As regular readers are aware, I am consistently pointing out that for many Irish counties the American Civil War saw more men fight and die than any other conflict in modern history, including the First World War. One county for...

Historian and author Christopher Klein has recently published When the Irish Invaded Canada: The Incredible True Story of the Civil War Veteran’s Who Fought for Ireland’s Freedom, a book which charts Fenian efforts to advance their aims through attacks on...

I recently had a conversation with Mike Feerick, the founder of the Irish Diaspora website Ireland Reaching Out. An Irish-based charity, it has 120,000 members worldwide, and provides a free service helping the Irish Diaspora aboard to connect with their...

In 1917 more than 6,000 American sailors arrived in Ireland, the first United States troops deployed to front line service during the First World War. From a social perspective, all was not plain sailing. This podcast tells the story of...

I recently came across a series of 1861 letters written between three notable members of nineteenth century Irish America. The authors were the Archbishop of New York, “Dagger” John Hughes; Father Bernard O’Reilly, who had served as the 69th New...

Millions of people in the modern-day United States have some degree of Irish ancestry. The surnames they bear or are connected to display a staggering array of spelling variance–some of which seem very far removed from their Transatlantic origins. While...

My primary area of research relates to wartime letters written home by soldiers and sailors, and which widow’s and dependents parted with in order to provide the Bureau of Pensions with evidence to support their claim. However, letters were not...

The north-eastern portion of Washington D.C. is home to a cemetery with strong ties to the nineteenth century Irish Diaspora. Indeed, this is perhaps the most significant–and least well known– site with Irish American links in the entire District of...

Historically, we have tended to view the Irish American experience of the Civil War through the lens of ethnic formations such as the Irish Brigade and Corcoran’s Irish Legion. Yet of the c. 250,000 ethnic Irishmen who donned Union blue...

The latest instalment of the series focuses on Alexandria National Cemetery, which I visited on my recent trip to the United States. The majority of burials relate to men who died of illness or injuries in one of Alexandria’s many...