From 1846 to 1848, in the worst years of the potato famine in Ireland and during mass emigration to the United States, one of the toughest units of the Mexican armed forces battling the invaders from “El Norte” was the Saint Patrick Battalion, known in Mexico as the ‘San Patricios.’
Ireland
Posted inArts & Culture, Ideas
Why Joe Biden keeps quoting Seamus Heaney on when ‘hope and history rhyme’
In this season of discontent in American society, however, Heaney’s words have become emblematic of President Biden’s greatest political challenge: to act as healer-in-chief.
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
It’s official: St. Patrick’s Day is canceled in Ireland
There will be no parades in Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day, and the government has warned that people who try to organize parties to celebrate the day will face fines and criminal prosecution.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
Remembering Father Enda McDonagh, a ‘critical but loyal’ Irish theologian who questioned ‘Humanae Vitae’
Rev. Enda McDonagh served the Irish church as a compassionate priest and renowned theologian. He died on Feb. 24.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
The gleeful language of Niall Williams’s ‘This Is Happiness’
The latest selection of the Catholic Book Club, this novel by Niall Williams is full of lively, dancing imagery sure to bring glee to the reader.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: ‘The Pull of the Stars’ brings a Gatsbyesque approach to finding humor in a pandemic
Emma Donoghue’s new novel unfolds over the course of All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day—with a chatty cast of priests, nuns and philosophizing orderlies running about—adding to the sanctified air.
Posted inNews, Politics & Society
Irish prime minister: Unwed mothers and their children paid a heavy price for a ‘perverse religious morality’
A long-awaited report recounted decades of harm done by church-run homes for unmarried women and their babies in Ireland, where thousands of infants died.
Posted inArts & Culture, Jesuitical
Podcast: Pádraig Ó Tuama on the sacramentality of language
A conversation with Irish poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama on faith, poetry, peace and reconciliation.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: A Bronx tale
John D. Feerick’s memoir engages important chapters in American urban, intellectual and legal history.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
From novelist Peter Quinn, a world-weary, unmistakably Catholic detective
A reader familiar with New York-based Irish American writer Peter Quinn’s work can be forgiven for identifying the novelist with Fintan Dunne, the central character in three of his four period-piece novels.