Cork Harbour is one of the largest natural harbours in the World. This coupled with its strategic location meant that it was of key significance for the British Empire over the centuries. The harbour’s importance to the Royal Navy led to the construction of a major series of defences at key locations around the anchorage. […]
The launch of my new book, The Irish in the American Civil War, took place on Saturday 23rd February last in the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, Dublin. I was very keen to have the launch at that venue, as it is where I spent four years as one of the curators working on […]
The Battle of Perryville, Kentucky was the ‘high water mark’ of the Confederacy in the Western Theater. On 8th October 1862 Braxton Bragg’s Confederate Army of the Mississippi smashed into elements of Don Carlos Buell’s Union Army of the Ohio (mainly the I Corps), bringing on some of the most savage and confused fighting of […]
It is just after 4p.m. on 1st September 1864, and the men of the XIV Corps of the Army of the Cumberland are ordered to the attack. Their objective is the right flank of Confederate Lieutenant-General William Hardee’s Corps, which is deployed just to the north of the town of Jonesboro, Georgia. If they succeed […]
Many of the Irishmen who fought during the American Civil War had a strong commitment to using their experience to strike a blow for Irish Independence when the conflict was over. These were the Fenians, and even when on military duty between 1861 and 1865 it was not unusual for many Irish officers to meet frequently to collect […]
In the early afternoon of 30th November 1864 Brigadier-General Daniel C. Govan stood with his Division Commander Major-General Patrick Cleburne on Winstead Hill, Tennessee. As they prepared their troops for an attack on the fortified Federal positions around the town of Franklin, Govan looked out across the exposed plain over which the Army of Tennessee […]
The Civil War Preservation Trust is America’s largest non-profit organisation. Their aim is to preserve the battlefields of the Civil War, to which end they have already saved huge tracts of land. As thousands of Irishmen also fought and fell on these great battlegrounds, their work is of real relevance to Ireland and to those […]
Major-General Patrick Cleburne became the highest ranking Irishman to serve in the American Civil War. Starting the conflict as Captain of the Yell Rifles in Helena, Arkansas, he rose to become one of the most famous divisional generals in the Confederate forces. His fighting abilities earned him the nickname ‘Stonewall of the West’, and the […]
The 5th Confederate Infantry were a unit formed mainly from the Irish of Memphis. They were created in May 1862 as a result of the consolidation of the 2nd (Knox-Walker’s) Tennessee Infantry and the 21st Tennessee Infantry, following the Battle of Shiloh. In 1863 they were temporarily consolidated with the 3rd Confederate Infantry (which also […]
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