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.

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.

By Sean Smith
Special to the BIR
Second of two parts
Wexford native Larry Kirwan — co-founder and guiding spirit of seminal Irish rock band Black 47, playwright, memoirist, novelist, columnist, radio show producer and host — has been one of the most visible and active figures on the Irish music scene for the past two decades, especially in New York (The Daily News once placed him ahead of Madonna in its list of the 50 most interesting New Yorkers).