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Being young, Coming of age, craic, Dispatch from the Diaspora, Irish American relations, Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Culture, St. Patrick's Day, The Troubles, The Troubles, Themes of childhood, United Workers Council Strike 1974
By the Wayside on St. Patrick’s Day
“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.” ― Elie Wiesel, Night I am ambivalent about St. Patrick’s Day, still not sure what it is about March 17th that renders so many people Irish or some version of it that I do not recall from living the first twenty-seven years of my life in Northern Ireland. Everywhere I turn on Friday,…
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Being young, Belfast, Belfast Peace Lines, bombing, Borders, Brexit, Dispatch from the Diaspora, EUFA Cup 2016, IRA, Loughinisland, Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland, Sport, The Good Friday Agreement, The Troubles, The Troubles, World Cup Football
Confronting Brexit & my Identity Crisis
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That wants it down. ~ Robert Frost Less than a week ago, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. Let that sink in. I haven’t…
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American Dream, Being young, Belfast, Dispatch from the Diaspora, Glenn Frey, Take It Easy, The Eagles
On becoming an American Girl – on the Corner of Winslow, Arizona
When I was young, I wanted to be Linda Ronstadt. I knew by heart the lyrics of every song she covered, and in my teenage bedroom, I sang along with her, having deluded myself that I was within her range. Bored and adolescent, I just wanted to be far away from grey skies and Margaret Thatcher and from Northern Ireland – its politics…
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9/11, Anything can Happen, Being young, Belfast, bombing, Dispatch from the Diaspora, Heartbreak Beat, Northern Ireland, Paris Attack, Sectarianism, Soundtracks of our Lives, The Psychedelic Furs, The Troubles, War
Paris – Heartbreak Beat.
“They stopped France when its guard was down,” announces the BBC reporter from a TV in the corner of my house so far away from Paris. Of course they did. I should know by now that a popular concert venue in Paris on a Friday night is not an unexpected place, that there are some for whom Paris is “a legitimate target.” I…
