"MY life breaks down into two clearly delineated parts: Before Lew and After Lew. It's as if a clear line was drawn through the life of Loretta Brennan and my life took on a different direction.

Thirteen years ago this fourth generation Irish American had never been to Ireland. Now she visits from New York at least once a month, sometimes 18 to 20 times a year. She is on the board of Trinity College Foundation, is a trustee of the National Gallery, the National Library and for the past four years has acted as president of the American Ireland Fund, which last year raised $10 million for Irish educational and cultural projects.

Loretta Brennan Glucksman's ambition is to encourage the kind of philanthropy that has been so successful for American Jews. In this she takes her cue from her husband, the financier and philanthropist Lewis L. Glucksman. The Jewish diaspora has been bringing it all back home (and indeed creating a homeland) in a very real and high powered way for decades. Only recently have influential, wealthy Irish Americans started to do the same. "There has not been a great tradition of giving to Ireland - possibly because no one asked," she says.

As someone who discovered Ireland somewhat late in life, she has become remarkably well connected, as a glance at her diary of the past two weeks or so might indicate: on January 15th, she was at the Abbey Theatre for the opening night of The Importance Of Being Earnest; the following day she was in Offaly to hand over money to the Earl of Ross for the science centre and telescope at Birr Castle. The next day, she met the provost of Trinity College, Tom Mitchell, while her evening was devoted to the Ireland Fund of France dinner in O'Reilly Hall at UCD.

The following morning she met the designer Sybil Connolly, attended the France vs. Ireland rugby match with Chryss Goulandris and Tony O'Reilly, before meeting members of the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders' Association.

The following day she and her husband flew back to New York . . .just in time for the Monday night opening of Sebastian Barry's play, The Steward Of Christendom, starring Donal McCann, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. They hosted a reception for Barry the following evening at Glucksman Ireland House, the centre for Irish studies they founded at New York University (NYU) in 1992.

"The play was such a spectacular success - the reviews have been raves - so to have Sebastian here was a great way not only to kick off the week but our new term at Ireland House."

On Monday this week, she went to Washington to meet the Irish ambassador, Dermot Gallagher, along with the committee who will host the Ireland Fund's St Patrick's Day ball in the capitol. "We're very excited to have a new committee member in Tom Corcoran, CEO of electronics at Lockheed Martin... he's a big deal and nice to have in the Ireland Fund fold."

On Tuesday back at Ireland House, she hosted the "first of a number of hail and farewells" for Donal Hamill, the Irish consul in New York who is returning to Dublin; Bill Flynn and Tom Moran of Mutual Life also organised a dinner for him at the 21 Club. She arranged to meet the new cultural editor of the New York Times, John Darnton. "I liked the stuff he filed on Ireland from London, he has a good sensitivity to Irish issues and I'm eager to get to know him and talk to him about the Ireland Fund."

She also welcomed poet and publisher Peter Fallon to NYU and chaired several AIF meetings in preparation for their big annual dinner in West Palm Beach in mid February, a central plank in their fundraising year.

THAT could be described as serious networking, could it not, and no doubt there are omissions. It is intriguing to watch her in action. Affable, trim and smartly dressed, often in Chanel suits, to say that she knows how to work a room is an understatement But she has a unique gift of ensuring that she has introduced at least four people to one another before she graciously moves on, remembering everyone's name and connection in the process. You wonder if she might be receiving insider information by way of a hidden ear piece or something.

That networking has yielded a rich assortment of friends and contacts: diplomats, academics, businessmen and women, writers politicians, celebrities, journalists, the Washington hierarchy.

It was not always thus.

Loretta Brennan Glucksman was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the daughter of a post office worker who had left school after the sixth grade. (Her father's name will soon be known at the University of Limerick, where a new faculty residence will be called the "William Brennan Quad").

She married her high school sweetheart when very young and had three children in quick succession. When the marriage ended, she supported her family on a teacher's salary.

She was not easily defeated. "My mother's life was so much more proscribed than mine but she made sure that we always felt that we could do anything, be anything and that whatever we chose would be the best. . . My father adored her for her sheer force of will."

Equally will full, she decided to improve her qualifications by taking courses at Trenton State College in New Jersey which led, quite unexpectedly, to a successful career in television when the State launched its own educational TV station. She started by doing book reviews but soon originated a programme called The Editors: "a current affairs programme for political junkies".

By the mid 1970s she was co producing programmes with the prestigious MacNeil/ Lehrer News Hour crew, and once got locked up on the wrong side of a cell block while reporting on a prison break.

In US media circles, she became well known for her campaign to allow cameras into the State legislature and, finally, State supreme court hearings. (The O. J. Simpson trial was not what she had in mind at the time, she says wearily.) Chief Justice Richard J. Hughes became a lifelong friend and mentor.

In 1982 she left television - "it's a young person's game" - and, among other things, developed a career in public relations, representing insurance companies on legislative issues. Then in 1983, she met her second husband. On a blind date. An enviable change of fortune.

"My life took on a whole different direction. That sounds like a cliche, but on every level, things were made open and available to me including the people I've met and the wider world I've enjoyed . . It's astounding... very lucky."

"When I was on my own I always accepted that that was it. That was my life and I was very blessed in having my children, three wonderful people that I could be associated with . . ."

She would now appear to be associated with about 3,000 people. "Yes. I seem to have a whole new country now." She describes their relationship to Ireland as "true kismet. . the most wonderful of coincidences".

The Glucksmans first came in 1984 to investigate exchanges between Irish universities and NYU, where Lew is a trustee. He had long been interested in Irish literature and the work of George Moore in particular.

Along with the president of NYU, Jay Oliva, they landed at Shannon and had dinner with GPA executive Sean Donlon and the president of the University of Limerick, Ed Walsh. "We were still jet lagged. To this day, Tony O'Reilly describes it as the most expensive dinner Lew ever had."

Dr Walsh asked Lew to visit Plessey the next day and address some business students. "He said sure... He liked the energy. It was such a young, start up university. The kids were interested. . and that whetted our appetite. Then we kept going back. It was pure serendipity."

Eventually this "happenstance" led them to buy a house in Ballingarry. "We were looking for a base in Ireland and Lew drew a circle around Shannon Airport - `No more than an hour from the airport and close to the university' - were the instructions." (Lew later took to fishing in Kilrush and now likes to sail in Kinsale).

Charles "Chuck" Feeney, whose gifts to Irish universities were made public last week, was president of UL's foundation at the time. "I would think that he would be disappointed at losing the anonymity... I'm sorry on a personal level that he's not being allowed to continue the way he would - choose to... I think everyone deserves that - especially someone who does so much good work.

"No one will ever know all that he has done. He is consummately generous not only with his money but with his time and talent."

"He and Lew have had a good relationship working at Limerick. In many ways they are cut from the same cloth. They respect each other hugely and both have the same wacky sense of humour... they have an on going competition, for example, to see who can leave an event first. But they are both very, very quiet, private people."

Meanwhile, Limerick has gained a purpose built concert hall and the university has a sports centre as well as student and faculty residences. A state of the art, hightech library is under construction. "It's the first project I have watched develop from a hole in the ground - very exciting." Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes, will be writer in residence there for a period next autumn.

"The more I move around Ireland and find these wonderful projects the more exhilarated I become, which is a great thing for a fund raiser - it's great to be motivated by seeing what happens when you can get grants over there."

Strokestown House in Co Roscommon was one such project and the irony of funding the Famine Museum from the proceeds of an extravagant dinner in Palm Beach was not lost on her. Just now she is engaged by the Pushkin Prizes set up by the Duchess of Albercorn, a cross Border project involving 50 schools.

On a bigger scale, new developments at the National Gallery are under consideration.

"We would have liked to have been more involved with the National Library, because I think Pat Donlon is one of the great women of Ireland . . . it's such a lost opportunity." Ms Donlon leaves the National Library next week - who knows if her ambitious five year plan will ever be carried out or find support from the likes of the Glucksmans and the Ireland Fund? Meanwhile, her "primary focus for the first half of 1997" is to find funding through the Ireland Fund for a chair in Jewish studies at TCD, which has a great tradition in Hebrew and biblical studies - "every Jewish kid in the world had the Hebrew grammar compiled by Jacob Weingreen," a former professor at Trinity. This project ties in perfectly with Lew's ethnicity.

"To go full circle, we are planning a reception for the provost, Tom Mitchell, in New York in February. There is a great deal of interest at NYU to enter into exchanges with Trinity and we have people from the law and business schools as well as the humanities coming to see him." An important literary gift for TCD will be announced around this time.

I do feel so welcomed and drawn in by may friends in Ireland. There is no period of getting back in - it's an instantaneous enfolding. We don't have to go through rituals of reintroducing ourselves, there is instant warmth. The more I know and the deeper I feel that I am accepted gives me further motivation which is a wonderful self fulfilling prophecy. The more I know the more I want to do."

It was Seamus Heane, quoted on the front page of the New York Times last October, who declared Ireland as being "chic". "It is the manifestation of sheer bloody genius," he reportedly said with a laugh. The article, entitled "The Irish are on the ascendant again", reflected the wide reaching resurgence in all things Irish which is fuelling this new wave of philanthropy. Third and fourth generation emigrants are suddenly eager to embrace their heritage - and in some cases, pay for it. These are significant times. The wake is over.

The Ireland Fund will this year hold 60 events in 30 cities in nine countries attended by more than 25,000 people. "Our mission is to be the largest network in the world for people interested in Ireland - not all necessarily Irish, by the way." According to the fund's executive director, Kingsley Atkins, the fund has raised $80 million since being established in 1976 and they hope to raise that to $100 million by the year 2000. "In addition, we hope to build the endowment fund to $50 million by 2000."

AND not a moment too soon. The fund hopes to build on this moment of unparalleled confidence and influence. For starters, there are some 100 Irish names on the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans.

Private foundations designed to manage funds and guarantee investment, have a long established tradition in the US, where donations have been tax deductable since the 1950s. "Everything we do is under the aegis of the Ireland Fund," says Mrs Brennan Glucksman. "We want to do that in order to encourage other people to do the same." Because wealthy Americans have not been over burdened with tax, they have been tacitly expected to give generously to institutions and charity funds.

Here the tradition has been to rely on the public sector. But as the economy burgeons, she would like to see that change. We would even propose to give funding to the Government for various projects if the Government would match it pound for pound. It's the fund raiser's classic dream - getting a doublebang for your buck!"

Meanwhile, expect to see quite a lot of her. "The Ireland Fund is poised to go into high gear and one of our top priorities is to raise our profile not only abroad but in Ireland. For one thing, when people who have given generously arrive for a visit, they deserve to be feted."