Chicago River Dyed Green for St. Patrick's Day

[Cross-Post from Chief O'Neill Blog]

What would Chief…

The story of Chief O'Neill owes a great debt to his great-granddaughter Mary Lesch. It was Mary who followed through on family stories and hunted down her famous ancestor's unpublished manuscript. Then, with the aid of Chicago historian…

Francis O'Neill started as a policeman on August 17th, 1873. At that time, Chicago was still recovering from the devastation of the Great Fire a couple of years before. Francis had his own tragedies to contend with: He and his wife Anna lost their first child during that difficult time, and he struggled to keep a steady job in…

Tombstone erected by Francis O'Neill in memory of his parents.

On a recent visit to West Cork, I had the fortune to properly explore Tralibane and the surrounding area. I was bowled over by the…

“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

In 1897, Mark Twain was reported to have made this famous statement upon being…

Down the hill from Francis O'Neill's homeplace of Tralibane, County Cork, is an 18th century stone bridge. If you closely read O'Neill's work, Tralibane bridge turns out to be personally very important to him, as a place and a tune. He wrote about the spot a number of times, particularly the "Pattern Dances" the community held there. No doubt this experience at a…