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St. Patrick’s Day - a world wide celebration of all things Irish. People from Dublin, to New York, Sydney to Beijing take the day off work (in Ireland it’s a complete holiday) and celebrate all the great thing about being Irish.

It’s the season where folks celebrate St. Patrick, the man best known for banishing snakes from the green fields of Ireland.

You'll love this collection of some of the most-famous words to ever come out of Ireland.

The term 'Black Irish' has commonly been in circulation among Irish emigrants and their descendants for centuries. As a subject of historical discussion the subject is almost never referred to in Ireland. There are a number of different claims as to the origin of the term, none of which are possible to prove or disprove.

IrishCentral brings you the low down on the top 100 most common Irish surnames with a little explanation of where these names come from. 

Scituate, a pleasant seaside town thirty miles from Boston is the most Irish town in the United States according to the U.S census.
 
All in all 16 communities within the South Shore neighborhoods of Boston  have the highest percentage of people of Irish descent in the United States.

A pint of plain, a glass of “Uisce Beatha” or just a place to rest your weary bones and soak up the atmosphere -- there's nothing quite like an old-fashioned Irish pub, and the older the better.

Whether you believe in superstitions or not almost everyone you know takes note when it’s Friday the 13th and is more careful crossing the road, pouring hot coffee or walking down the stairs.

Click here for IrishCentral's St. Patrick's Day section

PHOTOS - A slideshow of Dublin

This St. Patrick's Day remember this list when some asks "Are you Irish?"

PHOTOS - Top 10 Wedding Locations in Ireland

What famous Irish sayings really mean.

May the road rise to meet you -

The underwater hairdryer, the inflatable dartboard the water proof teabag; the Irish get a fairly bad rap for being slightly dopey when it comes to the technical side of things.

Click here for IrishCentral's St. Patrick's Day section

Nearly a century has passed since Ireland’s monumental 1916 Easter Uprising took place on the streets of Dublin. Today, the city still bears many of the scars as a result of the fighting between the Irish and British.

Irish is home to some of the most unique traditions and superstitions and this is especially true when it comes to ringing in the New Year.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History opened Abraham Lincoln’s pocket watch this past March, and discovered a secretly engraved message that turned an unsubstantiated family story into a confirmed historical event.

READ MORE ]]> http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Earn-a-Masters-in-Irish-and-Irish-American-Studies-in-the-heart-of-New-York-City-185886232.html http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Earn-a-Masters-in-Irish-and-Irish-American-Studies-in-the-heart-of-New-York-City-185886232.html Mon, 07 Jan 2013 08:12:13 PST
By: JANE WALSH

Is your passion to study Ireland and the Irish people? You can do just that in the heart of New York City’s Greenwich Village. Glucksman Ireland House, a landmark townhouse on Fifth Avenue, is home to New York University’s Center for Irish and Irish American Studies.  Here you'll have an exceptional opportunity to learn what makes the Irish such a distinctive people and, under the direction of its distinguished faculty, make connections with a vibrant community of students, scholars, and intellectuals.
 
The MA Program in Irish and Irish-American Studies at the prestigious Graduate School of Arts and Science at NYU is based at Glucksman Ireland House, a gracious nineteenth century building steps from Washington Square Park.  It attracts both recent graduates, as well as professionals and retirees returning to school to deepen a lifelong interest in Irish history, politics, literature, culture, language, and society.  Full or part-time enrollment and financial aid are available. 
 
Teaching is at the heart of any graduate program. The Ireland House faculty is led by Joe Lee, Glucksman Professor of Irish Studies and Professor of History, former member of the Irish Senate, and prolific author and commentator on Irish public affairs.  With fellow historians Thomas Truxes, Marion Casey, Linda Dowling Almeida, Miriam Nyhan and Nicholas Wolf, the graduate program at Glucksman Ireland House covers nearly six centuries on both sides of the Atlantic, with particular attention to colonialism, emigration, and enduring links between New York City and Ireland.  Irish literature scholars John Waters, Greg Londe, and Abby Bender bring insight and inspiration to the teaching of one of the world’s great literary traditions, from Jonathan Swift to Seamus Heaney and beyond.  Courses in Irish culture studies are taught by Global Distinguished Professor of Music Mick Moloney; by the faculty’s latest recruit, world-renowned dancer and choreographer Jean Butler; and by award-winning Irish-language teacher and native Irish speaker Padraig O’Cearuill.
 
No understanding of Ireland's history or its people is complete without fully recognizing the contributions the Irish have made outside of Ireland, in the Irish diaspora. New York has extraordinary and diverse research collections for Irish studies including that of the New York Public Library and the Archives of Irish America at NYU's Bobst Library, where we preserve a host of rich collections, including NYU Professor Mick Moloney’s unique collection of Irish music and popular culture, and our Archives of Irish America Oral History collection.
 
New York is as familiar a home for Irish writers as Dublin itself. Glucksman Ireland House hosts an impressive cast of Irish authors in public readings. Seamus Heaney, Edna O’Brien, Joseph O’Connor, and Colm Toibin have all met with Irish Studies students. President Michael D. Higgins recently delivered a major address on Irish migration here, in recognition of the example Ireland House faculty had set in producing a truly interdisciplinary approach to the Irish experience. Ireland House is where Liam Clancy gave his last New York concert, and where Irish New Yorkers including Pete Hamill, Alice McDermott, Colum McCann and Peter Quinn come home to launch their books.
 
You can visit Ireland House to attend a sample class.  Also, two upcoming events will highlight scholarships created by philanthropic Irish Americans. Join us on Friday, January 25th, from 5:30 until 7pm for an open house where faculty will answer your questions before the first Blarney Star traditional Irish music concert of the Spring semester. Or visit us on Saturday morning, February 8th, from 10:00 until 11:30 am for a faculty lecture on recent research in Irish historical and literary studies, as part of The Ambassadorship of Literature: On Poetry and Diplomacy, a conference forum on poet-diplomats, of which Ireland has had an outsized share.
 
Take the next step in your Irish journey of discovery from the heart of New York City.  Join recent graduates from a wide range of universities, Vice Presidents of major publishing houses, sales managers of large corporations, actors, bankers, and media executives who have joined the MA in Irish and Irish-American Studies. One exemplary graduate is an empty-nest mother of two whose return to university after 30 years sparked a passion inspiring a brilliant thesis, winning her a fully funded PhD fellowship. NYU’s Irish Studies Program is part of a dynamic school in the most dynamic city in the most dynamic country in the world. So there's no surprise that opportunity follows the Irish trail in New York City, as it has for so long, as it will in the future.

Born in Lincolnshire in 1566, Fynes Moryson was a travel writer. The Cambridge graduate wrote “An Itinerary” comprised of 12 years of travel through Europe from 1590, including England, Scotland, and Ireland. 

Louth people coming back to Ireland in this, the year of The Gathering 2013, are being asked to make history by giving just an hour of their time to a unique audio history project where they recount their and their family’s stories of living in Louth and abroad.

I’m not sure if any people in the world have such a passion for history as the Irish. Maybe it’s an island thing but, with the year of the Gathering Ireland upon us, it becomes increasingly apparent that the history of Ireland is completely entwined with that of the Irish abroad, the people of Irish descent who are now scattered all over this globe.

Check out the slideshow here

Brighid means the Exalted One in Irish, and The Woman, is a figure of intense power in Irish mythological and religious imagination. In Ireland the mythological, the pagan, the local, and the universal, the philosophical, the religious and the topographical are mixed up. Time is not lost but put aside or walked around as though it were laid out on a map, in an always continuing whole, allowing for Tír na nÓg and notions beyond usual physical laws to become mixed into the resources of Irish, Gaelic and Celtic thinking. Such understanding is what draws artists, musicians and sensitive people--wonder-filled--to the treasure house of Irish tradition.

St. Brigid is the female equivalent of St. Patrick in Ireland, but there are no parades in her honor, and apart from the St. Brigid's Cross, her name is hardly known.

A valuable hoard of gold coins dating back to almost 400 years have been discovered hidden in soil beneath the floorboards of a pub in Tipperary.

Irish immigrants, who fled the famine and arrived on US shores, were exceptional savers, according to the most recent issue of the Journal of American History.

A high school in Galway is appealing for information after the discovery of an 18th century sword in the desk of an old employee.

The remains of King Richard III have been found under a car park in Leicester. Scientists have confirmed the skeleton shows evidence of two fatal head wounds and the body was brutally hacked, presumably by his victors, having died on the battlefield in 1485.

After a decade long struggle for justice, the Irish State admitted its role in the virtual enslavement of thousands of Irish women in the notorious Magdalene Laundries Tuesday, but Prime Minister Enda Kenny declined to issue a formal apology.

Fine Gael wants to remain in power for the centenary of the 1916 Rising – and is planning a general election date to ensure it stays is government.

Ireland could be considered the official country of castles. The Emerald Isle is home to over 345 of these bastions including the ruins of once majestic medieval palaces, dating back to the 11th century, to magnificent castles which are now luxury hotels, considered among the top resorts in the world.

PHOTOS - a slideshow of old photographs from the Mount Street Club Farm

John Ruddy, one of the 57 Irish laborers who died during the cholera outbreak in 1832, will be returned to Donegal to be buried in his homeland.

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C. has been accused by a major Irish scholar of rewriting Irish history to make it far more favorable to the British perspective in their new exhibit entitled “Nobility and Newcomers in Renaissance Ireland.”

Joanna Brück of University College Dublin and Lisa Godson of the National College of Art and Design/GradCAM have organized the conference, Object Matters: Making 1916, which will take place at the Wood Quay venue in Dublin’s Civic Offices on 26 and 27 April.

Read more: Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio named Pope Francis - the new leader of the Catholic Church

Original article here - Irish insulted in major Washington museum exhibit claims scholar

A Chinese edition of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake has sold out in China, with a second edition being printed to meet the demand.

A group of British and Australian adventurers re-enacted Irish born Ernest Shackleton’s adventure to rescue his crew after their ship sunk in Antarctic waters almost a century ago. Fighting against harsh wintry elements, Shackleton was able to save all of his crew members. 

Pope Adrian IV is one of the most controversial popes for the Irish. He issued  the “Laudabiliter” or as it is better known “Bull,” which gave Henry II  the Pope’s permission to invade Ireland “for the correction of morals and the introduction of virtues, for the advancement of the Christian religion.” The Papal Bull became the most well known and controversial part of the pope’s legacy. 

In the 1780s and 90s, African American Tony Small was an unusual sight in Dublin. Brought to Ireland by Lord Edward Fitzgerald after Small saved his life during the American Revolution, the two shared a close friendship until Fitzgerald’s death in the 1798 rebellion for Ireland’s freedom. 

The absence of cameras in 1845 and the lack of shocking artifacts as are found in Holocaust museums could have hindered Quinnipiac University’s chances of creating a successful Irish potato famine museum.

Carrick on Shannon in county Leitrim is preparing itself for a tourism boost of approximately €8m during 2013 as in excess of 26,000 additional visitors are expected to celebrate and take part in a major landmark in the town’s history, as 2013 marks the 400th anniversary since King James 1st granted the town charter.

Across Ireland's landscape thousands of years of history are recorded by ring-forts, round towers, castles, Georgian streets and thatched cottages. All are built to endure in stone. It's perhaps more surprising that an equal span of history is still marked today in the far more fragile form of Ireland's traditional boats.

Ancient skeletal remains uncovered by road workers near Terryland Castle in Galway earlier this month may have been 17th-century soldiers in Oliver Cromwell's army.