One of the most iconic figures that emerged out of the Easter Rising was Michael Collins. Born in 1890, he was the third son in a family of eight children. Some sources would suggest that the Collins family were part of a very ancient clan who were widely spread over County Cork. 

Collins' father did not marry…

On June 23, 1963 the people of Ireland fell in love with a member of “The Wild Geese” who had less than five months to live. If ever an American politician had a style and ease that allowed the people of Ireland to see the “Irish” in him, it was John Fitzgerald Kennedy. By the summer of 1963 he had become the…

By way of introduction I should tell you that I have great affection for the United States of America. Just over a century ago most of my uncles and aunts migrated from a dirt-poor part of Donegal to settle in Chicago. If my mother hadn’t married a home-bird and moved to Derry with him I would now be living somewhere in…

'My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.' -- JFK

For JFK

May 29, 1917 - Nov…

For over 50 years, the practice of cherry picking, to prove a specific presumption, has trapped those endeavoring to solve Kennedy's assassination in a verbal…

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…

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…

In the following three-part series, Sixteen Films' screenwriter Paul Laverty writes about the genesis of "Jimmy's Hall." His observations were first published in Sixteen Films' Production Notes, and are reproduced here with permission. Production Photos see here are by Joss…

See "Jimmy's Hall" and Win an Official Poster …

The real Jimmy Gralton in 1944

By Donal Ó Drisceoil

Jimmy Gralton returned to Leitrim from New York in June 1921, just as the Anglo-Irish war was coming to a close. That conflict between…

Check out our past quizzes here.

Israeli citizens are poised to go to the polls March 17th to vote in an election that will determine who will be the next Prime Minister.  According to yesterday's New York Times front page story headlined,…

Hanna Sheehy-Skefffington, (above, center) born 24 May 1877, was one of Ireland’s most ardent promoters of women’s rights. She was an influential figure during the suffragette movement, tirelessly campaigning for the equal status of men and…

Somewhere we have a penciled thank-you note from John W. Davis, who is about as famous as whichever team finished third in the National League pennant race in 1939. (It was the Dodgers, 12 1/2 games out.) Davis was the Democratic nominee for President in 1924, and he…

New York -- News of the passing of former New York state Governor Mario Cuomo reminds me of one of several serendipitous encounters I had with the Governor, whom I once happily envisioned as US president. With his flights of eloquence, his progressive views, and staunch opposition to the death penalty, he seemed to exude the self-assurance and humanism…

In "Machine Made: Tammany Hall and The Creation of Modern American Politics," author Terry Golway doesn’t sugar-coat the negative aspects of a New York institution that flourished for about 100 years. What he does is swing the pendulum back from a crazy imbalance caused by…

James Kennedy McGuire, the “boy mayor” of Syracuse, NY, is…

The following is a transcript taken from the LIVE Community Chat chat hosted here at TheWildGeese.com on Friday, November 22, 2013 -- the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination.  Some editing has been applied for clarity.

The Wild Geese:  Céad míle fáilte, a chairde! So glad to see…

British filmmaker Ken Loach is turning his practiced muse and penetrating focus once again toward Ireland with a new film exploring the disabilities inflicted on Ireland's working classes, this time in the aftermath of Irish independence.

According to a report this week in…