Joe Gannon's Blog (123)

From Dunkirk to Nagasaki: The Long War of Dr. Aidan MacCarthy



Aidan MacCarthy crouched low in the air raid shelter he and the other prisoners of war had dug themselves. They had seen two American B-29 bombers flying toward the city of Nagasaki before they went into the shelter. A few POWs had stayed outside, though, wanting to see bombs fall on the Japanese for a bit of…

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Added by Joe Gannon on October 13, 2017 at 10:30pm — 6 Comments

The Confederate Monument Issue: Is It Pride or Prejudice?

They have called us Rebels and Traitors,

But themselves have thrown off that name of late;

They were called it by the English Invaders,

At home—in the year of "Ninety-Eight ..."

-- from "Kelly’s Irish Brigade"

For…

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Added by Joe Gannon on September 26, 2017 at 9:00pm — 4 Comments

The Rineen Ambush: Hell Comes to County Clare

Come all you gallant Irishmen, come listen for a while

I’ll sing to you the praises of the sons of Erin’s Isle

’Tis of an awful, awful ambush I’d have you to beware

That happened in Rineen, in a spot in County Clare.…

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Added by Joe Gannon on September 2, 2017 at 8:30pm — 13 Comments

Valentine Trant McGillycuddy: Crazy Horse's Friend

On a hot September day in 1877 on the Pine Ridge reservation in the Dakota Territory (now South Dakota), a large group of angry Sioux were crowded around the guard house. Writhing in pain on the ground before them, bleeding profusely from his abdomen, lay one of the greatest leaders of the Native American resistance to the U.S.…

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Added by Joe Gannon on August 7, 2017 at 11:00pm — 7 Comments

'Peg-Leg' Shannon: 'Lost Boy' of the Lewis & Clark Expedition

(“Lewis and Clark at Celilo Falls, Columbia River” from a mural by Frank H. Schwarz)

Nineteen-year-old George Shannon nervously trotted his horse across the flat ground to the north bank of the Missouri River and began scanning…

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Added by Joe Gannon on June 21, 2017 at 10:30pm — 7 Comments

The Carrowkennedy Ambush: Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Cold

It was late afternoon of a warm day in June in Carrowkennedy, County Mayo. Irish Volunteer Jimmy O’Flaherty (right) heard the warning cry, “HERE THEY…

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Added by Joe Gannon on May 20, 2017 at 9:00pm — 7 Comments

This Week in the History of the Irish: May 14 - May 20

MÁIRT -- On May 15, 1847, The Syria, the first ship to arrive during what Quebecois would call the 'Summer of Sorrow,' landed at the Canadian quarantine station in the St. Lawrence River, just north of Quebec. The French had called that island 'Grosse Ile,' but since 1847 many have called it…

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Added by Joe Gannon on May 13, 2017 at 10:00am — 3 Comments

The St. Patrick's Day Champ: Clare's 'Bold Mike' McTigue

The exhausted Irish boxer stood in the middle of the makeshift boxing ring in the smoke-filled La Scala opera house in Dublin. Sweat was trickling down his face, tinged scarlett with a bit of blood oozing from a cut above his left eye. His chest was heaving with a heavy breathing -- a mixture of fatigue and…

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Added by Joe Gannon on May 9, 2017 at 9:30pm — 7 Comments

1981 Hunger Strikes: On the Threshold of Another Trembling World

Among the most powerless men in the world are those in prisons. Your body no longer belongs to you; it belongs to the state. Every day you are told when to get up, when to go to bed, when you can exercise, when you can see your family, and also, when you can eat. Hidden within that last power of the state, however, is a…

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Added by Joe Gannon on May 5, 2017 at 8:00pm — 6 Comments

Confederate Hero, Dick Dowling: Miracle at Sabine Pass

He stands in bronze and he stands on granite,

Facing the river where the fleet turned tail;

The stone lists the Davis Guards upon it,

Names that rhyme in the songs of the Gael.*

Around 3:30 on an afternoon of September 8th 1863, on…

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Added by Joe Gannon on April 23, 2017 at 4:00pm — 3 Comments

Mountain Man Thomas Fitzpatrick: Legendary 'Broken Hand'

On a crisp, clear afternoon in what is now southwest Montana, in January 1836, a thin bearded man in his mid-30s, dressed in buckskin, was racing across the valley of the meandering Yellowstone River on the back of a very fast horse. Ahead of him in the distance, lit by the bright sunlight, he could see the…

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Added by Joe Gannon on April 12, 2017 at 9:30pm — 8 Comments

John Paul Jones and His Irish Marines

As John Paul Jones, captain of the Bonhomme Richard, prepared to face two British ships off Flamborough Head on the coast of England on September 23, 1779, he had some very interesting allies on board his…

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Added by Joe Gannon on April 8, 2017 at 2:30pm — 2 Comments

The Lispole Ambush -- Averting Disaster on the Dingle Peninsula

If you ever drive down the south side of the beautiful and scenic Dingle Peninsula in Co. Kerry, as I did with my wife, brother and sister-in-law last June (and everyone should, at least one in their lives), you will pass through the small village of Lispole on N-86 a few miles before you get to Dingle town. As you make…

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Added by Joe Gannon on March 20, 2017 at 1:30pm — 20 Comments

Westward, Ho! John J. Healy, Montana Pioneer

(Above: "When Wagon Trails Were Dim," Charles Russell's depiction of a wagon train in the American west.)

Many men and women with Irish roots participated in the “winning” of the West for the new nation that was growing into a…

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Added by Joe Gannon on March 14, 2017 at 10:30pm — 6 Comments

The Battle of Crossbarry: ... 'Who Piped Old Ireland Free'

They sought to wipe the column out,

From east to west, from north to south,

“Till at Crossbarry’s bloody rout

They woke from their day dreaming

Though ten to one they were that day

Our boys were victors in the fray,

And over the hills we marched…

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Added by Joe Gannon on February 10, 2017 at 10:30am — 11 Comments

This Week in the History of the Irish: January 22 - January 28

DEARDAOIN - January 22, 1760, at Wandewash, India, General Thomas Arthur Comte de Lally's French army, including his regiment of the Irish Brigade, was defeated by…

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Added by Joe Gannon on January 21, 2017 at 10:00am — No Comments

Mayo's Robert Horatio George Minty: Past Imperfect Hero

I see the long, blue line, push back the rebel pickets

Far stretched o’er hill and dale; through break and thickets.

My old heart leaps

As up the steeps

Rock-crowned and flinty:

I see the dash,

And hear the crash,

Where leads the peerless…

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Added by Joe Gannon on January 14, 2017 at 9:30am — 9 Comments

This Week in the History of the Irish: December 25 - December 31

DOMHNAIGH -- On Dec. 25, 1808, Stephen Clegg Rowan who would serve in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War and later be promoted to admiral, was born in Dublin. Rowan immigrated to…

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Added by Joe Gannon on December 24, 2016 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Mayo's Father Andrew Conroy: Martyr of the 1798 Rising

There’s many a lonely hearth-stone tonight in wide Mayo,

There’s many a gallant heart content again can never know

But darkest woe and grief for him the saintly true and tried,

Who on the Saxon scaffold that day for freedom died.

         --  From “The Priest of Addergool,” by William Rooney (Founder of…

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Added by Joe Gannon on November 26, 2016 at 7:00pm — 4 Comments

'In Harm’s Way': America’s Greatest Submarine Commander

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…

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Added by Joe Gannon on October 11, 2016 at 8:30pm — 2 Comments

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