Ireland

LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland -- Bernadette Devlin McAliskey reads her Bloody Sunday Memorial Lecture in the hall of the Ancient Order of Hibernians like a poet declaiming steely verse written under the gun.She's a heroine of the Catholic civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, grown handsome and matronly, unmellowed and unbowed, into the middle age of The Troubles, as the 25-year-old armed struggle against British rule is called here.Her round, full face, with its small Gaelic nose, has the map of Ireland on it, as they used to say in the old neighborhoods.

EDWARD M. Kennedy, Daniel P. Moynihan and Thomas S. Foley have much in common besides their leadership roles in Congress, their political party (Democrat) and their Irish heritage.As a general rule, the three have supported the rights of the individual and have stood against oppressive regimes -- on both the political right and left. They have opposed the Jesuit-killers in El Salvador, the evil of apartheid in South Africa and Soviet policies in the Baltic states. They have rallied around Lech Walesa in Poland, extolled Czechoslovakia's Vaclav Havel and championed freedom for Nelson Mandela.

Q: I would like to participate in a house swap with an Irish family this summer. Do you know of an agency I can contact?A: The two most active house exchange agencies in Ireland report that that they do business with two groups in the United States, one in California and one in Florida. They also say Americans should have no problem finding a swap in Ireland because so many of their clients want to vacation in the United States.Intervac, based in San Francisco, was founded in 1951 and is therefore the oldest of the swap groups in the United States.

It has taken a little time -- 28 years and 22 albums -- but The Chieftains are finally receiving the same kind of reception around the world that they've enjoyed in their Irish home for most of their existence.Of course it helps to have many of their homeland's more popular performers like U2, Midge Ure, Bob Geldof, Sinead O'Connor and Van Morrison within their fan base."We've been very fortunate to have made good friends along the way," said Paddy Moloney, the chief Chieftain. "Of course, when you stick around for as long as we have you hope somebody has been listening."

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Angela Kennedy saw Australia as a land of opportunity in the late 1980s, a place where she and her Australian-born husband could start up a biotechnology firm.But now, Kennedy is back home digging in her Irish roots, expanding her company, raising her family and grabbing a slice of the new Irish dream."Here in Ireland, it's full of buzz and people doing entrepreneurial things," she says. "It's full of hope."Ireland's hope and economic glory will be on display tomorrow when voters go to the polls to put their seal of approval on the Northern Ireland peace accord.

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.

State fiscal analysts estimated that trips by Gov. Martin O'Malley to Ireland last year might have cost taxpayers as much as $17,000, but Warren G. Deschenaux, director of policy analysis for the Department of Legislative Services, said his office is still working on a final accounting of expenses. Howard County Republican Sen. Allan H. Kittleman requested the report on state money spent during the trips.

DUBLIN, Ireland -- There is a depressed and beleaguered young girl somewhere in this city who has shaken Ireland to its roots.She is 14 years old and pregnant through rape, which is why she goes unidentified in the news media. She has been prevented by the Irish High Court from traveling to England for an abortion.The pain of her predicament projects itself across the nation. It is seen as a vengeful contrivance by fate, the worst possible outcome predicted by those who opposed a constitutional amendment that prohibits abortion.

MARY McALeese, President of the Republic of Ireland, visited Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley last week during her five-day U.S. tour. In an interview, Ireland's second consecutive female president discussed the changes in her country, the tenuous peace process in her Northern Ireland homeland, and the enduring bonds between Ireland and the United States, where 44 million people claim Irish ancestry - about 16 percent of the population. You spoke about the American love of Irish history and you talked a little about what Ireland is like today.

New York -- The worst-kept secret in Ireland is that if the British Army withdrew from its northern counties tomorrow -- something Gerry Adams suggests is as easy as falling off a log -- the Irish government would have a fit.One often wonders why Britain doesn't make the ultimate threat, which is that it is summarily transferring sovereignty over Northern Ireland to the one nation -- the Irish Republic -- which doesn't want it, can't afford to police it...