CenterPieceNY

Jennifer Muldowney, from Dublin’s fair city, in Ireland, is an author, a podcaster, and a member of that exclusive set of people who has given a TED Talk.

But for this vivacious young woman, all these glamorous activities are in support of her unique, creative, small-ish, and growing business, which, not to put too fine a point on it, services the industry of passing and death. 

Jennifer's work is as much a ...

When it comes to experiences, life is an embarrassment of riches.  Even more so, if you're an adventurous, wandering type, which might be another way of saying 'if you're Irish'.

Certainly Denis Maguire is, although he has gone about it in his own quiet way.   As a thoughtful playwright, flimmaker and artist, boisterousness is not for him.  Raised in Galway City in Ireland, of rebel lineage, and later a...

Corina Galvin calls County Mayo in Ireland her home.   She's also been a New Yorker for almost three decades.  And she has accumulated a lot of frequent flyer miles along the way.  That's because her job in event planning and management puts her constantly up in the air, traveling all over the globe, meeting some significant influencers in the process. 

This job, the only career of her working life, also allows ...

Jane McCooey thrives when she’s bringing people together to solve a problem, to the benefit of all.

When Jane, from County Armagh in Ireland,  is confronted with obstacles, she’s not afraid to reach out for help, and her first port of call is often to tap into the familiar power of sisterhood. 

Before you know it, she’s fallen in with a band of sisters.   She’s done this repeatedly–sports being a prime example–an...

Niall O'Leary is best known as a performer of Irish dance in the New York area, and further afield.  A lesser known fact about Niall is that he also has his own Manhattan-based architecture practice.

The amazing thing about Niall is how he has managed to satisfy his innate need to create and design in these two very disparate disciplines.  To him there is barely a difference between them. Maybe every young person shou...

'Tis the festive season, and as yet another year ends,  a time for self-reflection.

So we thought we'd take a moment this Christmas to have a closer look at this podcast, delivered in the words of creator, producer and host Paul Finnegan, to explain why he does it, and to give you a walk-through on how he goes about doing it.   We hope you'll find it a relaxing and perhaps thought-provoking, and hopefully en...

Ray O'Hanlon is a long-standing journalist, author and editor of the weekly Irish Echo news service, which has been a pillar of the Irish American identity since 1928.  That's a stretch coming up on 95 years, and Ray has been with the Echo for more than one third of that time!

Ray sees his work as stringing together elements, pearls he calls them, of larger stories, creating a broader context that transcends any...

In this episode, Helen McNamara O'Shea tells us of the brave leap she made from a career as an accomplished doctor to that of a singer/songwriter.  Given that Helen describes herself as 'ancient', which she is not by any means, it seemed, on the face of things,  a switch that didn't make a whole lot of sense.

But that's on the face of things, because both careers, to Helen, have something fundament...

County Cork, on Ireland's southern shore, is its biggest county, bigger than all the rest, all thirty one of them.   Corkonians, as the people of Cork are known, are intensely proud of their heritage.  They often claim, in all sincerity, that Cork City, not Dublin, is the true capital of Ireland.   And they might be right.  One need only ask the British about their experiences dealing with 'the rebel county'.

Season Three kicks off with a short conversation between CenterPieceNY host, Paul Finnegan, and fellow New York Irish podcaster, John Lee, to preview what's ahead.

Check out Irish Stew, the podcast for the Global Irish Nation, co-hosted by John and Martin Nutty.

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Thanks to Purple-Planet  for  Intro/Outro music, and to FreeSound for the sound FX.

Lear...

Here in the tenth and final episode of Season Two, we get to know Eamon Harkin, originally from Derry in Ireland, who has achieved celebrity in the world of DJs, and is taking dance culture and its community to a whole other level in Queens, the biggest borough in the city, and one that is not so outer-borough anymore.

Eamon’s story takes us from the troubled streets of Derry in the 70s and 80s, over to a hopping London in...

Amy Brett is a passionate and skilled event planner, an avid Gaelic footballer and a powerful fundraiser for great causes.  And she's all 'Mayo for Sam', red and green, through and through.

Based in Sunnyside, Queens, she's having the craic in New York.  For many from previous generations, that's a familiar tale.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

But above all s...

Claire McGovern is a sustainable interior designer, art advisor and manufacturer, whose recent work uses Irish wool as its basis, a textile she has come to see as a 'miracle fiber' and after listening to this episode you'll think so too.

Claire spent her formative years in a small enclave in south Dublin called Dartry, nestled between the more well-known suburbs of Milltown and Rathmines.  Perhaps it was und...

We're taking a slightly different approach in this episode.   We've gathered some thoughts and memories of several centerpieces, but the centerpiece of their lives in New York was, for a few years,  a decade ago, a thing called 'The Computer Club'.

The reason we are doing this now is because one of us, Paraic, had to leave the stage this month, and we've put together this episode in his honor.  We ...

Martin Nutty, all 6 foot 4 inches of him,  burst onto the global Irish community scene in 2020 when he fetched up alongside the previously-minted local New York Irish community celebrity John Lee, to stand up the innovative Irish Stew podcast.    From the throes of the pandemic in 2020 to the current reemergence, he and John have roped in dozens of amazing members of the Global Irish Nation, and in doing so are helping to define it...

They say that diversity is being asked to the dance, while inclusion is being asked to dance, but belonging is hearing  your music play at the dance. To belong is a fundamental human need, but the road to true belonging continues to be a long one for many in the US.

Shelley Ann Quilty-Lake, or simply Shelley, devotes her day, and her life as a lawyer, to those excluded from the dance, and to those who've made it into...

Breda Skeados is the middle child in a family of thirteen siblings from the rural West of Ireland, all born in a twenty-year period between the 30s and 50s. Ten survive to this day.

Even during that time, in her hometown of Dunmore, County Galway, families of this size were on the wane.  In fact it was so remarkable, some smarty pants composed a rhyme to keep track of all their names in order, a rhyme still recited by chi...

Sophie Colgan is one of the finest examples of strong leadership on the rise today among the young in the Irish community of New York.

Upon first arrival in the Big Apple in 2013, Sophie Colgan picked up on the background noise of goodwill that benefits all Irish people who come here,  an almost universal feeling that has its origins in the aggregation of centuries of small and big contributions to community that the Irish...

We know County Galway in Ireland has it share of towns (and a city!), each with their own character and traditions, but Tuam–along the northern edge of the county–stands apart in its creative take on the world.

It is no surprise that such a free-thinking place, with its vibrant music and theatre scene, should produce an adventurous young lady like Jacqueline Kealy, our centerpiece for this episode.

In fact, Irelan...