IRISH ACTOR Fionnula Flanagan is to be honoured along with the late folk singer, Liam Clancy, at a special ceremony in New Ross, Co Wexford this week as the town hosts its first Irish America festival to celebrate the United States’ Independence Day.
Ms Flanagan, a native of Dublin who has lived in Los Angeles since the 1960s, will be inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame at the Dunbrody Visitor Centre in New Ross, together with Carrick-on-Suir-born Liam Clancy, who is being honoured posthumously.
The ceremony is one in a series of events to mark the fourth of July in New Ross, which is expecting thousands of visitors as the town recalls its historic links with the US.
John F Kennedy’s great-grandparents, Patrick Kennedy and Bridget Murphy, both emigrated from New Ross, as did the grandparents of playwright Eugene O’Neill, who hailed from Rosbercon in Co Kilkenny.
A flag-raising ceremony will take place on the quayside followed by a re-enactment of the Boston Tea Party at the Dunbrody famine ship and a reading of the US Declaration of Independence, while the day will close with a spectacular fireworks display over the river Barrow.
More information is available at irishamericaday.com.
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