Affectionately known as the Big Dig, up to one quarter of the projects workers are Irish, P l Conghaile discovers, and they are carrying a lineage that for many began in the famine-stricken years of the 19 th century. They are the ideal ambassadors not just for a country keen on showing off its gifted offspring, but for a genre of art, which would do well to shake off its image of starched suits and stiff upper lips. In New Orleans, voodoo is becoming a commodity just as quickly as it can be bottled. High Priestess Miriam Chamani however, thinks the faith can be saved. On the road to the spectacular Mahon Falls in the Comeragh mountains, where the River Mahon begins its journey to the sea at Bonmahon, is a place where cars roll backwards uphill of their own accord, without help from the driver.
Different theories abound and one is that there is a magnetic field under the hill.
Elaine Larkin set about investigating. Ken Livingstone seeks to ban them from London's Trafalgar Square, Irish pest-removal companies say they carry up to 60 diseases. Simultaneously, an author and artist are attempting to answer this question from an immigrant perspective. For that we may have to follow their storytellers' leads, and look inwards. At first you think race is about them .