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…

Constance Gore-Booth Markiewicz’s amazing life came into my purview on my second trip to Ireland in 1989.  My husband and I were browsing in a Dublin bookstore eager to buy as many books on Irish history as we could fit in our suitcases for our return to…

In the early part of the Irish War of Independence there had not been any major ambushes of Crown forces in County Mayo, unlike several other counties, notably County Cork. However, in May 1921, the Irish Volunteers began to escalate their attacks there. First, on May…

By Gerald A. Regan

Still, the Republic is peaceful, except . . . at moments when someone (either British secret service or Protestant Loyalist) has decided that the South should be reminded that the terrorist shouldn't have any sympathizers anywhere. Bloody Friday, May 17,…

Katharine O'Shea Click on image for a larger view.

By Joseph Gannon

“None…

Irish Blood and Gilt – Irish Heirlooms in Transatlantic Migration by Madi Preda

Stolen Irish Jewels, Emigration, and the Fragility of Inherited Memory

Historical Context Behind a Work of…

DOMHNAIGH to LUAIN -- On May 17-18, 1918, the British government began arresting all the leaders of Sinn Fein that it could round-up. Britain desperately wanted 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…

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'…

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…

Gustavus Conyngham is known to history as the “Dunkirk Pirate,” but that was the name the British gave him. It was not a name that he ever would have given himself. He thought of himself only as, Gustavus Conyngham, USN (United States Navy). He was never, in fact, a pirate. He was a commissioned officer in the new U.S…

April 23, 2014 will mark the 1,000th anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf. The battle was fought between the forces of Brian Boru and the forces led by the King of Leinster, Máel Mórda mac Murchada: composed mainly of his own men, Viking mercenaries from Dublin and the…

 By Joseph E. Gannon

By Joseph Gannon

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false…