Regular readers will note that posts on the site have been somewhat infrequent of late. The main reason for this is that a number of months ago I was approached by a publishing house here in Ireland. They asked me to consider writing a book based upon some of the stories I have touched on in this blog. Given my recent musings about the lack of memory of the American Civil War in Ireland I decided that I may as well give it a go. One of the side effects is that it has dominated much of my time over recent weeks and the blog has suffered commensurately. The first draft of the manuscript has now gone off to the publishers to see what they make of it. For those interested, I decided not to go for a full history of the Irish in the American Civil War, rather I wanted to use stories to touch on a number of themes, which I have provisionally called ‘Beginnings’, ‘Realities’, ‘The Wider War’ and ‘Aftermath’. In any event more anon when I hear if the editor thinks any of it is worth printing!

Also the blog has just trundled past the 100,000 hit mark, so I would like to thank everyone who has stopped by since it started for reading it, and indeed for all your comments! The interaction is one of the most fun things about blogging, and I have greatly enjoyed the resulting dialogues I have had with many of you. I hope to get back into the swing of things with the blog over the coming days and weeks, and get researching some more stories about the Irish experience of the war to share and discuss.