A brand new resource has been added to the website, and can be found in the Resources section or by clicking here. It deals with letters from America that were published in Irish newspapers during the course of the American...

The pension applications of widows and dependants for Civil War pensions pull back the curtains on the hardships that many 19th century working class Irish American women suffered at the hands of their husbands. For many, physical abuse, alcoholism and...

Over the course of the last few years I have been asked to provide historical advice and content for the Irish Veterans charity. One of their primary missions is to explore the experiences of Irish emigrants and the Irish Diaspora...

Corcoran’s Irish Legion were, along with the Irish Brigade, one of just two brigade-level formations in the Union military during the American Civil War. Formed by famed Fenian, Brigadier-General Michael Corcoran, the regiments sustained terrible casualties during the 1864 Overland...

The participation of the United States Marine Corps at the First Battle of Bull Run is one of the lesser known aspects of the engagement. The few hundred Marines who found themselves on the field of the engagement had never...

I am fascinating by the physical remnants of the past that survive in the contemporary landscape. When we think of landscapes of the American Civil War, the images conjured in our minds are often of vast battlefields, such as the...

A number of previous posts have explored the impact of loss during the American Civil War on ordinary people in Europe (See Mapping Mainland Europe’s American Civil War Widows). Many of them had never–and would never–set foot in the United...

As many readers are aware, I am currently at Northumbria University in Newcastle working on PhD research into the letters of Irish soldiers and sailors who served in the Union military. Forming the basis of this work is a database...

James McDevitt was born into a large Irish family around the year 1845. His home was in a small cluster of houses– known as a clachan– which operated an infield and outfield farming system known as rundale (see here). James...

A number of years ago, Donegal teacher Gerry Moore launched the fantastic My Adopted Soldier project. The cornerstone of his efforts saw 32 Irish school students–one from every county in Ireland–research an Irish soldier from their area who died during the First...