The Dream Against The Deed

Poet Patrick Deeley has written a beautiful memoir about growing up in East Galway. The Hurley Maker’s Son has been hailed for its evocative prose, and for its moving celebration of life in rural Ireland in the 1960s. As a child, Deeley was something of a misfit in his family: a loner, a dreamer, and […] […]

The Story of Rorke’s Drift: The Irishman and the Zulus

This is a reposting of a piece I wrote about James Rorke, originally published at World Irish. Click here to read it.

Happy May Day!

By Niall McArdle May 1st is – among other things – International Workers Day. The date was chosen to commemorate the Haymarket Riot in May 1886 Fittingly, Seattle raised the minimum wage to $15 today. You can read my story about the real-life Mother Jones here.

April A to Z: U is for Uma #atozchallenge

By Niall McArdle Uma Thurman is back on the market. There’s hope for me yet. The Hollywood beauty turns 44 next week. Her mother is model Nena Von Schlebrugge. Her father is Buddhist academic Robert Thurman. She is named after Uma, another name for the Hindu goddess Parvati. The name Uma means “goddess”. Thurman is known for […]

April A to Z: RIP Rubin Carter #atozchallenge

By Niall McArdle Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the boxer who was wrongly convicted for murder, died at the weekend. In 1966, at the height of his boxing career, Carter was convicted (twice) of a triple murder. He spent nearly 20 years in prison. The miscarriage of justice became a cause celebre in the 1970s and inspired […]

Diasporational Part Sixteen : “Captain Brevet”, the Fenian who fought at Gettysburg

Galwey’s account is a fascinating glimpse of a typical civil war soldier’s life, its privations, its tedium, its terror.

Diasporational Part Fifteen: Sara Allgood

By Niall McArdle Like her contemporary, Una O’Connor, Sara Allgood came to films by way of the Abbey. Indeed, their careers ran on similar paths and intersected several times. They both worked for Alfred Hitchcock in Britain and they were both favourites of John Ford. They both parlayed their Irishness into success. O’Connor, bone-thin and […]

Diasporational Part Fourteen: Una O’Connor, Lovable Screamer!

She had a nice line in busybodies: spinsters, gossips and maids (often Irish). She was described as having “the stare of a detective, the voice of an air raid siren, and the body of a scarecrow.” In an age when there was an awful lot of stage-Irishness in Hollywood films (Abby’s Irish Rose, Mother Machree), it must have grated on her ears to hear so many Oirish brogues.

J Edgar Who?

I’m disappointed to report that while it’s marvellous-looking and well-acted, it’s an unsatisfying, disjointed film that offers us fascinating glimpses of Hoover without ever getting to the core of who he was