Over the last ten episodes of The Last Hurrah, Liam and Scott have spoken to a wide range of journalists, activists, politicians and academics with differing viewpoints on the past, present and future of Irish America. In the final episode of the season, Liam and Scott discuss the key takeaways from their conversations and delve into the unique insights given by our guests. They also ask what it means to be Irish American in 2021 and discuss how this special relationship has developed in the ...

Marion McKeone is the US correspondent for the Sunday Business Post. Before that, from 2000-2009, she was the US editor for the Sunday Tribune. She has also written for the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Irish Times. She broadcasts a regular US slot on Today FM’s ’The Last Word’ and is a regular contributor to RTE Current Affairs programs discussing US politics, foreign policy, and major news events. Marion has covered all of the major political events in the United States from 9-11 to...

Kevin Cullen is an author and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. He has written for the Boston Globe since 1985 where he served as local, national and foreign correspondent before becoming a columnist. Kevin spent more than 20 years covering the conflict in Northern Ireland and in 1994 was honoured by the Overseas Press Club of America for his interpretive reporting from Northern Ireland. In 1997, Kevin was appointed the Boston Globe’s Dublin bureau chief, covering the peace process in North...

Trina Vargo is the president of the US-Ireland Alliance. She was employed by Senator Edward M. Kennedy and served as his foreign policy adviser during the critical years of the Northern Ireland peace process. Working directly with political leaders in Northern Ireland, the Clinton Administration, and the Irish Government, Vargo served as a key behind-the-scenes player in the Northern Ireland peace process, including the granting of a visa for Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams to visit the US in 19...

Ted Smyth has had distinguished careers in government and public affairs in Ireland and the United States. He was an Irish diplomat from 1972 to 1988 serving in Portugal, Switzerland, the US, and the UK. He participated in the Northern Ireland peace process, serving in the Department of the Taoiseach as Deputy Director of Government Information Services, advisor on Northern Ireland, and in the Secretariat of the New Ireland Forum. He was head of Press and Information in the US from 1976-1981 ...

Joan Walsh is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation and a CNN political contributor. She is also the author of What’s the Matter With White People? Finding Our Way in the Next America, which the Philadelphia Daily News called “one of the best books of 2012 – and even more relevant now.” In the book she “charts growing political divisions in the US through the story of her extended working-class New York, Irish Catholic family”. The book is “a family and political memoir that maps th...

Ray O'Hanlon was born in Dublin, is a graduate of University College Dublin, and worked with the Irish Press newspaper group before moving to the United States in 1987. O’Hanlon’s particular beat has long been the immigration issue and his 1998 book, The New Irish Americans, is considered a definitive account of the battle for immigration reform waged by the Irish Immigration Reform Movement and other Irish-American organizations in the late 1980s and early ’90s. His new book, Unintended Cons...

Timothy Meagher is a former Associate Professor, Curator of American Catholic History, and University Archivist at The Catholic University of America. Meagher is an expert on Irish American history. His publications on the topic include Inventing Irish America: Generation, Class and Ethnic Identity in a New England City 1880 to 1928 (University of Notre Dame Press, 2001), winner of the James Donnelly Prize for the best book in Irish and Irish American history, and The Columbia Guide to Irish ...

James R. Barrett is a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and currently scholar in residence at The Newberry Library. Professor Barrett’s research interests include immigration and race and ethnicity in US cities. He is also the author of “The Irish Way”, a book of “social history” that examines “how the Irish took up positions of urban leadership in the late 19th century” and “how they had to adapt to growing numbers of other immigrants in the early 20th cent...

Former Congressman Joe Crowley of New York is “simply one of the most significant Irish American politicians of his generation.” After growing up in an Irish household in Queens, Crowley’s political career began in the New York State Assembly in 1987. He was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1999 and, from 2017 to 2019, he served as Chair of the House Democratic Caucus, the fourth most powerful position in the House Democratic Party. A member of the Friends of Ireland Caucu...