Robert Reynolds: It's now clear that Mayor Michael Bloomberg became New York's third term mayor because of the Catholic vote. Irish and Italians in the boroughs of Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island provided the margin of victory for Bloomberg in a much tighter contest than was anticipated.

Mourners gathered at St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church on Staten Island Saturday to bury the dead, but this was no ordinary funeral. Members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians escorted two caskets - one a small, white children's casket with golden angels; the other larger and pearl-colored - into the church as bagpipes played "Amazing Grace." The two coffins contained the final remains of immigrants who died over 150 years ago.

The death of Ted Kennedy precedes by three weeks the end of John Sweeney’s 14-year tenure as president of the AFL-CIO. Together, these events signal the end of an epoch in American political history: that of Irish American leadership of the nation’s liberal institutions and Democratic organizations.

Featuring award winning Irish playwrights like Sebastian Barry, Billy Roche and Conor McPherson, the 1st Irish Theatre Festival is putting new Irish writing on the map in Manhattan. Sebastian Barry and Vincent Dowling talk about the exciting month long event, already attracting critical raves.

The Moran clan have produced some very interesting folk. The anglicized "Moran" can be traced to multiple distinct Irish names, and though commonly linked to County Mayo, forms of the name originated throughout middle Ireland in Counties Leitrim, Galway, Kildare, Offaly, and more. Moran is so heavily anglicized - from the French "Morrin" to the Irish "Moran" - that exact knowledge of each Moran's lineage may be hard to trace.

Though this column has never received a question from a surviving spouse of a deceased U.S. citizen whose marriage was less than two years old at the time of death, there have been several cases reported in the national media of a so-called “widow penalty” in U.S. immigration law preventing the surviving spouse from becoming legal here.

Irish Voice and IrishCentral.com reporter April Drew interviews playwright and bartender Derek Murphy, whose new play, "A Short Wake," will show at the Manhattan Theatre Source from September 10-26.

SLIDESHOW / IRISH SIDE OF ELLIS ISLAND / CLICK HERE The outside world is a scary place. Especially when outside is New York

In the wake of the death of Irish immigrant Darren O’Donnell, Irish immigration centers in New York are calling for all the undocumented not to hesitate to seek medical help if they are injured.

A tribute to Paddy Reynolds, a fine musician and an even finer man.

For many years one of my favorite ways to pass a Sunday afternoon was to pop along to the venerable Irish hooley known as Father Charlie's Rhinecliff session. On the banks of the Hudson River, about two hours north of NYC in the back room of the old crumbling Rhinecliff hotel beneath one bare light bulb, Father Charlie Coen, now Monsignor, hosted and performed with the cream of visiting Irish musicians. Everyone came, and many credited Charlie as one of their first inspirations.

The ties that bind father to daughter, nation to nation are on display in "Vietnam: Our Father Daughter Journey" by Ed and Zoeann Murphy. (Full disclosure: This columnist is proud to call the authors his cousins.) The book is a written as well as photographic journey through recent decades, covering the tumultuous events which led Murphy to Vietnam in the 1960s, protest back home in the 1970s, and then back to Vietnam as the past painfully began to recede.

John R. Moran, 82, of Plainfield, New Jersey, passed away peacefully on Thursday, August 21, at home.

He and his wife, Lillian, were married for 59 years.

NYPD 1-11

CIE 0-8

THE last game of the day was the NYPD playing another selection from the CIE traveling team. This time the CIE outfit came out second best, but they will certainly be very happy with their trip to the Big Apple.

They stayed at the Army Base in Staten Island where they had a full time security detail and as John Cassidy, a Donegal native who was part of their backroom staff said, they had tremendous attention paid to them by both the Fire Department and Police Department which they will forever be thankful for.

Those We Lost

Michael Joseph Daly

Michael Joseph Daly, 83, died July 25 of pancreatic cancer in his home in Fairfield, Connecticut. A lieutenant and later a captain in the Army's Third Infantry Division, he was awarded the Medal of Honor from President Harry Truman on August 23, 1945. Credited with single-handedly fighting off and killing fifteen Germans as well as demolishing three machine-gun emplacements - one from ten yards away - during the battle for Nuremberg in the Second World War, he was evacuated the day after the heroic event after sustaining injuries from a bullet to the face in a separate firefight.

60 Minutes On Feeney

CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes will feature a major segment on reclusive billionaire Chuck Feeney, who is the subject of a major new biography, The Billionaire Who Wasn't, which will be released next week. The book was written by former Irish Times journalist Conor O'Clery, as you'll read in our arts pages this week.

Feeney, of course, is famous for giving away his fortune, including well over a billion dollars to worthy causes in Ireland.