On October 30, 1963, Cahirsiveen, County Kerry, Ireland, saw the largest outpouring of grief in more than a century as Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty was laid to rest. Although born in County Cork, he grew up in Killarney, where his father was the steward of the old Killarney Golf Club. Hugh retired to…

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…

Back in October of 2017, I wrote an article titled “From Dunkirk to Nagasaki: The Long War of Dr. Aidan MacCarthy,” about a hero of WWII who…

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…

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…

There are many stirring tales of Irish and Irish-American military heroes in the long history of the United States. From…

(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…

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,…

Richard Hetherington O'Kane (below-right, in his Annapolis graduation photo) was born on February 2, 1911 in Dover, New Hampshire, a town near the Atlantic coast with a population of about 13,000 at the time. His father, Dr. Walter Collins O'Kane, was a professor of entomology at the University. Richard attended…

Noel Brady was standing with his father at the hall  door of their family home on St. Ignatius Road in Dublin’s North Strand area when they heard the drone of a Nazi Luftwaffe bomber flying overhead.

“I saw flashes in the sky. My father shoved me onto the…

The 2012 Olympic Games in London reminded me of my Dad (photo left, during World War 2). He lived in the great battered city during World War II, part of a colorful U.S. Army career that included:

* Discovering that the cook at Gardner Field in Taft, just over the county line of my Central California home, was…

Part 2 of 3 of the series ‘We Will Probably Land Christmas Day’: At War in the Atlantic, 1942 

Part 1 of 2, “Getting To Where We Are Going” includes my father's accounts of his first quiet week on the high…

No large operation in World War II surpassed the invasion of North Africa in complexity, daring, risk, or -- as the official U.S. Army Air Forces history concludes -- 'the degree of strategic surprise achieved.'



     -- Author Rick Atkinson,…