Ireland

Ernest V. Day, a retired banker and former longtime Eldersburg resident, died Saturday of kidney failure at Oak Crest Village in Parkville. He was 82. Mr. Day was born in Memphis, Tenn., and was an infant when he moved to East Baltimore with his family. He attended City College and in the early days of World War II, dropped out to take a job at the old Glenn L. Martin Co. plant in Middle River. He enlisted in the Army and served in the European theater, where he attained the rank of sergeant.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- The two parties whose conflict fueled decades of violence in Northern Ireland met face to face for the first time yesterday and agreed to enter a power-sharing government May 8. The meeting marked what many here hope will be the end of a conflict that claimed 3,700 lives - Protestants, Catholics and British soldiers - over three decades. It also set the stage for the Rev. Ian Paisley, the 80-year-old standard-bearer of pro-British unionism in Northern Ireland, to become the province's first minister within six weeks.

Annapolis : State House Pipkin letter chides O'Malley on travel State Sen. E.J. Pipkin, an Eastern Shore Republican, sent a letter to Gov. Martin O'Malley last week, questioning his trip to Ireland in the midst of the state's budget crisis and suggesting he check out that country's tax structure. O'Malley, who has called a special session of the General Assembly for Oct. 29, went on a trip paid for by the Dublin Chamber of Commerce. He planned to attend an event at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland with Dr. Robert C. Gallo, director of the Institute of Human Virology and Division of Basic Science at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute.

Kristina M. Johnson is provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at the Johns Hopkins University. Johnson received her doctorate in electrical engineering at Stanford University and has served in a number of academic and administrative positions at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland; the University of Edinburgh, Scotland; the University of Colorado and Duke University. Johnson found these books personally appealing for a variety of reasons: "The Great Hunger in Ireland" / by Cecil Blanche Fitzgerald Woodham-Smith / Penguin Group / $17 I read this as part of an Anglo-Irish course booklist I read while teaching at Trinity College, Dublin.

While traveling alone in Ireland this past June, I happened to snap this photo from the side of the road in County Galway. The weather had been beautiful, but you can see the dark clouds starting to creep up in the picture. Traveling in Ireland does require a certain Zen ability to make the most of the good weather you do get and stoically accept the frequent rains that keep the country green. I always feel a little badly for visitors to the country who get shuttled from one major attraction to another on buses and whose itineraries allow little time for finding the beauty in a clump of wildflowers on the edge of a country road.

George Robinson,55, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson's half-brother, died of cancer Saturday in Hammond, Ind. Mr. Robinson, of Calumet City, Ill., grew up in Greenville, S.C., and moved to Chicago in 1976. He worked in restaurant management.Paddy Devlin,74, a committed socialist who helped found Northern Ireland's largest Roman Catholic party, died Sunday in Belfast.

THIS WEEK, ANDREW Zerrlaut, a 28-year-old Millersville man, is in Ireland trying to win a pub. He is a finalist in the annual win-your-own-pub contest sponsored by Guinness, the Irish stout makers.Tomorrow at J. O. Sullivan's pub in Newcastle West, about 150 miles southwest of Dublin, Zerrlaut and nine other American contestants will be put to several tests.They will have to draw a pint of stout, making sure the head is creamy but not too thick. They have to play a round of darts. And they have to woo a panel of judges with an oral presentation.

He ignored the warm, steady rain that slicked his full beard to his face. He tuned out the crowd in the bleachers. He didn't glance across the stage at his foe, the ex-U.S. champ he was about to fight for a title he'd coveted 30 years. He never thought of the trip to Galway, Ireland, that hung in the balance.No, for two minutes and 19 seconds, George Hastings saw oysters and -shucked -- lancing and scooping in a Zen-like rhythm -- until his trusty Chesapeake stabber had dispatched eight, 16, and finally the two dozen oysters the judges had set before him. "I only won by seven seconds," marvels Hastings, 44, a Baltimore native, of the national oyster-shucking championship he netted last month.

GROWING UP IN an Irish-American home, I ate a fair amount of corned beef. It was another form of brisket, one of our favorite Sunday dinners.I am not sure how my family became a clan of brisket eaters, instead of salmon lovers. My maternal grandmother, who was born in Ireland and lived with my family when I was a boy, seemed to prefer fresh fish as the entree of choice when "company" -- distant relatives or acquaintances from Ireland -- would visit our house for dinner.Once I tagged along with my grandmother when she went to the local fish market.

From the very beginning, it was clear that Eileen Ivers was an unusually talented young fiddle player. By the time she was 19, she'd won the prestigious All Ireland music competition seven years in a row, a feat that marked her as a real prodigy in Irish music circles.Eventually, she parlayed that skill into a featured spot in the step-dance extravaganza "Riverdance," making her one of the most recognized Irish instrumentalists around. Tonight, she'll be at the Meyerhoff with the Chieftains, perhaps the best-known Irish traditional group in the world.

RICHARD EGAN, 73 Former U.S. ambassador to Ireland Richard Egan, who rose from street kid to the U.S. ambassador to Ireland after making millions of dollars founding data storage giant EMC Corp., has died. He was 73. Egan, who was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer in May, died at his Boston home, his family said in a statement Friday night. The family said Egan also suffered from emphysema, diabetes and high blood pressure. Egan was an electrical engineer and a former U.S. Marine Corps helicopter pilot who worked at Lockheed Martin, Honeywell and Intel before he co-founded data storage technology provider EMC in 1979.

With a mom born and raised in County Roscommon, I know the Irish do lots of things well. They turn out terrific poets and novelists. They can sing and step-dance like nobody's business. They make wonderful beer and whiskey. And you don't have to hold a gun to their heads to get them to join you for a pop or two, either. But when I think of Ireland, here's about the last thing that comes to mind: great basketball. Luke D'Alessio says that might be changing. D'Alessio, 49, the longtime men's basketball coach at Bowie State and CCBC-Catonsville, just signed on to coach the UCC Blue Demons of the SuperLeague in Cork, Ireland.

TURNBERRY, Scotland -- You wake one day on a golfing planet gone completely merciless and Sergio Garcia seems middle-aged, Adam Scott winds up dumped to No. 43 and the rankings teem with those who arrived young but ready to rumble. Nine of the top 26 players have the audacity not to have reached age 30, the same goes for 16 of the top 50, and one theme of this 138th British Open entails whether golf's largest wave of precocity to date might deposit one of its 20-somethings somewhere well up the Sunday leader board.

Women's lacrosse Team USA beats Ireland, 22-5, will face England in semifinal Caroline Cryer had four goals, three assists and five draw controls, helping the United States rout Ireland, 22-5, in a Federation of International Lacrosse World Cup quarterfinal in Prague, Czech Republic. Team USA (5-0) will play England in a semifinal this morning. The Irish gave the Americans a brief scare when they took a 4-3 first-half lead on a goal by Krista Pellizzi (Maryland), but after a timeout the Americans scored the next 15 goals.

Dr. Francis Thomas Daly, a retired internist, died of a stroke June 4 at his daughter's Marshfield, Wis., home. The Towson resident was 80. Born in County Offaly, Ireland, he earned his medical degree at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, Ireland, in 1953. He worked in England for a year before doing an internship in Delaware and completed his residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital. While at Hopkins, he met his future wife, the former Geraldine Leonore Austraw, a pharmacist. Dr. Daly established a medical practice in Baltimore and had offices on East Chase Street and in Charles Village.

Michael Kevin Quinn loved his horses. He co-owned a racer named First Sea Light and, over the years, kept a couple for countryside rides, one named Joker and the other - in honor of the land of his birth - Irish. When he got too old to ride, one of his sons said Sunday, he gave it up very reluctantly and always missed it. Formerly a doctor in general practice in the Lutherville-Timonium area, Dr. Quinn died Friday at Stella Maris Hospice at Mercy Medical Center after suffering for several years from Alzheimer's disease.

Everyone and every place is Irish on St. Patrick's Day, but to experience the authentic Ireland all year-round, you need to visit Dublin. The Irish capital, home to James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw and U2's Bono, began more than 1,000 years ago as a Viking village. Today, it is a diverse city in the heart of a metropolitan area of more than 1 million people. Here are five places not to miss on a visit to the Emerald Isle's largest city: 1 Dublin Castle : Here on a ridge at the junction of the River Liffey and its tributary Poddle, Dublin was born.

Irish stout, like a leprechaun, can fool you. It looks dark and stark, but is actually light, friendly and refreshing. As Garrett Oliver points out in his book The Brewmaster's Table, the alcohol content of Irish stout is usually below 5 percent by volume, and that is lower than the typical American lager. Roasted barley and malts give the stout its rich, black color. Cans of stout now come equipped with a rattling widget that, when the can is popped open, helps dissolved nitrogen bubbles form the classic creamy head.

The fatal downtown stabbing of an exotic dancer last week began as a fight among employees inside a strip club on The Block and could place the club's liquor and adult entertainment licenses in jeopardy. The chairman of the city's liquor board, Stephan Fogleman, said the board is exploring the incident to determine whether the club, Norma Jean's, was complying with laws and whether it allowed the incident, either willingly or through negligence, to take place. "Anything can happen anywhere, anytime.

The best castle hotels in Europe, according to TripAdvisor.com, based on rankings by travelers who contribute reviews to the Web site and TripAdvisor editors. 1. Glin Castle in Glin, Ireland ($491 average nightly rate) 2. Castle Stuart, Inverness, Scotland ($614) 3. Thornbury Castle, Thornbury, England ($394) 4. Domaine de la Tortiniere, Tours, France ($310) 5. Borthwick Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland ($273) 6. Chateau de Bagnols, Lyon, France ($1,335) 7. Castelletto di Montebenichi, Bucine, Italy ($242)