In the early evening hours of February 28, 1879, steam blasted up into the air as a train slowly pulled into the station, whistle blowing, in Washington, D.C., to be greeted by several thousand cheering people. Waiting on the platform to…

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 emigrant…

Three thousand feet above Moreuil Wood, southeast of Amiens, in northern France, Captain George Edward Henry “McIrish” McElroy, peered down through a gap in the clouds. McElroy had already shot down two German Albatross fighter planes in his British S.E. 5a (Scout Experimental-5a) earlier, his…

Irish Volunteer Seán Hogan gazed out the window of the train toward the distant Galtee Mountains to the south. It was early evening on May 13, 1919. The train had just pulled out of Emly, County Tipperary, headed toward the small town of…

In the centuries after Christianity came to Ireland, when the only Christian Church was the Roman Catholic Church, it thrived there. In the Dark Ages it was monks from Ireland, "the island of saints and scholars," studying in Ireland and then moving out around Europe that helped preserve European civilization. But from…

By Mike McCormack, AOH National Historian

One of the closest times that the Irish ever came to independence from the Crown happened when Irish Catholics and Protestants united in a brotherhood of purpose for the benefit of all.  It was inspired by the American Revolution and the brotherhood was called The United…

By Joe Gannon

• Part 2: 'Who Stood the Victors Crowned'…

DOMHNAIGH -- On May 10, 1806, James Shields (left) , who…

By Joseph E. Gannon

Mary Harris "Mother" Jones was not your typical senior-citizen. At age 100, already well-established as one of the greatest labor leaders in American history, she was still giving tycoons heart-burn, still earning the title as "the…

The GPO, Mount Street Bridge, The South Dublin Union -- these are names that resonate when it comes to Easter 1916 as the battlegrounds for what became Padraig Pearse’s ‘glorious failure.’ However, for some quirk of history, the success that took place in the sleepy town of Ashbourne, County Meath, during the Rising has…