MÁIRT -- On March 11, 1858, Irish revolutionary Thomas James Clarke was born of Irish parents on the Isle of Wight but the family moved to Dungannon, County Tyrone, shortly after that. His father, James Clarke, was a sergeant in the British Army. Thomas spent part of his…

Ultonia Regiment of the Spanish army, toy soldiers by "The Warrior Irish."

LUAIN -- On August 11, 1744, during the…

The Battle of Perryville from a contemporary illustration.

MÁIRT -- On October 8, 1862, Irish-born…

(First published in December 2011)

Maura Mulligan was first-born in a family of six siblings, children of farmers who ran the family farm in the rural village of Aghamore, County Mayo.  After immigrating to the United States and working for telephone companies and even trying life in the convent, Maura took up memoir and fiction…

Thomas Ashe

DOMHNAIGH -- On April 28, 1916, as the rebels in Dublin were being squeezed harder and harder by the British and nearing the end of…

The Book of Names is an Internet-based project to recognize the women in our past who have migrated from Ireland. By adding the names of your Irish mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and so on, you will have the chance to ‘light a candle’ in their memory.



The effort is…

(All photos by James Higgins)

Fiddler Marie Reilly, 58, clearly has much to be grateful for, not the least of which is a much praised new album, “The Anvil,” her first, created after a 23-year self-imposed pause from playing.  Irish Echo reviewer Dan Neely, for example, called the…

By Maryann Tracy

Producer / The Wild Geese ‘Kitchen’

I'm no beer aficionado, but I have had a few in my day, and I can tell you, the goings-on in the craft-beer industry is pure craziness. On St. Patrick's Day maybe I'll have only one, but it better be something that tastes like beer, not that…

Ten IRA volunteers, fighting for their fledgling nation, met their fate more than 80 years ago at the end of a British noose, and until this month lay buried in Mountjoy Prison. Kieron Punch relates each of their stories, starting with 18-year-old Kevin Barry.

In…

In June of 1920, as Ireland was ravaged by the excesses of the infamous "Black and Tans," a group of Irishmen far from home agonized over the harsh treatment their families were being subjected to back in Ireland. These men, Irishmen serving as soldiers in Englands' 88th Foot, the Connaught Rangers, sometimes know as the "Devil's Own," agonized over the suffering of their…

Click on image to buy the book

A Review By Kieron C. Punch

On Sunday,…

By Capt. Donal Buckley, Irish Army (ret.)

Special to The Wild Geese Today

(Left: Where the road disappears in the center of the picture marks Tom Barry's command post, where he lobbed the grenade into the first truck of the Auxiliaries' convoy.)

Michael Collins died on August 22nd, 1922, on a…