In 1865 Ellen McCann of 87 Mulberry Street in New York’s infamous Five Points district went in search of a pension. She was not a typical widow. By the time her husband Francis had elected to join the Union cause...
As many readers will be aware, I have had a number of “side projects” which I try to advance periodically through the years. One that I haven’t previously highlighted relates to Irish emigrants who lost their lives aboard the USS...
I spend the majority of time on the site exploring Irish men and women connected to United States military service in America. We sometimes forget that there were some men for whom the reverse was true. In the 18th century,...
The latest podcast explores a topic close to my heart, the final letters of Union soldiers from the American Civil War. The episode takes a geographical slant, looking at the words of Ulster men from both the Catholic and Protestant...
In 1911 John Fitzgerald of Liscelty sat down to write a letter to America from the rural fishing village of Dunmore East. He was doing so on behalf of a local fisherman, a man named John Dunne. By then in...
As I have discussed frequently on this site and elsewhere, the Widows and Dependent Pension Files from the American Civil War represent the greatest repository of detailed social information on ordinary nineteenth century Irish people that exists anywhere in the...
A couple of weeks ago I began my holidays on beautiful Arranmore Island, off the coast of Co. Donegal. Aside from being a great place to visit, I was also there to meet local historians Seamus Bonner and Patrick Gallagher....
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...
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...