At the Battle of Antietam, the Irish Brigade led its division in attacking the infamous Bloody Lane. In preparation for the deadly work ahead, Father William Corby, one of the brigade’s chaplains and future president of Notre Dame, rode down the firing line and administered a general rite of absolution to the men. Thomas Meagher […]
The 1947 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final was the sixtieth All-Ireland Final and the deciding match of the 1947 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, an inter-county Gaelic football tournament for the top teams in Ireland. For the first and only time, the final was played outside Ireland, at the Polo Grounds in New York City, to […]
Formed and led by John Riley, was a unit of 175 to several hundred immigrants (accounts vary) and expatriates of European descent who fought as part of the Mexican Army against the United States in the Mexican–American War of 1846–8. El Batallón de San Patricio, The Saint Patrick’s Battalion, deserted to fight on the side […]
Company D was known as the ‘Rebel Sons of Erin’ because so many of them were Irish. Indeed, the roster of Company D reads like any small town in a 19th century Irish village (every surname was Irish). While the Fighting 69th on the Union side is the most famous “Irish Brigade,” it is estimated […]
Film site IMDb states: John Ford is, arguably, The Great American Director.” Although born John Martin Feeney, he never forgot his Irish roots. John Ford’s homage ‘The Quiet Man’ to his ancestral was hardly an accurate depiction of Ireland. However, the 1952 movie is probably the best tourist commercial ever for Ireland. Filmed in Co […]
Tom Kiely competed in the 1904 Summer Olympics held in St. Louis, Missouri, in the all-round, which consisted of 100 yd run, shot put, high jump, 880 yd walk, hammer throw, pole vault, 120 yd hurdles, 56 pounds weight throw, long jump and 1 mile run. He won the gold medal. Kiely was thirty-four at […]
Writer and educator Francis “Frank” McCourt was born on 19 August 1930, in Brooklyn, New York, as the eldest of seven children. McCourt’s father, Malachy, worked odd jobs while his mother, Angela, worked to raise the children. The family frequently struggled to make ends meet and, after a long stint of unemployment during the Depression, […]
The “Fremantle Six” were Irish political prisoners who made an audacious escape from the notorious British prison in West Australia aboard the U.S. whaling ship “Catalpa” in 1876. Captain Anthony and the Catalpa arrive at Rockingham beach near Fremantle to rendezvous with the escaped prisoners; after a fierce confrontation with the Georgette, an armed British […]
General Michael Corcoran led the 69th New York Militia, Irish Brigade, into action at the First Battle of Bull Run and was taken prisoner. Corcoran was one of the founders of the Fenian Brotherhood in America. While in jail, Corcoran wrote, “One half of my heart is Erin’s, and the other half is America’s. God […]
“Don’t count the days, make the days count.” –Muhammad Ali Twenty-four hours after arriving in Dublin, Muhammad Ali rang his publicist Harold Conrad. “Hey, Hal?” said Ali, “where are all the black people in this country?” “Ali,” replied Conrad, “there aren’t any.” On 19 July 1972, it took Muhammad Ali 11 rounds to defeat Al […]
