A new book by an American author is claiming that Eamon De Valera was so afraid of losing his life during the 1916 Rising that he turned informant for the British.

Planning a trip to Dublin but strapped for cash? There’s no end to the free fun to be had all over the nation’s capital with museums, visitors centers, scenic attractions and tourists trails.

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.

The NUI college of Maynooth conferred an honorary degree on Micheál Ó Ceárna for a lifetime of service to the Irish language and his work on campaigning for the preservation of the Great Blasket Island off the coast of Country

It is quite an image... Maureen Dowd, scourge of every president since Poppy Bush and, arguably, the most powerful journalist in America thanks to her must-read column in The New York Times, talking of the road not taken, living a quiet life as a barkeep's wife back in Clare. Maybe that image isn’t so fanciful, though.

Video / Watch a clip from the sexy Irish film / Click here Once upon a time the Irish language or Gaelic was considered as part of a very conservative rural tradition in

The recession has affected all walks of American life and sport is just one of the many victims. Fewer fans are willing to pay top dollar and sponsors are hard to find. But the global nature of the recession is boosting the fortunes of one particular sport: New York’s Gaelic Athletic Association. The storied 95-year-old amateur football league is experiencing a revival as laid-off footballers have fled Ireland for America.

The military coat worn by Liam Neeson in iconic Irish film “Michael Collins” sold for thousands of dollars at a recent London auction.

The surname Feeney is one of the most common names in Counties Sligo and Mayo. Taken from the original Gaelic form, O Fiannaidhe, meaning "soldier," the clan originated from the population group Ui Fiachrac, and it has been established that this sect was located in the Connaught province.

Marian Betancourt highlights the McAllister Towing Company, a family business that has been working the waters of New York since 1876.

Notre Dame holds some Irish surprises. When I was preparing a lecture on Eamon De Valera’s visit to the university during his 1919 American tour, I discovered that on the stop he viewed the Civil War sword of Thomas Francis Meagher. Known as a leader of the failed Young Irelander rising of 1848, Meagher championed a republican movement that sought to free Ireland by any means necessary. Not only does Notre Dame hold Meagher's sword but it also holds a battle flag of the famed Irish Brigade

THE report of the Commission on Child Abuse makes clear the depravity and monstrous behaviour of the Catholic Church. They stole, lied and terrorised. They assaulted children. They scalded them, flogged them and . . . raped them. Sometimes, the children were gang-raped. The holy men and women locked children up for days in tiny rooms, cupboards and pig sties. One recalls being bitten by rats during his incarceration.

John Spain ponders on whether the party founded under De Valera is going to flounder under Cowen.

After the great famine devastated Ireland, the Catholic Church moved quickly to tighten its grip on the population. Millions had fled or starved and those left were incredibly demoralized. There was also an incredible sense of guilt concerning what had transpired over the Famine and a sense that the Irish people as a whole were doomed.

Fianna Fáil has dominated Irish politics since 1932 when it first came to power under its powerful founder Eamon De Valera. The party Dev built is more of a national movement, one with roots so deeply set that the Fianna Fáil faithful always know what's being said when it's not being said. They have an instinctive understanding of which statements and announcements are real and which ones are merely for the benefit of the media or some foreign leader. They are not being lied to, they hear things differently.

Actor rejects suggestions that de Valera had a part to play in Michael Collins' death and is unhappy with the portrayal of de Valera in Neil Jordan's film.

Niall O'Dowd: Somewhere in Australia there's an Irish lad called Rowan McCormick who broke Maureen Dowd's heart. When she went back in the early 1970s to visit her homestead in County Clare, hard by the majestic Cliffs of Moher, she met him and fell madly in love.

Local history rarely gets the attention it deserves, and this is particularly true in Ireland, where grand, heroic and romantic themes and figures often dominate. "Ireland's Banner County: Clare from the fall of Parnell to the Great War, 1890-1918" by Daniel McCarthy manages to tell a significant story on this admittedly small stage. Events in Clare at this time were nearly as turbulent as they were nationally and abroad.

Julia Roberts and Sean Connery may have won Oscars, but that doesn't mean they can pull off a believable Irish accent . See who else made the list of worst movie attempts at an Irish accent, including two more Oscar winners.

MICHAEL Flatley was presented with one of the highest honors he's ever received last weekend in Cork, when the city officially named him a Freeman. He joins elite company, including President John F. Kennedy and former Irish President Eamon de Valera.

Editor of the Irish Press for over 20 years, and author of 12 bestselling books on Irish history and culture, Tim Pat Coogan, 73, is a living authority on Ireland and its troubled history.

But his own story, it turns out, is every bit as interesting. As editor of the Irish Press, Coogan was very publically at the paper's helm during some of the most tumultuous years of the nation's history, and on more than one occasion he the made news as well as reported it.

Dublin: The wind and rain lashed furiously on the tarmac at Dublin Airport, rocking our Aer Lingus Airbus like a gondola exposed to the elements on a mountaintop. We hadn't packed any sun block for this post-Christmas 2000 family trip to Ireland, but no one had told us we'd be landing in the monsoon season. It had proved impossible to land at Shannon Airport in the west, where the storm was said to be really raging.

News From Ireland

Cowen Replaces Ahern as Prime Minister

Brian Cowen has replaced Bertie Ahern as leader of the Fianna Fil party. The Laois-Offaly Dil deputy also assumed the office of Taoiseach when Ahern stood down on May 6 following his address to the joint Houses of Congress in Washington, D.C.

WHEN outgoing Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern addresses a joint session of Congress this Wednesday, April 30, he is unlikely to match the drama surrounding the joint session address by war hero General Douglas Mac Arthur, after he was relieved of his command by President Harry Truman in 1951.

MacArthur concluded his speech before Congress with the immortal lines, "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away."

Congressman Dewey Short of Missouri was so moved that he cried out, "We heard God speak here today! God in the flesh! The voice of God!"

Despite his own popularity among American politicians, Ahern is unlikely to draw the same response.

THIRTY years ago a young Irish student came to New York and worked on a construction site in Manhattan for the summer on a student visa.

He stayed with his aunt and uncle in Long Island, and they remember him coming home every evening covered in grime and dirt from the site.

"He never complained," remembered his uncle Peter Nolan.

TAOISEACH (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern will address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, April 30, the Irish government confirmed on Tuesday.Ahern was issued the invitation last year by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and efforts have been underway since to secure a firm date for the occasion. Ahern said he was "deeply honored" to accept the invitation.

IAN Paisley said he hopes former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern will be next president of Ireland. The North's first minister said Ahern deserved the honor for all he had done for his country. Paisley's warm tribute came as the pair prepared to meet on the historic site of the Battle of the Boyne on Ahern's last day as taoiseach.

Departing U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Thomas Foley certainly left Dublin with a bang with an editorial piece in The Irish Times on Monday that called into question Ireland's neutrality.

Dearie Pops the Questions

NEW York activist John Dearie, founder of the Irish American presidential forum, has come up with the questions which will be asked of the presidential candidates at this year's event.

Dearie is hoping to schedule the event around the St. Patrick's Day period in New York City.

Cowen's Timing Good

FEW politicians have entered into leadership during such trying times as Ireland's new Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen.

He hardly had his feet under the cabinet table when the Lisbon Treaty came up for a vote and was defeated. There was little he could do in the time allotted him to turn the No vote around.

Coogan Tells All

AUTHOR Tim Pat Coogan, former editor of the Irish Press, has a new autobiography out, simply entitled A Memoir, which contains many interesting nuggets about his work on the peace process.

Coogan quite simply is the world's leading authority on the IRA, and his book is a fascinating insight into how the peace process came about. It is available for sale on Amazon.

O'Muimhneachain is the old Irish form of the name Moynihan. The name originally came from the province of Munster and actually means "Munster man." Today different branches of the clan are still to be found in Munster, mainly in West Cork and Kerry, where the name is among the most popular in the county, and has been that way since the 17th century.

Improbable Frequency

Rough Magic Company

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