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Books Other Irish: The Scots-Irish Rascals Who Made America | ||
Karen Frances McCarthy (born January, 1971) is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker who was born in Dublin, Ireland, and is based in New York. She has a master's degree in Anglo-Irish Literature from University College Dublin and is a graduate of the London School of Journalism. She has been named one of Ireland's top female broadcasters who have had an international impact. She is the sister of Irish Olympian Earl McCarthy.
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Journalism
McCarthy is a contributor on religion/spirituality issues for Salon, Huffington Post Religion Beliefnet, the Belfast Media Group, The Irish Echo and The Riverdale Press. She is writing a new book on science and religion and the search for truth
McCarthy began her journalism career in America, writing lifestyle features and personal profile stories for a variety of newspapers, including The Irish Times where she wrote lifestyle features, and The Irish Echo, where she wrote on lifestyles and education. She also wrote personal profiles for The New York Amsterdam News.
In 2007, she was an embedded reporter in Iraq. She was one of the first to write about Sunni Awakening Councils in Anbar Province in Baqubah, which was the headquarters of Al Qaeda in Iraq at the time, for The Irish Times. She also wrote stories for The News Tribune.
In 2008, she began covering American politics, specifically the U.S. presidential election, for the Irish Examiner. She later worked as a broadcast journalist for the Riz Khan Show on Al Jazeera English.
Television
In the mid-90s, McCarthy worked with Deepak Chopra to produce TV shows based on Chopra's Books, Alchemy and The Crystal Cave. Martin Sheen as Arthur, Robert Guillaume as Merlin, and Johanna Cassidy as the narrator offered a dramatic reading designed to teach those seeking a deeper meaning in their lives that they may locate wisdom by seeking their "inner wizard."
In 2006, McCarthy wrote and produced Made in America for RTÉ in Ireland, about four 30-something Irish people who emigrated to the U.S. in the early 1990s. This was on the eve of Celtic Tiger economic boom and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement that changed the economic and political climate of Ireland. The series was nominated for an Irish Film & Television Academy Award for Best Documentary Series.
The Other Irish
In 2010, McCarthy began to research and write The Other Irish for Sterling Publishing Inc. about the feisty Scots-Irish immigrants who traveled to America and made significant contributions to the American character and culture.
The Other Irish was supported by Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs as part of the country's Reconciliation and Anti-Sectarian Fund as a cultural outreach project. The announcement of support for these projects was made on Nov 28, 2012.
Northern Ireland is still a very divided society. We saw the potential for sectarian activity to flare up again this summer, so it’s clear that, despite the enormous progress made since the Good Friday Agreement was signed, great challenges remain. We are supporting these projects to help overcome the problem of sectarianism and to promote reconciliation in Northern Ireland as well as strengthening community relations across the island of Ireland. I am grateful to the groups and individuals who carry out this critical work. It remains as important as ever that we support their efforts.
The book received considerable attention from the BBC, and she appeared on RTÉ's History Show with Miles Dungan, NPR with Kathleen Dunn, the BBC's Saturday Morning Radio Show with John Toal. She was also a guest on Andrae McGary WGOW talk show (McGary was a 2012 Democratic candidate for District 10 of the Tennessee State Senate at the time) and Race Talk Radio.
With government support, McCarthy traveled throughout Ireland, talking to various Protestant communities, including the Ulster Scots Agency, the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, the Linen Hall Library, and the Monreagh Heritage Centre. It was also supported in the media by Ian Adamson, OBE, and William Humphrey DUP MLA in the Belfast Telegraph.
Bill Gimpsey of the Scots-Irish Society of the USA, wrote that McCarthy's book was "a surprise for a number of reasons ... she is from the mainline Irish community, who has traditionally written less favorably about the Scotch-Irish.". It was reviewed favorably by the Huffington Post, which wrote "The author's agility as a storyteller makes each moment come alive via concrete descriptions and relatable, human-interest stories," and by Prof. James Flannery of Emory College for the Irish America Magazine who wrote "she really brings the whole Scots-Irish saga to life and makes us understand why they have made such an extraordinary contribution in so many different ways to Southern, and indeed American, culture in general."
More recently, it has been cited in reference to Donald Trump's immigration stance by USA Today, and by Mike Tuggle for the Abbeville Institute in defense of the South