Michael Coleman (1891 - 1945) was born into a musical family in Sligo. Coleman is considered one of the most important 20th-century influences on traditional Irish music. In 1914 he emigrated to America, where he settled in New York City. Duri…
John Palliser (1817 - 87) was born in Dublin and raised in Waterford. His family was descended from William Palliser, a late 17th-century bishop of Cashel. Despite being multilingual, a product of his family's continental European travels, Palliser …
William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939) died on this day at the Hôtel Idéal Séjour in Menton on the French Riviera. We repeat his words to each other; they can be both lyrical and provocative. Even now, when we recite his verses long …
Mairead Maguire, peace advocate and Nobelist, was born on this day in 1944. In 1976, an out-of-control car killed three children of her sister, Ann Maguire. The driver, a member of the IRA, had been fatally shot by the British Army. Another woman, …
The enigmatic Seán MacBride was born on January 26th, 1904, the son of nationalist, political activist and poetic muse, Maude Gonne. His father, Major John MacBride was a volatile man of action who had served in the Boer war against the Briti…
Robert Boyle (1627 - 1691), considered by many to be the Father of Chemistry, was born on this day in Lismore Castle in Waterford. He was the 4th son of the enormously wealthy Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, and Catherine Fenton Lismore Castle …
Sybil Connolly was born in Swansea, Wales on January 24, 1921. On her father's death, John, in 1936, the family relocated to his native Waterford. During those years, Sybil showed a flair for fashion and design and was apprenticed to a London dressm…
John Field (1782 - 1837), is considered by many to be Ireland’s most influential classical composer. Field is credited with the creation of the nocturne, a musical form usually written for the piano and evocative of the night. Field w…
Born on this day in 1930, Éamon de Buitléar became a fixture on Irish television, particularly for his iconic series, Amuigh Faoin Spéir (Out Under the Sky), focusing on the Irish natural world. Have you listened to our…
Irish Stew listener Danny Leavy shared this account of the Irish in New York and the work underway to preserve and exhibit an Irish American artifact. Up until the end of the American Revolution, Catholic worship was prohibited, but due to some per…