The descendants of Irish people sold into slavery in the 1600s live in a close-knit community beset by poverty and ill health. During the winter of 1636, a ship bearing a consignment of 61 men and ...

A few years back, the Irish dancing community was dealt a series of devastating losses. Four celebrated dance masters – Jimmy Erwin, Jerry Mulvihill, Michael Bergin, and Peter Smith – passed away in ...

Daniel O’Connell is remembered as the Liberator of Irish Catholics, but he also played a significant role in the movement to end slavery. On 23 May 2011, President Obama made an historic visit to the ...

The Comstock Lode in Nevada, uncovered in 1859 by two Irish laborers, ultimately produced more than $500 million worth of silver, a large share of which went to the Irish-American “Big Four” – James ...

The Irish government designated 17 May 2009 as the first National Famine Memorial Day. On that day, Irish people throughout the world remembered and honored the victims of Ireland’s Great Hunger – ...

“Drinking in Ireland is not simply a convivial pastime, it is a ritualistic alternative to real life, a spiritual placebo, a fumble for eternity, a longing for heaven, a thirst for return to the ...

Many of the 1.8 million Irish who emigrated to Canada and the U.S. between 1845 and 1855 found employment in the dangerous but lucrative mines that played a vital role in building American industry. A ...

The Famine Irish in Glasgow features Sir Tom Devine, Emeritus Professor of Scottish History and Palaeography at the University of Edinburgh. Sir Tom looks at the Irish emigrants who arrived in ...

In the wake of the Ryan and Murphy reports*, both released in 2009, often the memories of the children, women and workers involved have taken a sideline to the question of who is to blame for systemic ...

The Celtic cross that the Ladies’ Ancient Order of Hibernians Auxiliary dedicated to Great Hunger victims at the Cohasset Cemetery in Massachusetts. Her other books include: Black Abolitionists In ...

The evolution of Martin McGuinness – from high school dropout and IRA man to political leader seeking an end to violence and, finally, his emergence as Northern Ireland’s Minister for Education. If it ...

The evolution of the Irish-American policeman – in real life and on screen. In the classic 1954 Looney Tunes cartoon entitled “Bugs and Thugs,” everybody’s favorite animated rabbit gets himself caught ...