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Newsbriefs GOP group asks mayor to skip Queens parade

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

Republican party members in Queens are urging Mayor Mike Bloomberg not to march in the upcoming Queens St. Patrick’s Day Parade. The parade, now in its third year, bills itself as an inclusive event and, unlike the Manhattan parade, features gay groups in its line of march. Bloomberg would be taking part in the parade, event organizer Brendan Fay told the Echo. However, the GOP’s Woodside branch, the Regular Republican Club 30th A.D. Inc., in a letter to Bloomberg, has urged him to stay away on the grounds that the March 3 Queens parade was, in its view, anti-law enforcement, anti-Catholic/Christian and anti-centrist/conservative. “This demonstration has consistently misappropriated the name of the local Irish-American community, irreverently misused the name of St. Patrick and twisted the tenets of Irish independence in its pathetic endeavor to impose its agenda,” club president Patrick Hurley said in a statement announcing the letter to Bloomberg.

Holy Cross event

Lisa Irvine, president of the Holy Cross Girls Parents Education Association, will answer questions regarding the loyalist blockade of the Ardoyne, North Belfast, school on Sunday, Feb. 24, at 4 p.m. at O’Reilly’s Pub, 56 West 31st St., NYC. There will also be a film documenting the protest and its affects on the children. Proceeds will go to keep the road to the school open.

Play found in Boston

“An Scian,” a seven-page play in Irish written by Myles na gCopaleen (Brian O’Nolan, Flann O’Brien) has been languishing in the Brian O’Nolan’s papers at Boston College since the author’s death in 1966. It was discovered recently by the poet Louis de Paor in college’s archive. A rehearsed reading of it will be performed in Galway at the end of March. The play, written in 1943, satirizes the rifts and orthodoxies then besetting the Irish-language movement. The archive contains a treasure trove of work, including another unperformed play, which is unfinished, and notes toward an essay on the language revival movement. De Paor said he was shocked such a collection of papers should have been allowed to leave the Ireland over a decade ago.

Film shares prize

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The Irish-British film “Bloody Sunday” took the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival last week, sharing the Golden Bear with a Japanese animated feature. The film, praised for its “extraordinary authenticity,” beat more than 20 films, including Irish and French hit “8 Femmes.” “Both Derry and Berlin understand what it means to be a divided city. This award is a recognition that democracy is based on rights and not sovereignty,” director Paul Greengrass said. The film was joint winner of the World Cinema Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival last month and will be released in cinemas in the U.S in the autumn.

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