Sgt. Henry Gallagher of B Company, 2nd Battalion, 24^th (2^nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot, who was from Thurles, County Tipperary, paced up and down behind the red-clad soldiers looking over the mealie bag fortifications at Rorke’s Drift. He lifted…

Downloadable below is a document I drew up back in 2011 in relation to the Irish that served in June 1876 with George Armstrong Custer.

Custer's…

To our readers and fellow members of TheWildGeese.irish community:

We are as a community startled, enraged and greatly saddened by the death May 25 of African-American George Floyd at the hands of a Minnesota police officer. As we reexamine race…

On May 3rd 1863 , General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, having crossed the Rappahanock River, was readying to fight again.

Earlier that morning, Lee ordered one of his two corps commanders, Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, to get around and…

Reverend Peter Cooney, CSC

My Grandfather Tom left Westport, Mayo, and farm life in Aughagower, I assume around 1923.  As one of the "Lost Legion" of Irish republicans, disgruntled by the affairs of the state, he decided to emigrate. Accompanied by his best friend "Ton" Malone, he set out one evening from a…

On the day following Christmas 1849, the barque “Bridgetown” finally docked in New Orleans and its 258 passengers disembarked. One of the cabin passengers was a 21 year old Irishman who was destined to become the recipient of great admiration, devotion and loyalty especially during the last four…

A heroine, beyond any doubt, our own Irish Joan of Arc, was Betsy Grey,  a folk hero to all of Ulster, with both loyalist and republicans claiming her as their own. She was a Presbyterian, with links to the United Irishman, a nonsectarian revolutionary movement, as were her father, brother and her…

I have recently been reading transcripts of British House of Commons parliamentary debates for the period 1919-1921 in search of information relating to the Irish War for Independence and came across the following:

On 12 May, 1921, the Member of Parliament A.E.Newbould asked how many Irish…

Chicago Times correspondent John Finerty wiped his brow, drying the sweat from the hot July 7^th afternoon, as he looked up to the top of the grassy knoll where scout Frank Grouard was scanning the horizon with his binoculars. They were near the valley of the Little Bighorn in what is…

This, the latest book by retired Lt Col Dan Harvey, represents an admirably huge amount of meticulous research and yet is highly readable. I had been aware that my own local regiment – The Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry – had long connections with Ireland and that they…

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…

Louis Philip Brennan was born on Main Street, Castlebar, County Mayo, on January 28, 1852, the 10th child of Thomas Brennan, a hardware merchant in the town. 

‘Mad Mike’ Hoare believed you get more out of life by living dangerously. And yet about 35 family and friends gathered in Durban, South Africa, on 17 March, St Patrick’s Day, to honour Mike as he turned 100 years old. Among them were five of the Wild Geese who fought with him in the Congo in the…

Among “Wild Bill “ Donovan’s many fascinating friends was Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, the fictional, globe trotting superspy. Donovan’s real-life feats, however, surpassed even Bond’s wildest exploits.

Perhaps no other Irish-American served his country more daringly, yet Donovan’s largely…

The (New York) Evening World declares the war over on Nov. 7, four days before the Armistice was formally signed. (Library of Congress)

To commemorate 100 years since the ending of the First World War, Find My Past is offering free access to its family history database collections this weekend from 12:00 noon (GMT)…

In 1798, the new Oaths issued by the Wexford Council had good effect. As Crown forces gathered on Wexford’s borders for the showdown, Nicholas Gray, Secretary of the Council, wrote on 16 June to Fr. Philip Roche, the new commander‑in‑chief. Gray was desperate for reinforcements for his Southern Army, which had…

(Edwin O'Hara, loading the 4 inch gun on the SS Stephen Hopkins. By W.M. Wilson, on display at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.)

For them there are no big parades, 

No heroes' welcome gay,

No uniforms, and no applause 

To cheer them on…

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…

It was 1948, and as the military half-track drove through the Beit Netofa Valley, at the village of Madna in Galilee, shots rang out. One Israeli soldier was killed and another was hit in the head. A sniper had zeroed in on the men and was picking them off one by one.

Then, one of the half-track’s occupants, a tall,…