leary
November 2, 2012
Joe Leary

BY JOE LEARY
SPECIAL TO THE BIR

The United States is the most powerful, resourceful nation in the world, so what goes on here is of intense interest to all other countries. especially Ireland.

In fact, there is so much attention paid to American elections in English-speaking Ireland that two organizations conducted polls of its citizens to determine who they would choose (if they could) between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

The results are quite interesting.

Curiouser & Curiouser: Mitt Romney as our Shanachie-in-Chief?

By BY PETER F. STEVENS
November 2, 2012
BY PETER F. STEVENS

by Peter F. Stevens
Bear with me here, but I’m wondering if somewhere, somehow on the Romney family tree, an Irish branch stretches out. Why is that? Whether or not Mitt Romney wins the Oval Office this month, a question will remain. Who is Willard Mitt Romney? Boston Globe contributor Tom Keane chides the Obama camp for deriding Mitt as a fool. Keane is right – Mitt is no fool. Renee Loth, once the Globe’s editorial page editor, views Mitt as a coreless delegator who will allow running-mate Paul Ryan to shred the nation’s safety net.

Boston Irish Reporter Endorsement: Forward with Obama

Ed Forry
By Ed Forry
November 2, 2012


If only every decision in life were this easy.

President Barack Obama has earned re-election with an impressive first term that will come to be viewed as one of the most productive, progressive, and — ultimately— successful periods in the history of the modern US presidency. Obama has done so in spite of an inherited economic crisis that would have upended lesser leaders and in the face of a Republican Congress whose sole reason for existence over the last two years has been to undermine the president and his initiatives at every turn. The GOP has failed, the president has prevailed, and we enthusiastically endorse his re-election next Tuesday.

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Lehane takes on the Roaring Twenties in new novel

By Bill Forry, Managing Editor
November 2, 2012
Bill Forry, Managing Editor

“South Boston punk becomes a Florida crime boss.” That’s how one newspaper boiled down Dennis Lehane’s latest novel. Sure, that’s one way of summarizing “Live by Night,” the Roaring Twenties gangster page-turner that will also be a big-studio film some day soon, but any sting that Lehane might suffer from the blunt summary is soothed by the source: The New York Times Book Review noting that his latest novel has debuted at No. 8 on the paper’s bestseller list.

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