News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

Irish and Leinster center Brian O’Driscoll is planning a five star wedding week as he and fiancee, Amy Huberman, reserved the exclusive Lough Rynn Castle in Leitrim for their nuptials next year.

The draw for the 2010 All Ireland Football Championships was made Thursday night, and New York will entertain Galway, while champions Kerry start their defense against Tipperary.

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

Ireland’s gorgeous landscape and mild year-round temperatures make it the perfect location for a hike or stroll. The quiet country roads of Ireland are perfect for casual walkers, while the mountains and forests provide great trails for extreme hikers.

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

As Irish associations and societies across the country dwindle in numbers due to lack of immigration and other factors, a number of organizations in New York are taking measures to ensure their longevity. The Irish American Center in Mineola, Long Island, is no exception. President May O’Boyle Deegan, 48, whose parents are from Co. Donegal, said that the center is worried about its future.

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

For a quick easy snack (or if you make a lot of them it turns into a meal), what about some wonderful Irish smoked salmon on top of a potato pancake, or a boxty, as we Irish call it?

The latest news from around the country

On a visit to Mexico on Monday, President Barack Obama told reporters that immigration reform would have to wait until next year, although movement will begin on the contentious issue in fall.

The tiny coastal village of Easkey, County Sligo has “gone gay” today in hosting what is thought to be the smallest gay pride event in the world.

The Irish Government is on the brink of collapse after two Sligo/Leitrim politicians resigned from the Government. Fianna Fail representatives Eamon Scanlan and Jimmy Devins both resigned in protest after cancer services in Sligo were axed.

The town of Carrick-on-Shannon was left reeling in shock after the suicide of a retired detectvie at the local station on Saturday.

Irish American actress Maura Tierney will undergo surgery for breast cancer. Tierney, who played nurse-turned-doctor Abigail Lockhart on ER for 10 years, said she is optimistic about the outcome.

News bits from each of the 32 counties in Ireland.

It was like a scene from a beauty pageant. Nine striking women, three of whom were Irish, sat side by side donned in summer colors with orderly haircuts and brightly shaded manicures. Although it could very well have been a beauty pageant, it wasn’t. It was a celebration of life. A celebration of 100 years of life on this earth.

A jovial Longford man who has never lost his accent, Mike Prunty is a vice-president of the United Irish Counties Association of New York, and he put a strong effort at the United Irish Counties Feis on Sunday, June 14. “It keeps the Irish heritage going,” he said. “I love being involved. And I love watching the kids dance.”

O'Hara is an anglicized phonetic rendering of the Irish translation O hEaghra, and is one of the few Irish families to have consistently kept the 'O' before the name. The clan, of a distinguished origin, is descended from Eaghra (pronounced Ara), chief of Luighne (modern Leyny) in County Sligo.

The National Archives of Ireland digitized online 1911 Irish census has added five more counties to its collection. Joining Antrim, Down, Dublin and Kerry are Cork, Donegal, Galway, Offaly and Wexford.

Down, Leitrim And Sligo all won on a hot weekend in the City!

There was a dramatic day of Championship action on Sunday, with games in all four provinces. Tipperary produced a fine display to see off a resilient Cork in Semple Stadium on a scoreline of 1-19 to

There was standing room only at Rory Dolan’s in Yonkers on Wednesday as the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform held a public meeting for the undocumented.

The names O'Byrne and O'Beirne (or Byrne and Beirne), often regarded as variants of the same root, are, in fact, totally different. O'Byrne is derived from the Gaelic O'Broin meaning "descended from Bran", the 11th century King of Leinster. The O'Byrnes were chieftains of what is now County Kildare until the Norman invasion when they were driven from their lands into the mountains of County Wicklow.

Being a small island nation, Ireland is watersports mad. Whether it's scuba diving, canoeing or kiteboarding, there are oceans of water sports on offer in Ireland.

Entry Name School Rank 4 Shannon Bradley Doherty : Belfast, Ireland 1 94 Amy-Mae Dolan McConomy : Derry, Ireland 2 99 Ciara O'Sullivan Sheehan-Murphy : Kerry, Ireland 3 16 Anna Sulger Pender-Keady : Connecticut, USA 4 27 Kelly Donegan Sylvan Kelly : Mayo, Ireland 5 138 Olivia Murray Mona Ni Rodaigh :

At one time or another, many of us have sketched our family tree, either for a school project or for our own pleasure. But, despite the help of my grandparents, I could only trace back to my great great-grandparents’ generation. The rest seemed lost to history or accessible only to professional genealogists. However, the Internet has opened up a whole new world to the amateur

Check out our St. Patrick's Day, Dublin photo galleries: part 1 and

On December 5, 2009, I will marry John Mooney, a fine Limerick export, and I just can't wait! As I cleverly dodged the patches of ice on the Manhattan sidewalks last Wednesday morning on my way into the office, I quietly pondered the ingredients of a successful long-lasting marriage. What is it that makes a marriage last? I wondered. Is it good communication? Having the same circle of friends perhaps? Maybe passion? Unsure and badly wanting the answer, I decided to ask the experts, those who have gone before us and withstood the test of time (and many a disagreement or two).

A round up of recently published Irish--themed books

The Irish literary world suffered a terrible loss in late March when celebrated novelist and short story writer John McGahern - easily one of the 20th Century's greatest Irish writers - died of cancer at the age of 71. In a twist not unlike those which dotted his fictional explorations of rural Irish life, McGahern's own life story "All Will Be Well" was published here in the U.S.

It was certainly a tale of two countries over this past weekend as the Culture Ireland task force hit the ground running for their second year of participation at the largest gathering of arts presenters in the world in New York City. Again traditional musicians played a major role in their contingent of almost 80 people in the theater, dance and music world coming over to strategically display their wares in the Big Apple at the 52nd annual Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) Conference at the New York Hilton held over the weekend. The gathering is said to attract 4,000 people from all 50 states and 25 countries that are seriously involved in the business of promoting and delivering the arts through the U.

IT was a sun-drenched day in East Durham for the 17th annual Catskills Irish Traditional Music Festival, now firmly established as the Andy McGann Traditional Irish Music Festival last Saturday, July 21. It put the cap on another historic and extraordinary week for the Catskills Irish Arts Week (CIAW) which was too monumental to be evaluated in the too few hours since I emerged from the mountains. But the highlight of the week would be the focus on the New York fiddling legend Andy McGann on the weekend itself, lionizing the shy, humble but graceful genius who plied the New York dance halls, pubs and house parties for much of his 76 years.

Writer and director Marian Quinn just won the Best First Film award at the Galway Film Festival. 32A, a tender meditation on the nature of friendship, is set in Dublin in the summer of 1979, and it tells the coming of age story of one teenage Irish girl in the testing years that lie between childhood and the adult she will become. Quinn speaks with CAHIR O'DOHERTY.

For Brian Mulligan, whose parents hail from Leitrim, becoming a singer on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera is not a pipe dream, it's about to become reality. A rising star in a notoriously competitive field, Mulligan tells CAHIR O'DOHERTY that he is as at home singing "Danny Boy" as he is singing Puccini.

WHEN Brian Mulligan was a teenager it was by no means certain that he would end up singing on the main stage of New York's Metropolitan Opera.

Irish photographer John Minihan's portraits of the famous, including Samuel Beckett, Edna O'Brien, and Francis Bacon, have established him as one of the finest portrait photographers of his generation. This week the Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Brian Cowen will open a new exhibition of Minihan's work chronicling the golden years of America's most elderly Irish immigrants at the Irish Arts Center in Manhattan. CAHIR O'DOHERTY talks to the celebrated portrait artist about his legendary work.

FROM time to time, performance troupes from Ireland offering Irish music and dance organize themselves as a traveling show to say that they toured America.

A Leitrim-based group called The Emerald Revellers is in our midst at the moment. The 34 members hail from the north west of Ireland with Leitrim the majority county but Sligo, Fermanagh, Cavan and Longford are also represented and even some musicians from London (but from Leitrim and Galway stock).

FOR 36 years (save for 2001), Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann has sent a performing troupe gathered from all over Ireland and Britain to the American missions where the seeds were planted for many a North American branch of the traditional music organization founded back in 1951 when things were at a low ebb for its native music and dance.

In recent years the production has been called "Echoes of Erin," and it features some of the finest of the young musicians who have risen through the ranks of the Fleadhanna (music competitions) propagated by CCE.

As in 2007, the tour group is led by the legendary Cork singer and Fear A Ti (emcee), Sean O'Se, who can be counted on to perform some of his well-known songs from the days of his work with Sean O'Riada.

When Irish journalist Carole Coleman first came to prominence in the U.S. in 2004 it was for her spirited face-to-face interview for Irish state broadcaster RTE TV with President George W.

The popular act had more in common with vaudeville than the traditional music of Chief Francis O'Neill or Michael Coleman as far as I know, but it still served as a vital link in the world of Irish American entertainment.

I am looking forward to learning more about the historic McNulty family who were last seen and heard from in the Rockaways before I was able to escape from my own carriage for some gallivanting along the boulevard at places like the Leitrim House on 103rd Street, according to elder statesman and musician Jesse Winch who grew up in New York City in the 1940s and 1950s. (Yes there are a few acts that were before my time!)

The widowed Annie "Ma" and her children Peter and Eileen sang, danced and played to Irish audiences and beyond and made several recordings on 78s that will be on display during the presentation.

The Book of Mychal: The Surprising Life and Heroic Death of Father Mychal Judge

Father Mychal Judge became such a symbol of hope and sacrifice amidst the suffering of September 11, that he has been discussed as a future saint in the Roman Catholic Church. As New York Daily News columnist Michael Daly - who has just written a fascinating biography of Judge's life and death - has said: Judge would probably consider sainthood a demotion. The point, of course (as made clear in Daly's book), is that Judge lived the kind of life he did not because he some day wanted to be canonized, but because he believed good works to be their own reward.

It's a sight that is not seen too often. Big burly electricians carving up turkeys and hams donned in white aprons at the Aisling Irish Community Center in Yonkers on a chilly Monday afternoon in preparation for the annual feed the homeless drive in Manhattan.

Over 30 volunteers of all ages and professions pulled over 300 dinners together on Monday, November 24.

Christmas always brings about nostalgia and fond memories of times long ago, times back in Ireland when folks lived frugally but loved abundantly.

The Irish Voice asked some of its readers to share some of their warmhearted memories from the land they left many years ago.

Patricia McGouron, a Co.

THE livelihoods of up to 30 Irish immigrants will be on the line if proposed legislation by a Queens politician passes the New York City Council.Irish horse and carriage owners who make a living driving tourists around Central Park are furious at an attempt by Councilman Tony Avella, a Queens Democrat, to put a ban on horse-drawn carriages in the city. The bill has not yet been acted upon.

THE end of an era for the Irish in Britain looms with the planned closure of the Galtymore Ballroom in Cricklewood in North London.For 56 years it was home from home for Irish exiles while they struggled to settle into a city which many initially found to be unfriendly and where more than a few experienced downright hostility, particularly during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.The Galtymore is to close for good in June, after which it will be redeveloped as apartments, a hotel complex and retail units.