We cover an eclectic mix of features in this issue of The Irish American Post, from the Irish way of death and dying to the wonder of celtic art.  As summer rolls around, we are also facing the Irish festival season, with all its excitement and party fun.

Plus new opportunities for travel in Ireland and Britain are being made available since the foot and mouth challenge hopefully is slowly becoming only a bad memory.

And former Irish prime minister Garrett Fitzgerald speaks out, Irish historian James Donnelly writes more about the Famine, comic Mark Russell provides loads 'o laughs and movitational speaker Barry Maher goes for the green in Ireland.

British General Election Poses Threat to Ulster's Peace
By Diarmaid MacDermott
The General Election called by British Prime Minister Tony Blair for June 7 is threatening to destabilize the still fragile political institutions set up in Northern Ireland after the Good Friday Agreement.[More]
 

U.S. Labels Real IRA as Terrorist Organization
By George Houde and Staff
Vowing that the Irish Freedom Committee in Chicago has done nothing wrong, Chicagoan Richard Wallace said the group will continue its fund raising efforts in support families of political prisoners in Northern Ireland. [More]
 

Don't Wake the Devil's Dogs
By Pól Ó Conghaile
For all the talk of Ireland's laissez-faire attitude to life, of leaving 'til tomorrow what needn't be done today, the traditional wake was a curiously organized affair. Assembling friends and relatives, opening doors and windows to usher out unwelcome spirits, stopping the clocks, reciting the rosary and laying on copious quantities of ham and whiskey. [More]
 

"Queen of Ballycroy" Goes Gently to the Night
By Dr. Bernie Brady
We buried Grandma Katie recently.  Katie was my mother's mother.  At 104 years old, she was "The Queen of Ballycroy."  Ballycroy is a small village, a tiny village, in Co. Mayo. The first time I visited Granny was in 1972 when I was 15.  To this day I carry memories of that first visit. [More]
 

Wings of an Angel
By Noreen Donoghue
I was a happy child, born into a big family. One of my first clear memories is the birth of my brother Robert on Sept. 1,1963, when I was just 5 years old. We were sent to play in a neighbor's house and when we returned there were two cars on the street. This was a rare sight. Two strangers, a man with a brown bag and a small woman dressed in blue, came down from the parlor and out the front door. [More]
 

Digging Up Facts on Grave Subjects
By Pól Ó Conghaile
Whenever I hear the word "autopsy," my brain walks me through a standard procedure. Starting with a couple of film clips - Clarice Starling perhaps, in Silence of the Lambs — it proceeds to stories drip fed from my father, who is a doctor. The pathologist at our local hospital, he told his children one evening, was given to cleaning cadavers' fingernails before post-mortem. [More]
 

Irish Funeral Traditions Buried With the Past
By Carrie Trousil
"Did you ever hear the one about Pat and Mike?" Tom Wiseman, president of Brett funeral home, asked laughing. "Pat said to Mike, 'when I die, would you be sure to come to the cemetery every St. Patrick's Day to pour a bottle of Irish whiskey on me grave?' Mike answered Pat, 'I don't mind, but do you mind if I put it through me kidneys first?"[More]
 

The Sheep Are in the Meadow and It's All Okay
By Carrie Trousil
In light of the chaos resulting from Europe's spring outbreak of foot and mouth disease, it's heartening to hear good tiding coming out of the Emerald Isle. Ireland was, and is calling out to all of her faraway friends — maybe we just haven't been listening. [More]
 

Book of Kells Captures Chicagoan's Artistic Heart
By Michelle C. Boyle
"While most people merely look at the Book of Kells, I practically live and breathe the Book of Kells," enthused Chicago-born artist Michael Carroll. 
The evidence of his devotion to the artistic style of this fabled manuscript is evident in Carroll's beautifully rendered, painstaking detailed panels recreated in true ancient Celtic monastic style. [More]
 

Celtic Art Draws Painter
By Janet Groene
It has been more than 200 years since Florida artist Elaine LeCours' ancestors — the likes of the O'Dowds and the Godwins — left Ireland.
The O' was dropped by the Dowds when they reached New England and  LeCours hasn't done much research yet into the Godwins, who came from Ulster. [More]
 

"I Know What Purgatory Is"
By George Houde
is Mark Russell a funny man? Are his darts tossed at the nervous system of political America on target, unlike the Star Wars missile defense system he likes to ridicule?  [More]
 

Entertainment Co-ordinators Perform Music Marvels
By Carrie Trousil
To most people, Irish festivals do not connote hard work. Instead, they represent dizzying summer weekend events, to be savored in memory the rest of the year. But to a select few, Irish festivals represent something else — year-long stress and hard work that culminate in one glorious weekend. [More]
 

Reality-Based Motivation No Pixie Dust
By L.T. Lefner
As usual, Barry Maher arrives at the meeting room an hour before he's scheduled to speak. He checks out the room and the facilities and reviews a few notes. Then he stations himself by the door, and greets the audience of Louisiana software executives as they arrive.[More]
 

UW-Madison Prof Hungers for Truth about The Famine
By Michelle C. Boyle
James S. Donnelly, Jr. has an extensive list of impressive academic achievements.  The Madison educator has been one of the leading promoters Irish studies in North America.  [More]
 

FitzGerald speaks out on Ireland
Special to The Irish American Post
For Garrett FitzGerald, the signing of the Hillsborough Agreement that ultimately led to the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland was his crowning political achievement.  The former taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland waxed eloquent about those rough and tumble days while delivering the recent second annual T.W. Heyck Lecture at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.  [More]
 

Council tenants speak their onions
By Fintan Vallely
Special to The Irish American Post
Try to be extra careful the next time you fire a letter off to the Dublin City Corporation, because what you write might just be taken up wrong. Here is a small sample of actual letters sent by council tenants last year:  [More]