On July 22, 2013 I formed this group to honor my Roscommon heritage.  We now have over 1,500 members worldwide who are focused on researching their Roscommon heritage as well as helping others with  Roscommon research.  There is no charge for our services. If your heritage includes County Roscommon, we would be happy to have…

George Arthur French was born at Roscommon, Ireland in 1841. He was educated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and commissioned in the Royal Artillery in 1860. 

In 1871, at the request of the Canadian government, he was sent…

Read part one here.

January 4, 1865 the Provost Marshal General James B.…

On Sunday April 16, 1865, Secretary of War Edwin McMasters Stanton was in his office dealing with the sudden blow of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln two nights earlier, at Ford’s Theater. He pondered how to hunt down and capture the conspirators, for in addition to…

Check out our past quizzes here.

Between the years of 1845 and 1852, Ireland’s population was reduced by about 20% due to the impacts of the Potato Famine, also known as The Great Famine or in our native language ‘An Gorta Mór.’  It is…

Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore grew up in a town called Ballygar, County Galway -- today a lovely place on the road from Roscommon to Galway. In the 1820s, the Landlord decided he would build a town because he had a large estate and much produce. This would produce more income and give…

by Dr. Christine…

Garden City, N.Y. -- “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” is the opening verse of a song sung by Tara O’Grady at the Irish Cultural Society meeting on December 10,…

There are more than just Christmas lights illuminating the darkness as the sun rises on the Winter Solstice in Ireland. On December 21, a marvelous event occurs at Bru na Boinne. On a hill in the Boyne Valley of County Meath stands a complex of three monuments to the early…

The Healy family is an interesting Irish-American and and African-American family.  I did the following book review a couple of years back:

Passing for White: Race, Religion, and the Healy Family, 1820-1920

by James M. O’Toole

Reviewed by John Edward “Ed” Murphy

I first learned of the Healy family in January 1959, when I paged…

The  following is a transcript from the LIVE Community Chat held here at TheWildGeese.com on Friday, June 20, 2014 with with Éilís Crean, the founder of a very creative online Irish community called…

I have not always been Gerry Regan.

I was born Patrick O’Connor, on February 26, 1953, to a woman I finally met 44 years later. And on learning my first and last name, I was frankly surprised. The name seemed stage-Irish, recalling for me, Harrigan and Hart. For a…

In this, the Year of the Horse, I am becoming more and more disheartened by the news stories and social media postings of various Animal rescues of Ireland with whom I am associated. There seems to be an epidemic of sorts. Horses left to starve in fields, locked in barns without food or water, left to the elements of these…

The Sister Cities Program - 500 US Cities - 1900 connections worldwide - 140 Countries

A sister city organization is a volunteer group of ordinary citizens who, with the support of their local elected officials, form long-term relationships with people and organizations in a city abroad. Each sister city organization is independent and pursues the…

Sixteen Films screenwriter Paul Laverty (pictured at left) has called out CIA chief John Brennan, seeking an apology from him "for all the misery and murder that the institution has caused around the world." The former human rights lawyer was speaking in Effernagh, County Leitrim, at an August 16 commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Irish government's expulsion of…

New York -- Today I once again had the pleasure of communing with several dozen gathered at the Irish Consulate’s monthly and public “First Friday Business Breakfast.” Imbibing orange…

In a way of introducing myself, I thought I might share some of my "Trail Tales" from previous journeys home...

I think we shall start with this one:

Sing Us a Song, Cowboy!

By Catherine Lilbit Devine © August 18, 2006

Whispers of the West has made our second journey to the Emerald Isle to perform our Music…