Excerpts from James Francis Smith’s The Civil War’s Valiant Irish

The Begining

The Derry native nodded to his brigadier commander, Joshua Owen. Not expecting nor receiving a return greeting, he didn’t bother to salute. O’Kane crossed to the most distant campfire, where Duffy and Devereux joined him. His first question was a repeat of one he asked every night.

“Is that bastid Welshman drunk or sober?”

Tonight, Duffy responded. “He’s well on his way, but not there…

If you have seen seen the movie "Gettysburg," you might notice that during the climatic Pickett's Charge, behind the Union line at the Bloody Angle are two flags, the Regimental stars and stripes, and the state flag--green with a gold trim. This green flag was the only Pennsylvania flag not…

”They could take our land, starve our poor, destroy our homes and plunder our institutions; they could deny us education, but they could not destroy our music and song” No truer words were ever spoken. These are by Derek Warfield himself.

Derek Warfield is a singer, songwriter, mandolin player and a founding member of…

On the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, here are two different recordings of my song Prayer From Little Round Top, a song inspired by the story of a young irish immigrant who died there.

The Confederate soldier in this song left Connemara Ireland with his family when he was a boy. They had just buried his twin sister. In America the family settled in…

Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork 'Men of the South' by Sean Keating, depicting the men of an IRA Flying Column during the War of Independence.

LUAIN --…

The story of…

Both the Blue-Gray Alliance & the National Park Service are having Gettysburg reenactments. Neither will be complete unless they include the following.

Colonel Patrick O’Rorke, County…

As February’s Black History Month fades into memory and March’s Irish History Month begins its ascendancy, there’s a brief moment where the black takes on a tinge of green.

Few realize that these two ethnic groups, African-Americans and Irish-Americans, who together make up one-quarter of…