Olivia Wilde’s star is firmly on the ascent. Best known for her recurring role in Fox’s “House,” the Irish American actress trained at the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin and chose her stage name in honor of Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. She talks about her Irish background, her pride in her heritage and her ultimate dream – the chance to make a film in Ireland.

Hopper - the Oscar-winning actor's 16-year-old son with estranged wife Robin Wright Penn - was taken into custody by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's department last week after officers visited his high school in Malibu and found drugs on

Hopper, Sean Penn's son with estranged wife Robin Wright Penn, was allegedly taken into custody by the after officers visited his high school in Malibu.

Kristen Stewart has dumped her Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson - because he wanted to marry her. Sources close to the couple say that Stewart, 19, felt smothered by the 'clingy' 23-year-old

AJ Voelpel: Notre Dame has something in common with 12 other teams in the nation; they both have two bye weeks. One in which they have a full week off, and the other when they play Washington State.

U2 has confirmed its tour dates for 2010. The fantastic foursome will kick off the 2010 tour on June 6 in Anaheim, California.

Ballydoyle Stables trainer Aidan O’Brien has revealed his plans for next month’s Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita racetrack in California.

An upcoming U2 gig will be streamed live on the world’s biggest video site YouTube.com.

“Harry Potter” star Evanna Lynch is headlining part of a grassroots effort to keep same sex marriage legal in the state of Maine.

The names Fitzgerald, Fitzpatrick and others with the prefix "Fitz" are numerous in Ireland. The name-form, however, is Norman and most of the families arrived in Ireland during the 12th century. The Normans, who were French in origin, conquered many parts of Ireland but gradually adopted the Gaelic language and customs and to a great extent assimilated with the native population, becoming more Irish than the Irish themselves.

Sea The Stars, who won French Prix de L'Arc de Triomphe on October 4, has been retired. The 3-year-old colt galloped into the history books by becoming the first horse to win Europe's top three races, after winning the 2,000 Guineas and the Epsom Derby.

AJ Voelpel: The Trojans provide the stiffest test for any quarterback playing against them. They are the true measuring stick. If he plays well against USC, and the Irish win, then we’ll get to talkin’. If he chokes, it’ll be another case of premature hype that college football is famous for.

The family of the Kerry man who was shot dead in California in August may lose their home and business if they don’t receive a bailout in the next few weeks.

I had myself a fantastic week predicting games, going 5-2 against the spread. That brings my season total to a respectable 17-11. Of course, there were the birdies and the bogeys...

Mark Axelrod writes about Brian Coffey “who was not only a brilliant translator and poet, but a brilliant mind.”

It is fitting that the 1969 Nobel Prize for literature went to the Irish playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett. After all, in works such as "Waiting for Godot" and "Endgame," Beckett alternated between tragedy and comedy, drama and farce. The same could be said about 1969.

AJ Voelpel is back with this week's list of movers and shakers in his top dozen college football teams.

IrishCentral's AJ Voelpel with this week's movers and shakers in his top dozen teams in college football.

Keough, Keogh, Kehoe, O'Hoey, Hoy, Haughy, Haugh and MacKeogh are all derivatives of the Irish surname Mac Eochaidh. The clan originated in Leinster, and the name is common in County Wexford, and in the Munster counties of Limerick and Tipperary, where the Irish spelling is MagCeoch or MacCeoch. In medieval times the MacKeoghs from Leinster moved from Kildare to Wicklow and then down to Wexford.

Jimmy Clausen reminds me of Joe Montana – not. Every Notre Dame quarterback must compare himself to greatest ever Domer, Joe Montana, as the clock winds down and the game is on the line. For Jimmy Clausen the only apt comparison is that they both played part of their careers in California.

Based on family names and individual stories, there are many hundreds of American dead with Irish heritage, including Americans who through parents or grandparents had become Irish citizens. 

This is a tribute to several of these brave Irish men and women.

A prisoner on Death Row in California has written to the Irish Government in a bid to save his life. While in prison, Scott Collins has cultivated an abiding interest in his Irish heritage and says that he adores “Irish history and politics, Irish culture and language, all things Celtic.” He has appealed to the Government because the Republic is opposed to the penalty.

IrishCentral's AJ Voelpel gives us his power rankings as the college season gets underway.

Former Irish political prisoner and Maze escapee Pol Brennan was shackled as he was deported on Friday to the Republic of Ireland, where he says he intends to remain “for quite a while” before deciding whether to return to Northern Ireland.

Former IRA prisoner Pol Brennan was deported on Friday to the Republic of Ireland. The 56-year-old, who has lived in the U.S. for over 25 years, was flown to Norfolk, Virginia on a U.S. Customs and Border Protection aircraft on Thursday before continuing on to Limerick, Ireland the next day.

A leading member of the AOH has blasted calls from Northern Ireland to jail former IRA man and Maze escapee Pol

Junior quarterback Jimmy Clausen is one of four captains this season for the Fighting Irish football team. He better act like one if he wants Notre Dame to have any chance of making a BCS bowl, something that they haven't done since the Brady Quinn days.

The second part of our annual summer feature on the questions U.S. naturalization candidates can be asked during a citizenship interview, as provided by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. Here are the last 50, with acceptable answers. For more information on naturalization, visit www.uscis.gov.

A 48-year-old Irish man has been shot dead in California. The man, believed to be from County Kerry, was shot dead in Fiddletown in Amador County, around 45 miles from Sacramento, the state capital.

Irish rugby Captain Brian O’Driscoll is having laser surgery on his eyes. The star Irish center had one eye operated on last week and is scheduled to have the procedure on his other eye in the coming days.

The hopes of the Irish undocumented rose today amid reports from Washington that activists have stepped up their efforts for comprehensive immigration reform. They are calling on President Barack Obama to introduce legislation this

 “There’s no sense of entitlement, no sense of placement, it’s all a sense of you’ve got to go out and work hard to get there. It doesn’t all break your way all the time, so you’ve got to just power through it. I think that’s deeply imbedded in the culture of the Irish.” –

The surname Curran is common in all four provinces in Ireland, but especially in County Donegal and throughout Ulster. The name is also prevalent in the south of Ireland, appearing many times in the County Tipperary Hearth Money Rolls of 1665-7. Currans showed up frequently as Waterford residents in the census of 1659.

Though he’s happily lived with his male partner for more than 12 years, Irish Voice reporter CAHIR O’DOHERTY cannot marry because marriage and immigration laws don’t jibe in the U.S., and he’s wondering when they ever will.

Author and raconteur Frank McCourt, in his autobiography, “has examined his ferocious childhood, walked around it, relived it, and with skill and care and generosity of heart, transformed it into a triumphant work of art,” writes Pete Hamill.

You don’t need to cross the Atlantic to find great traditional Irish treats. In fact, the best place to look maybe the Pacific Coast! San Francisco, a heavily Irish populated area of California, has a wide selection of Irish bakeries, pubs and restaurants that bring a bit of Eire over here.

In “Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story,” author C. David Heymann reveals what he argues has been an open secret among Kennedy insiders for years: the much hinted at, but never fully disclosed, romantic relationship between Jackie Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. The New York Times bestselling author talks about the two legendary figures and the tragedy that he says brought them together.

Notre Dame’s season this year will depend on how well junior quarterback Jimmy Clausen performs. The California blond QB is bigger, taller, and stronger than his freshman and sophomore years -- but the big questions will be can he have a Heisman type year and live up to the hype that has surrounded him since

Father Michael Kelly, 59, a priest from Balingarry, County Tipperary who is now based in California, is facing a civil legal action over allegations that he sexually abused a child in 1984.

Martin Sheen proudly recognized his Irish roots over the weekend while giving a speech to a graduating class in Oakland, California.

With video: In news that may come as a shock to few, but not to anyone who has given the matter any serious thought, the Blarney Stone in County Cork has been named the world’s germiest tourist attraction.

The new movie "The Hangover" is inspiring a look back at the worst party-fueled moments of some of Hollywood's Irish stars.

In “The Rivalry,” a 1959 play by Norman Corwin now playing at the Irish Repertory Theatre in New York, a riveting old argument is at the center of the work, and the debate is as potent today as it ever was -- the argument over human liberty and the survival of the United States itself.

Since their album came out in March, The Script has had their music played on VH1 and in a number of television soundtracks. That buzz has caught the ear of none other than Sir Paul McCartney, who has tapped them to support his return to the old Shea Stadium site on July 17 and 18.

Eoin Harty is confident that Mr. Hot Stuff, his first horse as a head trainer in the Belmont Stakes, will put on a good show in the big race Saturday.

Niall O'Dowd is 30 years in America next week. The callow youth who stepped off a plane in Chicago on June 9, 1979 has certainly come a long way, for better or worse.

Martin Nolan, 46, is an auctioneer to the stars. He is in the business of getting the best price possible for umbrellas, dresses, pictures and the like. However, these are not just anyone’s umbrellas, dresses and pictures. If Nolan's name is attached to them then you can be guaranteed they once belonged to a superstar.

With the recent publication of the first volume of Beckett’s letters I started to recall the last time I met Beckett in Paris in 1988. We first met in April, 1985. It had been three years since our meeting at the café in the Hotel PLM. At noon. Noon being the time he had suggested. The suggested hour.

Ireland, with 3,000 miles of open Atlantic to the West, offers some of the best surf conditions in the world. Sea Fever, a documentary, covers the history of Irish surfing from the early 1960s to the present.

A beautiful Spring weekend in Seattle brought almost 500 dancers from the Western US and Western Canada to the Pacific Northwest Irish Dance Championships Feis May 16-17.