Emmy award winning actor Brendan Gleeson has confessed he was deeply worried about playing Winston Churchill in the HBO film “Into the Storm” that won him the award.

The undocumented Irish community in the U.S. received a major boost today with the announcement from the White House that it will push forward with a legalization program. Homeland Security boss Janet Napolitano said the Obama administration is seeking a "tough but fair pathway to earned legal status."

Members of the Irish community gathered at a memorial Mass in New York Thursday to remember Sen. Edward Kennedy just over 12 weeks after his death. The senator’s son, Edward Kennedy Jr., Christine Quinn, Speaker of New York City Council, and Irish Consul General Niall Burgess were among those present.

Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen has urged workers to embrace reform of the public service rather than viewing it as a threat. He made it clear that a shake-up of the system has to happen in order to make dramatic savings to reduce the country's debt.

Irish TV host Pat Kenny came under fire on his new TV show this week - for the second week in a row. An audience member at "Frontline" erupted in fury as Kenny (€600,000 a year or $900,000) interviewed Government politician Mary Hanafin about the looming cuts in social welfare.

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

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.

Government officials have warned Irish Minister for Finance that high earners are likely to flee Ireland if he raises taxes again in the Budget, set for next month. Currently many key Irish figures including U2 members, and billionaires

The Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) and the Irish American Unity Conference (IAUC) have joined together in a renewed effort to support an independent truth commission to deal with the past in Northern Ireland following last week's Congressional hearing into collusion there.

Irish Voice Senior Editor Debbie McGoldrick answers your immigration questions, queries and concerns. This week: I-94W departure card query.

THE promise of immigration reform benefiting the undocumented Irish in America took a quiet but very important step forward in Washington, D.C. last week with a pivotal meeting between Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Ciaran Staunton, president of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) and South Carolina Ancient Order of Hibernians board member Jim Lawracy.

His late Dad may have made a peace of sorts with his beloved Catholic Church by admitting to Pope Benedict XVI that "I am not a perfect man," but Sen. Edward Kennedy's youngest son is beating the war drums.

Five swine flu victims have died in the Irish Republic since cases of the illness emerged in May.

The Irish population in America should rally around immigration reform, said Micheal Martin, Minister for Foreign Affairs, in New York on Saturday. Reform will take place in the first three months of 2010, and the question of undocumented Irish will be part of a comprehensive review of the immigration system.

SECRETARY of State Hillary Clinton has made it crystal clear in her visit to Ireland that she and the Obama administration are giving the Irish peace process a very high priority indeed. It is also very welcome that she dropped the ludicrous “no special deal” nonsense when she talked about the undocumented Irish and the need to address that issue.

New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein announced his proposal to create a high school named in honor of the late Pulitzer Prize winning author Frank McCourt at a memorial service to celebrate McCourt’s life and work held at Symphony Space in upper Manhattan last week.

Stella O’Leary of Irish American Democrats and hotelier John Fitzpatrick, a long-time backer of the Clintons joined

NOW that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Irish visit is over, and she most definitely acted as negotiator and envoy herself in Northern Ireland, as well as appointing economic envoy Declan Kelly, it is interesting to note who got this story right and who got it wrong in the preceding few months.

Mairead Maguire, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 with Betty Williams for their work promoting peace in Northern Ireland as co-founders of the Community of the Peace People, has criticized the decision to award President Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize.

Roman Polanski is finishing up his newest film starring Pierce Brosnan from his Swiss prison cell.

Hillary Clinton met with Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Brian Cowen and President Mary McAleese and discussed the situation of Irish undocumented in the U.S. as well as Northern Ireland and global economic issues.

I was in Galway speaking at a media conference, and the anger that welled up when the discussion turned to what has happened to Ireland in the past 12 months was palpable.

Hillary Clinton will face a full blown crisis in the peace process when she visits Northern Ireland this weekend. Sinn Fein and the DUP are at loggerheads over when policing and justice powers will be devolved to the Northern Irish government from the British parliament.

The EU and Irish government conspired to scare, mislead and threaten Irish voters to pass the Lisbon Treaty, according to an extraordinary story in the Wall Street Journal written by one of their editorial writers Anne Jolis.

Aer Lingus is expected to announce major changes on its Atlantic routes. An annoucement is expected this week and there is mounting speculation that the airline will scale back its New York Dublin service to one flight a night.

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.

Ireland ratified the Lisbon Treaty after a whopping 67 percent of the Irish population voted in its favor.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Northern Ireland next week, as exclusively reported on IrishCentral.com. Clinton will meet with political leaders for talks about the North's future.

Niall O'Dowd: A "yes" vote in Friday’s referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, or “neverendum” as some wags are calling it, is vital for Ireland. A no vote will send a clear message that Ireland wants it both ways -- the benefits of European Union membership without any of the obligations that that membership implies.

The dramatic deterioration of Ireland’s economy may lead a majority of Irish voters who previously voted No in Ireland’s Lisbon Treaty referendum to reconsider and vote yes when polls open this Friday.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Saturday that it had transferred two prisoners from their detention facility in

The husband of New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney has died in a climbing accident in Tibet. Clifton Maloney, 71, died Saturday.

President Barack Obama's Irish American ancestors were pioneers in 19th century health care reform. Film-maker and historian Gabriel Murray, who found Barack Obama’s great-grand uncle's tomb in Kikenny, Ireland, uncovered the surprise links while he was researching his new documentary, “Obama’s Irish Roots” (visit www.olympia-films.co.uk for more information).

Bookmakers BoyleSports has decided the result of the Lisbon Treaty is s foregone conclusion by paying out to punters who stumped on a “Yes” vote for the October 2 referendum.

Former President Bill Clinton will personally take part in a session on Northern Ireland at his annual Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) summit this week in New York.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to visit Dublin, Belfast and London on October 11th and 12th, IrishCentral has learned.

Chris Dodd could face a takedown or two in the Connecticut Senate race as former WWE CEO Linda McMahon has stepped into the political ring to challenge him.

As many as 35,000 brand new homes are lying vacant in Ireland, according to the country’s largest securities firm, Davy. That figure is up from 20,000 just 18 months ago.

Irish man Vince Keane from Ballyhaunis County Mayo is helping U.S. President Barack Obama to try and overhaul the health care system in the

EXCLUSIVE: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced that Irish native Declan Kelly, 41, will be the Obama administration's economic envoy to Northern Ireland, a position first created for Sen. George Mitchell during the Clinton administration.

The weather is perfect today. Just like it was then. We all remember the absolutely perfect weather in New York eight years ago, but it was almost exactly the same here. Eight years is a long time. Just trying to think how much has happened makes my head spin. Children growing up, family members dying, career changes - so much. Then there's the wider world: wars, natural disasters, economic collapses, elections and new governments. It's actually been a good while.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to visit Ireland in mid-October according to sources close to the Clinton camp. And it is expected that she will be accompanied by the new economic envoy, who is expected to be named shortly. Sources say Clinton will use the trip as an opportunity to strongly dismiss reports that the U.S government is paying little attention to Ireland.

A big business effort is underway in Ireland to convince Irish people to back the same European treaty they rejected last year. Employers such as Intel and Ryanair have lined up to lobby Irish voters to say yes to the Lisbon treaty. They say that Ireland risks creating an even bigger economic crisis if voters say no.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen told Irish TV chat show host Ryan Tubridy that he did not have a drinking problem on the latter’s first night as host on the world's longest running chat show, The Late Late Show, on Friday night.

Irish people urgently need to pull together says former Irish president Mary Robinson. A self-confessed optimist, Robinson said that the Celtic Tiger had pushed Irish people apart.

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.

Sinn Fein asked United States ambassador Richard Egan to attend the party's September ard fheis to signal to the rank and file that the US did not intend to shut them out of the negotiating

So Rush Limbaugh is patting himself on the back because Ted Kennedy died as he predicted before health care legislation will be passed. Now he is predicting that Kennedy's death will be used to pass health care reform. Maybe he needs another Vicodin — or ten — to calm down.

Senator Edward Kennedy - who freely acknowledged that his own family would not be allowed to immigrate to the U.S. now - was a real champion for the undocumented Irish.

Mac Cionnaith argues that the use of terms such as “hardliners” and a “paramilitary driven socialist all Ireland agenda” in a recent article by Niall O'Dowd paints a false picture of éirígí for the Irish-American community.