The women who influenced the poetry of W.B. Yeats. It will come as no surprise to admirers of W.B. Yeats that this greatest of modern poets was a celebrant of the art of love from the beginning to the end of his long and immensely productive career. But now, thanks to W.B. Yeats and the
Like James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, the name John Banville is frequently mentioned in the reverent tones reserved for writers more often invoked than read. His prose, lush and hypnotic, is flecked with mordant humor, but even his most ardent fans agree it can be difficult to register a chuckle amid the ruminations in such
In an excerpt from her memoir, Edna O’Brien returns to Ireland to build a house in which she hopes to avail of the “peace that passeth understanding,” only to find that even the best laid plans can go awry. Donegal It was to Donegal, in the most northwestern tip of Ireland, that in the 1990s
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Considering the Irish-American influence on U.S. Catholicism, it makes sense that someone of Irish descent – John Gilmary Shea – undertook to preserve much of the existing knowledge of the beginnings of American Catholicism. A prolific writer and dogged rescuer of rare manuscripts, Shea became known as the “father of American Catholic history.” At this point, however, his name receives rather little attention.
Shea was born in New York City on July 22, 1824. His mother came from an established New England family of part-Irish lineage, and his father was a native of County Limerick who emigrated to the U.S. at age 25 and later served as principal of the Columbia College grammar school in New York City. In this same school, the younger Shea received his early education. A sickly youth, those who knew him well “realized that only the greatest care would carry him to mature manhood,” wrote Peter Guilday in his book