I recently attended the excellent 2018 Famine Summer School held at the National Famine Museum at Strokestown Park House in Co. Roscommon. I was speaking on what pension files can reveal about the remittance of money from America to Ireland, and the...
On 25 May last I delivered a lecture to the Waterford Archaeological & Historical Society at St. Patrick’s Gateway Centre in Waterford City. The topic was the exploration of the impact of the American Civil War on Irish families. As...
When the American Civil War broke out in April 1861, Ireland’s Nation newspaper predicted that the lives of Irish emigrants would be “offered in thousands. Many a mother’s heart in Ireland, long cheered by the affectionate and dutiful letter and the generous...
As part of the new suite of elements forming part of Irish in the American Civil War I am developing an occasional YouTube series exploring relevant topics, interspersed with footage I have taken while at relevant locations. The first in that series takes...
The Immigration and Ethnic History Society aims to promote the study of the history of immigration to the United States and Canada. Founded in 1965, the Society produces the Journal of American Ethnic History. I have just had a post published...
New Yorker Marshall Bailey’s moment in the sun came late in life. The summer of 1910 found the elderly American Civil War veteran in dire straits, consigned to life as a pauper far from the country of his birth. His...
2017 witnessed the 150th anniversary of the 1867 Fenian Rising. Although largely abortive, the events of that year proved inspirational for many in later generations of the nationalist movement. There were a number of events in Ireland to mark the...
James Butler was born in Kereen (Aglish), Co. Waterford in 1878. His family were poor– extremely poor. In 1891 his elderly father John, a labourer, died in nearby Dungarvan Workhouse. It was a place James and his family would come...
Large numbers of Irish documents are to be found among the vast collection of 19th century military pension files housed in Washington D.C.’s National Archives. Among the most fascinating are official extracts of 19th century Irish Censuses. Today, the earliest...
The 1893 Act of Congress that halted Civil War pension payments to non-residents of the United States who could not prove their citizenship is a topic I have explored frequently on previous occasions (see for example my book The Forgotten Irish and The...