It is a remarkable piece of history, mostly unknown, but the greatest giver to famine relief in Ireland was the London MP and Jewish financier Lionel de Rothschild.
Abraham Lincoln died 153 years ago today at Ford’s Theater, cut down by the rabidly pro-slavery actor named John Wilkes Booth. With Lincoln on that fateful night were several Irish, including his driver and valet, who played significant roles.
Forty years after Pope John Paul skipped Northern Ireland and 20 years since the Good Friday Agreement, in 2018 Francis must make a visit his priority.
Remembering Ann Lovett, who would have turned 50 next month, but instead died ashamed and alone in childbirth under a Catholic grotto. Her death changed Ireland forever.
Ireland of the 1960s was a very strange place. The power of the church was absolute, never more so than in Holy Week and the celebration of Easter was far from a celebration.
Pope John Paul II visited Ireland when Catholicism was at the height of its power over the Emerald Isle. How different a challenge Pope Francos will face when he visits in the summer of 2018.
I don’t know Robert Lenahan, whose father, Bill, died from injuries suffered in a collision on a lonely road in County Kerry. But he is a quiet Irish American hero, whose behavior after the crash speaks volumes for the cause of human mercy.
Why are so many unable to make the connection between their forebears who risked all to cross the Atlantic and the current crop of Dreamers and immigrants caught in a different but just as terrible vice?
