Writing about the country she loves, Susan Boland delivers a love letter to the ancestral homeland she triumphantly returned to: Ireland. This gifted storyteller, scripting one of the world's most beautiful coastlines, the Coast Road of Clew Bay, with her perceptive cultural insights and warm sense of humor, has delivered a landmark in travel writing.…

Opening in Movie theaters on January 10, 2014 “Lone Survivor” was the film adaptation of Chief Petty Officer Marcus Luttrell’s best-selling memoir, describing the heroism and sacrifice of a SEAL Reconnaissance Team in the Mountains of Afghanistan. The SEAL team was led by Lt. Michael P.…

Winfield Scott is well known as the hero of the Mexican War and as the over all commander of Federal forces during the beginning of the Civil War. Few have heard much about his experiences in the War of 1812, however. One…

By Joseph Gannon

Many men become known as heroes for their bravery in battle, for their willingness to face death in an effort to kill the enemy and obtain an objective, or for helping win the war for their country.

They are often celebrated by millions of their countrymen and…

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,…

Get ready for Father's Day...

Sunday, June 19th

This week's HOT DEALS are on a selection of gifts for Father's…

DOMHNAIGH -- On May 22, 1805, Young Irelander Michael Doheny (right) was born in Fethard, Co. Tipperary. Doheny joined O'Connell's Repeal Association in the 1830s and wrote for the Young Irelanders' publication, The Nation, under the name Eiranach. He fled to the United States in 1848, along with James…

Growing up on Long Island with two Irish-American parents was not a particularly Irish experience. Carmel Quinn records played on our stereo and were appreciated by all. My father regularly annoyed my mother by listening to bagpipe music. The truth was that my parents were American Irish who had lost contact with most…

I’m partial to the west coast of Ireland for its myriad wonders, which appear in small towns that are hidden like gemstones in neat grids of logic separated by rambling, idle roads. There are worlds within worlds in these Irish small towns: history and lineage and myth and folklore, meaning so resonate and full 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 Charlie Laverty

Just a few minutes drive from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., lies the modest village of Salisbury Mills. But its remembrance of the deeds of its men at war is far from modest: At the junction of two roads that course through the village stands a handsome…

I have not always been Gerry Regan.

I was born Patrick O’Connor, on February 26, 1953, to a woman I finally met 44 years later. And on learning my first and last name, I was frankly surprised. The name seemed stage-Irish, recalling for me, Harrigan and Hart. For a…

Here is a lovely story from Celtic mythology about the Luck Child, a baby found abandoned in a forest and found by three cattle herders.  The story tells of the loving relationship and bond these three men developed with the child as they brought her up and cared for her until she eventually…

There are perhaps no participants in war who see more of the agony and despair that it brings to humanity than the doctors and nurses who tend to its physically and mentally broken combatants. During the American Civil War, many women with no medical background took up the usually thankless and horrific job of tending to these…

"There are many noble traits in the Irish character, mixed with failings which have always raised obstacles to their own well-being; but an innate love of justice, and an indomitable hatred of oppression, is like a gem upon the front of our nation which no darkness can obscure. To this fine quality I trace their hatred of…

In my research on the history of the 28^th Massachusetts Volunteers, a Boston Irish regiment raised to be a part of Thomas Meagher’s Irish Brigade, the most surprising find was the identification of three Jewish soldiers who served in its ranks.  The three were included in a 19^th century effort by Jewish…

Perhaps some contributors may find this new book of interest:

"Have Ye No Homes To Go To? The History Of the Irish Pub"

By Kevin Martin

Release date: 15 May

Publisher: The Collins Press

Available to pre-order on Amazon etc.

The pub has been at the center of Irish life for…

William Thomas (Liam) Cosgrave was not one of the iconic figures of the early 1900s, nor indeed was he a man who had any real status of leadership in the 1916 Rising, although he was a chief adviser to Eamonn Ceannt during the 1916 Rising at South Dublin Union. It was an apt role because the vicinity was his home turf…

This story took place between 1920, when the Benedict Nuns arrived at Kylemore, and 1922, when the Black and Tans left Galway after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Peace Treaty in December 1921.

Patrick Carney, my father, was born in Cornamona, County Galway, in 1900. He was one of several young men in the area who championed the cause of Irish…