There was a time, not that long ago, when showing a little independence of mind in Ireland or England could land you in very considerable trouble. Especially if you were born female, history shows. 

Not everyone knows that the Brontes, England’s most accomplished literary family, were actually half Irish. Anne, Emily and Charlotte were raised by Patrick Bronte, a strict father who was born in Co. Down on St. Patrick’s Day, 1777, and who maintained his close ties to the nation all of his life.

The most immediately striking thing about Gabriel Byrne, aside from his very light blue eyes and the chunky silver Claddagh ring he wears on his right hand (and the fact that he is Gabriel Byrne), is the thoughtfulness with which he approaches every question and topic. As many interviewers before me have commented, his answers do at times seem to verge on the tangential or even evasive. But he lets nothing rest at a superficial level. Sure, ask him a prying question and he may step nimbly around the issue with a quote from Shakespeare and a loosely related anecdote. Why not? Celebrities need to be artful to maintain some degree of privacy. But ask him a question about film, or the Catholic Church, or what it is to be an emigrant, and you will receive a profound reply. These things too, after all, can be personal.

It was a day to remember in Charlotte, North Carolina, Saturday as 400 step dancers congregated and danced their way into the Guinness Book of World Records.