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Annie Kelly was just 19 when all her dreams appeared to be coming true. Annie was one of 11 children living with her widowed mother at Newgrove, Mountbellew, Co Galway. Her boyfriend, William Murphy, and her brother Thomas had earlier emigrated to Boston. Annie and William were pledged to be married just as soon as Annie got the money to follow him there. Full of excitement the young woman later sailed from Liverpool on the Cunard liner the Lusitania arriving in New York on April 24 1915.

A tragedy that devastated the island community of Achill almost 80 years ago has moved Killala-based bestselling author Kate Kerrigan to examine love and loss in her newest novel.

Souvenir bricks from the recently demolished stand of one of the oldest stadiums in the world are to be included in a national organ donor commemorative garden planned for Salthill thanks to the involvement of the family of the late Jim Stynes, the Dublin and Melbourne football hero who died last year.

The Irish-American vote used to be a sure thing. If you were Irish-American, you voted Democrat. It was as simple as that. When I was growing up in 1950s Chicago, Republicans were like another species. An analogy from Baseball. As a Chicagoan, you supported either the White Sox or the Cubs. It was a tribal thing. My family were White Sox fans. So I was a White Sox fan. Cubs fans, on the other hand, were weird. Why would anyone support the Cubs? In much the same way, Republicans were weird too. Why would anyone support the Republicans? If you were Irish-American, even to pose the question bordered on the ridiculous.

HE WAS once called “the finest American folk-roots artist that most Americans have never heard of” but, entering his sixties, all that is changing for singer-songwriter Tom Russell.

In Roy Foster’s impressive biography of WB Yeats* he tells an interesting anecdote concerning the sinking of the RMS Lusitania off the Cork coast on May 7 1915. The Galway writer Violet Martin (the second half of the caustic but amusing Sommerville and Ross duo), was walking by the sea near Castletownshend, Co Cork, when she saw the Lusitania pass in ‘beautiful weather’. Half and hour later, as the ship steamed passed the Old Head of Kinsale on her way to Liverpool, it was torpedoed by a German U-boat. Nearly 2,000 people perished.

The redevelopment of Ballina Arts Centre launched The Final Push programme last Wednesday. The new state of the art, centre for Ballina has got funding from various sources and those behind the project launched The Final Push in Murphy’s Longnecks during the week. The campaign needs to raise €500,000 locally for the project and they are asking for local support for it. For more information on the redevelopment log on to www.ballinaartscentre.com/redevelopment.