MÁIRT -- On September 8, 1798, Lord Cornwallis and General Gerard Lake cornered French General Joseph Humbert's small Franco-Irish army at Ballinamuck, County Longford. With the two British armies closing in, Humbert drew his men up into line of battle. Humbert had less than 2,000 men, and only…

First responders carry Fr. Mychal Judge's body from the rubble of the World Trade Center…

Rocker Larry Kirwan, the founder and front-man of Irish rock mainstay Black 47, had a close-up perspective on the mayhem of 9/11. He shared the following reminscence of that day with subscribers to the band's newsletter in 2006. (Kirwan mentioned to readers that the excerpt is based upon a chapter from his memoir,…

Many Irish who contributed significantly to this nation have been undeservedly excluded from the pages of our school’s history books and their stories remain untold. One such is John Patton. Born in 1745 in County Sligo, John immigrated to Philadelphia about 1765. He met and married Jane Davis on 7 March…

Chicago Times correspondent John Finerty wiped his brow, drying the sweat from the hot July 7^th afternoon, as he looked up to the top of the grassy knoll where scout Frank Grouard was scanning the horizon with his binoculars. They were near the valley of the Little Bighorn in what is…

Born near Kill, County Kildare, in 1842, John Devoy would go on to become a man described by the London Times as ‘the most dangerous enemy of this country [Britain] Ireland has produced since Wolfe Tone’. His republican career began when, as a teenager, he met the Young Irelander John…

Last week, in his sleep, in his small palace in Rome, 400 years ago, one of the greatest figures in Irish history passed away, Hugh O'Neill. . With him in his final moments may have been his teenage son, John, whom he had nominated to succeed him as Earl of Tyrone and as The O'Neil. Also, there…

(“Lewis and Clark at Celilo Falls, Columbia River” from a mural by Frank H. Schwarz)

Nineteen-year-old George Shannon nervously trotted his horse across the flat ground to the north bank of the Missouri River and began scanning…

County Kildare native Charles Wogan pulled up the collar of his coat against the wind-blown sleet and snow and paced nervously back and forth on what is now Maria-Theresien-Street in Innsbruck, Austria. The city clocks had announced the new day, April 28, 1719, a few minutes ago.…

James Connolly said of "Big" Jim Larkin, his colleague in the labour movement: "We have amongst us a man of genius, of splendid vitality, great in his conceptions, magnificent in his courage." George Bernard Shaw described him as "the greatest Irishman since Parnell."

In 1913, Constance…

by Mike McCormack, AOH National Historian

Two Hundred and ten years ago on August 25, 1803, a tragic event befell Irish history. It all began when the United Irishmen, a group of Catholics and Protestants united to work for Ireland's independence, rose for that freedom in 1798. The English put down the rising…

I see the long, blue line, push back the rebel pickets

Far stretched o’er hill and dale; through break and thickets.

My old heart leaps

As up the steeps

Rock-crowned and flinty:

I see the dash,

And hear the crash,

Where leads the peerless…

This song is a constant reminder to me of my childhood, running around singing lines from it with my childhood friends, not knowing or not caring why we were singing it, or indeed who Napper Tandy was. Historical events were not seared into our minds. Only Religion took that place

The…

LUAIN -- On August 17, 1778, Bernardo O'Higgins, the father of Chilean independence, was born in Chile. Bernardo's mother was…

The guided tour on the 17th August of the route taken by the English army at the Battle of the Yellow Ford was organised by Armagh Irish language group, Cairde Teo.

The historian, Antaine Ó Donnaile, a local man and an acknowledged expert on the period, led the walk and his imtimate knowledge of the local countryside brought the detail of the battle back to life…

One armed man cannot resist a multitude, nor one army conquer countless legions; but not all the armies of all the empires of earth can crush the spirit of one true man. And that one man will prevail. -- Terence MacSwiney

Probably no man outside of Michael Collins was as responsible for getting England to agree to peace talks in 1921 as Terence…

James Connolly (Séamas Ó Conghaile) is one of the handful of men who share the dubious honour of being placed in the iconic status categories in the Irish history books based on his involvement in the Easter Rising 1916 as well as his role in the Trade Union movement.  He was born in Cowgate 1868 to Irish…

Dan Breen was startled awake from his dozing slumber by the sound of tramping feet. The small room suddenly flashed to near daylight as a spotlight played across the window looking out to the back of the house. Breen leaped to his feet and grabbed his Mauser pistol off the chair where he had left…