The undocumented Irish have picked up a key new supporter in Congress. Congressman Bill Delahunt (D-MA) has pledged to support the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform and its efforts on behalf of the undocumented Irish in the U.S.

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.

An Irish builder with IRA links has been jailed for 18 months on weapons, immigration and tax fraud charges in Pennsylvania. Sean O'Neill, from County Tyrone, also faces deportation to Ireland after he finishes his sentence as it was revealed during the gun investigation that he had lied about his IRA past on immigration forms.

Brian Kelly should replace Charlie Weis as Notre Dame coach. That is the only conclusion I can reach after Weis once again failed to defeat USC, his fifth such loss to them.

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

Say one thing for Irish American Chris Christie, the New Jersey Republican candidate for governor. He's no empty suit waiting to be taken to the cleaners by his opponent Jon Corzine. It's hard to be when you are 350 pounds and counting.

A fundraiser will be held for the son and granddaughter of a Co. Kerry couple living in Massachusetts at the Kerry Hall in Yonkers on Saturday, October 18. Tena and Jimmy Maunsell have five children, all living beside them in Medford, Massachusetts. The Maunsells, who have worked hard through the years to provide for their children, have a daughter who was born with cystic fibrosis and is currently rejecting a double lung transplant she received many years ago.

Undocumented Irish immigrants have been given new reason to hope that immigration reform is on President Obama's agenda. This follows a report in The New York Times that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency has quietly begun preparing for an expected upsurge in its workload.

Roman Polanski recently finished filming a movie called “The Ghost,” starring Pierce Brosnan, Ewan McGregor and Kim Cattrall. Polanski was finishing post-production on “The Ghost” when he traveled to Zurich over the weekend, where his unexpected arrest took place.

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 Ancient Order of Hibernians held a weekend of commemoration to mark the centenary of the cross that began on August 14 with a dinner in Quebec attended by the presidents and vice-presidents of the AOH from Ireland, Quebec, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia and Australia.

Although the surname Joyce may automatically be associated with author James Joyce, the name has an ancient past, with both Irish and Norman antecedents. Derived from the Brehon personal name Iodoc, which is a diminutive of iudh meaning lord, the name was adopted by the Normans in the form Josse.

The name Logan has complicated origins. The Logans of the Northern counties are generally of Scottish stock. Many of them came to Ireland during the Plantation of Ulster in the early 17th century.

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.

Recently I took a ramble into New York City on a Saturday afternoon to take a look and listen at a session at Lillie’s, an Irish Victorian bar and restaurant named for the colorful and well traveled actress and socialite Lillie Langtry who bridged the 19th and 20th centuries.

In a strange twist, Chris Egan, son of former U.S. ambassador to Ireland Richard Egan, who killed himself last weekend in his Boston apartment, may well be a challenger for Senator Edward Kennedy’s seat when the election takes place on January 19.

The favorite for Senator Kennedy’s seat will surprise many people. According to a Boston Globe poll, Martha Coakley, the state attorney general, is ahead of both Joe Kennedy and Vicki Kennedy. Coakley picked up filing papers for the job on Wednesday.

Once there were nine siblings, and now just Jean Kennedy Smith is left from the children of Joe and Rose FitzGerald Kennedy, who went on to become the most powerful political family in America. We forgot what the Kennedys accomplished for Irish Americans. They grew up in an era when “No Irish Need Apply” signs were still up in some New England neighborhoods.

It was his handshake I’ll never forget, solid and strong. The event was an Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) rally in Washington D.C. in March 2006. Although I was slightly intimidated by the enormity of the situation and those all around me, I was somewhat comforted by the presence of Senator Ted Kennedy and his vivacious handshake.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen will travel to Boston to represent Ireland at the funeral of Senator Ted Kennedy.

A carefully constructed model of a Dingle currach sits proudly on Rose Kennedy’s piano in the family’s Massachusetts home in Hyannisport. Ted liked to use it to “assure future generations of Kennedys that the Irish truly did discover America, after all.”

Tributes to the late Ted Kennedy have started pouring in from Ireland and America from President Barack Obama, Taoiseach Brian Cowen, U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Dan Rooney and Irish President Mary McAleese.

No family has dominated American politics more in this century than the Kennedys, a clan which influenced the shaping of a nation to a degree rarely matched.

Sen. Ted Kennedy died shortly before midnight Tuesday at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass., at age 77. Kennedy had fought brain cancer, and according to his son had lived longer with the disease than his doctors expected him to.

Senator Ted Kennedy, who has represented the state of MA for almost 50 years, has sent a letter to Governor Deval L. Patrick asking for a change in the Senate vacancy succession policy for the state, further increasing concerns for his present state of health.

Now that Chris Kennedy will not run, the question of whether there will ever be another Kennedy in the U.S. Senate after Teddy passes come front and center.

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.

The destructive fungal disease – the same one that caused the potato famine in Ireland in the 1840s – that first sprung up in plants in Rhode Island and New York has spread even further in the northeast to Massachusetts farms.

The Irish government designated May 17, 2009 as the first National Famine Memorial Day. On that day, Irish people throughout the world remembered and honored the victims of Ireland’s Great Hunger

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.

Her husband may be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but Jane Sullivan Roberts is an amazing success story all her own.

The 19th annual ICONS Irish Music & Arts Festival was called off this summer due to an extreme drop in profits in the past two years.

Massachusetts tourism officials have won the bid for their capital city to host the 2013 World Irish Dancing Championships.

“The Fighter,” a movie on the life of boxer "Irish" Micky Ward starring Irish American Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale is ready to begin shooting.

Legendary TV personality Ed McMahon has died at the age of 86. The Irish American, who defined the role of the television “sidekick” as Johnny Carson’s loyal right-hand-man on the “Tonight Show” for 30 years, died shortly after midnight on Tuesday at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

A County Tyrone man may be saved from deportation after a High Court in Belfast last month overturned the convictions of two men charged with membership to a radical youth group associated with the IRA in Ireland in the late 1970s.

Patricia Harty was honored at the St. Patrick’s Day festivities in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and decided that if there is a place called Irish America, this could be it.

The Irish Arts Center of New York City has brought their hugely successful “Fighting Irishmen” exhibition overseas for the first time to Northern Ireland. Some of the biggest names in Irish boxing, including Barry McGuigan, Paul McCloskey and Charlie Nash, attended the launch.

Irish President Mary McAleese addressed the 2009 graduating class at Mount Holyoke, the prestigious women’s liberal arts college in Massachusetts, this past weekend. McAleese, who was awarded an honorary degree from the College, pointed to the combined efforts of men and women in the Northern Ireland Peace Process as an example of how the world should function – as “a bird flying on two wings,” which “has a better chance of getting somewhere that a bird flying on one.”

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

New book claims Kennedy family feud over who will take over Ted's senate seat

The modern Ryan families of Ireland derive from two separate roots. The main one is from Maelruain, a 9th century chieftain whose descendants took the name O’Maelruain.

The O'Sullivan Clan of Munster has produced fine military leaders, sporting heroes, politicians, movie stars, songwriters, and even a space walker, as the following history of one of the most popular Irish names illustrates. The O'Sullivans or Sullivans are one of the most populous of the Munster families

One of the most common names in Ireland, the Murphy clan has distinguished itself in every field. Among them were an Army chaplain, poet, war hero, police commissioner, and mistress. The name Murphy, the most common and widespread name in Ireland, is a derivation of the Gaelic personal name of Murchadh or Murragh, which gave rise to the different versions MacMurchadh (son of Murchadh) and O'Murchadh (descendant of Murchadh).

A Co. Tyrone man living in Philadelphia who was once involved in a radical young group with IRA ties in Northern Ireland pleaded guilty to a rake of charges in a Pennsylvania court.

A movie on the life of boxer "Irish" Mickey Ward will be made later this year starring Irish American actor Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale.

There is much talk of Mrs Bono, Ali Hewson for president of Ireland when the job becomes available in 2010. I have a much better idea. Why not her husband?

The secret life on an IRA man living in Pennsylvania has come back to haunt him after his son and daughter were both involved in separate - and unrelated - deaths.

Boston-born Katheen O’Toole, a former city police commissioner, may be the next chief of Northern Ireland’s police force, informed sources tell IrishCentral.com. The job has sometimes been described as the toughest assignment there is in police work.

The secret life on an IRA man living in Pennsylvania has come back to haunt him after his son and daughter were both involved in separate homicides.