LUAIN -- On August 29, 1803, Samuel Neilson, one of the founders of the United Irishmen, died in Poughkeepsie, New York. The son of a Presbyterian minister, Neilson had made a fortune in business by 1790, then he dedicated himself to Irish politics. It was Neilson, a native of Ballyroney, County…

David Goodall was born in 1931. One side of his family had Wexford ancestors who were on both sides of the 1798 Rising. Though he had no professional involvement in Anglo-Irish relations until 1982, Goodall had a lifelong scholarly interest in Irish and, especially, Wexford history. He was president of…

There once was a time when Irish giants roamed the earth, their feats of strength and courage becoming legendary. However, these were not the mythical Cuchulain, or Finn McCool; they were real men who pushed the boundary of what was thought to be humanly possible. They were known as “the Irish Whales” for their size and strength and they dominated the strength events of the Olympics for the first part of the 20th century.…

DOMHNAIGH -- On August 7, 1890 labor organizer and American Communist Party official…

It been a while since anyone held my feet to the fire over what I wrote, but Patrick O'Toole questioned some of the facts in my 7/5/16 blog America's Birthday and the Irish. I can assure you that none of the information I…

MÁIRT -- On July 26, 1739, George Clinton, soldier, first governor of New York, and vice president of the United States, was born in Little Britain, N.Y., of Irish Protestant parents. Clinton served in his father's New York state militia unit during the French…

LUAIN -- On July 12, 1691, the Jacobite army in Ireland fought the forces of…

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…

LUAIN-- On June 27, 1862, the Irish 9th Massachusetts Infantry regiment of the Union Army was heavily engaged at the battle of Gaines Mill, Virginia, during McClellan's Peninsula Campaign. Put into an exposed, forward position near the bridge over Powhite Creek, the regiment sustained heavy casualties while delaying the…

DOMHNAIGH -- On May 8, 1857, William Brown, of Foxford, Co. Mayo, an Admiral in the Argentine navy, died in Buenos Aires. Brown first came to the New World as a boy, when his family immigrated to the United States in 1786. He later went to sea on a merchant ship. Pressed into the…

DOMHNAIGH -- Beginning on April 3 and continuing to May 8, 1781, the Irish Hibernia regiment of Spain helped lay siege to British forces in Pensacola, Florida, during the …

DOMHNAIGH-- On March 27, 1872, Mary MacSwiney (Maire Nic Shuibhne), republican activist, was born in Surrey, England, of an Irish father and an English mother.

(Left: National Library of Ireland: Mary MacSwiney, in her later…

DOMHNAIGH -- On March 20, 1780, Miles Byrne, United Irishman and officer in Napoleon's Irish Legion, was born in Co. Wexford. He was active in the 1798 Rising in Wexford and fought all its major battles, right through the rebels' climactic defeat at Vinegar Hill.

(Right: The…

The Mississippi Territory existed from April 7, 1798, until December 10, 1817. The Territory had the usual frontier problems of land claims and the establishment of law. The attraction of vast amounts of high quality, inexpensive land ideal for growing cotton attracted hordes of settlers. From 1798 through 1820, the…

DOMHNAIGH -- On March 6, 1831, Philip Sheridan, one of the greatest Union generals on the American Civil War, was born. We know he was the son of Irish immigrants, but his place of birth is uncertain, with Albany, New York; somewhere in Ohio; at sea; and County…

MÁIRT -- On March 1, 1776, Irish-born Andrew Lewis was appointed a brigadier general in the Continental…

I’d like to take a moment and explain my absence from contributing to “The Wild Geese.” I caught the bug. In my upcoming novel, “The Final-Word,” covering Kennedy’s assassination, I’m bringing SH over from England to resolve the century’s most intently studied, but as yet, unsolved murder. The world’s most famous detective would likely describe his task as assembling an extensive jigsaw puzzle. A puzzle missing many of the pieces — some by intent, others by sloppy…

LUAIN -- On February 22, 1886, Conservative Party politician Lord Randolph Churchill, father of Winston Churchill, gave what many consider one of the single most destructive speeches in Irish history, inciting militant loyalists at Ulster Hall…