Peter's Articles
A comprehensive list of magazine articles penned over the years.
Out of Reach
Memories of a Distant Father
From: Commonweal
Date: October 20, 2017
John Quinn: The Forgotten Irish American Nationaist
The Irish American lawyer who funded the Irish literary renaissance.
From: Irish America
Date: December 2016 / January 2017
The Rising Revised
Roy Foster's Vivid Faces.
From: Commonweal
Date: March 25, 2016
An Interview with Historian and Novelist Peter Quinn
A compelling conversation with Peter Quinn about history and his process.
From: City Courant
Date: Spring 2015
Runyon's Way
Writers must learn these things for themselves and find their own way. Yet for most, if not all, the path is so crooked and confusing that getting lost is as easy as falling off a barstool after gargling one-too-many alcoholic beverages of one type or another.
From: Commonweal
Date: July 10, 2015
Things Fall Apart
The greatest failure in America is the failure to stay young.
From: Commonweal
Date: April 10, 2015
Mad Jack: Siegfried Sassoon at War & at Peace
In her perspective, exhaustively researched biography of Siegfried Sassoon, Jean Moorcroft Wilson posits that "a study of his life is a study of his age."
From: Commonweal
Date: September 12, 2014
Hunger Games: Who Gets To Eat and Who Decides?
The Politics of Hunger - What criteria should be used to decide who gets fed - and in what amount - and who doesn't?
From: Commonweal
Date: May 16, 2014
The Biggest Part of Writing is Showing up
A conversation with Peter Quinn - by Domenic Preziosi
From: Commonweal
Date: October 25, 2013
The Last Word: Past Perfect
"The past isn't dead," William Faulkner famously remarked. "It isn't even past."
From: Commonweal
Date: October 11, 2013
At the Crossroads
Review of Who Occupies This House by Kathleen Hill.
From: Commonweal
Date: January 28, 2011
The Road To The White House
Mastery of urban politis helped the Irish rise from the huddled mases to the heights of political power.
From: Irish America magazine
Date: June/July 2010
In Service: Emily Dickinson, Helen Keller & the Irish Help
The women behind Emily Dickinson & Helen Keller.
From: Commonweal magazine
Date: June 18, 2010
What's the Rush?
A discussion of Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church's controversial consideration of his canonization.
From: Commonweal
Date: March 12, 2010
A Fervent Melody Struggling To Be Heard
A piece on the legacy of San Francisco-based Irish- American scholar and activist, Danny Cassidy.
From: Irish America
Date: October/November 2009
Frank's Map
Remembering writer Frank McCourt and his complicated views on Catholicism.
From: Commonweal magazine
Date: August 14, 2009
Who's the Boss?
A review of King of the Bowery: Big Tim Sullivan, Tammany Hall, and New York City from the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era by Richard F. Welch.
From: Commonweal
Date: May 22, 2009
Frankie's Secret
The forgotten costs of war.
From: Commonweal
Date: February 13, 2009
Remembering Danny: The Real Jazz
Peter Quinn remembers Daniel Cassidy, the author of How the Irish Invented Slang, as "a deeply spiritual man of passionate intensity and resonant laughter... a social visionary filled with savage indignation against snobbery, pretense, arrogance..."
From: Irish America
Date: December 08/January 09
Hitler's Doctor
A review of 1940 by Jay Neugeboren.
From: Commonweal
Date: May 9, 2008
Lavender Hill Mob
A review of Fellow Travelers by Thomas Mallon.
From: Commonweal magazine
Date: May 4, 2007
The Gentle Darwinians
What Darwin's champions won't mention.
From: Commonweal
Date: March 9, 2007
Clement & Loving
A review of After This by Alice McDermott.
From: Commonweal
Date: October 20, 2006
Race Cleansing in America
A nationwide gene-purity movement promoted methods that eventually were adopted by the Third Reich. And everyone from John D. Rockefeller to W.E.B. DuBuis supported it.
From: American Heritage
Date: March 2003
The Catholic Novel: Fact Or Fiction?
An essay adapted from the Fourth Annual Russo Lecture sponsored by Fordham University's Archbishop Hughes Institute for Religion and Culture.
From: Commonweal
Date: November 8, 2002
Dear Disagreeable New York
The real skinny on America's most consistently and wonderfully disagreeable town.
From: America
Date: January 31-February 7, 1998
The Tradegy of Bridget Such-A-One
A hundred and fifty years ago famine in Ireland fostered a desperate, unprecedented mass migration to America. Neither country has been the same since.
From: American Heritage
Date: December 1997
Long Day's Journey From Rome
A book review of Down the Nights and Down the Days: Eugene O'Neill's Catholic Sensibility by Edward L. Shaughnessy.
From: Commonweal
Date: October 24, 1997
It's Coming On Christmas: Schlock & The Incarnation
One man's unique musings on the Christmas season. Watch out jolly Old St. Nick!
From: Commonweal
Date: December 18, 1987
The Gathering Gloom:
Is 1929 About To Happen Again?
Those aren't acorns dropping out of the heavens; they are the harbingers for the despondent stockbrokers and investment bankers of the Great-Crash-to-Come.
From: America
Date: August 29-September 5, 1987
In Search of Protestants
A Bronx boy's puzzlement in the 1950's
From: The New York Times
Date: March 16, 1985