New York Irish
Within the files of Irish Americans who died during the American Civil War, certain engagements crop up again and again. As a general rule, the very worst battlefields of the war for Irish Americans were those that took the greatest...
In March I had the opportunity to speak to the Irish American Heritage Museum in Albany, New York, about some of my latest research. The talk focused on the experience of Irish Americans around New York’s Capital Region during the...
Over the years the site has featured a number of posts about the tattoos and marks on the bodies of Irish American men, such as Marked Men: The Tattoos of New York Irishmen, 1863; Inked Irishmen: Irish Tattoos in 1860s...
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...
I am delighted to be in a position to share another piece of innovative work undertaken by Brendan Hamilton, long-time contributor to the site. It serves as a preview of some of the intriguing original research he has been conducting...
I have given numerous talks at historic sites over the years, particularly locations associated with conflict. Where I can, I always try to take opportunities to look beyond the military moment, explore the impact of these events on individuals and...
Amputation, as one historian has noted, is the “symbolic wound” of the American Civil War. One estimate places the number of wartime amputations at 60,000, three-quarters of all the operations undertaken during the conflict. Around 45,000 of these men are...
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...
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...