As the brilliant rays of the morning sun began to flash off the whitewashed adobe wall in Santiago, Cuba, 30-year-old William Albert Charles Ryan reflected that it would be yet another beautiful day on the tropical island he had come to love. He could hear the sweet songs of a few…

They have called us Rebels and Traitors,

But themselves have thrown off that name of late;

They were called it by the English Invaders,

At home—in the year of "Ninety-Eight ..."

-- from "Kelly’s Irish Brigade"

For…

He stands in bronze and he stands on granite,

Facing the river where the fleet turned tail;

The stone lists the Davis Guards upon it,

Names that rhyme in the songs of the Gael.*

Around 3:30 on an afternoon of September 8^th 1863, on…

I see the long, blue line, push back the rebel pickets

Far stretched o’er hill and dale; through break and thickets.

My old heart leaps

As up the steeps

Rock-crowned and flinty:

I see the dash,

And hear the crash,

Where leads the peerless…

Jane [Jennie] Wyse-Power nee O'Toole was born in Baltinglass, County Wicklow, in 1856 to Edward And Mary O’Toole [nee Norton]. Her father owned his own business and before she was two years of age her father had sold his business and moved the family to Dublin. Some sources say she attended attended Warrenmount National School or the Loreto Day School Dublin.

Pictured, 'Liberty Girls,' with Wyse-Power in the…

Deadlines were common forms of crowd control in military prisons of the Civil War era, especially open stockade type prisons. What constituted the deadline varied widely from prison to prison. At many prisons, such as Andersonville, Camp Lawton, Camp Douglas, and Florence, the…

St. Patrick's Old Cathedral Archives Old St. Patrick's Cathedral, 1860. Armed men protected the church against threats of Nativist violence against the church, the seat of the Archdiocese of New York.

 …

When a real-estate agent has less foot traffic than desired, he remodels the house, paints it, gets rid of the clutter, adds features the competition doesn’t have, and reduces the price.

That’s what happened to Western Civilization. It endured a title change, a new cover, a price reduction, and new features to educate while telling an interest-gripping story.

Visit my blog www.theirish-americanstory.com for…