Irish America

Irish America

By James P. Gannon February / March 1999

Irish Rebels, Confederate Tigers

By James P. Gannon

February / March 1999

by Leave a Comment

From Bull Run to Appomattox, the 6th Louisiana's Irish Confederates fought proudly On April 28, 1861, two weeks after Confederate guns had fired the first shots of the Civil War against Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, a notice appeared in the columns of The Daily Picayune, one of New Orleans' leading papers. It was a call to arms aimed at the thousands of Irish immigrants … [Read more...] about Irish Rebels, Confederate Tigers

The First Word: Living Up to The Nobel Prize

By Patricia Harty, Editor-in-Chief
February / March 1999

by Leave a Comment

Ireland is no stranger to the Nobel Prize. Indeed the prize awarded each year in memory of Alfred Nobel (the inventor of dynamite) has gone to citizens of the island a total of seven times. W.B. Yeats (1923), G.B. Shaw (1925), Samuel Beckett (1969) and Seamus Heaney (1995) all won the Nobel Prize for Literature. But good writers aside, the Nobel Committee has also focused on … [Read more...] about The First Word: Living Up to The Nobel Prize

Footsteps of the Past

By Margaret M. Johnson

September/October 1998

by Leave a Comment

The Queenstown Story Their names were Peter, Jack, Nora, Maggie, Minnie and Kate, and one by one, the Sullivan children left Bounard, County Kerry, for Boston. They eventually made their way to Newburyport, where my grandmother, Minnie, married a Cork lad named James Barry. In my eyes, the most fascinating souvenir of the journey was my grandmother's trunk, mostly black, but … [Read more...] about Footsteps of the Past

Gerry Adams Up Close & Personal

By Anne Cadwallader

September/October 1998

by Leave a Comment

History will be the ultimate jury, but Sinn Féin leader, Gerry Adams, one of the architects of the lrish peace process, is likely to emerge as one of the key Irish politicians of the 20th century. Unionists see him as a machiavellian schemer, with no commitment to peace and reconciliation with their tradition. The SDLP -- and one suspects the British government -- are also … [Read more...] about Gerry Adams Up Close & Personal

United in Grief

By Patricia Harty, Editor-in-Chief
September / October 1998

by Leave a Comment

At 3:10 p.m. on Saturday, August 22nd, the dream of a united Ireland was finally realized. Protestant, Catholic and Church of Ireland bells rang in all parts of the island signifying a striking moment of unity. Was this a dream realized or a nightmare lived? The bells tolled out not in celebration, but in mourning, and all over the island of Ireland, people stopped whatever … [Read more...] about United in Grief