A blind eye and some tit-for-tat isn't going to help Irish economy

By Ed Forry
September 15, 2009

By Máirtín Ó Muilleoir

Former President Mary Robinson didn't miss and hit the wall last month when she decried "an absence of vision" in Irish government circles as the state grapples with the economic recession. Perhaps because her comments were made at the Béal na mBláth commemoration in honour of Michael Collins, they went largely unheeded by the powers-that-be. Nowhere is that clearer than at this week's gathering of the Irish diaspora in Dublin for the Global Irish Economic Forum.

Pauline Wells Headlines Sept. 11 Benefit Concert at Boston's Wilbur Theatre

By Ed Forry
September 2, 2009

A Sept. 11 Concert at Boston's Historic Wilbur Theater is being
planned to mark the anniversary of terror attacks. "A Celtic
Crossing" will present a musical 9/11 concert , with proceeds going
to benefit Cops for Kids with Cancer. Headlining and hosting this
event will be Pauline Wells of Milton. A Sergeant Detective in the
Cambridge Police Department, she began singing in Ireland in 2000
while on a trip with the Boston Police Gaelic Column of Pipes and
Drums, and has performed numerous benefit concerts over the years.

New documentary on the Boys of St. Columbs

By Bill O'Donnell
September 2, 2009
Bill O'Donnell

The college was founded 130 years ago and over the years has nurtured young male students, many of whom have made their mark in Ireland and beyond. In 1947 a new and revolutionary education law was introduced that allowed for the first time students from working class families to attend grammar schools in Northern Ireland.

A new documentary that will be aired on September 21 tells the story of eight of those former St. Columb's college boys who took advantage of the 1947 law and went on to distinguished careers.

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Print vs. Online: Different Strokes for Different Folks

By Tom Mulvoy, BIR Staff
September 1, 2009
Tom Mulvoy, BIR Staff

These are parlous times in the news profession, print division. No one is sure where things are headed as newspaper proprietors work at fashioning a 21st century business model that will link news gathering and advocacy, advertising, circulation/readership, and the marvels of the World Wide Web to remake the profitable entrepreneurial approach that sustained the golden era of ink-on-paper journalism for most publishers over the last 100 years.

That is big-picture, large-bore stuff, and good luck to us all as we take things a step at a time.

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A First: Some Are Starting to Mull Sinn Fein Without Gerry Adams

By Robert P. Connolly
September 1, 2009
Robert P. Connolly

For more than a quarter of a century, the Irish republican party, Sinn Fein, has had a clear and undisputed leader, Gerry Adams.

To be sure, Adams has had a leadership partner, Martin McGuinness, but fundamentally, it has been understood that Adams received top billing – he was the party president, the thinker, the charismatic speaker, the international media star.

To think Sinn Fein was to think Gerry Adams.

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A Meditation on the Lonely

By BostonIrish.com... (not verified)
September 1, 2009

I am at an age where a few of my friends have lost their wives. The period of adjustment appears deeper and longer than for wives who lose their husbands. But then I've always believed that women alone are more independent and self-sufficient than men.

Women play a much larger and important role in extended relationships than men are inclined to publicly acknowledge. Most men also believe it is in the natural order of things that they will be the first to die, so they don't prepare for the loss of a spouse.

Says Bridget Shaheen, of Lazarus House in Lawrence: 'I Am Fully Satisfied in Doing What the Lord Wants Me to Do'

By Greg O'Brien
September 1, 2009
Greg O'Brien

An old Irish proverb graces Bridget Shaheen's modest office in Lawrence: "It is in the shelter of each other that the people live." In the shelter of Lazarus House Ministries on humble Holly Street, executive director Shaheen, who walks the Christian talk on how to love, oversees the provision of immediate support, food, training, shelter, and medical and dental care to those who have none in this working class city of immigrants that ranks the poorest in New England.

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