John Browne of Ballylanders, Co. Limerick: Confederate Veteran, Mayor of...
On 19th August 1941 John T. Browne died in Houston, Texas, having led a most remarkable life. He had been born in Co. Limerick 96 years before and had become one of Ireland’s many Famine emigrants. In...
View ArticleThe 14 Irish Medal of Honor Recipients of the Battle of Mobile Bay, Alabama
On 5th August 1864 a fleet of eighteen Union ships under Rear Admiral David G. Farragut entered Mobile Bay, Alabama on the Confederacy’s Gulf Coast. Their aim was to put the port out of action as a...
View ArticleWitnesses to History: A Bounty List of the 170th New York, Corcoran’s Irish...
This is the first in a new series of posts on the site which seeks to tie surviving American Civil War objects to the stories of those people associated with them. Surviving objects from the Civil War...
View ArticleIn Search of Con: The Remarkable Story of the Hunt for the ‘Idiot’ Boy Sold...
In late 1863, details of a sensational case began to emerge throughout the newspapers of the Union. It was a story that would be told and retold for decades to come, and was ever after remembered by...
View ArticleHearing the Irish Accent of a Merrimac Victim Across 150 Years
On 8th March 1862, the Confederate Ironclad CSS Virginia (formerly the Merrimack) steamed out of Norfolk, Virginia to attack the Federal fleet in Hampton Roads. The resulting two-day encounter remains...
View Article‘I Will Sing the Song of Companionship': Peter Doyle– Former Confederate,...
I am very pleased today to have a guest post from historian Liam Hogan. Liam has spent many years exploring this history of Limerick City and County, research that has seen the production of resources...
View ArticleAbbeyfeale’s Louisiana Tiger: A Confederate Veteran Returns to Ireland
Although it is often possible to track Union veterans who returned to Ireland through resources such as pension files, this is not an avenue available when searching for former Confederates. One method...
View ArticleThe ‘Polopticomorama’: Bringing the American Civil War to Life in Irish...
When Mathew Brady exhibited his photographic images of the dead of the Battle of Antietam in New York in 1862, throngs went to see the exhibition. The shocking sight of the dead of the conflict caused...
View ArticleIrishmen in the U.S. Regulars: A Case Study of the Battle of Stones River
The main focus of attention when it comes to Irish service in the American Civil War is understandably on ethnic Irish regiments and brigades. However, as has been highlighted many times on this site,...
View Article‘Beyond the Power of My Feeble Pen’: The Fate of a Limerick Octogenarian’s...
Limerickman Patrick Vaughan had lived a long life by the 1860s. He was born sometime around 1783, the year that the conflict between the American Colonies and Britain had finally drawn to a close. When...
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