Shalom Ireland," director Valerie Lapin Ganley's documentary about Ireland's small but vibrant Jewish community, manages to convey a huge amount of information about the past, present, and future of Ireland's Jewry, a community whose existence takes many by surprise. The film, showing in festivals around the U.S. in the coming months, creates a memorable, lyrical…

Photo by Kevin J. Kennedy, 1994 Brian C. Pohanka

By Gerry Regan, Producer / TheWildGeese.com

MANASSAS, Va. — Laughter and sorrow commingled over the sun-drenched…

-- From "Captain O'Hay" a poem dedicated to

James McKay Rorty by Michael Scanlan, June, 1887

One of the many…

United States Army Military History Institute A confident looking Phil Sheridan, taken in late 1863.

By Joseph E. Gannon…

'BE REVOLUTIONARY': THE SPIRITS OF '76 AND '98

To the Irish that shared Constance Markievicz's life and times, the appellation, "The Countess" was enough to recall the fiery revolutionary and friend to Ireland's poor. Despite her exotic surname and title, she was born in Sligo, christened Constance Georgina Gore-Booth. Over the next few weeks, WGT will be chronicling the story of how Markievicz became a countess. The three-part narrative is adapted from WGT Connacht correspondent Joe McGowan's new biography, "Constance Markievicz: The…

By Brian C. Pohanka

The veil which conceals the future seems to be removed, and a glance, short and fleeting as the lightning flash, is permitted us into the gloomy valley before us.

       -- From Charles Lever's 'Charles O'Malley, the Irish Dragoon' (Dublin,…

By Brian C. Pohanka

All the bright aspirations of a soldier's glory, all my enthusiasm for the pomp and circumstance of glorious war, fell coldly upon my heart; and I looked upon the chivalry of a soldier's life as the empty pageantry of a dream.

-- From Charles Lever's 'Charles…

By Christine Kinealy   

Being on the twelfth day of July, eighteen and forty-nine,

The pagans of this country did together combine, 

To…

Company L, 106th Infantry, U.S. Army

Gerry Regan photo The grave of Sgt. Lawrence F. Condon, St. Raymond's Cemetery, Bronx, New…

By Brian C. Pohanka

Now I like Garryowen,

When I hear it at home,

But it's not half so sweet …

By Patricia Jameson-Sammartano

Culture Editor /TheWildGeese.com

(First published in 2007) Enticing and energetic only begin to describe "The Pirate Queen," now on…

 By Joseph E. Gannon

By John J. Concannon

By a stroke of good fortune, I became involved in an Irish/Irish American book writing project that is dear to my heart.

(Left: "Brothers of Ireland" by Don Troiani depicts the 69th New York and 9th Massachusetts Infantry regiments in battle at Gaines Mill,…

By Christine Kinealy (First produced in 2003)

By 1849, the nationalist threat had passed, but the Orange…