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…

DOMHNAIGH -- On April 27, 1779 Irish-born (County Donegal) U.S. Navy Capt. Gustavus Conyngham ,…

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…

Fort Sumter in Charleston harbour was fired on by Confederate forces in the early hours of April 12, 1861, the bombardment continuing well into the following day. Fortunately for Major Robert Anderson and his garrison, there were…

As John Paul Jones, captain of the Bonhomme Richard, prepared to face two British ships off Flamborough Head on the coast of England on September 23, 1779, he had some very interesting allies on board his…

On July first, we Canadians celebrate what we refer to as ‘Canada Day’, that day in 1867 when The British North America Act brought the Provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia together with the formal dividing lines for Ontario and Quebec, and these provinces together…

Like many women deserving of greater recognition, Kathleen Daly Clarke is often overshadowed by her famous husband, Thomas, one of the men who proclaimed the Irish Republic and was shot by the British for their role in the Dublin Rising of 1916; however, without his wife, Thomas Clarke would never have…

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.…

“Don’t wait for miracles, your whole life is a miracle.”

-- Professor Albert Einstein

On a clear day, you get to the 9 a.m. Mass at St. Anne’s on Dartmouth Avenue in Garden City, N.Y., around 8:40 (or…

In 2013 our annual trek to Ireland brought us to a pleasant small cottage in the little village of Lahardane, County Mayo. The choice had been more about it being a centrally located base…

It was a lovely spring morning in the foothills of the Knockmealdown Mountains in southern County Tipperary on April 10, 1923. Six members of the Irish Republican Army, then engaged in the Irish Civil War against the Free State…

DOMHNAIGH - On April 5, 1818, Bernardo O'Higgins  (left) defeated the…

Women from all walks of life, all over Ireland, were just as interested in Irish Independence as their male counterparts in the Irish Volunteers, The Citizen Army, and Sinn…

When it came to the grand plan of how the Irish, with their meager resources, could defeat the forces of the greatest empire on earth in the Irish War of Independence, Michael Collins was the great architect who drew up the “flying column” blue print. But no matter how great the architect, other men have to take that…

A controversial figure from a very early age in Irish politics and journalism, Arthur Griffith has been noted by some source’s in history, as a man who courted controversy.  While he was a great orator, and not a monarchist himself, he struggled to get people to embrace his concept of a dual – monarchy, to allow Ireland…