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It's always grand in March of every year to pour myself a pint of Guinness and enjoy the glorious Irish wit. It's my good fortune to be a fellow of Irish descent. I share my good fortune with a quarter of all Americans, who can trace their heritage to the rolling, green hills of Ireland - including my Uncle Mike, rest his soul, whose grandparents came to America from Ireland. As a lad, I loved the way he and my father celebrated St. Patrick's Day: by swapping the same Irish jokes and witticisms that I've been retelling for years. Such...

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D.) suggested Thursday that he would knock out President Donald Trump during a debate if Trump tried to intimidate him or get in his space. Asked by MSNBC's Chris Matthews what he would do if Trump tried to intimidate him as Hillary Clinton said he was trying to do during their 2016 town hall debate, McAuliffe said Trump would have to be picked up off the floor. "What would you do in a debate with him if he tried that? If he came over and leaned over back of you, what would you do?" Matthews asked....

Democratic Congressman Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke, an Irish-American who adopted the Mexican nickname during his childhood in Texas, officially announced on Friday that he will run for U.S. Senate in 2018 against Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas). . . . The Mexican nickname came in handy in 2012 when O'Rourke decided to challenge eight-term incumbent Democrat Silvestre Reyes in a congressional district that is 75 percent Mexican and just 2 percent Irish. O'Rourke won and has since legislated under the belief that he is the representative for both the people of El Paso and neighbor across the U.S. border, Juarez,...

Brian Burns, a son of Joe Kennedy’s closest political advisor and a leading Irish American philanthropist, will be Donald Trump’s choice as Ambassador to Ireland, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman has tweeted. Burns’ name was first reported by IrishCentral as the likely choice earlier this month. Burns and his wife Eileen have close personal ties to Trump and were at Mar-a-lago, in Palm Beach, FL, for Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations. They were early supporters of the billionaire, who counts them as close friends. […] The 80-year-old Burns is a nationally regarded businessman, attorney and philanthropist. He is the chairman...

Long Island congressman Peter King was the most prominent activist Irish American Congressional Republican politician at the just concluded GOP convention in Cleveland. Come to think of it, he was the only one. […] And while King is lining up behind the Trump candidacy, and has endorsed him, it should be remembered that back in the thick of the primary fight he endorsed Florida’s Senator Marco Rubio over his fellow New Yorker. But that was then and this is now. King sent this from the convention floor on Tuesday evening: “Dramatic night as Donald Trump goes over the top to...

In his latest attacks on Trump, Jeb compared Trump to members of the American Party of the 1850s, who are referred to by their opponents as "Know-Nothings" http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/15/politics/jeb-bush-trashes-donald-trump-on-eve-of-republican-convention/?sr=google_news Most of you who may be aware of the so-called Know-Nothings of the 1850s, have been brain-washed by liberal biased accounts, which slander a group of American patriots who are the fathers of the immigration reform movement. The members of this movement never called themselves Know Nothings. They called themselves the American Party. While they have been called anti-Catholic, we often read about them being critical of German and Irish Catholics. But...

(CBS) – Indiana Gov. Mike Pence was raised in the Hoosier state, but he says he has a strong, personal connection to Chicago. WBBM Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports from the Loop. Pence says his grandfather emigrated to the U.S. from Ireland in 1923 and came to Chicago, where he drove a bus for 40 years. In a speech to the City Club of Chicago in December 2014, he said his parents grew up on the South Side.

When the Provisional Irish Republican Army agreed to end its paramilitary insurgency (and/or terrorist campaign) against British rule in Northern Ireland with the Good Friday accords of 1998, it was unambiguously a good thing for the people of Ireland and their British next-door neighbors. It’s not like everything suddenly became hunky-dory in the long and troubled historical relationship between those islands, but the peace has largely held – splinter groups and isolated sectarian violence aside – and an era of relative normalcy and increasing prosperity has followed. Given the global context of the 21st century, an intractable religious-cum-nationalist dispute between...

The wearing of the green is nearly upon us, and so the season of green beer, bagels and milkshakes has begun. While there’s nothing particularly Irish about shamrock-shaped cookies or green-frosted cupcakes, you might be surprised to learn that the traditional St. Paddy’s meal—corned beef and cabbage—is no more authentic. Like many aspects of St. Patrick’s Day, the dish came about when Irish-Americans transformed and reinterpreted a tradition imported from the Emerald Isle. The first St. Patrick’s Day parade took place not in Dublin but in New York City, in 1762. Over the next 100 years, Irish immigration to...

Vice President Joe Biden says Irish Americans should rally behind Hispanics in their push to get immigration reform through Congress. The reason: Hispanics and the Irish both have had to bear more than their share of discrimination. “There are 11 million [undocumented] Hispanics, who by the way, are just as proud, just as noble, care just as much about their families, as we do,” Biden told 300 Irish American leaders in New York Thursday. …

With deep apologies to, and selected quotations from, Finley Peter Dunne, creator of the immortal Mister Dooley, Irish barkeep and political commentator who first noted that politics ain't beanbag. "I'll have a double," called Aloysius J. Hennessey as he pushed through the swinging doors of Riley's Royal I.R.A. Vegetable Bar and Grill. Looking around to make certain he was the only customer in the place, Hennessey added: "Make that a round for everybody!" Mr. Riley, sole proprietor and entire staff, eyed his first visitor of the morning warily. "Oh, 'tis a great thing t'be on yer side iv the bar,"...

'Lost Tomb' of President Obama's Irish Ancestor Found in Cathedral Obama's Sixth Generation Grand Uncle Was Bishop of Kearney Sept. 8, 2009— A mystery revolving around President Barack Obama's Irish roots was solved when a tomb containing the remains of Obama's Irish ancestor was discovered in the Irish medieval city of Kilkenny. After a painstaking search, film maker Gabriel Murray, who is in the process of making a documentary on Obama's Irish roots, finally found "Obama's Lost Tomb" inside the 13th century St. Canice's Cathedral. Murray, along with Cathedral assistant Frances Moore, used a centuries-old map to identify a hidden...

Henry Louis Gates Jr., the black professor at the center of the racial story involving his arrest outside his Harvard University-owned house, has spoken proudly of his Irish roots. Strangely enough, he and the Cambridge, Mass., police officer who arrested him, Sgt. James Crowley, both trace their ancestry back to the legendary Niall of the Nine Hostages. In a PBS series on African-American ancestry that he hosted in 2008, Gates discovered his Irish roots when he found he was descended from an Irish immigrant and a slave girl. He went to Trinity College in Dublin to have his DNA analyzed....

A White House aide tells POLITICO44 that Obama (O’Bama?) will be hosting a big St. Patrick’s day bash at the White House ... ... Tuesday night. On the guest list: Irish American lawmakers and other Irish Americans. We're also hearing that Obama will be participating in a budget-related event tomorrow. Details to come.

A pre-St. Patrick's Day pub crawl has changed its name after several complaints that it denigrated Irish-Americans. The "Running of the Micks'' is scheduled for March 7 in Atlantic City, but co-founder Matt McDermott tells The Press of Atlantic City he's changing the name of the event to the "Running of the Leprechauns.'' McDermott says his nickname is "Matty Mick'' and that he named the event after himself, not thinking it would offend anyone.

Growing up Irish in Queens and on Long Island, Daniel Cassidy was nicknamed Glom. “I used to ask my mother, ‘Why Glom?’ and she’d say, ‘Because you’re always grabbing, always taking things,’” he said, imitating his mother’s accent and limited patience, shaped by a lifetime in Irish neighborhoods in New York City. It was not exactly an etymological explanation, and Mr. Cassidy’s curiosity about the working-class Irish vernacular he grew up with kept growing. Some years back, leafing through a pocket Gaelic dictionary, he began looking for phonetic equivalents of the terms, which English dictionaries described as having “unknown origin.”...

THE IRISH IN AMERICA By John Francis Maguire, 1868 CHAPTER XXIV. The Know Nothing Movement--Jealousy of the Foreigner--Know Nothings indifferent to Religion--Democratic Orators--Even at the Altar and in the Pulpit--Almost Incredible--The Infernal Miscreant--A Strange Confession THE KNOW NOTHING movement of 1854 and 1855 troubled the peace of Catholics, and filled the hearts of foreign-born American citizens with sorrow and indignation. They were made the victims of rampant bigotry and furious political partisanship. There was nothing new in this Know Nothingism. It was as old as the time of the Revolution, being Native Americanism under another name. Its animating spirit...

In a stunning reversal, hordes of Irish immigrants are waving goodbye to the Statue of Liberty and heading home. "A lot of them don't want to go back," said Seamus Dooley, chairman of the Gaelic Athletic Association. "They're here illegal, so they don't have a choice." The GAA kicked off its 94th season yesterday in Gaelic Park in The Bronx - but with 10 less teams. The group - which plays Emerald Isle sports like hurling - has lost 200 players in two years. It's tempting for many to bolt now while the economy in Ireland is booming. The Irish...

Today's rancorous debate over immigration has a parallel in the nativist reaction to the mass Irish immigration in the mid-19th century. Spurred by the potato famine that began in 1845, 3.5 million mostly destitute Irish migrated to America by 1880 - about 7 percent of the population of 50 million. By contrast, today's 11 million unauthorized immigrants, of all nationalities, constitute just 4 percent of our population. Contemporary immigration foes, like former Gov. Dick Lamm and Rep. Tom Tancredo, claim America can't absorb so many foreign-born without fatal damage to our economy and culture. Yet, history shows we did just...

For as long as I can remember, all I've ever heard about the Irish in general or the Irish in America or the meaning behind St. Patrick's Day was ... drink, drank, drunk. That's it. And I'm not alone. Back in 2001, social activist Tom Hayden published a stunning book entitled "Irish on the Inside: In Search of the Soul of Irish America"; it's a memoir-social history-travelogue combined. In a chapter called "Drinking, Sexuality, and Assimilation," Hayden writes: "Drinking was the only Irish legacy passed along to me. You drink because you're Irish, I learned, which soon became you're Irish...