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…

DOMHNAIGH -- On January 11, 1775, Louis De Lacy (right), a soldier in the armies of Spain and France, was born in St. Roque, Spain, near Gibraltar, of Irish parents. Louis' father, Patrick, was an officer in the Irish Ultonia regiment of the Spanish…

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…

Lieutenant Tom McGuire was at 12,000 feet above Oro Bay, New Guinea in his P-38 fighter scanning the sky for Japanese planes. The 431st Fighter Squadron had scrambled from their Dubodura airbase to intercept a flight of Japanese bombers and their fighter escort on that October 17, 1943. McGuire…

January 6th is celebrated in Ireland as "Women's Christmas" (Nollaig na mBan).  More commonly known in other parts of the world as the Feast of the Epiphany, it marks the end of the Christmas period in Ireland.  It is known as "Women's Christmas" because of the…

In the late 18th century, the Irish in America were some of the most ardent and loyal supporters of the cause of American independence from British rule. Recent scholarship has put the participation of the Irish and Scots-Irish in Washington’s Army at 40% and possibly more. A few of those…

In Tombstone, Arizona, the town too tough to die, Nellie Cashman, the Miners’ Angel, is legendary for her business skills, her philanthropy and her Irish grit. Her biographer once said, when asked to describe her, “Pretty as a…

On New Year's Eve of 1602, Donal Cam O'Sullivan Beare (Domhnall Cam Ó Súilleabháin Bhéara), Chieftain of the great O'Sullivan clan of west Cork and 1,000 others from the area over which he ruled set out on one of the most harrowing and brutal treks in the history of Ireland.  Of…

In July 2013, I was honoured to give an oration at the graveside of Fr. John Bannon. The following, though long, is the text of my speech. Regards, Liam. (This post is part of a week-long series I've titled, 'Their Stories, Our Heritage, Not Forgotten', in honor of Irish Heritage Week 2020.) 

Commemoration…

Review by Kieron C. Punch / TheWildGeese.com

After the British army suppressed the Easter Rising 90 years ago, authorities loaded their take of nearly 1,900 prisoners onto cattle boats and shipped them across…

The life and times of Private Albert D.J. Cashier are one of those historic anomalies that make you scratch your head and wonder, ‘How the hell could that happen?’

Private Cashier served in the ranks of the 95th Illinois for three years – from their muster-in on September 4, 1862, until the regiment…

December 22nd, 2020, marked the 121st birthday of heroic women’s rights fighter Lucy Burns. Today, few remember Burns and take a woman’s right to vote for granted, forgetting that a century ago women were denied this basic American freedom. They also forget that women like Burns were imprisoned…

Grá - one of the most cherished words in the Irish language - means “love,” yet its warmth reaches far beyond a simple translation. It’s threaded through everyday Irish life: people speak of having a “huge grá for the GAA,” and parents like me, the ebook’s author, often send their children…

By Joseph Gannon

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false…

(Above: The Irish Brigade who fought alongside the Boers against the British army in the Anglo-Boer War. Col. John Blake is sitting in the front row 2nd to the left of the concertina player.

In far-off Africa to-day the English fly dismayed…

Marie Winifred Carney was born into a large family of seven children to Alfred / Sarah Cassidy Carney ; in Bangor, County Down – her parents were estranged for many years. Leo [missing child – a record of birth but no record of…

Fourteen-year-old Marcus Daly sat staring into the hearth of his family’s stone cottage in Derrylea, just outside the town of Ballyjamesduff in County Cavan. Closing his eyes he could still imagine his grandfather, who seemed to be 100 years old when Marcus was a boy, sitting across from…

Brigadier General Richard Montgomery – died during the

campaign for Quebec - County Donegal.

He was the 2nd of eight Brigadier Generals appointed by the Continental Congress

An Excerpt from James Francis Smith’s Irish in the American Revolution

Brigadier General Richard Montgomery

As he gazed at Fortress Quebec,…

Where dear Sandusky’s waters glide

From storied falls, through meadows wide,

By verdant hills on either side

To seek Lake Eiries’s famous tide:

On proud Fort Stephenson

 --- From the poem “Fort Stephenson,”

by Captain Andrew…