Irish Centre of Pittsburgh

08/09/2026

07/15/2026

This is devastating and it was caused by human activity. It was completely avoidable. Thanks to the wonderful Park Staff and Fire Crews for battling this fire.

Thanks to the early notification by the public and swift action from emergency services and NPWS staff and contractors, yesterday's wildfire in Killarney National Park was brought under control swiftly. It highlights the importance of being both vigilant and responsible when enjoying the outdoors during the current heatwave. Barbecues are strictly prohibited within the National Park. Littering can also cause fires, so please make sure not to leave glass or plastic bottles behind. If you witness any camp fires or barbecues, please make people aware of the regulations and dangers or contact the National Park Ranger Base from 9am to 5pm or the Gardai. Be part of the solution- not the problem.

07/15/2026

Calling Comhaltas members

We are looking for volunteer assistants for Scoil Éigse this year in Belfast (3rd - 7th August).

This is a great opportunity to shadow amazing tutors. You need to be over 18 to volunteer. Please follow the QR code to sign up.

07/02/2026

Florida congressmen target transgender girl competing in Irish dance championship this week in Orlando.
Two Florida Republican members of Congress are pressuring Irish dance officials (CLRG & IDTANA) to bar a transgender girl from competing in girls’ categories at Nationals, carrying the right’s anti-trans sports campaign into the world of competitive dance.
Event organizers and dance officials declined to alter their policies ahead of the event. Responding to pressure, the organizers stated that the North American Irish Dance Championships are "an Irish dance event" rather than a sporting event, and regard Irish dance as an art form. Furthermore, dance groups have previously noted that their commitment to preserving Irish dance relies on an environment that is inclusive and free of discrimination regardless of gender identity.

06/22/2026

Yesterday the Pucas competed in and won the Indy Invitational Tournament! Thank you to the Indianapolis GAA for putting together the tournament and to Cincinnati Gaelic Athletic Association: Football & Hurling for joining us!

06/20/2026

🌿 They are marching for a language that was nearly killed three times — by colonisation, by famine, and by the indifference of the independent Irish state that was supposed to save it. They are marching because something that was nearly lost is not quite lost, and they intend to keep it that way.

The modern Irish language revival is one of the most complex and contested cultural projects in contemporary Irish life, and one of the most quietly remarkable. The language that the Famine reduced to the survival of coastal communities in the west, that the National School system systematically suppressed for over a century, that emigration drained of its youngest and most energetic speakers generation after generation, is today spoken by hundreds of thousands of people who chose it — who went looking for it, learned it as adults, sent their children to Irish-medium schools, built Irish language radio and television stations and online communities, and refused to accept that the story was already over.

The Irish language revival has its critics, and their criticisms are not all without foundation. Compulsory Irish in schools has produced generations of students who associate the language with tedium and failure rather than with the living culture it carries. The gap between the Irish learned in classrooms and the Irish spoken natively in Gaeltacht communities has sometimes felt unbridgeable. The political and ideological freight loaded onto the language — its historical association with a specific version of Irish nationalist identity — has made some Irish people feel that engaging with it requires signing up for a politics they don't hold.

But something has shifted in the last decade. A new generation of Irish speakers has appeared who are younger, more urban, more digitally native, and less interested in the language as ideology than as culture — as music, as literature, as a different way of being Irish that doesn't require you to be a particular kind of Irish. TikTok accounts in Irish. Irish language podcasts. Irish rap music. Irish graphic novels. The language finding its way into contemporary life through the front door rather than the compulsory curriculum.

"Níl sé ró-dhéanach." It is not too late.

They are still marching. The language is still answering. 🍀

05/23/2026

Aer Lingus is excited to announce the launch of our new Pittsburgh to Dublin, Ireland route. Book your flights for your Irish vacation now!

05/21/2026

The first weekend visitors of the season to Skellig Michael, the monastic island off the Co Kerry coast, were treated to a blast of sunshine and blue skies on Saturday.

The island, an Unesco world heritage site, opened to tourists last Tuesday but bad weather and choppy seas meant Saturday was just the third day visitors could land here this year.

It was not until 15 minutes into the 75-minute boat trip from Ballinskelligs that there was an audible yelp from passengers being ferried over a heaving sea on the Force Awakens, a boat named after the Star Wars movie filmed on Skellig Michael in 2014.

“That has kind of died away,” says boatman David Walsh on the number of Star Wars fans who venture out to Luke Skywalker’s fictional refuge.

Photographs: Nick Bradshaw/The Irish Times

05/20/2026