History Archives

Timothy Egan: A Modern Day Pilgrim

By Tom Deignan In late October, media outlets around the world reported that Pope Francis had expressed support for civil unions, “a significant break from his predecessors that...

A Modern Day Pilgrim

Best-selling author and New York Times columnist, Timothy Egan’s latest book is called A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From to Canterbuy to Rome in Search of Faith. He talks to Tom Deignan about...

The United Irishmen and the 1798 Rebellion

By Colin Lacey The Society of United Irishmen, founded in Belfast on October 26, 1791 by radical political thinkers, including Theobald Wolfe Tone, Hamilton Rowan, Samuel Nellson, Henry Joy...

Presidents & First Ladies of Irish Ancestry

Ulysses S. Grant, 18th president of the United States (1869-1877). Photo Wikimedia Commons

By Carl Sferrazza Anthony There’s as much of the old sod in the White House as there is on its south lawn. The backgrounds of America’s First Families are diverse: Nancy Reagan...

Daniel Shays and the 1786 Protest Against Economic and Civil Rights Injustices

By Ray Cavanaugh Though it was far from successful, Shays’ Rebellion – which spanned several months during the latter part of 1786 and early 1787 – certainly captured...

Sarah Parker Remond

Continuing Christine Kinealy’s series on Black abolitionists who visited Ireland, we find, in Sara Parker Remond, a woman who was remarkable and fearless. Frederick Douglass’s visit to...

Looking Back at an Interview with Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, Jr.

Below is an excerpt from an interview Sean O Murchu conducted with Supreme Court Justice William Brennan in April 1990, just prior to Justice Brennan retiring from the Supreme Court. Appointed to...

LONE JUSTICE
An Interview with
Justice William Brennan, Jr.

On April 25, 1990 William Joseph Brennan, Jr was 84 years old. An associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States for the past 33 years, he is considered – ruefully, by his many...

President Mary McAleese’s Address to 9/11 Heroes

March 14 2002/New York Plaza Hotel: President Mary McAleese addresses the audience at Irish America’s salute to the heroes of 9/11. Irish America honored the heroes and victims...

Bobby Kennedy Has Been Turned into an Impossibly Perfect Hero.
He deserves a better judgment

By Brian Dooley As Bobby Kennedy lay dying on a hotel kitchen floor, we’re told his last words were of concern for those around him who had also been shot. “Is everybody okay?”...

The Fighting Irish

When this year’s postponed St. Patrick’s Day parade is rescheduled, the New York Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion (the Fighting 69th Infantry Regiment), led by two Irish...

A Tale of Two Flags

Back in 1974, City Council President Paul O’Dwyer introduced a bill that would change the date on the New York’s flag and seal from 1664 to 1625. The move was an effort to set history straight...

You’ve Got Mail:
Irish History From Stamps

℘℘℘ Over the last four decades, stamp-collecting, also known as “philately,” has been undergoing a slow but sure death. This has been mirrored by a decline in letter-writing and a...

Running Rings Around the Empire: The 1908 Olympics

In 1908, as the world’s attention focused on the Olympic Games in London, Britain had decided again not to allow Ireland to field its own team, imperiously stating, “Ireland is not a nation.”...

Sláinte! The Irish & the Oval

In 2020 you can safely bet that the biggest topic of news and conversation is going to be the presidential election. And until midsummer, the hottest sub-topic will be “Who will the Democrats...

President Obama Statue of Presidents

℘℘℘ Visitors to historic downtown Rapid City, South Dakota, are greeted by a series of life-size bronze statues of our nation’s past presidents along the city’s streets and...

Skyscraper Sullivan

The Visionary Behind our Modern Towers of Babel ℘℘℘ Few things convey a sense of progress and modernity like skyscrapers. Whether or not one finds them aesthetically appealing, such...

Wild Irish Women: Madame Bluebell

℘℘℘ Ladies: who among us hasn’t at least briefly entertained the fantasy of having Catherine Deneuve portray you in the movie of your life? Okay, even if that’s not the direction you...

The American Revolution
and Ireland

The Irish involvement in the American Revolution is often lost in the stories dominated by tales of the wisdom of the Founding Fathers. Now, a new exhibition at Philadelphia’s Museum of the...

Wild Irish Women:
Marie-Louise O’Murphy

a.k.a. Marie-Louise O’Murphy de Boisfailly, Morphy, Morphi, Mademoiselle de Murph, La Belle Morphise, Louison, Madame la Countess de Beaufranchet d’Ayat, Mme Lenormand de la Gravière...

The Peculiar Adventures
of Irish Poets in America

Dublin-born Thomas Moore (1779-1852) is still recognized as Ireland’s National Bard; he was once as famous a romantic poet as his best friend Lord Byron. While studying law in London in 1801 he...

Wild Irish Women:
Chicago May

“How hard Ireland was on the women who could not fit in – the wild ones, the ones who had to get out, seeming emigrants but actual exiles.” – Nuala O’Faolain ℘℘℘ Chicago May wasn’t...

Striking Gold – Transcontinental
Railroad Turns 150

Irish contributions to American history received a special recognition this week. The 150th anniversary of connecting the First Transcontinental Railroad was commemorated in a two-day celebration in...

The Lusitania Gifted to Cork Museum

The shipwreck of the RMS Lusitania has been gifted to a museum in Kinsale, County Cork, exactly 104 years after it was torpedoed by a German U-boat on May 7, 1915 during the first world war. The...

Railroad with Irish Roots Turns 150

The 150th anniversary of connecting the First Transcontinental Railroad was commemorated in a two-day celebration in a remote spot in the Utah desert called Promontory Point, where the final spikes...

Wild Irish Women:

A Most Sorrowful Mystery

Oh! star of Erin, queen of tears, Black clouds have beset thy birth, And your people die like morning stars, That your light may grace the earth. – “Stars of Freedom,” 1981 By IRA...

“Wild Bill” Donovan:
Irish-American War
Hero and Superspy

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

Irish War Brides:
A Little Irish Romance

A group of workers on the docks serenaded the passengers with “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” and “Come Back to Erin.” The sirens of other ships in the harbor wailed while the 314 Irish brides...

Window on the Past:
Manifest Destiny

Two words from one Irishman who trumpeted the world’s superpower. ℘℘℘ “Manifest destiny…” These words, placed together, command one’s attention. They sound important, almost...

Wild Irish Women:
Louise Mohan Bryant

It took a movie, 1981’s Reds, to both lift Louise Bryant from obscurity and reduce her to the sniveling acolyte of American communist John Reed, Annie Hall in a babushka. Wrong. For all her (many)...

Window on the Past:
A Savior of History

John Gilmary Shea preserved much of the existing knowledge of the beginnings of American Catholicism. ℘℘℘ Considering the Irish-American influence on U.S. Catholicism, it makes sense that...

Wild Irish Women: Dr. James Barry

The famous British Army surgeon was actually an Irish woman. ℘℘℘ Dr. James Barry was born in County Cork as Margaret Anne Bulkley, the daughter of Jeremiah and Mary-Ann (neé Barry). Accounts...

The Irish Nightingale
of the Civil War

“The Irish-American Florence Nightingale” of the Civil War – Sister Mary Anthony. ℘℘℘ The name of this Civil War medical pioneer has unjustly slipped between history’s...

Retracing the Footsteps
of the Last Gaelic King
of Ireland in Rome

Why it’s time to reclaim the last days and figureheads of the old Gaelic world. ℘℘℘ Stories matter, so here’s a good one. Four hundred and ten years ago this November the last two...

Oliver St. John Gogarty!

Caricatured as “Buck Mulligan” in Joyce’s masterpiece, Oliver St. John Gogarty was more than just a swashbuckling figure – he was a poet, a playwright, a politician, and a renowned surgeon...

Suffragette Sheehy
Skeffington Honored

On Thursday, June 13, 1912, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, and a group of suffragettes, smashed windows in Dublin Castle to highlight the “woman’s right to vote” cause. It was an offense for which...

An Old Henge Emerges
at Newgrange

While Ireland’s early summer heatwave brought some misery, it brought archaeologists and history enthusiasts great joy. The drought revealed an Neolithic wonder called a henge near the ancient site...

An Education in Restoration

Over 70 volunteers took part in a three-day training course in County Clare in August to learn methods of preserving historic ruins. The program – the first of its kind – was hosted by the Irish...

The Great Famine Online

University College Cork, and the Irish Department of Culture, Heritage, and the Gaeltacht, collaborated to create the Great Irish Famine Online. The project displays detailed information on the...

John Wolfe Ambrose Monument is Restored

Nearly 30 years after the bust of John Wolfe Ambrose, the Irishman who helped New York become one of the greatest sea ports in the world, was stolen from his memorial, a new bust was unveiled and...

Native Americans and the Irish

The Irish Consulate in New York City hosted a discussion of Irish-Native American relations in June. Titled, “Native Americans and the Irish: Historic and Continuing Connections,” it touched on...

Irish Landmark in
Montreal in Danger

The preservation of Montreal’s rich history of Irish settlement is once again in peril. After plans to build a park and preserve the Black Rock Irish Famine memorial erected in 1859 were put on...

Wall Street’s Forgotten Financial News Genius

All but Forgotten John J. Kiernan, was a pioneer in the financial news industry and the inventor of ticker tape news. ℘℘℘ Etched against the burgeoning lower Manhattan skyline, a lone figure...

Frederick Douglass
and Irish Home Rule

Born a slave, Frederick Douglass died as a champion of human rights, and Ireland played an important role in his political awakening. ℘℘℘ In 1845, Ireland provided a safe refuge to Frederick...

The Brooklyn Fire Chaser

Single-Mindedly Brilliant: The Life of Fire Detective Thomas P. Brophy and his lasting legacy on the FDNY. ℘℘℘ He never married, had no hobbies, and often needed reminding just to eat. Thomas...

Frank & Al

A new book by Terry Golway on the developing Democratic party through the lens of F.D.R. and Al Smith. Review by Dave Lewis ℘℘℘ Frank and Al: FDR, Al Smith, and the Unlikely Alliance and Epic...

Weekly Comment:
New York’s Monument to John Wolfe Ambrose is Restored

Stolen 30 years ago, New York City’s monument to the Irishman who enabled the Port of New York and New Jersey to become the largest in the world has been restored. ℘℘℘ Nearly 30 years after...

New Map Animates Devastation of the Great Hunger

Dr. Alan Ferinhough, a lecturer and economic historian at Queen’s University Belfast, recently created an animation of the evolution of Ireland’s population density from 1841 to 2012 showing how...

New Viking Finds at Site of Dublin Hotel

Archaeologists have discovered a significant number of Viking-era artifacts and architectural remains during the building of Dublin’s new Hodson Bay Hotel in the Coombe. Among the architectural...

Irish Hunger Memorial Renovations Completed

The Irish Hunger Memorial was re-opened in late July 2017 after a year-long, $5.3 million renovation. The structure had suffered extensive water infiltration, particularly from 2012’s Hurricane...

“Sláinte, Mon!”:
The Irish of Jamaica

That Irish is Jamaica’s second-most predominant ethnicity may come as a surprise, especially to those outside the country. It all started in 1655 when the British failed in their efforts to claim...

The Passion of the San Patricios

Irish America looks back at the legacy of St. Patrick’s Battalion, a honor bound group of Irishmen that championed the cause of the smaller Mexican force against the might of the American Army...

NLI to Digitize Pre-Republic History of Ireland

The National Library of Ireland rolled out plans in January for a new digital archive of modern Irish history. The archive, called Towards a Republic, will document the tumultuous series of events...

Divided Society Archives Available

In January the Linen Hall Library in Belfast launched a new digital archive dedicated to the Troubles. Founded in 1968, the institution has amassed over 350,000 primary sources and essays relating...

End in Sight for Titanic’s “Heartbreak Pier” Restoration in Cobh

The final phase of renovations of the pier from which the Titanic launched its fateful maiden voyage began in January, with plans for completion in March 2019. This portion of the project is hoped to...

Wild Irish Women:
“Hello, Suckers!”

Singer, showgirl, and queen of the speakeasy during Prohibition, Mary Guinan was a genuine Irish American wild woman. Larger (and louder) than life, she had an even bigger heart.  ℘℘℘ During...

G.P.A. Healy, the Irish Painter of American Presidents

America’s most prolific 19th century portraitist, whose painting of Abraham Lincoln hangs in the State Dining Room at the White House, was an Irish American born into poverty in...

300 Years of Scots-Irish Immigration to U.S.

This year marks the 300th anniversary of the first great wave of Scots-Irish migration to the United States, and over the next 12 months, several towns in Northern Ireland and the U.S. will be...

Wild Irish Women:
Saint Brigid – Mary of the Gaels

A nun, abbess, and founder of several monasteries, Brigid of Kildare was a woman who defied authority, possessed great strength of will and determination, and whose cheerful giving of food and...

An Irish Artist’s American Odyssey

William James Hinchey traveled throughout America’s Southwest frontier and Missouri capturing images of life, the ravishes of war, and beyond.  ℘℘℘ Cormac McCarthy’s novel Blood Meridian...

The Irish Airman’s Grave:
From Padua to Kiltartan

The story of W.B. Yeats’s tower, Lady Gregory’s autograph tree, and the grave of Irish airman Robert Gregory, whose death inspired some of Yeats’s most well-known...

Photo Album: Dad and JFK

My father Cyril DeFever grew up on a dairy farm near Detroit, Michigan. His parents had immigrated to the U.S. from Belgium. My mother, Marie Clancy, the daughter of an insurance man, was Irish....

Weekly Comment:
How the Irish Saved the Pilgrims and Started Thanksgiving

In 1621, the pilgrims, just arrived in the New World, had no idea how wild their new frontier could be. Winter arrived and with it came starvation, death, and the idea that maybe it was time to give...

Micheline’s March

This September, Micheline Sheehy-Skeffington, the granddaughter of Irish patriot Francis Sheehy-Skeffington (who was executed without trial by a British firing squad during the Easter Rising) and his...

Green Hills, White Houses

The 200-Year Relationship Between Irish Builders and America’s Capital ℘℘℘ In September, the James Hoban Societies of the United States and Ireland organized a day-long celebration of the...

Delta 13 Charlie: Reflections of an Irish Soldier in Vietnam

Michael Coyne is one of many Irish-born soldiers who served in Vietnam. A crewman on a Patton tank, he spent most of his time far from base on patrol in jungle and rice paddies.  ℘℘℘ My name...

Custer’s Last Rally

The Battle of the Little Bighorn, the most significant engagement of the Great Sioux War of 1876, saw the defeat of General Armstrong Custer and his soldiers of the 7th Cavalry (many of them Irish)...

Hospitality and History in the American South

History abounds on a tour that began in Washington, D.C. and visited Civil War battlefields, colonial towns, and the Blue Ridge Mountains. ℘℘℘ As you might expect, Memorial Day weekend is a...

Tullaghoge Fort:
Home of the O’Neills

A memorial stone and plaque were unveiled to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of Hugh O’Neill.  ℘℘℘ The re-opening of Tullaghoge Fort last June has brought one of Ireland’s most...

Wild Irish Women:
The Reporter Who Wouldn’t Go Away

Dorothy is Back! Dorothy Kilgallen was a TV and radio star, a columnist who wrote about theater and film, the rich and famous, but more than anything, she was a crime reporter who, at the time of...

The Forgotten Irish American Artist of the Capitol Building

Geoffrey Cobb writes about Thomas Crawford, who sculpted the figure of Liberty and Freedom on top of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.  Senate Pediment, marble, 1863, east front U.S. Capitol:...

Window on the Past:
The Georgia Healys

In antebellum Georgia, the Healy children, born legal slaves to an Irish immigrant father and his black common-law wife, had to be smuggled out of the state to avoid being sold into slavery. Several...

Weekly Comment:
The Great Tate Caper

On April 12, 1956, two young Irish men walked into the Tate Gallery in London with one brazen objective in mind – to seize an £8 million impressionist masterpiece in the name of their...

Jimmy McAleer’s Opening Day Legacy

The Irish American baseball legend who introduced the concept of the opening day pitch by the President of the United States. ℘℘℘ James Robert, “Jimmy,” McAleer, the youngest of eight...

Window on the Past: Victoria
& the Battering Ram (Photos)

Sean Sexton’s photographic archive, considered the finest privately-held collection of Irish photographs in the world, provide a poignant photo-history of evictions in the final decades of the 19th...

John Ford:
A True Film Pioneer

Film director Martin Scorsese was honored with the John Ford Award at the annual Irish Film and Television Awards presentation in Dublin on February 25th 2017 . Scorsese was a huge fan of Ford as he...

U.S.S. Mason Makes Historic Trip to Northern Ireland

Last year, the U.S.S. Mason arrived in Derry, honoring the crew of the ship’s World War II namesake, which made port in Northern Ireland in 1944.  ℘℘℘ Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, squared...

After the Rising

The soaring oratory of the Easter Rising Proclamation – “In this supreme hour the Irish nation must . . . prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called” – was followed by...

Ireland at War: Photos from the Sean Sexton Collection

These rare photos from the Sean Sexton Collection chronicle the years of terror following the Rising when the Irish were caught up in the War of Independence and the Civil War. ℘℘℘ You can read...

Wild Irish Women: Elizabeth O’Farrell – A Fearless Woman

An Irish nurse and member of Cumann na mBan, Elizabeth O’Farrell performed nursing and courier duties, delivering dispatches and ammunition to rebels over the days of the Easter Rising. She further...

150 Years:
The Fenians and Canada

One hundred and fifty years ago, members of the Fenian Brotherhood sought to force Britain’s hand by creating disturbances along the Canadian border. The raids failed, but they led to an unexpected...

Weekly Comment
Pearl Harbor and the
U.S.S. Shaw

Seventy-five years ago this week, the Japanese surprised the U.S. by attacking Pearl Harbor in the early hours of December 7th. One of the most iconic photographs from the from that day is of the...

The Fabulous Murphys

Gerald Murphy and his wife, Sara, were the golden couple at the center of glamorous expatriate life in Paris and the Riviera in the 1920s, with a social circle that included many of the great artists...

“Sure Shot Mary”

New York City police officer and detective Mary Agnes Shanley (1896-1989) was the first policewoman to use a gun in an arrest. She made over 1,000 collars in her career and, at just 160 pounds, had...

John Quinn: The Forgotten Irish American Nationalist

John Quinn, the unpretentious Irish American lawyer who funded the Irish literary renaissance by supporting Ireland’s leading writers of the day (including W.B. Yeats and James Joyce), is less...

Paddy’s Papal Absence

It sure was big news when Pope Francis, the first Latin American pontiff, was chosen. And there has been talk about the prospect of having a black or Asian pope. But amid the widening papal radar,...

The Real Life Story of Bridge of Spies Lawyer James B. Donovan

The Irish American New York lawyer who defended a Russian spy, and negotiated on behalf of the thousands of prisoners captured after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, is remembered by his...

2016: Reflections on a Centenary

 How the 1916 commemorations helped people connect on a personal level. “Everything is repeated, in a circle. History is a master because it teaches us that it doesn’t exist. It’s the...

Continuity and Change: The Irish Role in American Politics

For the second straight White House election, the Democratic and Republican candidates for vice president grew up in strong Irish American and Catholic families. Eyebrow-arching in itself, the fact...

The Mother of Orphans

“She was a mother to the motherless; she was a friend to those who had no friends; she had wisdom greater than schools can teach; we will not let her memory go.” – Sara Cone Bryant, from...

Roots:
The Unrelated Ryan Girls

Whether it’s stomping the boards on Broadway or on Hollywood’s silver screen, these girls all share a love of performance. Perhaps it’s in the DNA? ℘℘℘ Thinking about writing an article...

The Bonds of a Nation,
100 Years On

With the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising upon us, a curious piece of memorabilia printed 150 years ago reminds us that the Rising was not the only bid for Irish independence. In the possession of...

Dear Julia: Personal Peflections on 1916 and its Aftermath

A grandmother’s letters, passed down through two generations, offer a fascinating, and at times intimate, glimpse into the period following the 1916 Rising. Dermot McEvoy talks to Rosemary...

The Rebel Path

Ernie O’Malley was a renowned figure in Ireland’s fight for independence. Here are his memories of 1916 as compiled by his son Cormac O’Malley. ℘℘℘ Born in 1897 in Castlebar, Co. Mayo,...

Ernie O’Malley’s Mayo

County Mayo is largely a rural, wild, untouched landscape on the west coast of Ireland, but it has changed drastically over the years. The images in Cormac O’Malley and Juliet Christy Barron’s...

Thomas Meagher:
The Immortal Irishman

In the following excerpt from Timothy Egan’s new book on Thomas Meagher, the legendary Irishman arrives in New York City having escaped from the Tasmanian prison colony where he had been banished...

Digging Up the Past

Robert Schmuhl takes us behind the scenes on a decade-long research project that culminated in his book Ireland’s Exiled Children: America and the Easter Rising. ℘℘℘ Facts are stubborn...

Annie Moore’s Long Lost Irish Cousins

Megan Smolenyak writes about a decade-long search that finally turned up the Irish cousins of Annie Moore of Ellis Island fame. Thanks to improved access to a variety of resources, Irish genealogy is...

Famous Irish of the American Revolution

Irish nationals were instrumental in helping secure American independence from England during the Revolutionary War. Edythe Preet explores the key figures. ℘℘℘ John Barry County Wexford Driven...

Smoky the Lucky War Dog

The famous war dog who served in World War II, and Bill Wynne, the U.S. Army Air Force G.I. who adopted her. ℘℘℘ The first time Cpl. William Wynne saw Smoky, he found it hard to believe she...

Kathy “White House”

Were she alive today, the odds are that Kathy Buckley would be as well-known as celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson. Sharon Ní Chonchúir profiles the Irish woman who was head cook for...

Mathew Brady’s Irish Mystery

In August, a sign in Johnsburg, New York that claimed to mark the birthplace of acclaimed Civil War photographer Mathew Brady went missing. But in addition to sparking a search for the sign itself,...

Forgotten Famine-era Graves
Discovered in Massachusetts

An estimated 600-900 neglected and forgotten Famine-era graves were discovered in Massachusetts in September when Rhode Islander Annie McMullen was attempting to trace her husband’s Irish...

Rare Titanic Artifacts
Up for Auction

The Belfast-built H.M.S. Titanic was thought to be unsinkable after it set sail from Cobh, Co. Cork, on its fated maiden voyage. Of the roughly 2,220 people aboard the Titanic, around 164 were Irish,...

A Long Day’s Journey:
New Ross to New London

James O’Neill had a remarkable life, emigrating from Ireland at the age of five, abandoned by his father at 10, raised by a mother who spoke very little English. Yet, having little formal...

Weekly Comment:
August 1st May Have Changed Ireland Forever

By the turn of the 20th Century, new Irish rebellion movements emerged that inspired a collective longing for national independence. A political party named Sinn Fein fostered by Arthur Griffith...

The Long Shadow of 9/11

Ongoing health conditions, ranging from cancer to pulmonary diseases, caused by working at Ground Zero cast a shadow on celebrations of FDNY’s 150th Year. Ladder 123 is located on a gritty stretch...

Margaret Higgins Sanger

Founder of Planned Parenthood

Continuing her series on Wild Irish Women, Rosemary Rogers profiles Margaret Sanger, who devoted her life to legalizing birth control, and with the help of her sister Ethel, opened the first birth...

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The Grey Nuns at Quinnipiac

A new exhibit on the Grey Nuns hosted by Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University opened April 1. A private event launching the exhibit took place on March 31 with the Canadian...

150 Years of Yeats’s Sligo

On the 150th anniversary of W.B. Yeats’s birth we look at some of the places in Sligo that inspired his best-loved poems. 1. BENBULBEN and DRUMCLIFFE CHURCHYARD: At his request, Yeats’s body...

The Rebel Countess

Rosemary Rogers, continuing her series on Irish women of note, profiles Constance Georgine Gore-Booth, the social agitator and revolutionary who took part in the Easter Rising of...

Roots: Is Oscar Irish?

Oscar Wilde, the playwright, novelist, poet, and critic of world renown, has long been labeled Anglo-Irish, but an examination of his roots puts the question of Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills...

Every Oscar Is an Irish Win

How an Irishman Introduced Deco to Hollywood. Each year around this time the world awaits the presentation of the Hollywood awards in which the statue called “Oscar” is presented to those in the...

“Fully” Kearney: President
Obama’s Irish Ancestor

It was seven years ago when I identified Fulmoth Kearney of Moneygall, Ireland as the most recent immigrant on the maternal side of Barack Obama’s family tree. Inheriting land in Ohio from a...

Jersey Boys:
Irish Soldiers in World War I

America entered World War One on April 6th, 1917, and though the execution of the leaders of the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 greatly angered the influential Irish-American community on...

War Numbers: Counting the Irish-born Dead in WWI

Megan Smolenyak delves into the archives and reaches the conclusion that many more Irish-born soldiers were killed in the U.S. Armed Forces in WWI than previous calculations have shown. As a New...

Forty Shades of Brooklyn

With a film version of Colm Tóibín’s 2009 novel Brooklyn, coming to American theaters later this year, Tom Deignan looks at the borough that was home to so many mid-century Irish immigrants. Back...

Made in (18th Century) Ireland

The new exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, Ireland: Crossroads of Art and Design, 1690 – 1840, is a legacy tribute to the last Knight of Glin.  Popularly known as the “long 18th...

John McDermott:
Golf Hall of Famer

John McDermott is finally getting his due over a hundred years after he became the first American to win the U.S. Open national golf championship. Winning at the age of 19, he also remains the...

The Things They Carried

Connemara marble boot charm, carried by an Irish soldier (Catalogue #EPH 4892). © IWM What more fascinatingly intimate look into the lives of soldiers of WWI than a glimpse into the tokens they...

Trinity Geologists Rewrite
Earth’s Evolutionary History

Geologists from Trinity College Dublin have rewritten evolutionary history by finding that oxygen-producing life forms were present on Earth some three billion years ago – 60 million years earlier...

Whatever Happened
to Launt Thompson?

How one of the most important post-Civil War sculptors died in obscurity and is buried in an unmarked grave. ℘℘℘ Lancelot (Launt) Thompson was born in the town of Abbeyleix, in what was then...

The Irishman Who
Invented the Submarine

John Philip Holland August 12th 2014 marked the 100th anniversary of the death of John Philip Holland, a Clare man recognized as “the father of the modern submarine.” Much of Holland’s...

The Irish and World War I

One hundred years ago this summer, the story goes, a Daily Mail war correspondent named George Curnock followed British Expedition-ary Forces as they made their way across the English Channel to aid...

How Guinness Saved Ireland

At nearly one billion liters of Guinness sold per year, it has become one of the world’s most recognizable Irish brands. And though it is brewed in over 60 countries and available in more than 120,...

Salsa Verde: The Irish in Argentina

On the bicentennial of Combate de Montevideo, May, 1814, which won the River Plate and secured Argentina’s independence from Spain, Harry Dunleavy writes about the considerable contributions made...

Lovely Lola: The Countess Who Became the Vamp of the Mining Camps

There was a time in the mid-19th century when all Europe raved about the Spanish dancer, Lola Montez, not realizing that she wasn’t Spanish and couldn’t dance. She wowed them in Paris, London,...

Oscar & Doc: A trip to Leadville, Colorado

You hoist one of Colorado’s fine craft beers at the long, dark bar of the Silver Dollar Saloon in Leadville, and consider this possibility: had history played out a little differently, Oscar Wilde...

Brían Boru’s Last Battle

A thousand years ago, on April 23, 1014, the Battle of Clontarf, and Brían Boru’s last costly victory, changed Irish political life forever.  The following, from The Story of the Irish Race by...

The Orphan Trains

Over 250,000 children were transported from New York to the Midwest over a 75-year period (1854-1929) in the largest mass migration of children in American history. As many as one in four were...

The Fifth Province

There is a well-known Irish saying: ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine that can be loosely translated as “it is in the shelter of each other that the people live.” Particularly during acts...

William Mulholland Brought Water to a Thirsty Land

On January 24, 1848 a handful of shiny metal found in the water channel below John Sutter’s lumber mill in Northern California launched the first world-class Gold Rush. Within seven years, the...

Reflecting on the Lock-Out

A hundred years ago, The Lock-Out caused great turmoil in Dublin. It marked the beginnings of an organized labor movement in Ireland, and had a huge influence on the emerging Irish state. It’s a...

The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick

The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, or The Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick for the Relief of Emigrants from Ireland, was founded in Philadelphia on March 17, 1771 and continues on as a...

James Kelly: A Sculptor of American History

James E. Kelly, sculptor and illustrator, specialized in depicting people and events surrounding the American Civil War.  Historian and author William B. Styple discovered Kelly’s journals, which...

Heroes and Rogues: The Irish of Green-Wood Cemetery

From actors to Civil War heroes, many important Irish have been laid to rest in Brooklyn’s famous Green-Wood Cemetery, including on August 8 2020, acclaimed author Pete Hamill. The Green-Wood...

Joe Kennedy – The Hollywood Years

Movie columnist Tom Deignan examines David Nasaw’s book The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy with an eye to Kennedy’s time in Hollywood. The year was 1926,...

Arthur Conan Doyle’s Irish Mystery

As Sherlock Holmes fans celebrate the 125th anniversary of the novel in which Arthur Conan Doyle introduced his famous sleuth, Tom Deignan investigates the author’s Irish roots. The two recent...

The Silver Kings

The Comstock Lode in Nevada, uncovered in 1859 by two Irish laborers, ultimately produced more than $500 million worth of silver, a large share of which went to the Irish-American “Big Four” –...

The Irish Coppers

The evolution of the Irish-American policeman – in real life and on screen. In the classic 1954 Looney Tunes cartoon entitled “Bugs and Thugs,” everybody’s favorite animated rabbit gets...

An Irishman’s Civil War Diary

Michael Dougherty, a young Irish soldier in the American Civil War, kept a diary of his experiences, including the horrendous conditions endured in Confederate prison camps. Michael Dougherty, born...

The Silent Master: Rex Ingram

Rex Ingram: The clergyman’s son who became one of the biggest directors in Hollywood and discovered Rudolph Valentino. There would have been no shortage of Irishmen who came ashore in New York that...

Important Items from Ireland’s Past at Auction

Only fifty original copies of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic remain in existence. The proclamation, which famously called for a provisional government of the Irish Republic and...

Honey Fitz & Sweet Caroline: A Century of Fenway

The Red Sox and the City of Boston celebrate the 100th anniversary of one of  America’s most beloved ballparks. Honey Fitz, aka John Francis Fitzgerald, would have loved the pageantry of “Fenway...

The Glory Days of Celtic Park

One of the premier track- and-field training facilities in the world in its time, Celtic Park produced more than two dozen Olympic medalists who collectively won more than 50 medals for the U.S....

Ireland’s Citizen Chronicler: Christine Kinealy

Acclaimed scholar Christine Kinealy, whose work has shed new light on forgotten elements of Irish history, talks with Daphne Wolf about growing up Irish in Liverpool and her tireless research towards...

Margaret Tobin Brown: The Unsinkable Molly Brown

“I’m Unsinkable” Margaret Tobin Brown was reading a book in her first-class cabin on the Titanic when she heard a crash and was thrown to the floor by the impact. Pulling herself up, she...

Irish Dracula Author Celebrated 100 Years After Death

Dublin-born writer Bram Stoker, author of the famed novel Dracula, died in London at age 64, on April 20, 1912. Given that the vampire story, and the gothic in general, is currently seeing a...

Titanic Commemoration in Ireland

Belfast is abuzz in preparation for the upcoming three-week-long Titanic Festival, which will both commemorate the centenary of the sinking of the Belfast-built ocean liner and celebrate the...

Rural Ireland: The Inside Story

Boston College’s McMullen Museum of Art is giving visitors a rare look at the daily lives of Irish country people in the nineteenth century. Once thought to be an unpopular subject among Irish...

The Irish on the Titanic

Maureen Murphy explores the seldom-told story of the third-class Irish passengers on board the doomed RMS Titanic – some were survivors, others were heroes and victims. There has been no disaster...

The Day the Irish
Invaded Canada

In the sleepy town of Ridgeway, Ontario – just a stone’s throw from Crystal Beach, the “Southern Shore of Canada” and former home to the Niagara region’s most beloved amusement park –...

Irish-American Heritage Month Announced by Obama

The first of March marks the beginning of Irish-American Heritage Month in the U.S., a time, according to President Obama, to celebrate the “indomitable spirit of those Irish Americans whose...

The Heart of Hearts Rests in Dublin

The remains of the martyred Saint Valentine are enshrined at Dublin’s Whitefriar Street Church. ℘℘℘ Each year on February 14 and in the days and weeks leading up to Valentine’s day,...

Save Dublin’s Moore Street – Last Battlefield of 1916 Rising

The last battlefield of the 1916 Rising’s heroes must be preserved. Moore Street, Dublin – for years the bustling site of flower markets and fruit sellers, but today the object of a fight to...

The German – Amazing Short Film on Ireland in WWII

The German is a stunning Irish short written and directed by Nick Ryan. The film, which was made in 2007 and went up online a few months ago, features a British fighter pilot in pursuit of a German...

Irish Army Archives to go Public

The Irish Armed Forces is about to make a huge volume of historical documents available to the public by putting them online for general access. Lieutenant General Sean McCann, Defense Forces’...

John Ford: The Man, the Icon

As Clint Eastwood receives the first John Ford Award, IA takes a brief look at the Ford’s legacy. John Ford garnered many superlatives to describe his lifetime of works. In a career that...

Jack Foley and the Art of Sound

Jack Donovan Foley, the American grandson of Irish immigrants, invented “foley art,” a sound-effects technique still used in films today – so subtle and perfect that viewers don’t notice...

An Irish Vintage:
The Concannon Vineyard

James and John Concannon uphold tradition at a winery founded by their Irish immigrant ancestor. The Concannon family has spent more than 128 years growing grapes and making wine in California, 42...

Civil War Memorials

By Michael Quinlin Irish Sculptors Led the Way in Celebrating Civil War Heroes Magnificent in bearing, you find our nation’s unabashed heroes in Central Park and Lincoln Park, Boston...

The Civil War Experience on Show

Current exhibitions celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.  The Return of the 69th On July 27, 1861, crowds massed along New York Harbor to welcome home New York’s 69th (Irish)...

Blazing the Trail to Ireland:
The Kalem Film Company

At the dawn of American cinema, when most film companies were already heading west to Hollywood, one company traveled east – to Ireland. The little-known story of the Kalem Company, or “The...

Uncovering Irish History in Lowell, MA and Northern Ireland

The Irish-American Heritage Archeological Program discovers Irish artifacts in Lowell, MA and Cosson, Co. Tyrone. Students and archeological experts from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell and...

Remembering from Afar

9/11 Memorials in Ireland In the years since the attacks on September 11, 2001, memorials both big and small have been built throughout the United States and across the globe. The most immediate ones...

Presidential Visits to Ireland

President Obama’s visit brought the number of U.S. Presidents who have visited Ireland to seven. Tom Deignan looks back at some memorable visits and some that barely registered. Ollie Hayes...

The Irish Abolitionist:
Daniel O’Connell

Daniel O’Connell is remembered as the Liberator of Irish Catholics, but he also played a significant role in the movement to end slavery. On 23 May 2011, President Obama made an historic visit...

Outlaws: Billy the Kid and Whitey Bulger

The legendary Billy the Kid and the recently captured Whitey Bulger, both Irish American outlaws, share much in common in their lives on the lam.   Just as the infamous South Boston Irish mob boss...

Scarlett is 75 and Still Going Strong

On the 75th anniversary of the publication of Gone With the Wind, David O’Connell explores how Margaret Mitchell’s Irish background influenced her writing. Writing in the second edition...

The Forgotten Hero of Golf:
John McDermott

The first American golfer to win the U.S. Open — and the youngest. When Rory McIlroy walked down the 18th fairway at Congressional on June 19, 2011 the TV flashed a list of six young golfers...

The Irish Brigade:
Heroes of The Civil War

As we commemorate the 157th anniversary of the start of The Civil War, Matthew Brennan remembers the shining role of The Irish Brigade. ℘℘℘ Irish American actor Martin Sheen commented in an...

His Brother’s Keeper: Commodore John Barry

John Barry, the father of the American Navy, went to seas as a child to escape the Irish penal laws and rose to command the entire U.S. fleet. Tim McGrath writes that Barry’s skills as a...

The Hannah: An Irish Odyssey

The story of The Hannah, an Irish famine ship that hit an iceberg in 1849, is now a documentary. John Kernaghan explains how it happened and how Irish America played a part. Paddy Murphy’s body is...

Corner of Ireland in America

The Irish Mansion in Greeneville, Tennessee. William Dickson left County Antrim, Ireland at the age of 16 for a better life in Greeneville, Tennessee. He succeeded. By 1796, when he was 21, he was...

The Muses of W.B. Yeats

The women who influenced the poetry of W.B. Yeats. ℘℘℘ It will come as no surprise to admirers of W.B. Yeats that this greatest of modern poets was a celebrant of the art of love from the...

War & Peace: Ireland Since the 1960s

Christine Kinealy’s newest book is destined to become a standard reference. Christine Kinealy’s background as a professor of history at Drew University and her past publications place her at the...

The Photo Historian of Ireland: Sean Sexton

Take an aerial view of a dreary road in Walthamstow, a soulless part of the East End of London, and you will easily spot which house Sean Sexton lives in. For there, nestled among the rows of...

The McNulty Family Show Boat Sails Again

One of the most popular entertainment groups from the 1920s to the 1960s, Annie ‘Ma’ McNulty and her children Eileen and Peter have largely been forgotten, but that may change soon. Known as...

The Legacy of Church-run Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland

In the wake of the Ryan and Murphy reports*, both released in 2009, often the memories of the children, women and workers involved have taken a sideline to the question of who is to blame for...

Butte: Montana’s Irish Mining Town

Many of the 1.8 million Irish who emigrated to Canada and the U.S. between 1845 and 1855 found employment in the dangerous but lucrative mines that played a vital role in building American industry....

Diamond Jim

The charmed life of James Buchanan Brady, who rose from humble origins to become one of the wealthiest men of his day. There have been many times in my life when a situation develops where I fear I...

Ted Kennedy, History Buff

As the first anniversary of  Ted Kennedy’s death approached on August 25, 2010, Thomas Fleming recalled the late senator’s fascination with American history and his desire to share that love...

Salsa Verde: The Irish in Chile

I have been visiting Chile since 1991 and had learned quite a bit about Bernardo O’Higgins, who had a most significant impact on the politics and culture of Latin America and on Chile in...

Miracle Worker: Helen Keller & Annie Sullivan

The extraordinary story of Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller, including little-known facts about a trip they made to Ireland In 1930, a visitor to Ireland wrote to a friend: “You must see...

Gettysburg: America’s Preeminent Battlefield Shrine

When you go to Gettysburg, you trod hallowed ground where incredible courage under fire by Union and Confederate troops enshrined them in honor, glory and history. You do much more than make a trip....

A Celtic Cross at Bunker Hill

The Irish buried in a Catholic cemetery on Bunker Hill are remembered. The cemetery is gated and well hidden, and there have been no burials in it for three score years and more. It’s a lovely,...

The Mission Girls

UPDATE MARCH 2, 2012: The Irish Mission at Watson House Project intends to use the historical Mission premises for the permanent exhibition of Irish women’s emigration, a center to study the...

1969: A Crazy Year for Irish America

It is fitting that the 1969 Nobel Prize for literature went to the Irish playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett. After all, in works such as Waiting for Godot and Endgame, Beckett alternated between...

International Relief Efforts During the Famine

The Irish government designated 17 May 2009 as the first National Famine Memorial Day. On that day, Irish people throughout the world remembered and honored the victims of Ireland’s Great Hunger...

The Human Cry: An Appreciation of Francis Bacon

If, in 1964, you were to have asked me which two things excited me most, aside of course from ‘The Siren Call of Sex’ as the poet Philip Larkin put it, I would have answered, the Ronettes and the...

The Irish in Early Baseball

More than two dozen sons of  Irish immigrants, who played in the 1880-1920 period, are enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Many other great Irish players have made their mark on...

Trading With the Enemy: Irish Merchants

On November 2, 1759, a veritable riot broke out along several blocks of lower Manhattan. The target of the torch-bearing crowds was a man deemed to be a “rogue” and informer named George Spencer....

Lincoln’s Watch Holds Message from Irishman

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History opened Abraham Lincoln’s pocket watch in March 2009, and discovered a secretly engraved message that turned an unsubstantiated family story...

McAllister Tug Boats

When Brian McAllister was coming of age in the 1950s all he cared about was playing basketball and chasing girls. However, over the years, he became the heart and soul of the business his Irish...

GAA Marks Its 125th Birthday

The Gaelic Athletic Association staged a spectacular fireworks dis- play at Croke Park in Dublin to commemorate its 125th anniversary since being founded in 1884 in Thurles, Co. Tipperary....

Obama’s Irish Roots: A House in Black, White & Green

When Barack Obama enters The White House as the 44th U.S. President, he will find that the Irish and African-American strands of his ancestry have been linked in many other ways throughout the...

Restoring Lisadell

A mansion in Sligo steeped in history lay in ruin, until one couple decided to revitalize this jewel of the western landscape of Ireland.  The old lady held her hands up to the flickering fire as...

Inside the Kennedy White House

When Barack Obama moved into the White House, many felt a sense of optimism despite the vast challenges facing America. Such feelings, naturally, recalled January of 1961 when, on a bright, frozen...

The Triumph & the Tragedy

Mary Pat Kelly’s new novel Galway Bay captures the essence of the Great Starvation and the 19th-century Irish-American experience. Ireland has a terrible history. As a kid in school reading about...

The Original Irish Tenor: John McCormack

The year was 1906. The setting was a stage in Savona, Italy, a northwestern port town south of Milan. The opera to be performed that particular evening was L’Amico Fritz by Pietro Mascagni,...

The Battle Over Ulysses

 The court case that changed the way Americans read. During a first-season episode of the excellent AMC TV series Mad Men, set in the New York advertising world of the 1960s, several secretaries are...

The Legacy of the San Patricios

To the Mexicans they were heroes. To the Americans they were traitors. They were recent Irish immigrants fleeing poverty and famine in Ireland who, motivated by discrimination in their own ranks, a...

The Tragedy of the Hannah

In April 1849, a ship carrying Irish immigrants hit an iceberg in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. John Kernaghan writes on the incident, and of plans for a documentary as Quebec celebrates its 400th...

Chicago and the Irish

Before he was president, Barack Obama was an ambitious young politician who learned a valuable lesson thanks to the Chicago Irish. The year was 1999. Obama, a state senator, announced he was going to...

The Irish in California

in 2005, when it became clear that the Ronald Reagan Pub in Ballyporeen, Tipperary was no longer a viable novelty to locals or tourists, Irish-American businessman and Republican booster Frederick...

The Save Tara Campaign

The harp that once through Tara’s halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls As if that soul were fled. – Thomas Moore The Save Tara Campaign spread its wings to New York...

Pennsylvania’s Irish

From the coal mines to Hollywood, the Pennsylvania Irish have shaped America for over three centuries. William Penn may have been a trailblazer when it came to American freedom and religious...

The First Family of Irish America

Back in July, Bronx Irish Catholic Edwin F. O’Brien, after a 40-year career as a priest, military chaplain and aide to two cardinals, was named the new Archbishop of Baltimore. The archdiocese...

Commodore John Barry

From Irish immigrant to Commander of the American Navy, John Barry is a hero to remember. There are many Irish men and women whom one could declare a hero of our time but none is so profoundly...

The “Emerald” Pastime

Tom Deignan reflects on a time when many of the Boys of Summer had a touch of the Irish brogue. A recent New York Times article about the consistent success of the Minnesota Twins baseball...

Okie Faces & Irish Eyes: John Steinbeck & Route 66

The ad man knew what he was doing. Hired to write copy about a road that didn’t yet exist, he had an idea: create something out of whole cloth. He had as his subject an about-to-be-named...

The Céide Fields

Liam Moriarty explores the Stone Age archaeological wonder in County Mayo. When one thinks of Stone Age archaeological sites, Stonehenge, Altamira and Newgrange may come to mind. Most likely The...

The 1930s: When Irish Catholics Changed America

 Before the decade was over, America would be a vastly different nation,  thanks in no small part to Irish Catholics.  Nineteen hundred and twenty-eight was a dark year for Irish Catholics in...

Proudly We Serve

September 11 has become this generation’s “Day of Infamy.” The terrorist attacks forever changed the way we live, and have made our daily lives more difficult. A secure environment...

President Reagan Remembered

From Ballyporeen to the White House, Niall O’Dowd looks at President Reagan’s Irish background, and recalls an interview with the President’s brother, Neil. ℘℘℘ “Today I...

Chile’s Irish Flavor

Nancy Griffin travels to Chile and finds a beautiful country still celebrating its Irish founding father. ℘℘℘ Chile is a long, narrow, mountainous, beautiful country on the Pacific Ocean, its...

The Not So Great Escape

Ten years after robbers emptied an armored security van of $7.4 million at gunpoint, a former I.R.A. member has admitted in a memoir that he masterminded the heist. ℘℘℘ Sam Millar rues the fact...

Joyce, Joce, Joass, Jorse, & Joyes

Although the surname Joyce may automatically be associated with author James Joyce, the name has an ancient past, with both Irish and Norman antecedents. Derived from the Brehon personal name Iodoc,...

Graduation Day

Seated at the right of this photograph is my mother, Elizabeth “Bess” Cashen when she was 13. She was valedictorian of the class of 1909 in St. Mary’s School, Wharton, New Jersey....

Mitchell Honored by
Northern Women

Former Senator George Mitchell was honored for his tireless work for peace in Ireland at the Northern Ireland Women’s Initiative (NIWI) January 21 in New York. NIWI founder and president...

Tug O’ The Heart

The history of the Moran tugboat family, once known as the “Irish Navy” in the Port of New York, is explored by Marian Betancourt. ℘℘℘ To say the Irish had a lot to do with making...

The Fenian Invasion of Canada

Irish veterans of the American Civil War launched attacks on Canada in an effort to win independence for Ireland. ℘℘℘ It was 4 a.m., but the men of the 17th Regiment were wide-awake....

Caught in the Crossfire

We’re circling Abercorn Street in Derry and Richard Moore, my sunglassed passenger, is pointing out focal points of his native city. He acts as navigator, advising me to turn left at the shop,...

Just Judy

By the time Judy Garland made her first and only concert appearance in Dublin in July 1951, she had been an international star for more than a decade. She had starred in 27 feature length films,...

The Mammoth of Ventry

How many men can say they live with four women and the only woolly mammoth in Ireland? Harris Moore can, because his home in Ventry on the western Dingle Peninsula is also the unique Prehistoric...

To Hell or Barbados

The ethnic cleansing of Ireland: Emmett O’Connell reviews Sean O’Callaghan’s book on the Irish whom Cromwell sent into slavery. ℘℘℘ “These Irish, anciently called...

Our Jack

Pete Hamill on JFK

Somewhere in the shadowy land between myth and history lies the domicile of John F. Kennedy. The first United States president of Irish-Catholic descent, Kennedy was a man of many faces: war hero,...

The Dawn of a New Peace

HISTORIC NI AGREEMENT GIVES HOPE FOR FUTURE: Deaglán de Bréadún, Northern Editor of The Irish Times, describes an epic week in the history of the North of Ireland culminating in the historic...

Roots: The Stout-
Hearted Murphys

One of the most common names in Ireland, the Murphy Clan has distinguished itself in every field. Among them were an Army chaplain, poet, war hero, police commissioner, and mistress....