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...
A recent post explored some of the American Civil War veterans buried around Newcastle Upon Tyne in England, where I am currently carrying out research on the Irish of the American Civil War at Northumbria University. I have continued to...
I have recently moved to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in the North-East of England in order to pursue PhD research into the Irish of the American Civil War. In my first days here, I have been looking at local connections to the conflict....
I recently had an opportunity to spend some time in Cornwall, England’s most south-westerly county. The dramatic scenery is everywhere punctuated by the physical remains of the industry for which the Cornish established an international reputation– mining. Cornish tin and...
Many Irish Fenians enlisted in the Union cause during the course of the American Civil War, seeking to gain military experience in advance of a hoped for military confrontation with the British. None had closer ties to the Fenian cause...
As regular readers will be aware, I occasionally take the opportunity to explore some non-Irish emigrant stories on the site. On this occasion I have been researching the experiences of the Kermeens, a family who made their home on the...
On 17th September 1862, 27-year-old tailor Denis Barry from Dunmanway in West Co. Cork ventured into Antietam’s West Woods with the 19th Massachusetts Infantry. He never came out again. One of the legacies of Denis’s death is the extraordinary detail...
I was very honoured recently to be asked to provide a guest post for the blog of the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum in Washington D.C. The request gave me an opportunity to explore a topic on which I have wanted...