Walls separating Protestant and Catholic communities in parts of Northern Ireland are to come down within the next 10 years, ministers pledged on Thursday.

Nik Quaife, one of Ireland’s best known arts publicists and the founder and director of Dublin-based Zoetrope Arts Public Relations company, has been appointed Director of Communications and External Affairs at the Irish Arts Center here in New York.

The Aisling Irish Community Center in Yonkers is expanding and will be doubling its current space. The center will also introduce new programs for the benefit of the entire community.  

The Irish community in New York stepped out to support Jane Richard, the seven-year-old from Dorchester who lost a leg in the Boston marathon bombings. The April 12th terrorist attack also claimed the life of her eight-year-old brother Martin and seriously injured her mother Denise.

The Boston Little League community banded together on Saturday to remember little Martin Richard, 8, killed in the marathon bombing.

During Sunday service, parishioners at St. Ann‘s church in Dorchester, where the family of Boston bombing victim Martin Richard attend, were urged to learn to love in the wake of the Boston bombings.

The Council of Europe has warned that Ireland needs to take action on discrimination against the Travelling community in the workplace – and wants Travellers recognized as an ethnic minority.

Irish dancers from across New England are set to show their support for the Richard family at a Boston “Irish dance out” this weekend. This fundraiser is just one of the many ways the community have rallied around the Dorchester, Boston family who lost their son Martin (8) in Monday’s bombing.

A five kilometer run/walk organized by the Aisling Irish Community Center on Sunday, May 19 will be dedicated to a woman who knew no bounds while she lived in New York a number of years ago.

President Barack Obama has praised the efforts of the Gaelic Players Association who sent a work party of players and tradesmen to New York last month to assist with the rebuilding work following Hurricane Sandy.

Michael J. Roarty, beloved former president of the Ireland-U.S. Council, died on Saturday March 16th, 2013 in St. Louis, MO and was 84. He served as a distinguished leader of the organization for nine years from 1993 through the end of 2002 when he was Executive Vice President of Marketing at Anheuser-Busch Companies. He succeeded Daniel P. Tully, Chairman & CEO of Merrill Lynch & Co, who had served as Council President for the previous four years.

Irish Argentines, as all the Argentineans – despite their origin - were first shocked and immediately received with great joy the news of the election on the new Pope, Francis I, who was up to then George Mario Cardinal Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires and Head of the Argentinean Catholics.