‘Mad Mike’ Hoare believed you get more out of life by living dangerously. And yet about 35 family and friends gathered in Durban, South Africa, on 17 March, St Patrick’s Day, to honour Mike as he turned 100 years old. Among them were five of the Wild Geese who fought with him in the Congo in the…

MÁIRT -- On April 23, 1014 the Battle of Clontarf, one of the most famous and important battles in Irish history, was fought just north of Dublin. It was a bloody stand-up battle, fought mainly with ax and sword, with Brian Boru's men prevailing. This battle would later enter Irish legend as the place where…

On Easter Monday 1916 one of the most important events in the long, tortuous history of Ireland took place. The event, so shocking and bold, is still debated and analysed until this very day. This is a personal tribute to that  handful of dreamers and visionaries, the…

I see his blood upon the rose

And in the stars the glory of his eyes,

His body gleams amid eternal snows,

His tears fall from the skies.…

Of all the great men and women of that era, was there a more gallant figure than Joseph Mary Plunkett, or a more hopeless love than that of Plunkett and Grace Gifford? They were to be married in a church on St Stephen’s Green on April 23, Easter Sunday, 1916, but history…

While locally grown berries are not quite in-season yet in most parts of the U.S., their wide availability makes them popular year-round. For a quick and delicious Easter dessert, you might want to serve this easy-to-assemble berries and cream dish known as Eton Mess. Despite its rather inelegant…

When Fr. Sylvester Malone died almost at the very end of the century on December 29, 1899 it signaled the end of an era not only for the Catholic community in Williamsburg, but also for the entire neighborhood. A beloved and respected figure amongst all Williamsburg’s residents, Fr. Malone had been an…

William Sampson is one of the most important Irish-Americans in the legal history of New York State, but sadly few remember his name or how this Protestant Irishman made an invaluable contribution both to the rights of Catholic New Yorkers and to the religious freedom of all New Yorkers. Sampson was born…

Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame! -- W.B. Yeats.

Through the history of folklore worldwide; fairies, or some variant of…

Inside the roofless old Spanish chapel, the first rays of the early morning Texas sun were illuminating the room with a soft golden glow through the acrid air, clouded by black powder smoke. But what was being illuminated by that rising sun in the chapel of this mission called…