This March I delivered a short talk for the CelticMKE St. Patrick’s Day at Home Festival. I concentrated on how units such as the Irish Brigade and the 9th Massachusetts celebrated St. Patrick’s Day during the American Civil War, with...
The latest in the Storied Tombstones series looks at some of the Irish American graves I encountered during my brief visit to Gettysburg National Cemetery. As regular readers will be aware, the premise behind the series revolves around photographs I...
The latest guest post comes from Joe Maghe, one of the longest running friends of the Irish in the American Civil War website. Joe has gathered together and curates one of the most important collections of artefacts relating to the...
The 1913 Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg witnessed the largest Civil War veteran’s reunion that ever took place. Although thousands of former Union and Confederate soldiers attended the event, the numbers of those who had fought through the war...
I was recently looking through some of the excellent images made available by the J. Paul Getty Trust when I came upon this striking stereograph view. The original label describes it as “Gen. Thomas Francis Meagher, surrounded by a portion of...
In August 1861, tens of thousands of Irish immigrants took part in a “Monster Irish Festival” on Manhattan. Organised to benefit the widows and orphans of Irish men who had fallen at Bull Run, its scale and scope were considered...
We often view many of the ethnic-Irish ‘green flag’ units of the American Civil War as being completely dominated by Irish-born or Irish-American soldiers. While this was true to varying degrees, all of them also had a proportion of men...
Friend of the site Catherine Bateson of the University of Edinburgh has previously contributed a guest post on her work relating to Irish Songs in the American Civil War. I am delighted to welcome her back, this time to share some...
Last week I had a conversation with Dr. Keith Harris who runs The Rogue Historian website and podcast. Keith will be known to many readers for his very well-received book Across the Bloody Chasm: The Culture of Commemoration among Civil...
When we think and examine the Irish of the American Civil War, we often consider first and foremost ethnic units; formations such as the Irish Brigade, Corcoran’s Legion or regimental level contingents such as the 9th Massachusetts and 69th Pennsylvania....