“I’m pingless,” said I. “And I thought you were just brainless.” Replied Yer Man from Pearl River. He had been wondering why I hadn’t replied to hi...

The ospreys dallied a few weeks longer this year. They’re usually gone by the third week in September. But then, 2025 was a banner year. One day I ...

“You and me are neither here nor there, young fellah,” the auld lad said to me one night in The Archway. I wasn’t sure what he meant. He was probab...

“Make America Great Again.” I’ve often wondered to what era our president is referring. The 1950s springs to mind, but back then the U.S. had its h...

New York neighborhoods used to be measured by the quality of their saloons. One of the reasons Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge always hovered near the top of ...

Almost 18 years ago I wrote my first column for The Irish Echo. It concerned an official projection that in order to stay solvent Social Security b...

With its working class roots and boozy background, rock ‘n’ roll often teeters on the edge of chaos and violence. Rock music, on the other hand - u...

Stefan Lutak was Ukrainian. He owned the Holiday Cocktail Lounge on St. Mark’s Place. Despite its name it was a beer-and-shot joint I stumbled into...

What a blast to move to New York from Wexford town - the size, the bustle, and the sheer moxie of the city, but also the originality and diversity ...

The divide between lace curtain and shanty had pretty much disappeared by the time I hit New York in the 1970s. That being said, the clientele of t...

There are a number of building blocks in any reasonably successful rock ‘n’ roll band. First of course, are the musicians themselves, followed clos...

Canal Street in Lower Manhattan runs just over a mile from East Broadway to West Street. It’s big, broad and bustling and many the famous person fr...