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Ar dheis Dé go raibh a n-anamacha dílse

SHACKLETON PAINTINGS - Six paintings by Mukilteo-based Irish artist Austin Dwyer of the 1914 Shackleton Antarctic Expedition are printed in the The Shackleton Centenary Book published by The James Caird Society. On August 8, 1914, Co. Kildare born explorer Ernest Shackleton set sail for the Antarctic on the ship Endurance which later became trapped in pack ice, was icebound for months before finally sinking. Shackleton and five others took one of the ship's lifeboats, the James Caird, and sailed to South Georgia to arrange rescue for the rest of the crew. The group's ultimate escape with no loss of human life ensured Shackleton's heroic status. Dwyer, a Co. Tipperary native, has available for sale 4 limited edition signed Shackleton prints that have been faithfully reproduced on the highest quality archival paper. See details at AustinDwyer.com.

FOSP DONATION - Kip Toner and Don Luby (with Principal Matt Eisenhaur on left) recently presented a check for $10,000 to St. Alphonsus Elementary School in Ballard as part of the proceeds of the Friends of St. Patrick Dinner last March 16. Another $5,000 from the dinner was donated to the Seattle University School of Law to fund endowments supporting Irish-American students at the university. The 2015 Friends of St. Patrick Dinner is scheduled to be held on Sunday, March 15.

TIDAL ENERGY - A proposed tidal-energy project involving turbines manufactured by OpenHydro in Dublin will likely be scrapped due to unforeseen construction costs. The 441-ton turbines for Snohomish County PUD's research would have been located west of Whidbey Island and secured in place by gravity. The original plans called for the turbines to be in place for three to five years.

CONGRATS MONIQUE - Congratulations to Irish Network Seattle Member, Monique Meche, for being named to the "Silicon Valley 50" which highlights the top 50 Irish and Irish-American executives making a significant impact in and around Silicon Valley within their field of technology. These individuals exhibit the creativity, intelligence, dedication and determination necessary to compete and succeed in the competitive world of technology. Monique is Vice President of Global Public Policy at Amazon.com and manages Amazon's public policy internationally. She lives in the Seattle area and also has a home in Co. Kerry.

MISCELLANEOUS -

* The next Irish Book Club meeting is Tuesday, October 28, to discuss The Empty Family by Colm Tóibín. Contact hudit@comcast.net for details.

* Friday, October 31, is the 21st Anniversary and Halloween Party at Seattle's Owl n' Thistle pub. Music with the Owl n' Thistle Band and friends, and hors d'oeuvres and champagne from 7 pm.

* Colm Tóibín, Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic and poet, speaks on the Irish Literary Renaissance on November 3rd at Town Hall Seattle as part of the Seattle Arts and Lecture series. Visit lectures.org for details.

Almost 80 people from the Seattle area, including Seattle's Mayor Ed Murray, visited Ireland the latter half of September with the primary event being a four-day visit from September 25-28 to Seattle's sister city of Galway where Seattle Mayor Ed Murray was Guest of Honor at Galway's Oyster Festival. Above photo taken following a reception in Galway City Hall where all 80 visitors from Seattle were welcomed.

At the Seattle Sister City monument in Galway

POLICE TRAINING - In Ireland, the members of the Seattle Police Pipes and Drums Pipe Band, all of whom are active or retired Police officers, participated in Police training with the Gardaí (Irish Police) in Dublin and with the PSNI in Belfast. In Dublin, the band also performed on the grounds of Dublin Castle and in the Garda Fallen Officer Memorial Garden which honors the memory of more than 80 members of the Gardaí who have lost their lives in the line of duty since 1922. In Belfast, the band joined members of the PSNI on the grounds of Belfast City Hall and played music for the crowd that had gathered. In between the band visited many tourist sites, such as the Giants Causeway and Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge in north Antrim.

FIGHTING 69TH - Photography is prohibited in Leinster House where the Dáil (Irish parliament) meets but a special exception was made for the Seattle Police Pipes and Drums during a tour organized for them by Irish Senator Katherine Zappone who grew up in Seattle. The Seattle band members were allowed take a group photo in front of the Fighting 69th's battle flag from the American Civil War which has hung in Leinster House ever since President John F Kennedy in June 1963 presented it as a gift to the Irish nation. Led by Thomas Francis Meagher, a leader of the failed Irish Rebellion of 1848, the 69th or "Irish Brigade" was known in the US Civil War for its famous war cry, "faugh a ballagh", an Anglicization of the Irish Gaelic phrase, fág an bealach, meaning "clear the way".

ROSEMOUNT - On September 22, the village of Rosemount. Co. Westmeath, welcomed the Seattle Pipe Band to the local parish church for a concert in aid of Rosemount National (Elementary) School. In addition to performances by the Pipe Band, the concert also featured performances by students from the local school which has 67 students total in grades 1 through 6. Every student in the school learns to play a musical instrument and all 67 students performed during the concert.

ATHLONE - The Seattle band visited Athlone, Co. Westmeath, and had lunch at the Shamrock Lodge Hotel where they met the owner, Paddy McCaul, who happens to be a second cousin of Kathleen O'Toole, Seattle's new Police Chief. The band later performed on the banks of the River Shannon to the delight of a passing tour boat and also on the ramparts of historic Athlone Castle which was first built in the 1129.

WWI COMMEMORATION - In Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, the Seattle band participated in a street parade and an ecumenical service afterwards in the local Anglican Church to commemorate the fallen of WW1 and especially those from Roscrea who lost their lives in "the war to end all wars". An estimated 50,000 Irish people lost their lives in WW1 which started 100 years ago this year.

IRISH BUSINESS MEDIA REPORTS

*  The September 11 New York Times carried a supplement feature on Ireland headlined "Ireland: Turning A Huge Corner". Saying the "Long-term outlook is optimistic", the stories include interviews with Irish Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Charlie Flanagan, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Simon Coveney, Irish Ambassador Anne Anderson and several Irish CEOs. The supplement is also available for download or viewing online.

*  Bloomberg.com writes, "Less than four years since its near collapse prompted an international bailout, Ireland is growing faster than anywhere in Europe again. The property market, which had undermined the economy, is soaring again while borrowing costs for the government have fallen to record lows."

*  A New York Times columnist writes, "In reading this week about Apple's tax dealings in Ireland, I found myself reflecting on the tax deals that American states cut all the time with companies they are trying to lure. It's not all that different. In a sense, what Ireland has been doing is the global equivalent of what the states do to attract business. And that is especially true in the case of Apple."

*  Washington Business Journal Online headlines their story, "(Irish Ambassador) Anne Anderson says it's once again smart to bet on the luck of the Irish."

*  In an article headlined Country's Turnaround is Both Remarkable and Deserved, the Wall Street Journal writes "Ireland, once lumped in with the so-called "periphery" states of Europe such as Portugal and Greece, is back in the core..... The economic turnaround is no less noteworthy. .... Still, Ireland's good track record means it has continued to win ratings upgrades."

IRISH BUDGET MEDIA - Following the new Irish budget that was presented in the Dáil (Irish Parliament) on Tuesday, there was widespread coverage in US media about the announced phasing out of the tax loophole known as the "Double Irish", a tax avoidance strategy that some multinational corporations have used to lower their corporate tax liability.

*  Business Insider says "Not to worry, major corporations still have plenty of tax loopholes left in the world, many of which originate in the United States."

*  Forbes.com says that the phased nature of the change may annoy the US and EU, "but it seems a shrewd move to keep the Irish economy moving. Besides, there will be new tax deals to be had in Ireland. Ireland's Finance Minister Michael Noonan is introducing a patent box to encourage intellectual property held in Ireland. It should especially appeal to tech groups, which may get additional incentives to store data there".

NORWEGIAN AIR - The European Commission has requested a special meeting with the US State Department and transport officials next week to discuss the dispute over Norwegian Air Shuttle's decision to establish a new long-haul operation based in Ireland. US regulators last month temporarily denied a request from an Ireland-based affiliate of the airline for approval for trans-Atlantic flights. It says that the EU had already approved the application and had expected the US to follow suit.

VISA CHANGES - A new Ireland-UK joint visa waiver agreement which goes into effect the end of this month means that visitors from China and India will in future need only one visa to visit both Ireland and the UK. Applicants can also apply for travel visas to Ireland at any of the UK's 200 application centers worldwide. As part of the agreement, Ireland will collect biometric data to match that required by UK authorities. In time it is expected the agreement will be expanded to cover visitors from other countries.

PAISLEY'S DEATH - The death of Northern Ireland's Rev. Ian Paisley, the original 'Dr. No', marked the end of an era. The Washington Post's report says: "Ian Paisley, a Protestant minister and political agitator in Northern Ireland whose incendiary rhetoric stoked anti-Catholic violence for decades and who made a stunning late-career reversal that thrust him to a power-sharing leadership role, died Sept. 12 in Belfast. He was 88. ... Rev. Paisley became Northern Ireland's co-leader in 2007 after entering an agreement with Sinn Fein, the Catholic-led political arm of the outlawed militant Irish Republican Army."

US AMBASSADOR - Irish-American lawyer Kevin O'Malley has presented his credentials to Irish President Michael D. Higgins as the new US Ambassador to Ireland. O'Malley, whose four grandparents came from Westport, Co Mayo, is the 27th US ambassador to Ireland since 1927 and the first from the state of Missouri. He takes over from Dan Rooney who stepped down 21 months ago.

BUTTER & CHEESE - Sales of Kerrygold brand cheeses and butters have roughly quadrupled over the past five years to just under $250 million in 2013 and the company expects that to jump to $500 million by 2020, making the US one of its fastest-growing markets. Owned by the Irish Dairy Board, Kerrygold has started a national TV advertising campaign in the US playing up the fact that Irish cattle are raised on grass pastures, unlike most dairy cows in the US whose diets include grains and silage.

INFLUENTIAL TEENS - Three Co. Cork teenagers who recently won the grand prize at the Google Science Fair have now been named by Time Magazine as being among the world's most influential teens. The three 16-year-olds conducted field trials near Kinsale that involved the use of naturally occurring diazotroph bacteria as a cereal crop germination and growth aid, and found that the bacterial strains accelerated crop germination by up to 50%, and increased barley yields by 74%. Such a performance improvement could significantly help alleviate global food poverty while also reducing the need for fertilizer use.

NI ENVOY - Speculation is growing that former US Senator Gary Hart will soon be named as the new US envoy to Northern Ireland. Hart held meetings in August with the five main political parties in Northern Ireland to discuss the ongoing problems and later prepared a report for by US Secretary of State John Kerry. Rows between unionists and nationalists are taking the Northern Ireland government institutions to the brink of collapse, with the major unresolved issues being welfare reform, the budget, the Maze development project and a so-called amnesty for republican on-the-run. Hart twice ran unsuccessfully for the US Presidency.

EMBASSY ANNIVERSARY - 90 years ago on June 28, 1924, the US formally recognized the Irish Free State as a country with autonomous control over its foreign relations. Four months later, on October 7, 1924, Timothy Smiddy presented his credentials to President Coolidge as Minister Plenipotentiary of the Irish Free State, Ireland's first Ambassador to the US. The first US Ambassador to Ireland was appointed the following year, on July 27, 1927, when Frederick Sterling presented his credentials in Dublin as American Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary.

DIASPORA AWARD - 10 people living outside Ireland will be honored this month with the Irish Presidential Distinguished Service Award which serves to recognize the contribution of the Irish abroad to Ireland and its international reputation. This year's Awards honor individuals in UAE, Korea and Russia, as well as in Britain, Canada and the US. Among the Americans being honored are Niall O'Dowd, founder of the Irish Central website as well as of Irish America Magazine and the Irish Voice Newspaper; Kevin Cahill, a medical doctor with a decades-long record of service to New York's Irish community and President-General Emeritus of the American-Irish Historical Society; and actress Fionnula Flanagan who has celebrated almost 50 years of stage, film and television work, and is considered one of the world's foremost interpreters of Joyce.

GAEILGE LINGUISTICS - Two US linguistics professors have received a $260,000 National Science Foundation grant to use ultrasound to document the tongue movement of native Irish speakers. Irish (Gaeilge) has an unusual feature only found in a handful of languages: sounds are made either with the tongue pushed forward, making a "slender" sound, or pulled back, a "broad" sound. When people learn Irish imperfectly, these broad and slender sounds are in danger of disappearing. Using a portable ultrasound machine, images of a speaker's tongues can be synced to video and audio to determine where the tongue moves for different sounds.

GUINNESS BREWHOUSE - Guinness' newly opened 'Brewhouse No.4' is a $215 million state of the art brewery at St. James's Gate, Dublin, and is one of the most technologically advanced and environmentally sustainable in the world. It is also the largest stout brewery in the world and at the peak of construction in 2012 was the largest construction project in Ireland. The new brewhouse is the fourth brewery built on the St James's Gate site since Arthur Guinness took out a 9000-year lease on the land in 1759.

FRIENDLY DUBLIN - Dublin has been voted the world's second friendliest city by readers of Rough Guides, the popular travel guidebook series. Earlier this year Dublin was voted the world's fifth friendliest city by readers of Condé Nast Traveler, the prestigious US travel magazine.

ST. PATRICK - Fox Television has commissioned a St. Patrick mini-series to tell the story of Ireland's patron saint. Planned as an historical epic in the vein of Braveheart, the series will explore Patrick's dramatic transformation from a rebellious teenager into a legendary peacemaker, telling the story of a slave who becomes a priest, a priest who becomes a warrior, and ultimately a warrior who becomes a saint.

YEATS' ANNIVERSARY - 2015 is the 150th anniversary of the birth of William Butler Yeats, winner of Ireland's first Nobel Prize for Literature. A program of events is being organized in Ireland and around the world to highlight Yeats' contribution to Irish literature and Irish history, and also his role in promoting Irish heritage and identity in the early 1900s. Born in Dublin in 1865, Yeats and Lady Gregory in 1899 founded the Irish Theatre, which later became the Abbey Theatre. Many claim that Yeats' greatest works were written after he received the Nobel Prize in 1923. The Irish poet in his later years served two terms as an Irish Senator and his image was depicted on the old Irish £20 note. Yeats died in 1939 and is buried at Drumcliff, Co. Sligo.

FLOWER SHOW FILM - Irish actress Séainín Brennan stars in Dare to be Wild, a film based on the true story of Mary Reynolds, a young Irish woman who in 2002 became the first Irish winner of the Chelsea Flower Show gold medal. The Chelsea is the world's most distinguished gardening exhibition, with over 600 exhibitors and 170,000 visitors. From Co. Wicklow, Mary's Show Garden was inspired by the Wicklow countryside and Irish mythology, and was called Tearmann sí - a Celtic Sanctuary. Mary Reynolds is a sister of Seattle's Paul Reynolds.

RESISTANCE IRISH - Over 750 Irish people lived in France when WWII started and many of them became involved in French Resistance activities, fighting, spying, sabotaging and - in some cases - dying for France. Irish nun Sr. Marie-Laurence helped 120 allied servicemen escape from France and later survived a death sentence and the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Another Irishwoman parachuted into occupied Limoges to work as a radio operator. One of the best known Irishmen who passed on information to the Resistance was Irish writer Samuel Beckett who in 1969 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. 50 of those French Resistance Irish men and women have now been recognized with their names on a plaque unveiled recently at the Irish College in Paris.

THATCHER PESSIMISM - In 1984 at the height of the troubles in Northern Ireland, the British cabinet was so pessimistic about the chance for peace that it discussed re-partitioning Northern Ireland along religious lines with some predominantly Catholic areas being made part of the Irish Republic. State papers show the proposal to "produce a more homogeneous population in Northern Ireland" was later dropped as being unworkable.

1,000,000 DUBS - Dublin's Glasnevin Cemetery is the final resting place of 1.5 million people and now there's a documentary film about it: ONE MILLION DUBLINERS. The film "reveals the often unspoken stories of ritual, loss, redemption, emotion, history - and the business of death." In July the film won Best Irish Feature Documentary at the Galway Film Fleadh. Filled with the familiar and the fascinating, the sometimes humorous documentary opens in Ireland on October 31.

KNOCKNAREA - The dominant landmark in Co Sligo is Knocknarea Mountain and the massive cairn of stones on the summit which looks like a pimple. Legend has it that the cairn, 33 feet high and almost 200 feet in diameter, is the final resting place of the famous warrior Queen Maeve who is said to have been buried standing upright facing her Ulster enemies while wearing her armor and holding a sword. Although the cairn has never been excavated it is thought likely that it covers a large Neolithic passage tomb. W. B. Yeats, who is buried in nearby Drumcliffe graveyard, mentions Queen Maeve and Knocknarea Mountain in several of his poems.

PERMIT REQUIRED - The unauthorized use of metal detectors in Ireland to look for archaeological objects without a permit is against the law. It is also an offence to dig or excavate for the purpose of searching for archaeological objects. The categories of objects that are most commonly located by metal detectors are coins, tokens, buttons, clothes fasteners, thimbles, keys, seals, weights, strap ends and belt mounts, which all fit the definition of 'archaeological objects' and may only be searched for under license.

GOLF SHOT - In the second round of the 2014 TOUR Championship in Atlanta, Irish golfer Rory McIlroy's tee shot ricocheted off a tree and into the pocket of a spectator's shorts. Usually, a player retrieves his own ball but McIlroy let the man fish it out for himself, saying "I wasn't going in there." McIlroy would go on to play par on that hole.

ST. FIN BARRE'S - Legend has it that the golden angel standing at the back of St. Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork will play the trumpet to signal to the people of Cork that the end of the world is imminent - and allow them to be among the first to enter heaven. The statue was a gift from Victorian architect William Burges who designed the building in 1870. A cathedral of the Church of Ireland (Anglican), Christian worship has been offered on the site since the 7th century.

COLLINS FILM - A newly released British Pathe News film that was shot at Portobello Barracks in Dublin in 1922 during the Irish Civil War, shows a 31-year-old Michael Collins when he was Commander-in-Chief of the Free State Army. Also in the film is Collins' comrade Richard Mulcahy. Shortly after the film was made Collins was killed in a Republican ambush at Béal na Bláth in his native Cork.

IRISH ROUNDERS - The Irish game of Rounders (Cluiche Corr) is a bat and ball game that in many ways is similar to baseball. Many believe that Baseball in the US is derived from Rounders since Rounders has been played in Ireland for several hundred years. It is thought the game may have been brought to the US by early Irish immigrants. When the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) was founded in 1884, GAA Rounders was included in the original charter along with Gaelic Football, Hurling and Handball.