"Every civilization in this world built on top of the one they conquered. You go to Rome or Jerusalem or Paris, France, and it's cities stacked on top of towns, stacked on top of villages, stacked on top of one man's house built on top of one man's…

MÁIRT -- On March 11, 1858, Irish revolutionary Thomas James Clarke was born of Irish parents on the Isle of Wight but the family moved to Dungannon, County Tyrone, shortly after that. His father, James Clarke, was a sergeant in the British Army. Thomas spent part of his…

March is traditionally known as Irish Heritage month and this is highlighted on March 17th. with large parades in many towns and cities around the world. The parades are held in honor of a unique individual named Patricius, a Roman Briton, taken with his two sisters as hostages to Ireland by one…

If as an Irishman/Irishwoman you've ever wondered where you got your love of the spoken word, your love of storytelling, your love of long winded conversation, the following…

St. Colmcille, also known as St. Columba, was born on this day Dec. 7 in 521 AD in Gartan, modern day County Donegal, Ireland.…

In the early evening they would gather in the grove, beneath the sheltering embrace of the sacred white oak tree. The Master had carefully dowsed the area, and had chosen it for the serene beauty and peaceful aura. The salmon-filled, crystal clear waters of the river wound a course through the…

Irish Volunteer Seán Hogan gazed out the window of the train toward the distant Galtee Mountains to the south. It was early evening on May 13, 1919. The train had just pulled out of Emly, County Tipperary, headed toward the small town of…

On a cold, wet evening in 576 AD, a flotilla of small, wave-tossed, leather-covered boats with tattered cloth sails, came to rest on the rocky shores of Lough Foyle close to the modern-day town of Limavady in what is now County Derry, Ireland. Upon…

Irish Fashion

Customs & Traditions

 Capes, Shawls and The…

Ask most people who they believe were the first group of foreigners to launch highly organized, violent raids in Ireland, and more often than not, they will say it was the Vikings, who raided Lambay Island in 795 A.D. What many people are not aware of is the fact that a century before the emergence of the Vikings, an…

On a July day nearly 130 years ago, an unknown and homesick young Irish writer trudged along a busy London street. He stopped suddenly and stood still, for he thought he could hear the tinkling of water in the midst of the bustling thoroughfare. He followed the sound and found he was looking in a shop window. There…

Three of Ireland’s well-loved 18^th century Gaelic poets lie at rest in the graveyard of Creggan Church, near to my hometown of Crossmaglen, County Armagh. The poets, Filid Art Mc Cooey, Padraig MacAliondain and the rapparee poet Seamus mor MacMurphy sleep under the oaks and elms in the company…

I’m partial to the west coast of Ireland for its myriad wonders, which appear in small towns that are hidden like gemstones in neat grids of logic separated by rambling, idle roads. There are worlds within worlds in these Irish small towns: history and lineage and myth and folklore, meaning so resonate and full of…

“But I don’t live in Galway,” a County Clare man said to me regarding his new postal address.

His mail is sorted in Galway City.

Ireland has introduced postal codes for the first time to increase the efficiency of the letter / parcel delivery system. As with other countries, the post office is suffering…

Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut, has just published four new folios of research into the period of The Irish Famine under the collective title Famine Folios.

These compelling essays take a fresh and…

When the Black and Tans were first deployed in Ireland in March 1920, they soon proved themselves to be a pretty brutal bunch. They were liberal with the use of their rifles, were often drunk and even engaged in arson and robbery.

The Tans were ex-servicemen, many of them scarred from their time in the…

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Have you ever had a place strike at the core of you, even though you've never been there?  It's a sort of remembering....like something calling to you that you don't really understand yet.   Like fog rolling off of hills as the landscape reveals itself, or a walk through a wood so covered in moss and foliage you feel…

I want to return to Western Ireland for spiritual and artistic reasons. In college I fell in love with Irish literature, from the pagan/pre-medieval myths to the current day. I love Irish music, too. And oddly enough, I married a man from County Cork (we met in college). My mother’s family has a lot of Irish heritage as well. We are descended from a man who came on a ship to New York Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1847. I can only imagine what was in Martin’s heart when he left Cork and when he…

A trip to the West of Ireland would be a lifetime dream come true for me.  I have never been to Ireland and have always had a great longing to go.  I live in the western side of San Francisco and have many Irish friends and neighbors.  There is a spirit among these people like no other I have felt before.  My Irish friends are loving, spirited and proud people with a gift of gab.  I love spending time with these lovely people.  I have some Irish roots but have not formally explored my…

Ok, so really I’m completely obsessed with and addicted to Irish butter. We eat it every single day. To be exact, I did the math and we eat 24 ounces every week, which comes out to…drumroll please….72 pounds/32.5 kg a year! It is the best butter on the planet so of course it comes from this magical country. That being said, Ireland is literally in my blood in more ways than one! I’ve always known that my roots on my mother’s side go…