Gates, Crowley Share Irish Ancestor

President begins Europe tour

(NEWSER) - President Obama arrived in Ireland today, and said the nation shares a “blood link” with his country because of the millions of Irish-Americans who live in the US. The president, of course, has his own blood link with Ireland, and is planning a visit to the home of his great-great-great grandfather in Moneygall today, the AP reports. Obama, who has been affectionately nicknamed O’Bama by locals, is in Ireland to hold talks on trade, Reuters adds. More»

Including a 32-mile walk and the world's shortest parade

(NEWSER) - St. Patrick’s Day isn’t just about beer drinking and snake exterminating: there are a wealth of other odd traditions surrounding the holiday. AOL News reports on a few:

• For 35 years now, a Toronto man has walked to a town 32 miles away for a drink, honoring a tradition that dates back to Prohibition. Back then, it was the only place around that served beer.

Famine memorials put too much emphasis on defeat and destruction

(NEWSER) - Irish Americans should be celebrating their successes tomorrow—and every day—instead of looking back to the potato famine that forced many of their ancestors across the Atlantic, writes William McGurn. The Irish have thrived and prospered in America, but in recent years, they've been celebrating that history by erecting famine memorials "that stress our victimhood." Earlier generations of Irish-Americans "didn't build monuments to their woes but, with their pennies, raised up St. Patrick's Cathedral." More»

Museum on black history now has them

(NEWSER) - The "beer summit" is now a little piece of American history. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. has donated the handcuffs used to arrest him to the new museum on black history at the Smithsonian. Last summer's arrest set off a racial brouhaha that led to the so-called summit at the White House with Gates, Cambridge cop James Crowley, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama. More»

Nazi leader had piper play a private concert in 1936

(NEWSER) - An exhibit of new photos has revealed an odd scene: Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels listening with rapt attention to Irish musician Sean Dempsey as the piper sat on an SS member. Hitler invited Dempsey to play his uileann pipes in 1936 while the musician was visiting Berlin. However, when Dempsey arrived, there was nowhere to sit. More»