Exploring Irish America

Exploring Irish America

By Jim McDonough

Happy New Year to all our advertisers, friends and readers! Without the response and support of our advertisers, there would be no Irish News and Entertainment or Irish News USA online; so please patronize them whenever possible.

The breadth of the Fourth of July Celebrations around the United States this past year started this writer thinking about the profound influence that Irish immigrants have had on America. We noticed that one of our great advertisers and also a fine establishment, Muldoon’s Pub in Newport Beach, was closed in honor of the holiday. Good on Muldoon’s; a nice gesture especially for their staff!

There was a time and not so long ago when almost every business was closed for the Independence Day Celebrations throughout America. A couple of years ago, we happened to be in Cincinnati and the old fashioned feel to the day got me thinking back to the various ethnic and civic contingents that marched in the local parades held throughout the city when I was growing up there. There were Paddys galore in all the groups from various churches, the Hibernians, City and County Workers, the VFW, to all sorts of unions and enterprises, Masonic Lodges and even with the Italians who ran the Knights of Columbus We did a brief story on it then.

Now that the first issue of a new year is upon us; it is a good time to talk about our plan for 2010 and remembering those Paddys from long ago got me to thinking about the Irish in America.

We’re still here just a lot quieter and a lot less hyphenated.

The abundance of Irish named towns, counties and roads throughout the US is evident all over the country.  It is also evident of the origins of the early settlers:  Murphy,  Murfeesboro and even the city of  McDonough in Georgia! We once visited Dollywood, a great Amusement Park located in the heart of the Smokey Mountains...one of the most popular stores at Dollywood is the Irish Shop, loaded with imported gifts from Ireland and a great variety of Irish Shirts, a whole line of Genealogy items that can be customized with almost any Irish Surname. The Irish and Celtic roots of American bluegrass and country music are well documented and worthy of a series of features too.

This new feature will serve as a tour through Irish America and our reports will highlight our visits throughout and comments on Irish America.

I’ll lend a hand as I’ll be on the road a lot with the paper and my pubguide.com duties, our regular writers are excited about it too. Barbara Singer did a nice feature on the Irish history of Cleveland in our last issue. You can almost always find a decent Irish Pub in every urban center and college town and we want to explore that also. We are also going to accept submissions from our readers and freelancers; so if you are out there Exploring Irish America, please consider sharing your story with us. Call the office or E-mail us to work out details.

irishnewsusa@aol.com

The latest Irish News USA E-Missive 
is posted. 
We will have a website up with links 
to all the back issues later this month.
Please have a look:

http://archive./Irish News USA January2010Week1