Ireland and the U.S. Civil War

To celebrate making the longlist for the Irish Blog Awards, I am continuing my reposting of old posts to do with the Irish Diaspora. Here is a piece I did about an Irishman’s account of fighting for the Union in the U.S. Civil War.

The Blind Irish Fiddler and The Mutiny on The Bounty – A Begorrathon 2015 Post

Whatever his reasons, Byrne sailed from England in the summer of 1787 with forty men and spent the next two years fiddling on deck, dependant on the kindness of his mates to feed and help him.

The Story of Rorke’s Drift: The Irishman and the Zulus

This is a reposting of a piece I wrote about James Rorke, originally published at World Irish. Click here to read it.

Diasporational Part Sixteen : “Captain Brevet”, the Fenian who fought at Gettysburg

Galwey’s account is a fascinating glimpse of a typical civil war soldier’s life, its privations, its tedium, its terror.

Diasporational Part Fifteen: Sara Allgood

By Niall McArdle Like her contemporary, Una O’Connor, Sara Allgood came to films by way of the Abbey. Indeed, their careers ran on similar paths and intersected several times. They both worked for Alfred Hitchcock in Britain and they were both favourites of John Ford. They both parlayed their Irishness into success. O’Connor, bone-thin and […]

Diasporational Part Fourteen: Una O’Connor, Lovable Screamer!

She had a nice line in busybodies: spinsters, gossips and maids (often Irish). She was described as having “the stare of a detective, the voice of an air raid siren, and the body of a scarecrow.” In an age when there was an awful lot of stage-Irishness in Hollywood films (Abby’s Irish Rose, Mother Machree), it must have grated on her ears to hear so many Oirish brogues.

Diasporational Part Thirteen: “Honest Dan”, the Man from Derry who took on Tammany Hall

Dan Bradley abhorred Tammany Hall and everything it had come to stand for – machine politics, political bosses, and graft.

Diasporational Part Twelve: The Irishman Who Reported the Sinking of the “Laconia”

‘I have serious doubts whether this is a real story. I am not entirely certain that it is not all a dreamand that in a few minutes I will wake up back in stateroom B19 on the promenade deck of the Cunarder “Laconia” and hear my cockney steward informing with an abundance of ‘and sirs’ that it is a fine morning.”

Diasporational Part Eleven: Squire Butler, the Kilkenny Man who Built a Fortune with Butter & Eggs.

By Niall McArdle In New York on September 2nd, 1882, two young Irish immigrants, James Butler and P.J. O’Connor, opened a small grocery store called P.J. O’Connor & Co. on 2nd Avenue. Within a year they had opened a second store at 10th Avenue. In 1884 Butler bought O’Connor out; the business was renamed James Butler Inc. […]

Diasporational Part Ten: The Meath Brothers who Reigned in Early Hollywood

The Moore Brothers from County Meath were leading men in Hollywood’s silent era.

The Fluff Is Raging

Flufferings on Arts, Culture and the Perpetual Allure of Uma Thurman by an Irish ex-pat currently at large in Canada

Diasporational