Joe Gannon's Blog (123)

Gustavus Conyngham, USN: The “Dunkirk Pirate” from Donegal

Gustavus Conyngham is known to history as the “Dunkirk Pirate,” but that was the name the British gave him. It was not a name that he ever would have given himself. He thought of himself only as, Gustavus Conyngham, USN (United States Navy). He was never, in fact, a pirate. He was a commissioned officer in the new U.S…

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Added by Joe Gannon on September 6, 2016 at 11:00pm — 10 Comments

General Phil Kearny: 'The One-Armed Devil'

Unlike most other Irish and Irish-Americans who fought in the American Civil War, Philip Kearny was born into a prominent and affluent family in New York City on June 1, 1815. The Kearny name, quite appropriately, came from the Gaelic "O Catharnaigh," derived from the word "cearnach," meaning "warlike" or “victorious.”…

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Added by Joe Gannon on August 11, 2016 at 7:00am — 2 Comments

'Mary Boyle - The Untold Story'



Here is the trailer for a documentary written and directed by Gemma O'Doherty about the case of Ireland's youngest missing person. Mary Boyle vanished on her…

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Added by Joe Gannon on July 11, 2016 at 5:30pm — 4 Comments

Patrick White: A Clareman's Tragic Death on Spike Island

On our vacation in Ireland in June 2015 we took the boat trip out to Spike Island in Cobh harbor in Co. Cork. Cobh is famous as last port of call of the Titanic. Spike Island is most often mentioned in Irish history as a place where many Irish political prisoners were held over the years. Cobh was a major port…

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Added by Joe Gannon on June 22, 2016 at 8:30am — 8 Comments

Tom Barry: 'We May Have Great Men, But We’ll Never Have Better'

When it came to the grand plan of how the Irish, with their meager resources, could defeat the forces of the greatest empire on earth in the Irish War of Independence, Michael Collins was the great architect who drew up the “flying column” blue print. But no matter how great the architect, other men have to take that…

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Added by Joe Gannon on May 31, 2016 at 10:00pm — 14 Comments

Winfield Scott: Defender of Irish Rights ... Once

Winfield Scott is well known as the hero of the Mexican War and as the over all commander of Federal forces during the beginning of the Civil War. Few have heard much about his experiences in the War of 1812, however. One…

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Added by Joe Gannon on May 26, 2016 at 1:30pm — 2 Comments

The Kilmeena Ambush, May 19, 1921: Seeds of Victory in a Defeat

In the early part of the Irish War of Independence there had not been any major ambushes of Crown forces in County Mayo, unlike several other counties, notably County Cork. However, in May 1921, the Irish Volunteers began to escalate their attacks there. First, on May 3rd, Tom…

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Added by Joe Gannon on May 18, 2016 at 9:00pm — 5 Comments

Blessed William Tirry: Priest & Martyr

In the centuries after Christianity came to Ireland, when the only Christian Church was the Roman Catholic Church, it thrived there. In the Dark Ages it was monks from Ireland, "the island of saints and scholars," studying in Ireland and then moving out around Europe that helped preserve European civilization. But from…

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Added by Joe Gannon on May 12, 2016 at 7:00pm — 1 Comment

Mary Brady: Angel of the Battlefield

There are perhaps no participants in war who see more of the agony and despair that it brings to humanity than the doctors and nurses who tend to its physically and mentally broken combatants. During the American Civil War, many women with no medical background took up the usually thankless and horrific job of tending to these…

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Added by Joe Gannon on May 3, 2016 at 9:00pm — No Comments

Ireland's Tithe War: Income for Protestant Clergy With Steep Price

"There are many noble traits in the Irish character, mixed with failings which have always raised obstacles to their own well-being; but an innate love of justice, and an indomitable hatred of oppression, is like a gem upon the front of our nation which no darkness can obscure. To this fine quality I trace their hatred of…

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Added by Joe Gannon on April 27, 2016 at 9:00pm — 5 Comments

Remembering the Great Hunger Commemoration at Grosse île

In 1997, during the 150th anniversary of "Black '47," the worst year of the Great Hunger, many commemorations were held all around Ireland and the Irish Diaspora. I attended one of them on Grosse île and wrote the following about that experience.…

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Added by Joe Gannon on April 17, 2016 at 9:00pm — 5 Comments

On April 17, 1949, the Irish Republic Declared

Added by Joe Gannon on April 17, 2016 at 9:30am — 1 Comment

How a 22-Year-Old Firebrand Became 'Meagher of the Sword'

The very subtlest eloquence

That injured men can show,


Is the pathos of a pike-head,

And the logic of a blow.

Hopes built upon fine talking

Are like castles built on sand

But the pleading of cold iron

Not a tyrant can withstand.

In antebellum America, many former…

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Added by Joe Gannon on April 12, 2016 at 8:00am — 1 Comment

Nellie Bly: Circling the World and Changing It - Part Two

Nellie was able to fool the doctors at Bellevue into believing she was mentally incompetent and was transported out to Blackwell’s Island (in a 19th century illustration, above). After ten harrowing days there, the paper managed to get her out, but she admitted to feeling a lot of anxiety waiting for it to happen.…

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Added by Joe Gannon on April 3, 2016 at 10:00am — 2 Comments

Nellie Bly: Circling the World and Changing It - Part One

"I have never written a word that did not come from my heart. I never shall." -- Nellie Bly - The Evening-Journal (8 January 1922)

The world of media today, be it print, radio, television or online, includes a very large percentage of female reporters, but it was not…

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Added by Joe Gannon on April 2, 2016 at 11:00pm — 3 Comments

George Thomas: The Irishman Who Would Be King - Part 2

Unfortunately Thomas’ new employer, like so many of chiefs in the region, was dishonorable and motivated by greed and little else. Still, as had been the case with The Begum, Thomas was an honorable man in a dishonorable world. He served his new employer well, refusing several chances to…

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Added by Joe Gannon on February 26, 2016 at 9:30am — 5 Comments

George Thomas: The Irishman Who Would Be King - Part 1 of 2

To say the prospects of children born into poverty-stricken Irish Catholic families in the 18th century were poor, with the Penal Laws still being used to oppress the Catholic population, would be a…

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Added by Joe Gannon on February 24, 2016 at 8:00am — No Comments

John Gregory Bourke: Part 2 - Warrior, Author, Humanitarian

(Above: Lt. Bourke saving bugler Elmer Snow in "Battle of the Rosebud" by Andy Thomas)

On June 17th, on the…

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Added by Joe Gannon on January 16, 2016 at 2:00pm — 6 Comments

John Gregory Bourke: Part 1 - Warrior Anthropologist

Not many people in the United States or the world today know who Irish-American John Gregory Bourke was, and that is unfortunate. Few historical figures have ever had his rare combination of heroism in a major war; chronicling and participating in two decades of conflict with a fierce indigenous foe;…

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Added by Joe Gannon on January 15, 2016 at 9:30pm — 5 Comments

George Croghan: Irish-American 'Boy Major,' Hero of War of 1812

Where dear Sandusky’s waters glide

From storied falls, through meadows wide,

By verdant hills on either side

To seek Lake Eiries’s famous tide:

On proud Fort Stephenson

 --- From the poem “Fort Stephenson,”

by Captain Andrew…

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Added by Joe Gannon on November 21, 2015 at 2:00pm — 4 Comments

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