Akron Irish

Now about that road. Like so many Irish roads, it is three miles of narrow, twisty, brambly anarchy. It is organic, a former cow path. You know Irish roads, stone walls, munching cows and bleating sheep, the usual suspects. But at the top of the road, a tombstone monument stands as a gut punch reminder of a not-so-distant history.

To go to an Irish wedding, you had best go into training. I thought that I was ready. To be fair to myself, I think that I was coming down with a little bit of something. I made it until 1:45. The rest hung on until the “afters” concluded at four AM.

Because it is completely counterintuitive that an island with a population of five million could manage to have that same small population link to someone everywhere they go. It doesn’t make sense, or does it?                                                                          

Politics have certainly left a bad pong in the air in the US and everywhere else right now, but all is not lost. If you think that we have some funny ideas about elections, we are not alone. Many people think that Catherine Connolly, the newly elected Irish president, put the election in the proverbial bag when she displayed some serious “football” dribbling skills.

Brewing Up a Storm House of Guinness debuted on Netflix in late September. It is a long-anticipated sexy send up of the mysterious family that...