Geoffrey Cobb

1 month ago | irishecho.com | Jay Mwamba |Daniel Neely |Geoffrey Cobb

After the madness of St. Patrick’s Day every year it is time for the other March madness, college basketball’s National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Men’s championship, which is one of the most watched sporting events of the year. This year St John’s University, which earlier this month won the Big East Championship, is one of the tournament’s top contenders.

1 month ago | irishecho.com | Fintan O'Toole |Geoffrey Cobb |Jay Mwamba |Tom Phelan

“Good fences make good neighbors,” wrote Robert Frost. What he didn’t say was that porous fences can lead to murder. In Ireland, farmers’ land is not just a spread of acres of soil. Down to their sandy bases, farms are saturated with the sweat, blood and identity of the owners—and of their ancestors. Irish farms do not have names like “Lake View Farm,” “Debicot Park” or “Primrose Acres.” Instead they are known by the surnames of the families who have worked the soil for generations.

1 month ago | irishecho.com | Fintan O'Toole |Geoffrey Cobb |Jay Mwamba |Peter J. McDermott

“As the twenty-first century opened, Irish was everywhere all at once—on television, the internet, stages, screens, and bestseller lists,” Marion R. Casey writes at the outset of her latest book, “The Green Space.” “Every March, supermarkets sold shamrock-shaped ravioli, and retailers pushed green. New York’s Museum of Modern Art named the Aran sweater one of the world’s most iconic garments,” she continues. “To explain this requires a history.” And Casey is an historian.

1 month ago | irishecho.com | Geoffrey Cobb |Jay Mwamba |Fintan O'Toole

It has been nearly five years since Quinnipiac University closed Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum for unclear reasons. The art collection remains shuttered in a warehouse in Hamden, CT.  This comes at a time when colleges and universities across the US are expanding their campus-based museums to enhance the educational and cultural experience for their students and local communities.

1 month ago | irishecho.com | Geoffrey Cobb |Jay Mwamba

Though Seán Ó Riada almost singlehandedly changed the course of Irish traditional music, few people today fully appreciate his massive legacy. The founder of the modern school of Irish folk music, Ó Riada became the driving force in the revival of Irish traditional music in the 1960s. A composer, performer, arranger, broadcaster and lecturer, he also combined traditional and modern techniques to create a new sound, and Irish traditional music owes him a massive debt.