US-Ireland Alliance-EMPG Team Up to Teach Students About Ireland

The US-Ireland Alliance and Educational Media & Publishing Group (EMPG) have teamed up to bring to life the Alliance’s vision for teaching American high school students about Ireland.

Trina Vargo, President of the US-Ireland Alliance, announced that EMPG Chairman, Barry O’Callaghan, pledged his company’s expertise, product, technology, content, and market access to the online project.

In 2006, O’Callaghan merged his e-learning company, Riverdeep, with Houghton Mifflin and later Harcourt, making EMPG the largest US educational publisher for elementary and high schools. 

Vargo created the US-Ireland Alliance in 1998 and its flagship project is the George J. Mitchell Scholarship program, one of America’s most prestigious scholarships for American post-graduates to study abroad.

Vargo welcomed O’Callaghan’s involvement saying, "Barry and EMPG's commitment to educating young Americans about Ireland is a huge boost to the project given the company’s resources, expertise and understanding of the market." O’Callaghan said, "EMPG is delighted to participate in this worthwhile project that will allow future generations to learn about this island, and hopefully visit."

While EMPG’s commitment will cut the cash costs of the project, the Alliance will still raise funds to create additional, original content for the program. And an advisory committee is being formed that will include a combination of American and Irish visionary, creative artists, academic experts, and business/media expertise. Those on the committee thus far include Geraldine Kennedy, editor of the Irish Times; actress and director Fiona Shaw; Oxford historian Roy Foster; Joe Lee, Professor of History at NYU; The London Independent’s Ireland correspondent, David McKittrick; and Maureen Murphy, professor of Curriculum and Teaching at Hofstra University.

During a current visit to Dublin, Vargo has met with RTE and the Irish Times about the project. The Alliance envisions involving Irish American organizations and individuals who will want to see these materials in their local schools. "We also plan to work with a travel company to design trips that allow and encourage high school teachers to take students to Ireland," Vargo noted, adding that "while the main objective of the project is to educate young Americans about Irish history and culture and Ireland’s impact on America, it can also create a new generation of American tourists for Ireland."

Roy Foster is the Carroll Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford. He obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. at Trinity College and was previously professor of Modern British History at Birkbeck College, University of London and held visiting fellowships at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton and Princeton University. 

He has written widely on Irish history, society and politics in the modern period, as well as on Victorian high politics and culture; and the authorized biography of Yeats. In 2009, he delivered the Clark Lectures in English Literature at the University of Cambridge. He currently holds a Wolfson Research Professorship to write a study of the Irish revolution of the early twentieth century. He is currently working on Ireland in the late 20th Century.

His publications include: 

• Charles Stewart Parnell: the Man and his Family
• Lord Randolph Churchill: a Political Life 
• The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland
• Modern Ireland 1600-1972
• Paddy and Mr. Punch: Connections in Irish and English History 
• W.B. Yeats, A Life, Volume I: The Apprentice Mage, 1865-1914
• The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making it up in Ireland 
• W.B. Yeats, A Life, II: The Arch-Poet 1915-1939 
• Luck and the Irish: a brief history of change, 1970-2000 

He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy. At UCC, he served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and as vice-president. He also served in the Irish Senate for five years. He graduated from UCD with first class honors in History and Economics. He was also educated at the Institute for European History in Mainz, Germany, and was elected a Fellow of Peterhouse and was awarded an Hon. D. Litt. by the National University of Ireland in 1986.

His publications include:

• Ireland 1912-1985 Politics & Society
• The Modernization of Irish Society, 1848-1928 (Dublin, 1973) 
• Making the Irish American, Editor, with Marion R. Casey

David McKittrick has been Ireland correspondent for the London Independent since 1986, having reported on Northern Ireland since 1973. He has broadcast widely and contributed to a wide range of publications in Ireland, Britain, and further afield. He was Belfast editor of the Irish Times 1976-1981 and London editor of the paper 1981-’85. Four collections of his journalism have been published by Blackstaff Press, Belfast. He is co-author of the book Making Sense of the Troubles, which was published by Blackstaff and republished both by Penguin and by a US company. 

Other works include two books with Belfast journalist Eamonn Mallie. McKittrick was editor of the acclaimed million-word book Lost Lives which details every casualty of the Troubles. He has won eight journalism awards. These include the What the Papers Say correspondent of the year award, the Orwell Prize for journalism and the Northern Ireland Journalist of the Year Award. McKittrick has twice won the Ewart-Biggs prize for promoting peace and reconciliation, once together with Mary Holland for journalism, and once as one of the five authors of Lost Lives.

Maureen Murphy is professor of Curriculum and Teaching at Hofstra University where she also served as dean of the School of Education and Allied Human Services from 2005-2008. She is the editor of Asenath Nicholson’s Annals of the Famine in Ireland (1998) and Ireland’s Welcome to the Stranger (2002) and the co-editor of An Irish Literature Reader (2006). Maureen was the Director of the New York State Great Irish Famine Curriculum; it won the National Council of the Social Studies Award for Program Excellence in 2002. 

A past president of the American Conference for Irish Studies and a past chair of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures, Murphy is one of the six senior editors of the Dictionary of Irish Biography which will be published in nine volumes and on line by the Royal Irish Academy and Cambridge University Press. She is the historian for the highly-acclaimed Irish Hunger Memorial at Battery Park City. She was a Visiting Fellow at the Humanities Institute at University College, Dublin in 2004 and is a frequent lecturer at the Yeats International Summer School in Sligo. Murphy began the first of her three-year term as associate director of the school in 2006.

Geraldine Kennedy is the editor of the Irish Times. She started as a reporter there was elected the first woman chairman political correspondent for the Sunday Tribune, she became the first woman political correspondent in Ireland, at the age of 29. In 1982, her home telephone was tapped with an official warrant signed by the Minister for Justice in order to find out the sources of her stories. 

She was threatened, intimidated and followed and had Garda/police protection for a period. These, and subsequent events, are documented in The Boss by Joe Joyce and Peter Murtagh. For five years, she was Political Correspondent of the Sunday Press following the closure of the Sunday Tribune. In 1984, when some of the transcripts of her private conversations were leaked and published in the media, she, and another journalist who was also tapped, took a joint legal action against the State. 

The 1987 judgment in Kennedy & Arnold vs. Ireland & the Attorney General found that the tapping was unconstitutional, an invasion of privacy and an abuse of power by the State. From 1987-1989, Geraldine was a Member of the Dáil (Irish parliament) as a member of the Progressive Democrats. During that period, she served as Spokesman on Foreign Affairs and Northern Ireland and Chief Whip of the party. In 1989, she lost her Dáil seat and left politics to return to journalism. Since then, she held various positions with the Irish Times and became the first woman editor in the history of the newspaper.

Fiona Shaw, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, has long been a fixture on the British stage where she is admired for her mastery of Shakespeare and the Greek classics. She is the recipient of numerous honors, including several Oliver Awards. She has also performed in numerous television productions for the BBC. She was nominated for a Tony Award for her 2003 performance as Medea. 

She first came to the attention of film audiences in Jim Sheridan’s 1989 Oscar Award winning film, My Left Foot. She has given many memorable performances, including that of Mrs. Nugent in Neil Jordan’s film The Butcher Boy. Other film credits include 3 Men and a Little Lady starring Tom Selleck, Ted Danson and Steve Guttenbeg; Fracture with Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling; and The Black Dahlia with Hilary Swank and Josh Hartnett. In 2008, she teamed up with long-time collaborator/director Deborah Warner for a production of Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days at the National Theatre London, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., BAM and The Abbey. 

In 2008, Shaw directed her first opera, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Riders to the Sea, to rave reviews in London. She is currently performing in Mother Courage and Her Children at the National. In 2010, she and Warner will revive their production of T. S Elliot’s The Waste Land at the National and she will star there with Simon Russell Beale in a Nicholas Hynter production of London Assurance. Shaw will also be seen in the final film of the Harry Potter series and in Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life, with Sean Penn and Brad Pitt.

Trina Vargo is the president of the US-Ireland Alliance, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization she founded in 1998. The Alliance educates Americans about the island of Ireland and to strengthening the relationship for future generations. In this capacity, she created the George J. Mitchell Scholarship program, one of the most prestigious postgraduate scholarships for study abroad for young Americans. 

Among the Alliance’s many activities, it hosts an annual event in Los Angeles to introduce professionals in the entertainment industries in Ireland and the US. From 1987 until May 1998, Trina served as Foreign Policy Adviser to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. She worked directly with political leaders in Northern Ireland, the Clinton Administration, and the Irish Government, serving as a key behind-the-scenes player in the Northern Ireland peace process. 

Vargo was instrumental in negotiating a visa for Gerry Adams to visit the United States. That visit led to the historic IRA cease-fire declaration in August 1994. In 1993, she assisted Madeleine Albright in preparation for her Senate confirmation hearings for the Cabinet post of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. She also helped prepare Jean Kennedy Smith, the U.S. ambassador to Ireland, for her 1993 Senate confirmation hearing. 

Since 1988, she has served as Irish issues adviser to the campaigns of every Democratic nominee for president, including most recently to the Obama campaign. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with degrees in Political Science and History. As a Rotary International Fellow, she attended McGill University in Montreal where she obtained a masters degree in Political Science.
 

Irish Speakers Have Head Start in Jobs Race 
 

Irish speakers are a new elite in employment and education, according to across-border analysis by leading academics.

The report, co-authored by Prof. Vani Borooah of the University ofUlster, found that the Republic’s labor market has an inbuilt bias thatfavors Irish speakers, even though many do not converse or use thelanguage in their work. 

They are better educated and have a small but significant advantage overnon-Irish speakers in securing professional, managerial and technical (PMT) jobs. In Northern Ireland, the ratios of people who have Irish and are in PMT jobs or have degrees are broadly similar to the Republic, the report found. 

Borooah has just been named in the top 10% of more than2,000 U.K. economists - and highest ranked in Northern Ireland - by aworld-renowned research and publishing unit of the University ofConnecticut. He is Professor of Applied Economics. 

The other authors of the report, entitled Language and OccupationalStatus: Linguistic Elitism in the Irish Labour Market, are Universityof Limerick academics, Donal A. Dineen and Nicola Lynch. 

The report, using samples from UK and Irish census returns, set out toestablish any advantages that Irish might speakers have in the Republic. There, 42% of Irish speakers were in PMT jobs, compared to 27% of non-speakers. In Northern Ireland, the corresponding ratios were 36 and 23%. 

In the North, similar ratios of Irish speakers and non-Irish speakers wereunemployed, while in the South unemployment among non Irish-speakers was twice that of Irish speakers. 

The report found that in Wales there were almost equal ratios of Welshspeakers and non-Welsh speakers in PMT jobs, 27 per cent and 25 percent respectively, whereas 23% of Welsh speakers had degrees, compared to 16% of non-Welsh speakers. 

The report pointed to the growing number Irish-language schools andnetworking as possible reasons for Irish speakers’ success. 

In the Republic, all other factors being equal, the report said that "thelikelihood of an Irish speaking worker being in the upper echelons ofsocial class were significantly higher, and the likelihood of an Irishspeaker in the labor force being unemployed were considerably lower." 

Borooah said, "If you look at people who are in PMT jobs, suchas doctors, teachers, nurses and others, a greater proportion of Irish speakers are in these jobs than non-Irish-speakers. 

"One thing that emerges is that Irish speakers are better educated thannon-Irish speakers. They do the kind of subjects that take them into thesekinds of occupations. 

"It's a network effect. If you are in a network of Irish-speakingpeople and part of that culture, and some of them are already in good jobs, well if a vacancy comes up, all things being equal they will prefer anIrish speaker to a non-Irish speaker. It is a network; you belong to a‘club.’

"Irish language schools produce results almost as good as fee-payingschools and they certainly produce better results than English-languagegovernment school."
 

Irish Accent Voted World's Sexiest!

The Irish accent was yesterday voted the world's sexiest - knocking the Gauls off the top spot they've held for decades, according to The Daily Mail.

Men with an Emerald Isle brogue, as promoted by stars like Colin Farrell and James Nesbitt, came top in a poll of 5,000 women worldwide, knocking the French off the top spot. The fall from grace of the French accent was laid firmly at the feet of president Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been accused of giving his countrymen a bad name by leering at women while married to Carla Bruni. 

The Italian accent was deemed to be second most sexy followed by Scottish. The French only managed to limp into fourth place, just ahead of Australian. English was sixth. The study also found six in ten women admitted they had been succumbed to seduction by someone purely because of their accent. 

The sexiest accents are: 1 Irish; 2 Italian; 3 Scottish; 4 French; 5 Australian; 6 English; 7 Swedish; 8 Spanish; 9 Welsh; 10 American.
 

Irish Racing Yacht Hits Rock, Slows Progress in World Event

The Cork, one of 10 68-foot ocean racing yachts competing in the Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race struck a rock Jan. 13 in the Java Sea, around 200 nautical miles north east of Jakarta. 

All 16 crew were safely evacuated to the island and subsequently to two sister yachts, Team Finland and California. All are safe and next of kin have been informed. 

Falmouth Coastguard worked with local agencies to ensure that the situation was constantly monitored. Next of Kin of all those on board were informed and all crew are safe and accounted for. 

 The Irish entry was sailing in 20-knot winds when she struck a rock off the small island of Gosong Mampango at 2018 GMT, 13 January (0418 local time, 14 January). 

The yacht was competing in the fifth race of the biennial global challenge which left Geraldton, Western Australia, for Singapore on Jan. 3, 2010. Initial reports from skipper Richie Fearon stated that the boat was on her side on the rock with the toe rail under water and that some hull damage occurred. Because the winds were increasing, the crew evacuated to the island as a precaution. 

Competitors Team Finland and California were in the vicinity and immediately stood by off-shore. The skipper and crew of Cork have subsequently used their life rafts to transfer to the waiting boats and all are now safely on board. Team Finland’s skipper Rob McInally relayed updates with both the race organizers and the coast guard agencies. 

 The yachts on station are best placed to assess the situation and consider what salvage options are practical, said Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, chairman of race organizers Clipper-Ventures. He added, "Clearly our priority has been the safety of the crew and we have received confirmation that all on-board have evacuated the boat and are now safe. Their welfare is our prime concern at this time." 

He indicated that it was too early to consider what impact the incident will have on the Irish entry and whether the team will be able to continue in the 10-month-long 35,000-mile race around the world. 

The crew is made up of five Britons, eight Irish, two Australians and one Chinese national. 

Cork Pops Top of Lonely Planet List
 

Lonely Planet has tipped Cork as one of the top cities in the world to visit in the coming year in their new book, Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2010. The stock of this unique city has been on the rise since it was named the European Capital of Culture in 2005, and the city has been listed in Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2010 "Top 10 Cities" section. 

The city was chosen because "Cork is at the top of its game right now: sophisticated, vibrant and diverse, while still retaining its friendliness, relaxed charm and quick-fire wit" and "its city center crackles with youthful energy, with great restaurants, galleries, bars and shops as well as stunning scenery on its doorstep."

Lonely Planet highlight the defining experiences that make a trip to Cork truly unique and predict the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race will transform the county into a hive of activity in June 2010 when the city will serve as a host port after the final Atlantic crossing. The infamous 10-month-race which started in Autumn 2009 will also feature a vessel from Cork. However, the vessel, named the Cork, was damaged in an accident early in January.

Bell XI to Spotlight Oscar Wilde Pre-Academy Event

Popular Irish band Bell X1 will perform at the "Oscar Wilde: Honoring The Irish in Film" pre-Academy Awards party, Thursday, March 4, 2010, at the Ebell of Los Angeles.

The US-Ireland Alliance, a nonprofit organization that fosters ties between the U.S. and Ireland, will honor multi-award-winning screenwriter, producer and director J.J. Abrams, cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, and actress Saoirse Ronan at the intimate, casual awards ceremony has become a must-have ticket on the Thursday night before the Academy Awards. 2009 National Book Award winner, Colum McCann, will emcee the evening event.

A concert has become a highlight of Oscar Wilde event, and has included performances by Van Morrison, Hansard and Irglova, Duke Special, Laura Izibor, Gemma Hayes and the Republic of Loose. Singers Paddy Casey and S.J. McArdle performed at the first Oscar Wilde event and subsequently received U.S. recording contracts.

Blue Lights on Runway, Bell X1's fourth studio effort, has debuted in Ireland at #1. The band played Croke Park in Dublin last summer with U2. They have been nominated for three Meteor Awards and The Choice Award for Album of the Year. The single "The Great Defector" went top 10 on American radio this year.

Blue Lights on the Runway is the first Bell X1 album to receive a simultaneous worldwide release and is Bell X1's first new release since its international breakthrough Flock. That album debuted at Number One in Ireland, where it was certified Platinum five times over. Despite reaching North America nearly three years after its U.K. release, Flock also won Bell X1 a large American fan base, where the band toured extensively and received a flood of critical acclaim.

In a four-star album review, Paste magazine called Bell X1 "one of Ireland's great bands," while tastemaker website Very Short List called Flock an "early front-runner for best record of 2008" and the New York Daily News predicted that Bell X1 is "ready to explode worldwide." The group also performed on The Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O'Brien and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

While the past few years have seen Bell X1 making major artistic and career strides, the group has been honing its sound since its formation in 1999, and its members have been making music together since the early '90s. 

Having met at school in Ireland's North Co. Kildare, singer Paul Noonan, guitarist Dave Geraghty and bassist Dominic Phillips first recorded as members of Juniper, whose lead singer was Damien Rice. After Rice departed to launch his solo career, Noonan, Geraghty, Phillips and Crosby regrouped and rechristened themselves Bell X1, borrowing the name of the first plane to break the sound barrier. 

Blue Lights on the Runway is the first project the band has undertaken since the amicable departure of co-founding member Brian Crosby, who exited in October, 2008, to concentrate on his interest in film-soundtrack composition and production). Completing the band are Rory Doyle on drums and Marc Aubele on guitar.

Bell X1 debuted with 2000's Neither Am I, produced by Crowded House member Nick Seymour. That disc became a modest cult hit in Ireland, where the band's tireless touring efforts won it a reputation as a powerful live act. The sophomore effort Music in Mouth followed in 2003, and established Bell X1 as both a major attraction and a critical favorite in its homeland, while winning the group increasing popularity in Europe.

Upon its release in late 2005, Flock (produced by studio vet Roger Bechirian, of Elvis Costello/Squeeze/Undertones fame) became a smash, establishing Bell X1 as one of Ireland's best-selling recording acts and most popular live bands. After receiving its belated U.S. release in 2008, Flock won Bell X1 a substantial audience in America, where the band toured no less than four times, and managed to survive unscathed after their tour bus caught fire in Medford, Massachusetts. The group's stateside profile was further enhanced when its songs were featured in such popular TV shows as The O.C., Grey's Anatomy and One Tree Hill.

The US-Ireland Alliance’s intimate, casual awards ceremony has become a must-have ticket on the Thursday night before the Academy Awards. Created to bring together people in the entertainment industries in the US and Ireland, the event has led to collaboration among artists and business for both countries. 

According to Vargo, after being honored nearly two years ago, James L. Brooks created an episode of The Simpsons about the closing of an Irish pub. He visited Ireland in March to premiere the episode, which featured his co-honoree Colm Meaney, and performers Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. 

Fiona Shaw, who was honored along with Brooks and Meaney, saw singer Duke Special perform that evening. That led to the Belfast singer-songwriter joining Fiona in the cast of Mother Courage and Her Children, which recently played at the National Theatre in London, Vargo pointed out.

Past honorees of the Oscar Wilde have included Hylda Queally, Brendan Gleeson, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Fiona Shaw, Colm Meaney, Jim Brooks, Van Morrison, Bill Monahan, Terry George, Neil Jordan, Jim Sheridan and David Holmes.

Major sponsors of the event include Culture Ireland, the Irish Film Board, Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures and William Morris Endeavor Entertainment. The event committee includes Brad Grey, CEO of Paramount Pictures; Dick Cook, former Chairman of Walt Disney Studios; Charlie Koones, CEO of Rockmore Media; Alan Moloney, Parallel Films, Howard T. Owens, Managing Director of Reveille; John Fogelman of William Morris Endeavor Entertainment; and John Gardiner of Skadden Arps.

Project Launched to Honor Supreme Court Justice Brennan

A project to remember one of this country's most distinguished irish-Americans, the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr., in his hometown of Newark, NJ. 

In mid-2009, a committee of local attorneys and citizens was formed inNewark for the purpose of erecting a life-size bronze statue of JusticeBrennan in a public place, according to Guy Sterling, the group's co-chairman. It is hoped that the artwork will be ready for installation this summer, he said.

Justice Brennan was born and raised in Newark and educatedin the city's public schools. His father, who came from Co. Roscommon, served as Newark's elected commissioner of public safety. Brennan began his law career in private practice in Newark and worked here both before and after World War II until his appointment to the judiciary. 

Regarded as one of the Supreme Court's most influential justices, he was always proud to call Newark his home, according to Sterling, who added that Brennan usually made time to meet with lawyers from the area when they traveled to Washington, DC, to be sworn in before the U.S. Supreme Court Bar.

The statue’s sculptor, Thomas Jay Warren, is a former New Jersey resident whose work includes the Medgar Evers Monument in Jackson, MS; the John C. Bogle Monument in Valley Forge, PA; the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. in Newark City Hall; the first college football game monument at Rutgers University, the statue of John Coltrane in High Point, NC, and figures at the World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War memorials in New Jersey. 

The statue will be placed on the concourse at the top of the stairs leading to the Essex County Hall of Records in downtown Newark, where Justice Brennan sat when he served as a state appeals court judge in New Jersey. The building is still in use.

Dedication of the memorial will cap a year in which a U.S. postage stamp was issued in Justice Brennan's honor and in which he was elected to the New Jersey Hall of Fame. Additionally, his authorized biography is finally set to be released in the fall.

Trinity Dancers Best the Rest at Regional Competition

Dancers from Trinity Academy of Irish Dance stormed the stages of the Mid-America Irish Dance Championships, besting all other schools with 10 gold medals and 60 qualifications for the 2010 World Irish Dance Championships to be held in Glasgow, Scotland. This year’s competition was held in Columbus, Ohio, from Nov. 27-29, bringing over 1,409 top notch dancers from 59 schools across the Midwest. 

"The commitment of the dancers and their families this year is incredible," remarked co-owner and Academy Director, Natalie Howard. "Over the course of the past year, we have put self-motivation and discipline at the forefront of training which has definitely paid off. The dancing is beautiful."

 These driven, motivated dancers now begin a three and a half month training period to sharpen their skills in preparation for the World Irish Dance Championships. Trinity team dancers took the 2008 World Champion title and following a year off, they take the stage again to reclaim their title for the United States.

Chicagoland and Wisconsin and is currently accepting new enrollment for the 2009-10 school year. For more information, call 877-326-2328 or visit www.trinityirishdancers.com.

Galway Composer Performs for Monaco’s 
Prince Albert II

Tom Cullivan, a long-term resident of Furbo in Co. Galway, recentlypremièred his piano piece "Fáilte Uí Cheallaigh" in the presence of Prince Albert II of Monaco at the Palais Princier (Palace) atop the famous Rock of Monaco. The occasion was the 25th anniversary of the Princess Grace Irish Library.

Performing in the Salle des Gardes on the Pleyel piano made in 1915 forPrincess Charlotte (the mother of Prince Rainier III and HSH PrincessAntoinette of Monaco), Tom Cullivan enchanted the guests with his four-minutepiece composed specially for the evening and dedicated to HSH Prince Albert II.

In his welcome speech, the prince paid tribute to the Library: "When Prince Rainier founded the Princess Grace Irish Library in memory of my mother and her Irish roots, he hoped it would be a success. Now, aquarter of a century later, thanks to the dedication of the Trustees andstaff and the support of all of you, it has flourished beyond our expectations." Prince Albert finished in Irish: "Go raibh maith agaibh. Slainte."

"Since I first visited the Princess Grace Irish Library almost a decade ago,there has been a very warm welcome in Monaco both for me and for my music, Cullivan said. "While ‘Fáilte Uí Cheallaigh’ means, literally, ‘the Welcome of the Kellys, it also translates as ‘a very warm welcome’. So I thought it a most appropriate title for a piece honoring the prince and the Library, he added. 

"The title suggested a musical phrase. That gave me the main theme. This, and variants of it, alternate with a recurrent pipelike refrain, to comprise arondo in my typical hiberno-romantic style. When I finished playing, I hadthe added pleasure of presenting the Prince with a copy of the score. It was bound into an emerald green velvet cover using red and white cord (the Monegasque colors). It was a very pleasant, welcoming occasion and quite inspiring to hear the prince conclude his address in the Irish language," said Cullivan.

Among the Irish guests were: 

• Paul Kavanagh (Irish ambassador to France and Monaco) andhis wife, Rosemary;
• Sir Michael Smurfit KBE (Irish Consul, Monaco); 
• Father Pearse Walsh (University Church, Dublin); 
• Martina Devlin (Dalkey, Ireland Fund of Monaco Writer-in-Residence at the Princess Grace Irish Library, Spring 2009); 
• poet John Montague and his wife, Elizabeth; 
• John & Leonora Kerry Keane, Brian Lynch & Síghle Bhreathnach-Lynch, Liam & Karen Crowley, Josephine Ivaldi-Loftus, Nancy Cullivan, Marian Lennon, Claire D’Arcy, Barry Coffey, Francis O’Hara, William Murphy

Holiday Group Backs Tourism Ireland Plans To Target UK Visitors

One of the UK and Ireland's largest self-catering holiday operators haswelcomed Tourism Ireland's multi-million-Euro strategy to boost visitor numbers to Ireland in 2010.

Imagine Ireland, which promotes more than 1000 individually vetted properties throughout the country, said a refocusing of marketing efforts to target growing consumer confidence in the UK would reap dividends for Irish tourism.

Imagine Ireland, however, has cautioned the Irish tourism industry against complacency as other worldwide destinations similarly would be actively targeting any resurgence in demand. 

"The need to constantly drive value for money throughout pubs, shops,transport providers and attractions, combined for example with TourismIreland's efforts at maintaining a prevalent brand presence across keymarkets particularly the U.K., Ireland's closest and largest overseas market,is critical to Ireland's emergence from its current tourism downturn",stated Annette Collins, joint managing director of Imagine Ireland.

Speaking at the launch of Imagine Ireland's new holiday program for 2010, Collins said: "We believe that tourism numbers, particularly UK visitors to Ireland, will return to 2008 levels by the end of next year. Our predictions are predicated on three factors: the increasing value for money for U.K. tourists in Ireland, the UK general election and the bottoming out of the U.K'.s recession."

"There is an ongoing adjustment within the cost base of the Irish economywhich combined with salary cuts and declining domestic demand will see a 10% fall in products and services over the course of 2010 countering the recent rises in the value of the Euro versus Sterling. There also are green shoots beginning to emerge within the UK economy as the banks are stabilized and the economic upheaval of the past 12 months settles, she went on. 

"This in turn will encourage banks to start lending, companies to start investing and companies to start employing in turn putting more spending power back into the U.K. economy as consumers recover the confidence to spend" added Collins.

Imagine Ireland was established in 2003 by Annette Collins and AstridNitzsche. 

Queen’s University Belfast ‘Powers’ Global Wave Industry

Queen’s University Belfast has helped the global wave energy industry take a major stride forward with the launch of the world’s largest working hydroelectric wave energy device by Aquamarine Power. 

Known as Oyster, the device has been officially launched by Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond MP, MSP at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney. 

It is currently the world’s only hydroelectric wave energy device producing power and is now producing power by pumping high pressure water to its onshore hydroelectric turbine. This will be fed into the National Grid to power homes in Orkney and beyond. A farm of 20 Oysters would provide enough energy to power 9,000 three-bedroom family homes.

Oyster was first conceived out of work funded by an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research grant to Queen’s between 2002 and 2004, to develop surging power-wave devices. 

Prof. Trevor Whittaker from Queen’s School of Planning, Architecture and Civil Engineering was the principal investigator and was supported by Dr Matt Folley. Aquamarine Power Ltd was formed by a Scottish entrepreneur specifically to develop the technology. Today there is a joint agreement which results in Queen’s undertaking all the hydrodynamic testing for Aquamarine. 

Prof. Whittaker said: "The concept of Oyster came about through research in our wave-tank facility at Queen’s. The launch of Oyster is both a major landmark in terms of carbon-free sustainable energy production and a proud day for Queen’s University Belfast, which already has a reputation as being one of the leading wave-power research groups in the world. In fact Oyster is the third prototype demonstration wave power project which the team at Queen’s has instigated in the past 20 years. 

"Devices such as these have the power to revolutionize the world’s energy industry and help combat climate change. And we aren’t stopping with Oyster. We are continuing to work with our partners in Aquamarine Power and the EMEC to develop the next generation of Oyster, by providing testing opportunities at Queen’s large wave tanks facility in Portaferry which is part-funded through the University’s Institute for a Sustainable World."

The marine energy industry could provide as many as 12,500 jobs, contributing £2.5 billion to the UK economy by 2020. Marine energy such as that produced by Oyster has the potential to meet up to 20% of the UK’s energy demands.

Speaking at the launch of Oyster, Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond MP, MSP said: "I’m delighted to see firsthand the full-scale Oyster now installed and operating offshore. This is a key milestone for Scotland’s marine renewables sector.

"Scotland's potential renewables capacity is estimated to be around 60GW. Our waters hold around ten per cent of Europe’s wave power potential and as much as a quarter of its tidal power potential. The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) provides world-leading test facilities for Aquamarine and other companies to develop the technology needed to harness this huge untapped potential.

Neil Kermode, Managing Director of EMEC said: "EMEC are delighted to see Oyster installed, running and on test. It is a tribute to both the Aquamarine Power team for their work, and also to the vision of the public sector in setting EMEC up in the first place to help developers get into the water as efficiently as possible. I look forward to Oyster being joined by many more machines in the coming years."

The Oyster launch took place at EMEC’s Billia Croo site near Stromness, where the device was installed this summer. 

Videos of Oyster can be found at www.youtube.com/aquamarinepowerltd

Queen’s research Could Protect Frontline Troops

A team of researchers at Queen's University Belfast’s Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) is working to develop futuristic communications systems that could help protect frontline troops.

 Building on work completed recently for the UK Ministry of Defense, the project is aimed at investigating the use of arrays of highly specialized antennas that could be worn by combat troops to provide covert short-range person-to-person battleground communications.

The project could lead to the development of advanced wireless systems that would enable small squads of soldiers to share real-time video, covert surveillance data and tactical information with each other via helmet mounted visors.

 The equipment would bring major benefits to members of the armed forces by providing high levels of situational awareness in hostile environments as well as helping to preserve the element of surprise in close encounters with an enemy.

 Details of the project appear in the most recent edition of IEEE Communications Magazine - one of the most authoritative international academic publications in the field. 

According to lead researcher, Dr. Simon Cotton of CSIT’s Radio Communications Research Group, it is the seventh article the team has published on the topic in leading academic journals since the beginning of 2009.

 "This is a major achievement and underlines the fact that the group is now a recognized international leader in the area of Body Area Networks (BANs). Our paper in IEEE Communications Magazine is also the first to be published on Body-to-Body Networks (BBNs)," said Cotton.

 "Through our work, we aim to overcome some formidable challenges as the proposed wireless devices will be expected to operate in a range of environments much more exacting than those encountered in civilian life.

 "Despite this, they still need to be extremely reliable, efficient and resilient to ‘jamming’ or interception and decryption by enemy forces

 "Our job is to help make them a reality by modeling how the devices would work in real life; how the signals would be transmitted to and from the body of each user and what types of antennas would be required to allow them to function properly.

 "To do this, we are modeling specific combat scenarios using state-of-the-art animation normally used to create computer games. We believe that ultimately this work will lead directly to the development of new applications not only for the military but also for the emergency services and the sports and entertainment markets," added Cotton.

 Officially opened in September, 2009, the £30 million Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) at Queen’s University Belfast has been set up to exploit the university’s international research expertise in high performance data and network security and intelligent surveillance.

The Centre is one of the first Innovation and Knowledge Centres (IKCs) created in the UK. Funders include the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Technology Strategy Board. In addition, to date, 20 organizations have committed to support CSIT’s work over the next five years. They include industrial partners such as BAE Systems and Thales UK as well as government agencies and international research institutes.

Overview:

Radio Communications Research Group (www.ee.qub.ac.uk/radio/): 

The seven body-centric communications research papers published so far this year were written by researcher, Dr. Simon Cotton of the Radio Communications Research Group at Queen’s. To mark the achievement, Cotton was presented with a special award for outstanding performance by Prof. John McCanny, head of the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Queen’s University Belfast. 

Technology:

The Radio Communications Research Group project commissioned by the UK Ministry of Defense is based on devices operating at 60 GHz. These offer a number of distinct advantages over competing lower frequency technologies including increased stealth and reduced risk of interference. In addition, devices operating at this frequency enable greater miniaturization. 

This facilitates the construction of wearable smart antenna arrays capable of electrically steering highly focused beams of electromagnetic energy in chosen directions. Similar low-cost 60 GHz technology is being employed for commercial applications such as high speed transfer of high definition television signals within the home..

Set Dancing Starts in February

McCarthy's in Saukville, Wis., is hosting a ceili on Feb. 6, with live music by Athas, hospitable barkeeps and great wood floors for tapping out a set. 
Questions? Call Kathy at 262-377-8639, or log on to www.setsintheburg.org.
What: Pub Ceili sponsored by Sets in the 'Burg
Where: McCarthy's 3315 Cty I; Saukville(County I, just north of Hwy. 33)
When: Saturday, Feb. 6; Music from 8 - 11 p.m.
Who: Áthas, a great Irish band from Milwaukee, will be playing the tunes
How much: No admission, but a bohran will be passed for donations.