60 NYT > Sept. 11, 2001 - Narrowed by 'IRISH-AMERICANS' http://t
opics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/sept_11_2
001/index.ctx?field=des&match=exact&query=IRISH-
AMERICANS&&partner=rssnyt &lt;p&gt;It was the day when the
unreal became the unimaginable. Sept. 11, 2001, the crystalline
morning when planes dropped from the skies and toppled the World
Trade Center and punctured a hole in the Pentagon, was a
demarcation point that shattered the security of the country and
introduced a nebulous and virulent enemy previously unfamiliar
to most citizens. Nearly 3,000 people died that morning, the
vast majority of them in the gnarled rubble of the Lower
Manhattan towers, others at the Pentagon and in a rural
Pennsylvania field. A numbed country with red-rimmed eyes came
to understand the ugly menace of terrorism. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;
The echoes of that horrific day have radiated outward in myriad
directions, indelibly altering peoples concept of what it means
to feel safe in the modern world. Investigati