‘My home away from home’- Irish Tenor John McDermott Talks of His Roots and Family

By Ed Forry
April 2, 2011

By Ed Forry
Reporter Publisher
Singer John McDermott was in Boston during the St. Patrick’s activities last month, a brief overnight stay at the Seaport Hotel- “My home away from home”- between gigs in Salisbury and Scituate.
A native of Glasgow, McDermott’s mom and dad are Scotland natives with deep roots to Ireland: his father Peter’s family are Donegal, his mother Hope’s family (Griffin) are Ballymena in Antrim, just north of Belfast. The family relocated to Ontario Canada in 1965, when the singer was just 10 years old.

Another Opening, Another Show For Boston Publicist Ann Sheehan

By Ed Forry
April 2, 2011

By R. J. Donovan
Special to The BIR
The lobby of The Colonial Theatre is a sea of faces. It’s Opening Night for the musical “Hair,” and anticipation is in the air. As people crowd the box office to pick up their tickets, a smartly dressed young woman with long dark hair and a dazzling smile is on the opposite side of the lobby, greeting members of the media, many of whom will be reviewing the night’s performance. This is Ann Sheehan, Director of Public Relations & Community Relations for Broadway Across America-Boston.

‘THE NEWS GREW SO BAD YOU COULD LAUGH FOR CRYING’

By Ed Forry
April 2, 2011

In Ireland Unhinged, the Author Searches for Ireland’s Heart and Soul in the Shadow of the ‘Celtic Tiger’
By Peter F. Stevens
BIR Staff
In 2000, the author David Monagan did something many Irish Americans dream of, but never get around to doing for countless reasons personal and professional. He and his family sold their home in Connecticut and moved the proverbial “lock, stock, and barrel” to Cork where he embarked upon a self-avowed search for “Ireland’s soul,” the Ireland he remembered and cherished from a year spent in Dublin in the early 1970s.

As Springtime Beckons, Ireland Fixes on Tourist Lures

By Ed Forry
April 2, 2011

By Judy Enright
Special to the BIR
Driving in Ireland might euphemistically be called a challenge for those of us accustomed to driving on the right.
But the Irish, good folks that they are, have accepted that not everyone driving the roads speaks English, so they have designed a series of signs that leave little doubt about their messages.

News Notes: Flutist with a Heavenly Touch -Space Station ‘Cool’ Place for Playing, Says Astronaut

By Ed Forry
March 1, 2011

By Ed Forry
BIR Publisher
American astronaut Catherine Coleman, of Shelburne Falls in Massachusetts, roared into space in December along with a Russian cosmonaut to dock on the International Space Station, where she will be circling the earth until sometime in May.

Holocaust Survivor Has Wrenching story to tell his fellow Irish citizens

By Ed Forry
March 1, 2011

By Martin McGovern
Special to the BIR
The Emmy-award winning Irish filmmaker Gerry Gregg is the man who produced the first major documentary about the Holocaust made in Ireland. His 2009 production, Till the Tenth Generation, tells the story of Tomi Reichental, now an Irish citizen, who lost 35 members of his family to Adolf Hitler’s madness.

DEEP IN THE HEART OF DERRY: The Boys of St. Columb’s

By Ed Forry
March 1, 2011

By Thomas O’Grady
Special to the BIR
“The schoolmen were schoolboys first.” So James Joyce has Stephen Dedalus muse in the “Scylla and Charybdis” episode of Ulysses. These words would have made an apt epigraph for The Boys of St. Columb’s (The Liffey Press, 2010), Maurice Fitzpatrick’s book of commentary and interviews published as a companion piece to the film of the same name that he co-wrote and co-produced: both book and film focus on one of the most momentous events in the history of modern Northern Ireland.

A Guide to All Things Patrick in Ireland This Month

By Ed Forry
March 1, 2011

By Judy Enright
Special to the BIR
Ah, St. Patrick, that elusive, mystery man who surfaces once a year, on March 17, empowering everyone to flaunt their Irishness, whether or not they have even one drop of Irish blood.
Would you believe – and you can pull this tidbit out at your next Trivia session – that this year marks the 1,550th anniversary of the Holy Man’s death? Well, 2011 marks the death of one St. Patrick anyway. Whether there was more than one is the stuff of legend and ongoing controversy.

New Film Gets to the Heart of Childsplay

By Sean Smith
March 1, 2011
Sean Smith

By Sean Smith
Special to the BIR
What can you say about a film in which Liz Carroll -- one of the most influential Irish fiddlers of our time -- appears as an interviewer, rather than a performer?
That’s one of the many charms of “Fiddles, Fiddlers and a Fiddlemaker: Childsplay,” a new documentary about the fiddle ensemble Childsplay and its artistic director and guiding spirit, Cambridge violin-maker Bob Childs.

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