Author: Ruth Swift

Fashion retailer Primark, known to Irish folk as Pennys, will open two more stores in Massachusetts. Irish people all over New England couldn’t be happier about this news! The Dublin-based fast-fashion store is leasing two more locations in the Bay State in part of its overhaul expansion into the United States.

The two standalone stores will be leased at the Burlington Mall and South Shore Plaza, Sears Holding Corp. announced. This September, Primark will debut its first-ever U.S. location in Boston at the 70,000 square-foot space in Downtown Crossing that was once the home of Filene’s.

For those unfamiliar, Primark is a huge establishment in Europe known for its colossal spaces in urban cities. Stocked with low-budget runway pieces, home supplies, kids’ clothes, holiday gear, and more, Primark is made for those who are looking for Top Shop apparel at Wal-Mart prices.

“We wanted to be in a cosmopolitan environment and Boston is a cosmopolitan and international city,” Jose Luis Martinez de Larramendi, Primark US president, told the Globe earlier this year. George Weston, CEO of Primark’s parent company Associated British Food, also said that Boston is an ideal place for Primark due to the city’s large Irish population (we’re the most Irish city in America, thanks), and the array of college kids in the area.

Check out Primark’s fashion line here!

 

Sinead-Morrissey (pictured) was born in Portadown, Northern Ireland, in 1972 and has been writing poetry from a very early age. In 1990 she became the youngest poet ever to receive the Patrick Kavanagh Award for Poetry, and has since been honoured with numerous other awards, amongst them the Michael Hartnett Award for Poetry. Her five collections are There Was Fire in Vancouver (1996), Between Here and There(2002), The State of the Prisons (2005), Through the Square Window (2009) and the T S Eliot Prize-winning Parallax (2013) all of which are published by Carcanet Press. She has lived in Germany, Japan and New Zealand and now lectures in creative writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Queen’s University, Belfast. She is Belfast’s inaugural Poet Laureate.

Mary O’Donoghue is a novelist, poet, short story writer, and translator. Her work appears widely in the USA and Ireland: Georgia Review, the Irish Times, Agni, Literary Imagination, Salamander, Dublin Review, Kenyon Review and elsewhere. Her first novel Before the House Burns was published in 2010 (Lilliput Press). She is one of the translators of Seán Ó Ríordáin’s Selected Poems(Yale University Press, 2014). She also collaborates with poet Louis de Paor on translations of his work, most recently in The Brindled Cat and the Nightingale’s Tongue (Bloodaxe Books, 2014).

Co-sponsored by BU Center for the Humanities, the Center for the Study of Europe, CITL at CGS and the Institute for the Study of Irish Culture.

Thursday April 30 at 6 p.m.

Katzenberg Center, 3rd floor, CGS

Boston University, 871 Commonwealth Avenue, MA

Free and open to the public, click here for more info.

Bill Brett’s latest book, “Boston, Irish,” is literally a labor of love, a work that offers an evocative and deeply layered examination of the city’s unique Irish history and heritage, from the high and mighty to those whose impact upon the community has been quieter but no less important.

The cornerstone, of course, is Brett’s photographic treasure trove of the Irish and Irish Americans his camera lens has captured over his five decades as an award-winning photojournalist at the Boston Globe (his 50th anniversary with the newspaper was in June 2014). With Carol Beggy’s incisive, keenly hewn prose accompanying the book’s 262 photographs, “Boston, Irish” is a work that belongs not only in the hands of anyone with even a passing interest in the city’s rich Irish tapestry, but also in those of anyone with an interest in the history of Irish America and Ireland itself.

Brett has dedicated the book to his late mother, Mary Ann Brett, an Irish immigrant whose devotion to her family and her faith were the bedrock of the Brett family’s success. Her family’s saga both on the “old sod” and in Boston (Dorchester, in the Bretts’ case) will ring familiar for countless readers of Boston Irish.

Try this wonderful and easy recipe for 5-minute chocolate mousse with only two ingredients: chocolate and water!

If you’ve worked with chocolate at all, this sounds completely counterintuitive, yet the method works. This mousse absolutely melts in your mouth, and makes for one incredible dessert, especially when spiked with Baileys.

Baileys Irish Cream Mousse
8 ounces chocolate, chopped (4 oz bittersweet and 4 oz semisweet)
3/4 cup water
3 Tbsp Baileys Irish Cream
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
Optional: unsweetened cocoa powder, for dusting

Set a large metal or glass mixing bowl over a slightly smaller mixing bowl filled with water and ice (the bottom of the larger bowl should touch the ice; I placed a metal bowl in the freezer for 10 minutes before placing it over the ice bath). Arrange six small cups or ramekins in a baking dish.

Place chocolate and water in a double boiler or in a heat-proof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Slowly melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally until glossy and smooth. Remove chocolate mixture from heat and stir in Baileys.

Pour chocolate mixture into the large mixing bowl set over ice and whisk with a large wire whisk for about 4 minutes, just until mixture is slightly thickened (be careful not to over-whisk, or the texture can become grainy). When mixture is thick, divide evenly among cups (about 1/3-cup mousse per cup).

Cover cups with plastic wrap and let chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour before serving (or up to 4 days). When ready to serve, beat heavy whipping cream in a mixing bowl with an electric hand mixer on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form. Spoon a dollop into each cup and dust with cocoa.

*If you prefer to make a nonalcoholic version, replace the Baileys with 3 tablespoons water. You can also flavor the mousse with cinnamon, instant espresso, etc.

Yield – 6 servings
Calories – 230
Carbs – 22

Ryanair’s March passenger numbers were up over one-quarter on last year’s total pushing the budget airline’s yearly figure over 90 million for the first time.

The budget carrier this morning said its customer traffic last month hit 6.67 million – up from 5.2 million for the same month in 2014.
There was a big increase in the airline’s load factor – the share of all seats it managed to fill – from 80% to 90% over the same period.
Davy analyst Stephen Furlong said the figures were above recent estimates and “an exceptional performance by any standard”.

“It is apparent that Easter falling in early April has helped volumes and presumably yields in the quarter,” he said in a briefing note.

The airline has predicted it will top 100 million passengers this year after rewriting some of its plans and policies, including lower rates on some charges like its much-criticised airport check-in fee.

Windmill Lane was demolished over the weekend. However, some parts of the graffiti walls were saved. The Windmill Lane studios are iconic thanks to a host of musicians who recorded there going back to the 1970s. Van Morrisson, The Rolling Stones and Sinead O’Connor are among the famous acts but the studios were best known for recordings carried out by U2, especially the Joshua Tree album.

The site was bought by Hibernia REIT in May of last year and it now plans to develop residential, office and retail units. The CEO of WK Nowlan REIT Management, Kevin Nowlan, said the developers are aware of the site’s history and plan to “take that into account”.

Over the years fans have visited the site and used graffiti to pay tribute to the bands. It’s understood that part of the graffiti walls will be kept in storage until it is decided where they should be put.

Hibernia REIT says it is considering the following options:

Recreating the wall in the atrium of the new Windmill Lane building as a testimony to the building’s past
Offering the wall to Dublin City Council, the band or any other interested party for reconstruction or reuse in an alternative setting
Giving the wall to a charity so that they can auction pieces of it to U2 fans around the world.

 

Hot Cross Buns are traditionally eaten on Good Friday in Ireland. The cross on the top symbolises the Cross Jesus was crucified on.

There are superstitions in Ireland related to Hot Cross buns and Good Friday for example:

Hot Cross Buns made on Good Friday, have magical powers, they will not go mouldy, but if you keep a Hot Cross Bun from one year to the next your house will be protected from fire.

Ingredients for making Hot Cross Buns
•1lb plain flour
•2 oz caster sugar
•1 oz fresh yeast or 1 level tablespoon dried yeast
•¼ pint lukewarm milk
•1 level teaspoon salt
•1 level teaspoon mixed spice
•1 level teaspoon cinnamon
•4 oz currants
•2 oz chopped mixed peel
•2 oz butter, melted and cooled
•1 beaten egg

For the Glaze:
•2 oz granulated sugar
•3 tablespoons milk

For the cross:
•2 small strips of short crust pastry per bun

How to make Hot Cross Buns

Sift 4 oz flour into a bowl and add 1 teaspoon of sugar.

Blend the yeast with the milk and water.

Add to flour and sugar. Mix well and leave for 30 minutes or until frothy.

Sift remaining flour, salt and spices into another bowl.

Add the rest of the sugar, currants and peel. Toss lightly together.

Add to yeast mixture with butter and beaten egg.

Mix to a soft dough that leaves the sides of the bowl clean.

Turn on to floured board and knead for 5 minutes (or until the dough is smooth and no longer sticky).

Cover and leave to rise until double the size.

Turn onto floured board and knead lightly, divide into 12 pieces.

Shape into round bun.

Stand well apart on floured baking tray.

Cover and leave for another 30 minutes.

Cut a cross on top of each bun with a sharp knife and lay strips of pastry in each cut.

Bake in a hot oven (220 degrees C / 425 degrees F) for 20 – 25 minutes. Transfer to wire rack.

Brush twice with glaze, made by dissolving sugar in milk and boiling for 2 minutes.

Serve warm with lashings of butter

Makes 12 buns

President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and a parade of other top politicians are to descend on Dorchester today to speak at the formal dedication of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate.

The kickoff, like the institute, is poised to be both a paean to the power and majesty of the legislative body as well as a celebration of Kennedy, the liberal lion who served as US senator from Massachusetts from 1962 until his death in 2009.

The new monument to a member of the state’s most famous political family is on Columbia Point in Dorchester, next to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

The president, Biden, Governor Charlie Baker, US Senators Elizabeth Warren and Edward J. Markey, Mayor Martin J. Walsh of Boston, members of the Kennedy family, and other politicians are set to speak at the ceremonies, a day before the $78 million interactive museum devoted to civic education is opened to the public.

Read More Here.