Friday Favorites: May 23
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- May
- 23
Don’t say the weather this weekend is going to be toooo beautiful to read. Bring a book outside. And besides, we all need a little down time to re-charge the brain.
This week’s recommendation comes from Jack Murphy. He’s a former editor of the (Peekskill) Evening Star and chairman of the Peekskill St. Patrick’s Committee for the past 12 years. We spoke recently because he has resurrected Irish music, Rising of the Moon, that had been performed monthly at Guinan’s in Garrison for the last 50 years before the beloved store shut down this winter. Murphy is helping to host the next generation of Rising of the Moon at P.J. Kelly’s in Peekskill, and there is a second venue in Cold Spring Depot Restaurant, too.
“As far as recommendations,” he e-mailed this week,—“unless you think it too corny—I would recommend a two-volume historical novel called the Dublin Saga and individually titled “The Princes of Ireland” (Doubleday, 2004; Ballantine 2005) and “The Rebels of Ireland (Random House 2006, Ballantine, 2007),” both by Edward Rutherfurd. It follows the history of Ireland through the eyes and actions of a dozen or so fictional families. As an Irish-American without a great background in Irish history these books brought the ‘real’ history of the country to life for me.”
I don’t think these sound “corny” at all. Makes me long to be back in Dublin walking around that city and checking out the wonderful and colorful doors — and of course the special cider.





A municipal reporter for The Journal News since 1997, 






