Over the next two posts we will be sharing some of the work of our two new Associate Editors, Dr Catherine Bateson and Brendan Hamilton. You can find out more about Catherine and Brendan on our About Us page. Catherine is a specialist in Irish American service during the conflict, and has a particular expertise in the music Irish American communities created and listened to during and after the Civil War. She has previously contributed a number of guest posts to the site, both on her musical work and an analysis of a series of letters written by an Irish Brigade soldier. You can check them out here:

‘In This Song I Will Make Mention of the Sons of Erin’: Researching Irish Songs from the American Civil War

“…I don’t care about dancing on the bodies of dead men”: The Civil War letters of Daniel Crowley, Part 1

“I am the Same Boy yet”: The Civil War Letters of Daniel Crowley, Part 2

“I am so heartily sick of this life”: The Civil War Letter of Daniel Crowley, Part 3

Aside from Catherine’s posts on Irish in the American Civil War, you can find her writing at a numerous other places across the web. Just a couple of examples are shared below:

South Writ Large: Colston, Curricula, and Complicated Conversations: Monument Debates and Decolonized Discussions in the United Kingdom

U.S. Studies Online: ‘The Place, The Circumstances, The Remembrance’: The Performative Nature of Irish-American Civil War Memory and Memorialisation

In addition to her public outreach writing, Catherine has also published a number of important academic papers. One example is ‘Forward For Our Homes!’ Lyrical Expressions of Home Heard in Irish American Civil War Songs which appeared in the Journal of History and Cultures, and which you can read online for free by clicking here. For a full list of Catherine’s writing and publications check out her profile here.

As well as her writing Catherine also frequently delivers public lectures, some of which are available online. Two of her most recent were for the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, where she discussed Irish Music and Civil War Medicine, and How Civil War Soldiers Sang About Battlefield Wounds. You can watch them on YouTube via the links below:

I hope you enjoy exploring some of Catherine’s work in more detail. We are very fortunate to have a historian of her calibre on board at Irish in the American Civil War, there promises to be exciting times ahead!