St. Patrick's Day usually falls during the fasting season of Lent when eating meat is prohibited and everyone gives up something. On St. Patrick's Day, a dispensation is given in Ireland to eat meat and to indulge in what was given up for Lent.

As children, we always had to give up sweets for Lent and it was always such a treat to be able to eat candy on St. Patrick's Day. The most affordable special dinner is cooked on that day.

It is not corned beef and cabbage, which is really an Irish American version of the traditional bacon and cabbage dinner. The bacon and cabbage may be served or it could be roast beef or Irish stew. It is really a day for family and friends to celebrate together.

Until the 1970s, pubs in Ireland were closed on this day but now that they are open, a visit to the local pub in the evening is often warranted. In the pub there will be songs, stories and dancing. In city pubs, there is often a band but in the local country pubs, the good singers of the area will sing traditional Irish songs.

As closing time approaches, the locals who are tone deaf will be getting up to sing. At this point, everyone will join in and if the weather is dry, the party will continue on the street after the pub closes.

History of corned beef and cabbage

While many North Americans associate corned beef and cabbage with Ireland, this popular St. Patrick's Day meal has roots in America, and is not traditional Irish food.
   
Corned beef, a salt-cured brisket, was traditionally packed and stored in barrels with coarse grains, or "corns" of salt. One of the earliest references to corned beef appears in the 12th century Gaelic poem Aislinge Meic Conglinne, where it references a dainty, gluttonous indulgence. By the 17th century, salting beef had become a major industry for Irish port cities of Cork and Dublin, where Irish beef was cured and exported to France, England and later to America.

With the majority of Irish beef being exported, beef was an expensive source of protein and unavailable to the majority of Irish citizens. Cows, if owned at all, were raised predominately for their dairy products, from which butter, cheese and cream could be obtained, and were only slaughtered when they were no longer good for milking. Sheep were raised as a source of wool and hogs and pigs were one of the only livestock species raised by the peasantry for consumption.

Salt pork and bacon, therefore, became the commonly consumed meat protein of Irish tables. Fat from bacon supplemented the lack of fat in the farmhouse diet and Sir Charles Cameron was quoted as saying that he does "not know of any country in the world where so much bacon and cabbage is eaten." Even today corned beef and cabbage appears infrequently in Irish pubs and restaurants, except for those in heavily tourist areas, and is much more likely to be replaced its traditional counterpart - an Irish stew with cabbage, leeks, and a bacon joint.

After the Irish potato blight, or Great Famine, of the mid-19th century brought hundreds of Irish emigrants to the shores of America, the newly immigrated Irish Americans found corned beef to be both more accessible and more affordable than it was in Ireland. Both corned beef and cabbage were ingredients of the lower working class, and their popularity among the Irish population likely had little to do with similarities to the food of Ireland and more to do with the relatively inexpensive nature of salt cured beef and green cabbage.

For several decades following the Irish immigration, St Patrick's Day was celebrated with music, crafts and revelry but banquets, while lavish, contained a scarcity of traditional Irish cuisine. However by the 1920s, corned beef and cabbage came to have an association with Irish American cooking, although it was also used in the cooking of eastern European Jews.

New York City corned beef and cabbage:

Ingredients

One 3-pound corned beef brisket (uncooked), in brine
16 cups cold water
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoons black peppercorns
4 whole allspice berries
2 whole cloves
½ large head green cabbage (about 2 pounds), cut into 8 thick wedges
8 small new potatoes (about 1¼ pounds), halved
Freshly ground black pepper

Method

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Place the corned beef in a colander in the sink and rinse well under cold running water.

Place the corned beef in a large Dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid; add the water, bay leaves, peppercorns, allspice, and cloves. Bring to a boil, uncovered, and skim off any scum that rises to the surface. Cover and transfer pan to the oven, and braise until very tender, about 3 hours and 45 minutes.

Transfer the corned beef to a cutting board and cover tightly with foil to keep warm. Add the cabbage and potatoes to the cooking liquid and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until the vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes.

Using a slotted spoon, transfer the cabbage to a large platter. Slice the corned beef across the grain of the meat into thin slices. Lay the slices over the cabbage and surround it with the potatoes. Ladle some of the hot cooking liquid over the corned beef and season with pepper. Serve immediately with mustard or horseradish sauce.

AND FINALLY… Seamus was about to go on his first date, so he asked his brother, the ladies man, for advice. "Give me some tips on how to talk to them."

"Here's the secret," said his brother, "Irish girls like to talk about three things: food, family, and philosophy. If you ask a girl what she likes to eat, it shows your intentions are honorable. If you discuss philosophy, it shows you respect her intelligence."

"Gee, thanks," said Seamus. "Food, family and philosophy. I can handle that."

That night as he met the young lady, Seamus blurted out,

"Do you like cabbage?"

"Uh, no," said the puzzled girl.

"Do you have a brother?" asked Seamus.

"No"

"Well, if you had a brother, do you think he would like cabbage?"

May your blessings outnumber
The shamrocks that grow,
And may trouble avoid you
Wherever you go.

Chef Gilligan

You may never have heard of him, but we owe him a deep debt of gratitude.

Luke Wadding is the man we can all thank, praise, or blame for making St. Patrick’s Day the day it is.

Wadding, a Co. Waterford native born in October 1558, was a Franciscan priest ordained in 1607 and sent as a chaplain to Rome in 1618.

Once there, he soon began raising funds for an Irish college for clerical students studying for the priesthood.  He had accumulated great power in Rome and succeeded in his quest, opening the college in 1625. Wadding acted as head of the Irish College for decades after.

A fierce Irish nationalist, he had no time at all for the English and their occupation of Ireland. He strongly supported the Irish Catholic uprising in the war of 1641, and his college became a hotbed of opposition to the English. Wadding sent soldiers and arms to Ireland, and persuaded Pope Innocent X to send Archbishop Giovanni Rinuccini there as his representative.

Rinuccini went to Ireland with a huge quantity of arms, including 20,000 pounds of gunpowder, and a large sum of money to help the Irish rebels, who he hoped would declare an independent Catholic Ireland.

Alas, Rinuccini failed in his task, partly because of internal Irish strife (what’s new?). He returned to Rome in 1649, leaving Ireland at the mercy of Oliver Cromwell, who later crushed the Irish rebellion.

Efforts were made to make Luke Wadding a cardinal, but his enemies prevented it. He was by far the strongest advocate of the Irish cause in Rome and met with several popes to push the issue.  He was so effective that generations later his spirit lived on in the Irish college.

In the late 19th century, Sir George Errington was sent by British Prime Minister William Gladstone to Rome to explain the Irish question and ask for support for the British position.

He came back empty-handed, however, explaining that the Irish politicians in Ireland were utter moderates compared to the priests and staff at the Irish College.

Wadding succeeded, against all the odds, in making St. Patrick’s Day a feast day. After it was decreed a holy day of obligation, it was wholeheartedly embraced by the Catholic Church and soon became a worldwide day of celebration. Though the day had been observed from around the 10th century, Wadding was the one who put the power of the Church behind it.

His legacy has come down the ages to us. In 1900, his portrait and part of his library were placed in the Franciscan convent on Merchant's Quay in Dublin. His life story was written by Francis Harold, his nephew, in the 17th century.

So spare a thought for Luke Wadding this St. Patrick’s Day. Without him we would likely never have the grand occasion we celebrate this week.

* Originally published in 2015.

Does gold buried in a child’s coffin explain why Michael Collins was in West Cork on the day of his death?

Over the years there has been wild speculation as to why Collins, basically the leader of the infant Irish Free State, would risk venturing into fiery rebel Cork as the nascent Civil War began to escalate. Some say it was to “show the flag” and let the rebels know that he meant business. Others say it was to meet with rebel forces and try for conciliation. And there has always been that tasty historical tidbit that, perhaps, it was to meet with Eamon de Valera, who was in the area that day, to facilitate a peace deal.

Now there is a new angle to Collins’ travels on that fateful August 22, 1922 – gold!

At first, it may sound preposterous that the audacious Collins would risk his life for a coffin of gold, but one should remember that Collins, along with his myriad other portfolios, was also the Free State’s Minister for Finance. And everyone knows how stubbornly he protected the financial assets of the State, even, at one point, shooting a bank examiner named Alan Bell who had confiscated £18,000 in National Loan money from a Dublin bank. It worked—no other bank examiners would travel to Dublin to examine the books.

In an upcoming book, "Cork’s Revolutionary Dead," which will be published by Mercier in June, author Barry Keane has a chapter entitled “Michael Collins 1922: The Year of Living Dangerously,” which tells the tale of why Collins was in Cork “for purely financial reasons.”

“Michael Collins wasn’t being reckless at all,” Keane recently told a gathering at the Parish Centre in Clonakilty which was reported by The Southern Star. “He was desperate for money, and that’s what drove him down there. The Free State at the time was in dire financial straits and, as Minister for Finance, Michael Collins believed it was his responsibility to find money. I found documents that revealed that gold was the real reason he came to West Cork during a time of heightened tension.”

Keane, author of "Massacre in West Cork," which reinvestigated the notorious Dunmanway massacre in 1922, went on to say, “An impeccable source that I found during my research said that Collins was down in West Cork to pick up a stash of gold that he had acquired during the War of Independence. Apparently, he put all the gold in a child’s coffin and buried it in a graveyard in a remote part of West Cork.”

According to Keane, Collins was the only one who knew where it was so he was forced to go to Cork himself to retrieve it. “However, he does manage to pick up the coffin and heads back towards Beal na Bláth where he is shot, but the coffin of gold is taken and put into a bank in Dublin. A document does exist that outlines this information, but it’s not signed or dated,” added Keane.

If true, this adds another tantalizing aspect to the final day of Collins’ life. It has never been reported before by any of Collins’ various biographers.

So, even 95 years after his death, the legend of Michael Collins continues to grow and still fascinate.

* Dermot McEvoy is the author of the "The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising" and "Our Lady of Greenwich Village," now available in paperback from Skyhorse Publishing. He may be reached at dermotmcevoy50@gmail.com. Follow him at www.dermotmcevoy.com. Follow The 13th Apostle on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/13thApostleMcEvoy.

Ireland celebrates Saint Patrick every March 17. But how many of us can really say that we know who he is – or who he was – and how relevant he is in today’s secular and, for the most part, pagan society?

Saint Patrick is not only the Patron Saint of Ireland, but he is also the Patron Saint of Australia, Nigeria, and Montserrat, which gives him a universal recognition in the Church and in the world. He is also ‘Apostle’ by God’s design to the Irish worldwide in the same genre as Saint Paul was ‘Apostle to the Gentiles.’ Saint Patrick also becomes the Patron Saint on March 17 in almost every country of the world, as people celebrate their “Irish-ness” or links with Ireland through family and friends.

Saint Patrick is also probably the best-known saint around the world, after Saint Therese of Lisieux. Not only are many people named after him, with some 7 million bearing his name, but many establishments, institutions, and churches are called after him, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York being the most famous of all.

By all historical accounts, Patrick was captured by an Irish raiding party somewhere along the west coast of what is known today as Great Britain, more than likely Scotland because of its proximity, although many would say Wales. We know that there were boats leaving from, Strangford Lough in Larne at that time, around the year 426 AD (one can see Scotland from Larne on a clear day; it’s about 10 miles away).

Raiding parties, with warriors known as the “Picts,”  would land somewhere on the coast, and if the place was inhabited would usually do a “smash and grab job” of looting – young people, animals, clothes, weapons etc – and if they were opposed by anyone, they would kill them in order to get what they wanted. They were able to run inland for about three miles non-stop while leaving a handful of men to guard their vessels.

On one such raid Patrick was snatched and brought to Ireland as a slave. His job was to mind the sheep at night in case wolves, wild dogs, foxes or even wild bears would take them or their lambs. He did this on the slopes of the Slemish Mountains in County Antrim.

We know from our history that Patrick’s father was a deacon and, therefore, a good Catholic. He was one who taught the faith in his own community, and no doubt one who prayed unceasingly for Patrick in a special way after his son's kidnapping, asking the Lord for his safe return. (We know some of the sources that give testimony to these facts from Patrick's “Confessions,” and the “Epistle against Coroticus” and a number of “Ancient Lives,” including the Book of Armagh II, held in Trinity College Dublin).

Although Patrick was only 16 years old when taken into slavery, he was able to escape six years later and return home. He recounts a “dream” (vision) he had in which an angel of the Lord came in the night, and told him of a ship that was leaving Ireland, and how he might be able to take it by traveling south, near Dublin.

By this time, Patrick, who was often cold, hungry, had spent six years in virtual isolation away from people. He was lonely and had turned to prayer and, like his father, had prayed non-stop asking God to deliver him. His prayers were finally heard and God had designs on him. In fact, it would be fair to say, that Patrick had become somewhat of a mystic by this stage, so intense was his prayer life and his constant communication with God.

He arrived home to the delight of his parents and was reunited with his family and friends. He later began to realize that he had a vocation to the priesthood or some ministry of prayer in the Church. At this time the Church was already established somewhat in Ireland. There was already an Archbishop of Armagh by the name of Pallidus.

Ireland was not ecclesiastically independent at the time but came under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Arles in France, which is connected to the great Mediterranean Sea by the Rhone River and from there by a direct link to Rome. Patrick often thought about the Irish and prayed for their conversion to the faith. During his time in Ireland, even though he was a slave, he had developed a profound relationship with God and had developed a great ability to pray. Later, as he said himself in his “Confessions,” he was tormented by the “Voice of the Irish” whom he had heard calling in the night: “Come back to us Patrick.”

Once Patrick was ordained a priest and had learned Latin and French, he asked to be sent as a missionary to Ireland, or, as it was known then, Hiberniae, which means the “Land of Winter.” Patrick had a great missionary zeal and soon became Ireland’s second Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland. He set two goals for himself: first to evangelize the pagan Irish, and second, to set up the ecclesiastical structures and dioceses with a view to achieving independence from Arles, which was supporting the missionary activity in Ireland up until that time.

To do this without modern communications, roads, rail, telecommunications etc was very difficult, but Patrick was not deterred by hardship. After all, he was on fire with the love of God in his heart. He knew what his mission would be, and how difficult it was, but he trusted always in the power of God to deliver him, and so he went about evangelizing. He did this by setting up many quasi-monastic structures in towns and villages when he passed through them.

He preached daily about the Kingdom of Heaven and baptized those who accepted the Gospel. Those who excelled in their faith, he ordained to the deaconate, leaving them in charge of the prayer and the various liturgical ceremonies, while in many cases he ordained many devout men to the priesthood. Later he was able to select from them good and brave men whom he consecrated as bishops with the approval of the Pope.  He was also successful in setting up dioceses in larger towns as he journeyed throughout the island of Ireland.

Saint Patrick had laid the foundations not only for the Catholic Church in Ireland but for all of Western Europe and as such deserves the title, yet to be bestowed, of Co-Patron of Europe along with Saint Benedict, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Holy Cross (Edith Stein) and Saint Bridget of Sweden.

The Catholic Church in Ireland evangelized and educated its own people first and provided the first organized educational infrastructure for a society that previously had none. The monasteries were built and there were plenty of vocations to the priesthood and the religious life.

The Irish monks became teachers and inventors. They were, in addition to leading the monastic life of prayer, also great builders and craftsmen. Given that there were so many vocations they began to look at the possibilities of becoming missionaries not only to Europe but to the Americas. Many monk missionaries left Ireland well prepared, some bound for Scotland, where they set up a monastery on Iona, still others went to France establishing the famous monastery of Locmine in Brittany which still exists. Others went to Spain and  Saint Brendan the Abbot even went to North America (474-577).

Saint Patrick also realized that the word Christianization was synonymous with civilization and, therefore, as Europeans were being evangelized, they were at the same time being civilized. Europeans eventually became educated and were able to build the big monasteries and cathedrals, many of which still exist. This is due initially to the untiring efforts of Saint Patrick and those great missionaries who are, for the most part, forgotten by the Irish of today. Saint Patrick himself is really a gift of God to the Irish people for whom the Irish will be eternally grateful.

Saint Patrick died in Armagh in 461AD after 29 years as Archbishop in that Archdiocese which now has the Primacy of all Ireland. The current Archbishop is known as “Primate of all Ireland.” His job would be to chair all meetings of the Irish Episcopal Conferences and to make sure that faith and morals are taught and upheld by both the religious and civil authorities.

There exists a very precious relic of Saint Patrick in Northern Ireland, his incorrupt right hand. This sacred and special relic is, unfortunately, kept in the Ulster Museum and not in a dedicated or special place which is open to pilgrims. Saint Patrick's jaw is kept in a parish church in the Diocese of Down and Connor. His grave is beside the Cathedral of Armagh.  Hopefully one day these relics will be gathered together and incorporated into an International Shrine of Saint Patrick, along with all the other materials, such as books on his life etc which show his influence on the entire Catholic Church.

To celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day, therefore, is to commemorate his life and works and to give thanks to God for the gift of this great saint, while imploring him to intercede on our behalf before the Most Blessed Trinity. Saint Patrick did indeed use the shamrock to try to explain how there can be Three Divine Persons in one God, because, as we all know, there are three leaves in one stem on the shamrock.

Patrick is also the one who left us with the Celtic Cross. When he began to evangelize he found that many of the pagans had worshiped the sun and so he incorporated the sun into the Latin Cross. Likewise, when he met the Druids, who worshiped a sacred standing stone that was marked with a circle which was symbolic of the moon goddess, he incorporated that also. The Celtic Cross is now world famous and revered by all. 
           
"St Patrick Breast Plate", written by the Saint himself.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through the belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of Creation.
I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth with his baptism,
Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,
Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension,
Through the strength of his descent for the judgment of Doom.
I arise today
Through the strength of the love of Cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In the service of archangels,
In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In prayers of patriarchs,
In predictions of prophets,
In preaching of apostles,
In faith of confessors,
In innocence of holy virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.
I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.
I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me:
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's host to save me
From snares of devils,
From temptations of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone and in multitude.
I summon today all these powers between me and those evils,
Against every cruel merciless power that may oppose my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.
Christ to shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that there may come to me abundance of reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness,
Of the Creator of Creation. Amen!

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Perhaps the loveliest thing about this video, filmed 113 years ago, is the fact that so little has changed. Walk through the streets of Belfast today and you’ll still see those jostling throngs, the shops, the advertising (albeit in a slightly different medium), the timeless business of an urban hub. We are the same, just newer.

It’s this human connection which ties us to our past, and family history records are like a window into that past. With every detail you discover, you build a clearer view of where you came from.  

The history of everyday Belfast is brought to life using the records on findmypast. Directories and almanacs such as "George Bassett’s Book of Antrim" (1888) and "Henderson’s Belfast Directory" (1850) will help you trace your Northern Ireland ancestors in the villages and towns of County Antrim. You can also use key Belfast newspapers from times gone by – The Belfast Morning News and the Belfast Newsletter to help you paint a picture of what life was like for your ancestors living in the city that built the Titanic. 

Watch the bewitching Ride on the Tramcar through Belfast (1901), from the BFI Archive:

Findmypast is working in partnership with Irish Central to create expert content around Irish family history. With the largest collection of Irish family history records online and a team of expert genealogists, findmypast is the best place to discover your Irish heritage.

After the 150th anniversary of the Great Famine in 1995, a resurgence of interest in the tragedy manifested in the construction of more than 100 monuments around the world to commemorate the Famine.

A new book, entitled "Commemorating the Irish Famine: Memory and Monument" by Emily Mark-Fitzgerald, tries to understand the way the Famine has been remembered and the process of its commemoration in Ireland and abroad

Nearly 30 memorials have been constructed in the United States since 1995, most installed in busy and affluent areas, reports the Irish Times. In contrast to Ireland, the monuments in the US generally celebrate triumph over disaster and speak to the wealth of today’s Irish Americans instead of focusing on the struggles that immigrants coming to America had to face.

Many of the monuments, such as the Irish Memorial in Philadelphia, have been criticized for their sentimentality and simplistic message. The most controversial monument lies in downtown Boston. An Irish commentator criticized its “pious cliches and dead conventions” and readers of the Boston Globe named it the worst public monument in the city in a 2002 poll.

On the other hand, New York City’s stark Irish Hunger Memorial, which includes a reconstructed cottage from Co Mayo, has been praised for its lack of cliche.

Mark-Fitzgerald’s book only has a short section on Northern Ireland, which perpetuates the idea of the Famine as a Southern and Catholic tragedy, says founding director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute, Prof Christine Kinealy, in her review of the book in the Irish Times.

The chapter ‘Famine Spaces in Ireland’ concerns only the Republic, whereas the section on monuments in Northern Ireland is contained in the chapter ‘Community Famine Commemoration in Northern Ireland and the Irish Diaspora.’ The only monument in Northern Ireland examined, albeit briefly, is that in the Cornagrade graveyard in Enniskillen, near the site of the local workhouse.

The book reinforces Niall Ó Ciosáin’s idea that “there is no unitary memory of the Famine.’ The monuments in Ireland are mostly local and organic to the community and built with little outside funding.

While many of the monuments constructed abroad focus on immigration as a central theme or reference world hunger, they also fail to relate to the challenges that new immigrants face today.

“Clearly, it is challenging – perhaps impossible – to create in a public monument a cohesive narrative of an event of such longevity, geographic spread and localized impact. The Irish sculptors John Behan and Rowan Gillespie have been widely praised for the creative compassion they have brought to this task, but, as this book demonstrates, every monument has its detractors,” Prof Kinealy writes.

Examining the diversity in the origins, motives and outcomes in the construction of these memorials, ‘Commemorating the Irish Famine: Memory and Monument’ is an engaging look at the memory and memorialization of the Famine.

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A name is the first and probably the most important gift that parents can ever bestow upon their newborns. For many Irish around the world, choosing a name for their child that reflects Irish connections is an important duty.

Today, however, there appears to be a new trend emerging within the baby-naming practice, especially by those who are searching for Irish names. There is no doubt a fair share of names - Patrick, Colleen, Liam, Erin, for instance - that are all both commonly known and commonly known to be Irish.

A growing trend is to utilize a last name - Reilly, McKenna, Shea, Carey - as a first name to pay homage to a branch of the family. Readily known to be Irish, and paying a respect to sects of a family, these names work double duty.

Similar to using a surname, perhaps parents will choose a family’s home or favorite location in Ireland. Kerry, Clare, Tara, Shannon, are all locales around Ireland that are both commonly used and known to be Irish names.

Read more:Irish baby first names that are super popular in the US

Then, there are names that are more difficult to pronounce upon first sight, but are known to be Irish. Deirdre, Ciara, Siobhán, Pádraig, Séamus, can all be tongue-twisters for those not familiar with the pronunciations. Still, these names are known to be typically Irish.

And then there are those who choose to place the burden of “How do you pronounce that?” on their children forever by retaining the traditional Irish spelling . Eoin, Aoife, Ruairí, Caoimhe, Oisín, Niamh are all popular Irish names that provide an awkward array of vowels for most people unfamiliar with traditional Irish pronunciations, or at the very least, the names themselves.

What’s your opinion on Irish names? Should they stick to being easy to pronounce and recognizable, or get creative with traditional Irish spellings and pronunciations? What are your favorite Irish names?

The Druids left us no written record of their religion, or the belief system of our ancient Irish ancestors. What we know has been patched together from later Christian interpretations of the myths and legends, and the writings of observers such as Julius Caesar, but none of it can be proven to be fact.

Reincarnation is a Latin word, meaning "entering the flesh again." As far back as the 1st century BCE, Alexander Cornelius Polyhistor wrote that the Gauls teach “that the souls of men are immortal, and that after a fixed number of years they will enter into another body.”

Julius Caesar wrote of the Celts in his ‘De Bello Gallico’ that “the principal point of their doctrine is that the soul does not die and that after death it passes from one body into another..... a firm belief in the indestructibility of the human soul, which, merely passes at death from one tenement to another; for by such doctrine alone, they say, which robs death of all its terrors, can the highest form of human courage be developed.”

Although these writers are referring to the Celts of Europe, it is reasonable to suppose that the Irish people of the same time period may have held similar beliefs. Indeed, there is much evidence to support this in the stories of Irish mythology.

In the Tochmarc Étaíne, ‘The Wooing of Étaín’ from the Mythological Cycle, Etain is transformed by magic into a butterfly. After fourteen years, she lands in a cup of wine which is drunk by the wife of Etar, a warrior of the Ulaid. Etar’s wife swallows the butterfly and becomes pregnant, and thus Etain is reborn into human form a thousand years after her first birth.

This story illustrates the Celtic acceptance of transformation, ie the temporary taking of another shape, and transmigration, when the soul transfers into another body following an actual rebirth.

A similar story is told about the birth of Cuchullain. Dechtire drank a cup of wine in which a mayfly had landed. That night she was visited by the God Lugh in a dream, who told her that the mayfly was him, and that she would soon give birth to a boy child. When she awoke, he transformed her into a swan, and took her to his halls in the Otherworld, where she duly gave birth to Setanta, She returned with him to Emain Macha in Ulster, where he was raised, and went on to become the hero known as Cuchullain.

The biggest difference to the Etain story, is the presence of the god Lugh. It implies that not only did the deity father a son on a mortal woman, but that he was actually reborn as his own son, thus manifesting himself again in the mortal world.

Most people are familiar with the story of the "Táin Bó Cúailnge," the "Cattle Raid of Cooley," one of the most popular tales of Irish mythology. It tells how Connacht's Queen Medbh and her husband Aillil waged war on Ulster over possession of the mighty bull Donn Cúailnge. At the end of the saga, Donn Cúailnge fights the white bull Finnbhennach and kills him before dying of exhaustion.

It is interesting to note that these were no ordinary beasts. In the "Tale of Two Swineherds," Friuch and Rucht are minding livestock belonging to the gods Ochall and Bodb, when they begin to quarrel. A fight breaks out, in which they assume many animal forms in order to gain mastery of each other, finally becoming two worms. These are promptly swallowed by two cows grazing nearby, which then give birth to the two bulls Finnbhennach and Donn Cúailnge.

Unrequited love is often associated with reincarnation in Irish mythology. In the Fenian Cycle, hero and leader of the Fianna, Fionn mac Cumhal, rescues a small deer in the forest, which turns out to be a Sidhe Princess named Sadbh. She had been transformed by the mysterious figure known only as the Dark Druid, for refusing to marry him. In the safety of Fionn’s fortress, she is able to return to her true form. She and Fionn fall in love, and she becomes pregnant, but when Fionn is away at battle, the Dark Druid returns and steals her away, returning her to the shape of a doe. She is never seen again, but apparently gives birth to a human child, a son named Oisin, whom Fionn finds on the slopes of Benbulben after seven years of searching.

Similarly, in the popular Irish legend of The Children of Lir, Aoife transforms Lir’s children into swans as she is jealous because he loves them more than he loves her. They are doomed to spend 900 years as swans, during which time St Patrick converted Ireland to Christianity. A monk was able to baptize them and turn them back into humans, but unfortunately, they were so old, they died. Another version, possibly pre-Christian, claims that the marriage of Lairgren and Deoch broke the curse.

Another Aoife, daughter of Daelbeth, and Luchra, daughter of Abhartach, both fell in love with Illbreac, but he had eyes only for Aoife. In a fit of jealous rage, Luchra turned Aoife into a crane, whereupon she flew to the lands of Manannán and lived there for 200 years. When she died, Manannán was so sad, he used her skin to make the crane-skin bag in which he kept all his magical treasures.

Mongán mac Fiachnai was a Prince of the kingdom of Cruthin who is recorded in the Annals as dying in 625AD. Little is known about him, except that he was said to have possessed remarkable shape-shifting powers, and had access to the Otherworld. One curious tale claims that, although fathered by Sea-God Manannán, he is in fact the reincarnation of hero and leader of the Fianna, Fionn mac Cumhall.

It might be that the concept of reincarnation served to perpetuate those ancestors, kings or heroes most admired and beloved, that perhaps the ordinary folk were loath to let go. Certainly, the characters reputed in mythology to have transformed or to have been reborn seem to arise from nobility, royalty, deities or the hero-warrior, rather than commoners.

As the Milesians in their fleet of ships neared the shores of Ireland, intent on wresting it from the Tuatha de Denann, their poet Amergin chanted this well-known verse, which begins:

"I am the wind which blows over the sea,

I am the wave of the ocean,

I am the bull of seven battles,

I am the eagle on the rock . . .

I am a boar for courage,

I am a salmon in the water…”

At first glance, these words seem to confirm a belief in transformation, or shape-shifting, but perhaps they had nothing to do with reincarnation at all. It occurred to me that this poem could just as easily have been an example of Dichetal do Chennaib, a technique of the ancient Fili, or poet, involving chanting to achieve an altered state of being, or knowing, much as the warrior before battle would invoke the riastradh, or battle frenzy. Perhaps he hoped to achieve each of these qualities, or perhaps it was simply boastful talk designed to strike fear into an enemy which well understood the qualities each of the entities quoted.

The mythology we have inherited is ambiguous at best, and hard to decipher. Though it is certainly possible that the Celts and ancient Irish people may have believed in the concept of reincarnation, although not quite in the way we understand it today. It is not something we can say with any certainty. While to some this may be a source of frustration, for me, it is its strength; it is open to interpretation, thus it can be whatever you want it to be.

---

Ali Isaac lives in beautiful rural Co. Cavan in Ireland, and is the author of two books based on Irish mythology, “Conor Kelly and The Four Treasures of Eirean,” and “Conor Kelly and The Fenian King.” Ali regularly posts on topics of Irish interest on her blog, www.aliisaacstoryteller.com

Only seven years after the Rising of 1798 the Battle of Trafalgar took place. The British Navy—which was made great, according to one Winston Churchill, by “rum, sodomy and the lash”—led by Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson defeated the combined fleets of the Spaniards and the French. In achieving the great victory, however, Lord Nelson was killed in action. Britain had itself an instant hero!

In a rush to out-do the British, the Irish decided that they needed an erection to honor the martyred Nelson. Poof! Dublin had Nelson’s Pillar.

The foundation stone was laid on February 15, 1808 and the Pillar opened to the public on the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1809. It was designed by Francis Johnston, who would move across the street and design the General Post Office a few years later.

The Pillar was an architectural marvel, standing 134-feet in height, with 168 steps leading to an observation deck. The 13-foot statue of Nelson was designed by Thomas Kirk. Final cost, £6,299.

By way of proof of the alacrity of the Irish response to Nelson's heroic deeds, the British didn’t get around to building a doppelganger for the Pillar until Nelson’s Column was constructed in London between 1840-43. It stood taller than the Dublin monument at 170 feet. Ironically, unlike its Dublin counterpart, it would survive a dynamite attack by Fenians in the early 1880s.

Suddenly, not so popular

Nelson’s Pillar always had its critics. These criticisms were not so much based on politics or aesthetics, but on commerce because Nelson was stuck up in the middle of Sackville [now O’Connell] Street, separating the Upper and Lower halves, and, some thought, hindering progress for the merchants in the area.

But as the 19th century moved on and Ireland became more nationalistic, people began to question why a British admiral was stuck up in the middle of Dublin’s main thoroughfare. First there was Dan O’Connell’s Catholic emancipation in 1829, which was followed by the Young Ireland movement in the 1840s, and finally the Fenian Uprising of 1867. Early in the 20th century the Pillar was sandwiched by the Parnell Monument to the north and Daniel O’Connell’s statue to the south. Nelson now looked even more out of place stuck between two iconic Irish patriots.

By the turn of the 20th century Nelson was a relic of another Ireland. And the criticism began to come from prominent Irishmen. James Joyce in Ulysses referred to Nelson as a “one-handled adulterer.” James Connolly thought it “a terrible eyesore.” Yeats, although a supporter of the Pillar, admitted that “…it is not a beautiful object.” By mid-century all the niceties had been deleted. Brendan Behan didn’t hold anything back: “The one-armed, one-eyed Admiral of the British-bollock-shop institution the Royal Navy has no business in his perch at all. He has no fucking place in Ireland’s history but a wrong one.”

After the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922, many questioned why the Admiral should be up there at all. “Save the Pillar, but remove Nelson” seemed to be the battle cry. Replacement statues were nominated, with whiplash effect: The Blessed Virgin Mary, Padraig Pearse, JFK, Wolfe Tone, St. Patrick, Robert Emmet, James Connolly, James Larkin. Somehow, Jesus Christ himself didn’t make the cut. Even Mike Quill, ex-IRA man and head of New York City’s Transport Workers’ Union, volunteered “cheerfully to finance the removal of Lord Nelson.”

March 8, 1966

Talk is cheap, but gelignite will get your attention. And that’s what happened on March 8, 1966 when plastic explosives planted by the IRA did their job and blew Lord Nelson and half his Pillar sky high. Originally, it was thought that Basque separatists had done the job, but Donal Fallon in his wonderful history, "The Pillar: The Life and Afterlife of the Nelson Pillar," believes that it was an IRA job all the way.

The Irish Army, in the very military sounding Operation Humpty Dumpty, was brought in to remove the Pillar’s stump. Loudly, and with a lot of broken windows on O’Connell Street, they did the job.

It was weeks from the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising and you might expect that Dublin was in shock, but that was not the case. There was a sense of celebration that Nelson had finally gotten his just desserts.

Almost immediately, Lord Nelson’s head became a celebrity. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, in Dublin to do a concert honoring the Easter Rising, were photographed with it.

Nelson’s head was stored away, but quickly stolen by a group of Dublin college students. The Journey of the Head became legend when it was spotted in a London antique shop, made-up with lipstick. Eventually it would find itself on stage with the Dubliners.

Up went Nelson

Of course, the Irish never forfeit a chance to sing a song about any historic event and Lord Nelson's expulsion was no exception. Almost immediately, a group of Belfast schoolteachers known as The Go Lucky Four shot to the top of the music charters with “Up Went Nelson”:

Up went Nelson in old Dublin

Up went Nelson in old Dublin

All along O’Connell Street the stones and rubble flew

As up went Nelson and the pillar too

Upon hearing the news, Tommy Makem wrote a scatological tribute called “Lord Nelson” on a New York City subway train:

And then in nineteen sixty-six, on March the seventh day [sic],

A bloody great explosion made Lord Nelson rock and sway!

He crashed, and Dan O’Connell cried, in woeful misery

Now twice as many pigeons will come and shit on me!

Of course, the Dubliners were not to be outdone and came up with “Nelson’s Farewell”:

Oh the Russians and the Yanks, with lunar probes they play,

Toora loora loora loora loo!

And I hear the French are trying hard to make up lost headway,

Toora loora loora loora loo!

But now the Irish join the race,

We have an astronaut in space,

Ireland, boys, is now a world power too!

So let’s sing our celebration,

It’s a service to the nation.

So poor old Admiral Nelson, toora loo!

The Dubliners, however, managed to keep it contemporary and made Nelson Ireland’s first astronaut, battling the Russians and the Yanks and even the French in the Space Race to the Moon. The song is kind of clairvoyant because in three short years, a real Irishman with the evocative Irish name of Michael Collins, would orbit the moon as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the surface of the moon.

The legend of the pillar remains —and Lord Nelson finds a new Dublin home

Nelson’s Pillar would be completely removed, but the question became what should Dublin do with the empty space. Another pillar? Another statue? Another something? Finally, a bizarre sculpture called “Anna Livia to Dubliners,” with waters flowing, was put in the space. Of course, she was immediately nicknamed “The Floozy in the Jacuzzi” by randy Dubliners.

Finally, with parts of O’Connell Street becoming tawdry, it was decided to spruce up the area. A competition was held for a replacement for the long-gone Nelson’s Pillar. The result was the “Spire of Dublin” by Ian Ritchie, rising nearly 400-feet high, and costing €4,000,000. It was completed in 2003.

But what of Lord Nelson’s head, you ask? He was never able to escape Dublin for good and you can visit him at the Pearse Street Library, 144 Pearse Street, just a few blocks east of Pearse Station in Westland Row. He sits quietly in the second floor reading room, surrounded by readers pouring over Thom’s Directories, which the library has an exceptional collection of.

At 208-years-of-age Lord Nelson looks a little stunned. He may have defeated the French and Spanish navies, but in the end, the Irish took him down—literally.

* Dermot McEvoy is the author of the "The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising" and "Our Lady of Greenwich Village," now available in paperback from Skyhorse Publishing. He may be reached at dermotmcevoy50@gmail.com. Follow him at www.dermotmcevoy.com. Follow The 13th Apostle on Facebook at www.facebook.com/13thApostleMcEvoy.

In 1845, during the Irish famine, the Loughman brothers left Ireland for America. Seventeen-year-old Edward Loughman remained behind. He married and reared his five children in post-famine Ireland. They lived in Queen’s County (now Laois). He was a blacksmith, living close to the village of Ballacolla, near the town of Abbeyleix.           

In 1901, his eldest daughter, Cissie, ran away from home. She was only 21-years old. No letter was ever received from her. Her younger sisters, Molly and Julia (my grandmother), listened to gossip at the local dance. Some said that a match had been made which she didn’t want. Others said that a local lad, Owen Brennan, had also left around the same time as Cissie. Word was that they had been ‘walking out’ together. Whatever the truth – Cissie was gone from them and life went on in the busy forge.

Read More: Three sisters, three remarkable stories from my grandmother's life post-famine

Her brothers, Jim and Jack, were now blacksmiths. Jack was always in great demand locally. He could kill and cure a pig, as well as lay out a corpse. He made beer from hops, which was kept in a jar in the parlor. Jack had his own cures for many ailments. He had a mixture that looked like sour milk which was put on rashes with a feather, for erysipelas. In 1915 he was on the only Laois team that has ever won The All-Ireland Hurling final.                              

His brother Jim was a very skilled man. There was no part of a machine he could not design or make out of a piece of raw iron. He was intelligent and well read.

In 1911 Julia, aged twenty four, left home to serve her time to become a milliner. She married in 1924 and settled in Co. Tipperary, where her six children were reared.

Molly, went to The Munster Institute, in Cork, to train to be a dairy maid. One of her first lessons there was how to clean a hen’s perch. Molly married Pat Harte in 1929 and moved to the other side of Ballacolla village, to Anster.

Julie returned to her home place very often, accompanied by her six children. They all have the happiest of memories of these visits to Ballacolla.  One remembers Molly’s house, in the late 1930s.

“I was eight years old when I first saw where Molly went to live with her new husband. Unlike the slated two-storey house she had left – Pat Harte’s home was a single storey thatched cottage. You stepped into a small porch first, avoiding hens. You arrived into a very large kitchen. Here there was an open fire with a crane over it. Dinner would be cooking within large black pots hanging on this crane. A large dresser dominated this kitchen with tin buckets of water beside it.

"The long kitchen table was in front of the small window, which had a geranium in a pot on its ledge. There was one bedroom to the left of this kitchen and a parlour to the right. As evening fell Molly would go into this parlour and bring out an oil lamp and light this on the kitchen table. We jumped on hay and played chasing in the orchard edged with sweet pea, or chased the chickens. The lane up to the house had wonderful delights in its hedgerows, wild strawberries, crab apples, damsons, sloes and blackberries. These were all used to make assorted jams and jellies.”

Another of Julie’s daughters (my mother) wrote about visiting Jim and Jack, in the early 1940s. “We woke, as children, to the ring of the anvil. There was constant activity in the forge. Local farmers brought their black and grey working horses – these were vital for agriculture in those days. Stewards, from estates round about, would arrive with a string of horses and ponies. Occasionally a lord rode by to see how his stewards and horses were getting on. I remember Lord di Vesci, Lord Hamilton of Moyne and Lord Castletown being in the forge on different occasions. Our mother became a changed person during those holidays. She was like a young girl again flitting between the house and the forge, meeting old friends and being welcomed home by one and all.”

Julia’s six children had no cousins.  Jim and Jack, had never married and Molly, wasn’t ‘blessed’ with children. They have no memory of Cissie being mentioned at all. It was as if she had vanished off the planet.

Life went on. One dark winter’s evening, in 1942, during World War 2, Jim and Jack were working in the forge. A young tall American soldier walked in. “I think my mother came from here,” he told the astonished men. He was Cissie’s son, from Springfield in Massachusetts. He was with the American Forces, stationed in Wales and was on a 48 hour pass from there. Welcoming him warmly, his uncles drove him to Julia’s home in Tipperary. Her daughters were in their teens. They thought he was the most gorgeous man they had ever seen and insisted on bringing this ‘cousin’ to the local dance that night. He brought nylons for them, they all remember.

Contact was then made with Cissie’s daughter, Mary. Cissie had married Owen Brennan in Massachusetts, in 1904, shortly after they both arrived in America. (Cissie’s Baptismal name was Annie Loughman.)

Cissie’s daughter, Mary Brennan, wrote often to her Aunt Julia in the following years. Cissie was alive but unwell. In 1968 Julie’s son was ordained a priest. He said his first Mass in the Ballacolla. Mary Brennan, aged 58, came to Ireland for this momentous event. She returned to the birthplace of her mother. Sadly, Jim, Jack and Molly had died by this time. However, her Aunt Julia, aged 80, was alive and very well. Cissie’s daughter met her aunt, her cousins, as well as all her grandnieces and nephews.

I was there that day myself, aged sixteen. I remember well the great excitement surrounding the return of Cissie’s daughter from America, to her home place.

Contact was kept up between Mary Brennan and her aunt Julia afterwards. She wrote telling the sad news of the death of both her unmarried brothers. Mary, a school teacher, was also unmarried.

Julia’s eldest granddaughter (my sister, Sheelagh) went to America to visit Cissie’s daughter in the early 1970, to Springfield Massachusetts. She got a great welcome from Mary Brennan.

Even though many Loughmans left Ballacolla in 1845 and had settled in that part of America – Mary did not seem to have had any contact with them.

When she died, in 1982 a letter arrived, one morning, to her Irish relatives.

Mary Brennan left most of her money to Julia’s son who had become a priest. As Cissie had no grandchildren – we have no more American relatives!

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Last year I drove through Ballacolla. I walked by the old house. Strangers live there now. I stood outside the gate and thought of the ghosts of my ancestors who must linger here still – Cissie, Jim, Molly, Jack and Julia—my grandmother.

St. Brigid is the female equivalent of St. Patrick in Ireland, but there are no parades in her honor, and apart from the St. Brigid's Cross, her name is hardly known.

That really should change.

St. Brigid was a woman who was well ahead of her time. Born around 453 AD, she was the daughter of a slave and a chieftain, a story in itself. Her feast day is celebrated on February 1, a full six weeks before St. Patrick's. 

Growing up in Ireland we were all told about St.Brigid's cross made of rushes which became in many ways a national symbol, used by RTÉ, the national broadcasting company, for one.

But we learned little about Brigid herself. Her day was marked as the first day of Spring in the Celtic calendar but little else.

The tiny village of Focairt in Louth was known as her birth place but it never became a place of pilgrimage or a shrine.

Catholic Ireland back then paid little heed to female saints.

This is St Brigid, she is in Co Kildare in Brigid's well. I took a day out for me today and it was wonderful, I'll … pic.twitter.com/PaD96E8lvH

— Abby Wynne (@AbbyNrgHealing) January 28, 2016

But Brigid was worth getting to know.

She became one of the most-powerful women in Ireland. After refusing an arranged marriage, she went on to found many convents whose schools provided an education for thousands of young women who otherwise would have had none.

She was the lone female figure whose voice was heard in a male-dominated Church, but the stories of her good deeds and extraordinary acts ensured she was canonized well before most of her contemporaries.

She stands today as an example of an Irish woman who followed her heart and took on the powers-that-be in a male-dominated world. She was certainly a figure as extraordinary as Patrick himself.

Our 5th Years making Crosses in preparation for St. Brigid's Day on 1st February #tradition@DublinDiocesepic.twitter.com/B9vji6SbSX

— Terenure College (@TerenureCollege) January 28, 2016

* Originally published in 2013. 

The Irish are known around the world as a people who celebrate and cherish their history, culture and land but sometimes, as the years blend together, the connection can become forgotten or lost.

That’s why replanting your Irish roots, literally with a native Irish tree planted on conserved Irish land and figuratively, with a growing group of proud Irish landowners, is the perfect way to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day and the upcoming Easter holidays in 2017.

Our Irish Diaspora

The story slightly changes from family to family, and your story could be completely different to ours, but Ireland’s history is colored by our ever-growing diaspora worldwide. Plenty still search for pastures new today but it was in the last two centuries that the sons and daughters of Ireland explored new lands, particularly the United States and Canada, and that has led to a special bond.

We want to ensure that bond is never broken and, with our work here in the north of Ireland, as the extended family of the Emerald Isle continues to grow, we believe replanting roots in a fun and sustainable way is the path forward.

Own a piece of Ireland. Own a piece of the auld sod, whilst calling yourself squire, squireen or squiress of Ireland, and pass the gift down through generations of your family to come.

Replanting for Saint Patrick’s Day 2017

With all of that in mind there really isn’t a better time to get involved as Saint Patrick’s Day is just around the corner!

Saint Patrick, the man who helped Christianity flourish within the shores of Ireland, was kept captive on Slemish Mountain in County Antrim, just a short 20 minute drive from the Emerald Heritage land we protect and conserve today.

During his time in captivity Saint Patrick focused on nothing but prayer and the natural land around him and we believe a plot of Irish land, and a chance to replant your roots, is the perfect gift for friends, family and loved ones.

Visit our official website here to find out more!

A green impact on the land

Finally, and maybe most importantly as the world around us continues to be blighted by pollution and unlawful development, each plot of land sold is saved for eternity from the hands of developers.

Emerald Heritage land can be found in a designated “area of outstanding natural beauty” that would take your breath away and we’re glad that this Saint Patrick’s Day gift keeps Ireland green for future generations to enjoy just as much as we have.

Go green this Saint Patrick’s Day, but not in the way you first thought!

The weight of tradition in Irish culture is one of the main reasons why the Irish born and the diaspora are so proud of their heritage. More tangible than folklore and holiday traditions, however, are the symbolic historical artifacts that are still in use today.

Aran sweaters, Claddagh rings, tin whistles and tweed – each object, however commonplace, holds a meaningful position in Irish culture, down to the very stitches of each sweater.

Managing director of Murphy of Ireland Paul Murphy created a detailed infographic for these beloved Irish artifacts, complete with interesting facts and images. Here are some of his findings.

Aran Fisherman Sweaters, which take their name from the three Aran Islands of Inishmore, Inishmaan and Inisheer, are handmade made purely from wool in a variety of stitch patterns, behind each of which lies a story or symbol.

For example, the common Cable Stitch depicts fishermen's ropes and represents good weather at sea. The Diamond Stitch symbolizes the small, neat fields of the Aran Islands, the Irish Moss Stitch symbolizes growth and abundance, and various other stitches represent stories of religion or elements of nature.

With such careful stitching by the few Aran sweater makers left, each article of clothing is its own artform which can take up to two months to create.

Another example of a historical, cultural artifact, one that some may not know has Irish origins, is the Irish tweed hats and coats. The weaving and spinning of tweed is actually an integral part of Irish culture, as the tweed industry was the main source of income for many families in Ireland’s northern counties from 1890 to the mid 1900s.

Tweed weavers were inspired by the colorful, wild northern landscape. The craft of working by hand has been passed down for many generations – a fine example of Irish tradition staying true to its roots over time. Many families today even use the same looms as their ancestors.

The tin whistle (or penny whistle) is one of the main components of traditional Irish music – though it’s changed in form through the years, it dates back to the Middle Ages. Fragments of Irish whistles made of bone are from as far back as the 12th century.

Though the most common whistles are made from brass, historical whistles were made from wood, clay, cane and metal.

Claddagh rings, which are still widely worn today as a symbol for love, loyalty and friendship, were first used in the 17th century. By legend, the design was made by goldsmith Richard Joyce, who presented the first Claddagh ring to his love after returning from indentured servitude.

The ring consists of two hands holding up a crowned heart – the hands represent friendship, the heart represents love, and the crown represents loyalty.

Other symbols still widely in use are the Celtic designs, most notably the Celtic Cross and Celtic Knot, found in jewelry, embroidery and in many tattoos.

The Celtic Cross indicates “the human desire to know and experience the unfolding mystery of life.” Within the cross are various knots, sometimes called “mystic knots” or “endless knots,” which symbolize timelessness as they contain no start or finish.

Check out Murphy’s infographic here:

* Originally published in Oct 2014.

British Pathé posted 90,000 historic films on YouTube in 2014, giving a rare glimpse into news of the day. Among these priceless glimpse into the past are clips illustrating the long and treasured relationship between the Irish and the United States.

Here are just a sample of the fascinating videos:

Eamon de Valera in Boston (1919)

"Boston Mass. Eamon De Valera - "President of the Irish Republic" is touring America raising funds for "Sinn Fein."

The Pathé description continues “De Valera surrounded by admirers waving. LS Crowds with banner "Let us carry the cross for Ireland - Boston Gaelic School society.”

American Mission to Ireland (1921)

“American Mission to relieve distress in Ireland, visit devastated villages.

“The group of people walk along a row of houses which have been partly demolished. M/S as they emerge from a smoke damaged building with all the windows out. M/S of the group talking to each other. M/S as they look at some machinery. M/S as they pose and chat, C/U of two of them. “

Ireland's President in America (1928)

"Ireland's President in America - President Cosgrave... well guarded on all sides... has cordial reception on arrival in New York."

“…Several shots show President William Thomas Cosgrave of Ireland (Irish Free State / Eire / Southern Ireland) on a boat with bodyguards and dignitaries, presumably approaching New York. On arrival at New York Cosgrave is seen getting into an open-top car and walking down some steps to pose for the camera, surrounded by military men and bodyguards. M/S as he shakes hands with another man, probably an American dignitary (?). Cosgrave rides through the streets in the open car as photographers takes photos; a policeman walks beside the car.”

Ireland Defeats America in the International Hurling Match at Croke Park (1932)

“The American and Irish hurling teams walk out on the pitch at Croke Park. The Americans are wearing light shirts, the Irish dark.

“Good footage of this fast moving Gaelic sport.”

Dublin - Celebrities Visit to Eire (1938)

“Joseph P. Kennedy, American Ambassador to Britain, and American tennis player Helen Wills-Moody in Dublin. (Eire, Southern Ireland, Republic of Ireland).

American Troops in Northern Ireland (1942)

“Various good shots of American troops arriving at a dock in Northern Ireland and struggling off with their cumbersome kit bags. Commentator notes it is only seven weeks since the United States of America declared war on Germany. One soldier drops his kit bag. Below decks we see allied officers including Lieutenant Royle (RNR), Lieutenant Colonel Stewart (US army), Captain Lee (British Army) and Lieutenant Stanford Smith discussing plans.

"American army nurses are seen disembarking - 'many wearing slacks for comfort.' American troops on a launch heading for dock wave to those on their troop ship. The soldiers march off along wet roads - typical January day in Great Britain - and are given food from a canteen van. Great C/U of an American soldier biting into a pork pie (and probably wondering what it is).”

Eleanor Roosevelt's Tour of Northern Ireland (1942)

“Various shots of Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, visiting a hospital in Northern Ireland. She is seen talking to patients in a very friendly manner. Nurses wave as she leaves."

First Irish Ambassador to The United States (1950)

“The State Department's Raymond Muir meeting John J. Hearne, the Ambassador. M/S Muir, Hearne and unidentified man.”

Kennedy in Ireland (1963)

“The American President John F. Kennedy walks down the steps and is greeted by President of Republic of Ireland Mr Eamon de Valera.”

Limerick. Ted Kennedy In Ireland (1964)

“Limerick, Eire, Southern Ireland, Republic of Ireland. Senator Edward Kennedy pays a visit to his family's historic homeland.”

Silent footage from his visit:

Source: British Pathé.

* Originally published in 2014.

Scottish scientists once and for all rubbished claims that the Blarney Stone was cut from stone at the mythical Stonehenge site in England.

They have also discounted the story that the Cork stone is half of the original Stone of Destiny, the seat of the first King of Scots. The report, released in March 2014, from a team of geologists at the University of Glasgow confirmed that the famous stone – said to offer the gift of the gab to anyone who kisses it – is 100% Irish.

The stories about the stone’s origins are as intriguing as the myths surrounding it with many of the belief the stone was a single block of bluestone, the same material used to build Stonehenge.

Another legend claimed the stone was gifted to Irish Chieftain Cormac McCarthy, by Robert the Bruce, in 1314, in gratitude to the Irish for supporting the Scots in the Battle of Bannockburn.

But the geologists discovered that the stone is about 330-million-years-old and has nothing to do with either Stonehenge or the Stone of Destiny, according to a report in the Irish Sun newspaper.

Geologists, based at the University of Glasgow’s Hunterian Museum, examined a microscopic slice of the stone.

They identified it as a type of limestone that is unique to the south of Ireland.

Museum curator Dr John Faithfull explained “This strongly supports views that the stone is made of local carboniferous limestone, about 330million-years-old.

“It also indicates to us that it has nothing to do with the Stonehenge bluestones, or the sandstone of the current ‘Stone of Destiny’, now sitting in Edinburgh Castle, for that matter.”

Dr Faithfull joked: “The Blarney Stone is famous for bestowing the gift of eloquence on those who kiss it.

“We don’t really know if kissing the microscope slide would have the same effect, although I have given it a try.”

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* Originally published in 2014.

In every Irish establishment, and many others, especially around St. Patrick’s Day, corned beef and cabbage will make its way onto the menu, marking a "tip of the cap" to the Irish around March 17. Another annual occurrence is Irish people complaining that this is not, in fact, an Irish dish at all, but is this true?

Beef was not readily available in Ireland and was considered a luxury and that’s why the traditional Irish meal centered around ham, the bacon. But when these Irish got off the boats in America it was quite the opposite. Corned beef was the meat that they could easily and more cheaply get their hands on and, so, this became the meal of choice for generations of Irish Americans to come.

In New England, a tradition formed of having a boiled dinner. For this dish, the corned beef, cabbage, and root vegetables such as carrots, turnips, and potatoes were boiled.

Many maintain that the dish is simply not Irish at all. The close proximity of the Irish and Jewish communities at the time is said to be largely responsible for the popularity of corned beef among the Irish immigrants. According to thekitchenproject.com, when the Irish arrived in America, they couldn’t find a bacon joint like they had in Ireland so they gravitated toward the Jewish corned beef, which was very similar in texture.

Francis Lam on Salon.com reports that, years ago, the bars of early 20th century New York would offer a free dinner of corned beef and cabbage to the Irish workers who would crowd in after working all day on the building sites.

The Irish builders would still have to buy a few drinks in order to get their supposedly free dinner, but the main reason that the corned beef and cabbage dinner is thought to be of Irish origin is not because they were enticed by a traditional meal so much as a cheap meal.

Whichever you prefer to treat yourself to - whether it's the corned beef and cabbage or the bacon and cabbage - enjoy!

Here you can find IrishCentral's best recipes for corned beef and cabbage or bacon and cabbage.

Do you eat corned beef and cabbage or do you prefer more authentic bacon? Let us know your thoughts on the subject in the comments section. 

Editor's Note: It's now just one week since "significant human remains" were discovered on the land of the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home where it's believed that up to 796 infants are buried in a mass grave inside sewerage tanks. As Ireland begins to face the reality of the cruelty and neglect that children and young women suffered throughout the last century while imprisoned in these state and church run institutions we recall an Irish priest living in American who spoke out about the "cruelty, ignorance and neglect of their duties in high places" over 60 years ago. 

Monsignor Edward Joseph Flanagan, founder of Boys Town made famous by the Spencer Tracy movie, was a lone voice in condemning Ireland’s industrial schools back in the 1940s and how orphans and those born outside marriage generally were treated. He was viciously castigated by church and government for doing so.

His treatment at the hands of clergy and politicians makes it very clear both powerful arms of the state were determined to stick to secrets and lies and cover-ups when it came to the mistreatment of youths and babies.

When he arrived back in America after a 1946 trip to Ireland he let it be known he was appalled by the abuse of children in institutions he saw. Though he mainly focused on the industrial schools which worked young children to the bone, he widely criticized the entire range of Catholic institutions that dealt so viciously with the most vulnerable of Irish children.

When he came back to America Flanagan, addressing the Irish clergy and political leaders said: "What you need over there is to have someone shake you lose from your smugness and satisfaction and set an example by punishing those who are guilty of cruelty, ignorance and neglect of their duties in high places . . . I wonder what God's judgment will be with reference to those who hold the deposit of faith and who fail in their God-given stewardship of little children."

However, his words fell on stony ground. He wasn't simply ignored. He was taken to pieces by the Irish establishment. The then-Minister for Justice Gerald Boland said in the Dáil that he was “not disposed to take any notice of what Monsignor Flanagan said while he was in this country, because his statements were so exaggerated that I did not think people would attach any importance to them.”

Flanagan was a devout Catholic, a man who Catholics and non-Catholics world-wide had deemed a hero. He was the Mother Theresa of his day.

Flanagan was born on July 13 1886 in the townland of Leabeg, County Roscommon, to John (a herdsman) and Honoria Flanagan. In 1904, he emigrated to the United States and became a US citizen in 1919.

He was ordained a priest in 1912 having made the great leap across the pond, to America. In 1917 he was living and working in Omaha, Nebraska, when he hit upon the idea of a "boy’s town," which offered education and a home for the poor and wayward boys of Omaha.

However, demand for the service was so great that he soon had to find bigger premises. Boys Town, built on a farm 10 miles from Omaha, was the result.

The center was open to all. There were no fences to stop the boys from leaving. Fr. Flanagan said he was “not building a prison."

"This is a home," he said. "You do not wall in members of your own family.”

Boys Town eventually became so well-known - and so well-respected - that Hollywood and the U.S. President came calling. Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney starred in the 1938 movie "Boys Town," and it made a national hero out of Fr. Flanagan. He was internationally renowned as “the world’s most foremost expert on boys’ training and youth care.”

When World War II ended in 1945, President Harry S. Truman asked Flanagan to tour Asia and Europe, to see what could be done for the homeless and neglected children in those regions.

Flanagan decided to return to the land of his birth in 1946 to visit his family, and to visit the “so-called training schools" run by the Christian Brothers to see if they were "a success or failure.”

The success of the film "Boys Town," meant Flanagan was treated like a celebrity on his arrival. His visit was noted by the Irish Independent, which said that Flanagan had succeeded “against overwhelming odds,” spurred on by the “simple slogan that 'There is no such thing as a bad boy.'”

But Flanagan was unhappy with what he found in Ireland. He was dismayed at the state of Ireland's reform schools and blasted them as “a scandal, un-Christ-like, and wrong.” And he said the Christian Brothers, founded by Edmund Rice, had lost its way.

Speaking to a large audience at a public lecture in Cork’s Savoy Cinema he said, "You are the people who permit your children and the children of your communities to go into these institutions of punishment. You can do something about it." He called Ireland’s penal institutions "a disgrace to the nation," and later said "I do not believe that a child can be reformed by lock and key and bars, or that fear can ever develop a child’s character."

Despite that, the Irish Church and the Irish authorities felt comfortable ignoring Fr. Flanagan, ignoring the fact that he was considered to be an expert in the matter of providing for the education and upbringing of boys who were otherwise considered to be “lost causes.” Again, his efforts fell on stony ground.

What was it about the Irish Church and the Irish authorities that made them so insular that they felt comfortable dismissing someone of Fr. Flanagan's stature? Even though Fr. Flanagan was a popular hero to many Irish people, his words had no sway with those in authority, whether in the government or the Church.

And, once those who endorsed the industrial school model survived Fr. Flanagan's broadsides, they must have known that no one would challenge them again. They were right, for 50 years anyway.

Read more: Church and State conspired to cover-up Tuam babies horror

He is almost forgotten now, but James Shields, a Tyrone-born Irishman, represented three different states in the US Senate, which is a record. He also almost fought a duel against Abraham Lincoln.

In a year when elections and politics are foremost in peoples' minds, it is worth remembering the amazing career of Shields (May 10, 1810 – June 1, 1879), an American politician and United States Army officer, who was born in Altmore, County Tyrone, Ireland.

Shields, a Democrat, is the only person in United States history to serve as a U.S. Senator for three different states.

Shields represented Illinois from 1849 to 1855, Minnesota from 1858 to 1859 and Missouri in 1879.

The Tyrone-born Shields was the nephew of another James Shields, also born in Ireland, who was a congressman from Ohio. The younger Shields came to the United States around 1826 and settled in Illinois where he studied and later practiced law. In 1839 he was named Illinois State Auditor. He was not the most popular auditor, especially with a Republican rising star, one Abraham Lincoln.

Shields almost fought a duel with Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1842. Wikipedia noted that Lincoln had published an inflammatory letter in a Springfield, Illinois, newspaper, the Sangamon Journal, that poked fun at Shields, the State Auditor. Lincoln's future wife and her close friend, continued writing letters about Shields without his knowledge. Offended by the articles, Shields demanded "satisfaction" and the incident escalated to the two parties meeting on a Missouri island called Sunflower Island, near Alton, IL to participate in a duel (as dueling was illegal in Illinois).

Lincoln took responsibility for the articles and accepted the duel. Lincoln had the opportunity to choose the weapon for the duel and he selected the cavalry broadsword, as Shields was an excellent marksman. Just prior to engaging in combat, Lincoln made it a point to demonstrate his advantage (because of his long arm reach) by easily cutting a branch just above Shields' head. The two participants' seconds intervened and were able to convince the two men to cease hostilities, on the grounds that Lincoln had not written the letters.

On July 1, 1846, Shields was commissioned a brigadier general of volunteers to fight in the Mexican–American War. He served under Zachary Taylor along the Rio Grande.

Following the war in 1848, he ran for the Senate from Illinois. His election was voided by the Senate on the grounds that he had not been a United States citizen for the nine years required by the United States Constitution: having been naturalized October 21, 1840. He returned to Illinois and campaigned for re-election, and won the special election to replace himself, and was then seated.

In 1855, he was defeated for re-election, so he moved to Minnesota. He was elected as one of the two first Senators from that state, but his term was only from 1858 to 1859, and he was not re-elected.

Shields then moved to California and served as a brigadier general of volunteers from that state during the American Civil War. He commanded the 2nd Division of the V Corps, Army of the Potomac and was wounded at the Battle of Kernstown on March 22, 1862, but his troops inflicted the only tactical defeat of General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson during the campaign. In 1866 Shields moved to Missouri, and in 1879, he was elected to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Senator Lewis V. Bogy. He served only three months and declined to run for re-election.

Shields died in Ottumwa, Iowa on June 1, 1879. He is buried in St. Mary's Cemetery, Carrollton, Missouri.

* Originally published in 2015.

In the great state of Pennsylvania there is a town and three other townships all called Donegal. While there seems little obvious evidence as to how the areas got the name, Damian Shiels' amazingly detailed study below shows the great influence the Irish immigrants from Donegal had on the area.

The thousands of American Civil War pension files relating to Irishmen represent one of the greatest available resources for uncovering the social history of the 19th century emigrant experience. It is a resource that is almost completely unrecognized in Ireland, a scholarly neglect that is symptomatic of the lack of awareness of the scale of Irish involvement in the American Civil War. I have come across few files that are more illustrative of this than the papers relating to Private Charles O’Donnell of the United States Marine Corps. His death during the American Civil War created a documentary record that allows us to explore not only his life, but also the connections between Donegal families from the parish of Donaghmore and Philadelphia’s textile industry.

It is clear that Irish emigrants to 19th century America often joined clusters of families from their own Irish region or locality when they arrived in the United States. This is a theme that is described time and again in Civil War pension files, which are almost unique in how often they detail a family’s life on both sides of the Atlantic – before and after emigration.

Where one family or group had blazed a trail in a particular American region, word filtered back to Ireland, and more people followed in their footsteps. This is a theme that continues in modern emigration patterns – Ireland’s best known example is the immigrant population from Anápolis, Brazil who now live in the town of Gort, Co. Galway, a relocation connected with the meat-packing industry.

Charles O’Donnell’s service in the United States Marine Corps allows us to explore similar familial webs of interconnectivity among Irish emigrants to 19th century Philadelphia, based on the statements and evidence provided in support of the pension application.

Charles O’Donnell was born in the rural townland of Tievebrack, Donaghmore, Co. Donegal around 1844. He was described as 5 feet 7 1/2 inches in height, with dark eyes, dark hair and a dark complexion. His pension file allows us to determine the sequence of events which led to the 19-year-old’s enlistment in the United States Marine Corps in 1862. They were events that were set in train long before his birth; indeed they had started over five decades earlier. Charles O’Donnell would likely not have been in Philadelphia were it not for the emigration of another Donegal native in 1806 – when a different young man arrived in America. That man’s name was Dennis Kelly, who had been born in Donaghmore parish, Co. Donegal in 1779.

Dennis Kelly lost his father in Donegal at a young age, leading him to seek employment in the linen trade, a major industry in his part of Ireland. Despite humble beginnings, he appears to have been a natural businessman.

By the time he reached his late 20s Kelly had saved enough money to take his wife and child to a new life in America. Arriving in Philadelphia on June 18, 1806 he soon had his family loaded on a Conestoga wagon and heading west towards the frontier.

They were only a few miles into their journey when Dennis made what would prove a momentous decision. One of their traveling companions seems to have been somewhat foul-mouthed – indeed his profanity was so extreme that it outraged the Irishman, who promptly hauled his family off the wagon and returned to Philadelphia in disgust.

Having decided to abandon the idea of settling on the frontier, he instead got work on a nearby milldam. By 1808 he was back in the linen industry, making his own ‘bagging’ cloth. He soon began to accumulate substantial wealth, buying up mills and entering into horse and cattle breeding.

The community that grew up around one of his businesses – Clinton Mills on Darby Creek – would become known as Kellyville. By the 1860s, Dennis was a major contractor for the Union war effort, owned 800 acres in Philadelphia, Montgomery and Delaware counties, and operated no less than six mills. His success would have a lasting impact on his home parish in Donegal.

Dennis Kelly employed a large number of Irish emigrants in his linen and other industries, and was also keen to look after other family members from Co. Donegal. Most notable among these was his nephew Charles Kelly, born in Ardnagannagh townland, Donaghmore in 1808.

Charles emigrated to Philadelphia and joined his uncle in 1821 and further cemented his relationship by marrying Dennis’s daughter. Charles became Dennis’s protégé and soon proved an adept businessman in his own right. By the American Civil War he was also a major textile manufacturer and supplier to the Union army, success which in turn created more opportunities for Donegal emigrants.

What then does the story of Dennis and Charles Kelly have to do with Charles O’Donnell in 1862? The answer is that the O’Donnell family were only in Pennsylvania because of the Kellys – as were many other Irish from Donaghmore in Co. Donegal. In fact, the O’Donnells were related to the textile magnates, as were a number of other families who left the parish for Pennsylvania, families such as the Sharkeys. The 1826 Tithe Applotment Book for Donaghmore parish records the names of families such as the Kellys, O’Donnells and Sharkeys living side by side in Ireland. The pension file relating to Charles O’Donnell adds detail to this picture, revealing the close associations which continued even after emigration.

Before exploring these connections it is first necessary to outline the fate of Private Charles O’Donnell, the young man whose service caused these detailed ties of emigration to be recorded. Charles enlisted in the United States Marines Corps in Philadelphia on July 22, 1862. He had been a Marine for only a few weeks when he wrote the following letter to his mother:

agust the 7 1862
my dear mother i receved your leter on the [illegible] and was very glad to hear that you are al well as i am at preasen and i hop this will find you the same _ you want to now if i want of i dont want of i light [like] this plase wil i expect to get to philadelphia before i gow on sea_ i listed on the 22 of July and come to washington on the 23 of July i get plenty to eat i am listed for 4 years_ every one hase a bed to himself i get to Chursh on every Sonday i dident se[illegible] at Church yet_ give my love to my father and brothers and sisters_ in the next leter you send let me now wich stret that Kate lives in and i will gow to se her_ i dont want anything the cantean opens twicst [twice] a day and i kin get any thing i want_ i reseved a doler [dollar] in your letter you ned not send any thing more_no more at preasand from your effectiond son Charles O Donnell
right son and dond forget.

Charles was stationed in the Marine Barracks in Washington D.C. while waiting to see where he would be posted. Two weeks after he wrote this letter, on the 23rd of August, he began to suffer with a pain in his head. For several days he ‘complained of little else,’ before his symptoms suddenly worsened and it became clear he had Typhoid Fever. He was moved to the Marine Hospital while his mother rushed to get to his bed side from Philadelphia. She arrived in time to spend the last 36 hours of his life with him – Charles passed away on September 9, 1862.

Charles’s parents were John and Jane O’Donnell. The family had emigrated from Tievebrack, Donaghmore to Philadelphia in the late 1840s. It was a decision that may well have been driven by the Famine, but their destination was based firmly upon family ties – Jane’s maiden name was Kelly; her father Edward, who appears on the 1826 Tithes records, was Dennis Kelly’s brother. Both John and Jane had a number of relatives from Tievebrack waiting for them in Philadelphia, and they were soon fully incorporated into the expatriate Donegal community. The 1860 Census found the family in Precinct 3 of Philadelphia’s 24th Ward, where their reliance on the Kelly textile empire was apparent.

In the census John and Jane O’Donnell and their family were living with a ‘D. O’Donnell’ – this is almost certainly Dominick O’Donnell, probably another relative. Dominick and Edward O’Donnell were leasing a Cotton and Woollen Mill in the 24th Ward, the mill in which all the O’Donnell family worked – including the later U.S. Marine Charles, who in 1860 was a 16-year-old Wool Carder.

The only member of the family not employed by the mill was the patriarch John, who was recorded as a laborer. However, in reality by 1860 John was unable to work. He had been struck by a violent sickness the previous year, which affected him in both mind and body. It so devastated him that he was admitted to the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane on May 6, 1859. Although he was released from that institution on the August 10, he was never able to undertake physical labor again. It was this disability that ultimately led him to seek support based upon his son’s military service.

By the 1870s John O’Donnell, now living at 2026 Christian Street, was struggling to make ends meet. His wife Jane had died on April 27, 1874 and he had to turn to his son’s United States Marine Corps record in search of a pension. Extended family members living in Philadelphia – all of whom were also from Donaghmore parish – rallied around John to help him secure a pension. Along the way they revealed the extent of the ties between rural Donegal and some of Pennsylvania’s major textile production industries.

One of them was John O’Donnell’s 1st cousin, Mary O’Donnell. Her father Neil had been John’s uncle. On June 16, 1879 Mary gave a statement in which she recorded that she was then 70 years of age and had immigrated to Philadelphia about thirty years before.

She related how ‘the said John O’Donnell and the said Jane Kelly and myself were reared in the same townland Teevebrack [Tievebrack],I knew them well, I remember when the said John and the said Jane were married, they were living in the said townland at the time, their marriage was known to all their friends and neigbors. I know they lived and cohabited there as man and wife and several children were born to them.’

John’s daughters Maggie and Catharine also gave statements. Catharine told how she only had partial use of her limbs as a result of an accident in her youth, which impacted her ability to help support her father. They also described how John had not been able to earn above $15 per year since his 1859 illness.

Another Donaghmore family in Philadelphia who sought to help John O’Donnell were the Sharkeys. One of that family – ‘R. Sharkey’ – noted that he was also from the same townland of Tievebrack in Co. Donegal. He related the O’Donnell family’s close ties to the Kelly textile trade, and for good measure also highlighted the Kelly’s political connections, particularly with Philadelphia Congressmen.

He described how the Sharkeys were also related to both the Kellys and the O’Donnells; Dennis Kelly’s mother and Sharkey’s grandmother had been sisters. More than that, he also laid out the sacrifices the Donegal Sharkeys had laid at the feet of Union – one brother had died in the 1870s as a result of a disease contracted in the Union army; a second had fought as a draft substitute, while a third had been serving on the USS Hatteras when she was sunk by the CSS Alabama off Texas in 1863 – captured, he was afterwards deposited in Kingston, Jamaica.

The efforts of Philadelphia’s Donegal emigrants from Donaghmore helped to secure John O’Donnell a U.S. pension based on his unfortunate son Charles’s brief war service. He was awarded a payment of $8 per month backdated to the date of death of his wife on April 27, 1874.

The level of documentation he had to provide in order to receive that pension opens a window into the stream of emigration from Tievebrack, Co. Donegal to Philadelphia, emigration which was largely due to the achievements of one man – Dennis Kelly. Kelly’s success story opened the door for generations of his 19th century relatives and friends to gain work upon their arrival in America, and it also ultimately led to the service of a number of these Donegal men in the Union military during the American Civil War.

The Charles O’Donnell pension file is but one example of tens of thousands that exist relating to Irish service in Northern armies which are held in the National Archives of Washington D.C.. There is surely no comparable body of documentation which offers such detailed social perspectives on the 19th century emigrant experience, often encompassing decades of a family’s experiences both in Ireland and America.

Ireland’s failure to recognize the American Civil War as one of our largest conflicts has meant that this resource has lain largely unrecognized by Irish scholars. Hopefully this is something that Irish students of the 19th century will rectify in the future, along the way revealing more of these quite extraordinary emigrant stories.

* Damian Shiels is an archaeologist and historian who runs the IrishAmericanCivilWar.com website, where this article first appeared. His book 'The Irish in the American Civil War' was published by The History Press in 2013 and is available here.

*Originally published in 2015

Maureen Murphy brings to life the remarkable story of this little-remembered individual.

In May 1844, Asenath Nicholson left New York aboard the Brooklyn to “personally investigate the condition of the Irish poor.”

She had been a schoolteacher in Vermont and in New York, a proprietor of a vegetarian boarding house and a reformer who championed the causes of abolitionism and temperance. From her boarding house on the edge of New York’s notorious Five Points, she worked among Irish immigrants.

She later recalled those years saying, “It was in the garrets and cellars of New York that I first became acquainted with the Irish peasantry, and it was there I saw that they were a suffering people.”

She was determined to learn more about their suffering by walking through the country on her self-appointed mission to bring the Bible to the Irish poor. It was an ambitious adventure for an arthritic widow of 52. She would distribute copies of the Bible to those who could read, and she would read the Bible to those who could not.

Dressed in her polka coat, bonnet and India rubber boots and carrying an enormous black bearskin muff from which she produced tracts and Bibles, Nicholson must have been an extraordinary sight. She complained that people stared at her.

Her mission was not as straightforward as it might appear. Catholics regarded Bible readers as proselytes, and Protestant missionaries rejected her democratic ideas. From July 1844 to August 1845, she walked through Ireland visiting every county but Cavan.

She left for Scotland in August 1845, shortly before the first signs of the potato failure appeared. While Nicholson had not anticipated the failure of the harvest, as she traveled around the Irish countryside she frequently observed that the Irish poor depended on a single food crop.

She had heard the libel that the Irish poor were lazy; however, based on her experience visiting the Irish in their cabins, she concluded that they were not lazy; they lacked work. When she saw the poor employed, she made note of it.

The sight of a woman and her daughters carding and knitting gave her pause. “This was an unusual sight for seldom had I seen, in Ireland, a whole family employed among the peasantry. Ages of poverty have taken everything out of their hands but preparing and eating the potato and then sit listlessly on a stool, lie in their straw or saunter upon the street because no one hires them.”

A crop failure combined with chronic unemployment would turn a natural disaster into a calamity. When the blight came a second year, Nicholson returned in the winter of 1846 to do what she could do to help. She stayed two years, spending much of that time in the Famine-stricken west.

As soon as she arrived in Dublin on December 7, 1846, Nicholson wrote to the readers of Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune and Joshua Leavitt’s abolitionist Emancipator describing conditions in the city and asking for help for the Irish poor. She did not have the means to finance her relief efforts and she despaired that she was brought to witness a Famine without the means to relieve the hungry.

When a letter arrived from Greeley with money from his Tribune readers, she regarded it not only as the answer to her prayers but also a sign of divine intervention. Other friends sent food, money and clothes to distribute or to send to trusted friends to administer.

In July 1847, New Yorkers sent Nicholson five barrels of Indian corn aboard the United States frigate Macedonia. (There were fifty barrels aboard for Maria Edgeworth who provided the Central Relief Committee with information about Famine conditions in Co. Longford and who asked for shoes for her tenants working on a draining project.)

While she admired the work of the Central Relief Committee of the Society of Friends (Quakers) who had established a soup kitchen in Charles Street behind Upper Ormond Quay in January 1847, Nicholson preferred to operate individually as she had in the Five Points and in her earlier trip to Ireland.

She described herself walking through Dublin each morning distributing slices of bread from a large basket. She worked out of her own soup kitchen in the Liberties, an area she selected for its extreme poverty. The Quakers sold their soup for a penny a quart.

Nicholson’s food was gratis; however, she operated on a triage system. She decided that £10 divided among 100 people helped no one, so she committed herself to a particular group of families for whom she cooked Indian meal daily. Nicholson stayed in Dublin until July 1847 when she left for Belfast. By then she had finished "Ireland’s Welcome to the Stranger," her account of her earlier visit written to encourage readers to respond to Ireland’s crisis. By then the Temporary Relief Act (the “Soup Kitchen” Act) had become effective, and the Quakers closed their kitchen.

Nicholson may have followed their example. In any case, she left Dublin and went for the west of Ireland in July 1847 where she visited Donegal and then went on to Newport, Co. Mayo. She had visited Newport earlier and was returning to stay with her friend, the postmistress Mrs. Margaret Arthur. There she found “misery without mask.” She went further into the misery when she went west from Belmullet to spend the winter of 1847-8 in the Erris peninsula.

She set to work bearing witness to the suffering, visiting the poor and encouraging relief workers. She not only recorded their names, but she also gave a glimpse of those selfless people who died working among the poor: Rev. Patrick Pounden, the Rector of Westport and his wife, and Rev. Francis Kinkaid, the Church of Ireland curate of Ballina who died on the 28th of January 1847. Catholics as well as Protestants contributed to the memorial tablet on the wall of the church.

She continued to lobby in letters for ways to bring employment to the people of western Mayo. On October 31, 1847, she wrote to her friend the English Quaker philanthropist William Bennett who had visited the west of Ireland early in 1847.

She was quick to praise resident landlords who provided employment for their tenants, but some were unable to provide relief. “You, sir, who know Erris, tell, if you can, how the landlord can support the poor by taxation, to give them food, when the few resident landlords are nothing and worse than nothing, for they are paupers in the full sense of the word.”

She went on to ask Bennett to use his own resources or his influence to support a local employment scheme. “I must and will plead, though I plead in vain, that something may be done to give them work. I have just received a letter from the curate of Bingham’s Town saying that he could set all his poor parish, both the women and children, to work, and find a market for their knitting and cloth, if he could command a few pounds to purchase the materials.”

Nicholson not only appealed to her friends and to the public, she challenged the government on two counts: their stewardship of relief resources and their attitude toward the poor for whom they were responsible.

She made a distinction between the paid relief officers, whom she characterized as bureaucratic, hierarchical and self-serving, and volunteer relief workers (Quakers, coast guardsmen and their families and local clergy) who were compassionate, egalitarian and selfless. Nicholson was scrupulous about her own expenses. She allowed herself 23 pence a day for food: a diet of bread and cocoa and she reduced her stipend to 16 pence (no cocoa) when her resources dwindled.

She raged that grain was diverted from food to alcohol. She charged that grain used for distilling could have fed the Irish poor. “Reader, ponder this well. Enough grain, converted into a poison for body and soul as would have fed all that starving multitude.”

Over and over she contrasted the lack of charity among relief officials with the compassion of volunteers. The hospitality of the Irish countryside was the leitmotif of "Ireland’s Welcome to the Stranger"; the leitmotif of “Annals” was the generosity of the poor to one another. “Annals” is a vivid account of suffering that combines her eye-witness account with character sketches, parables, dramatic scenes and dialogues. Nicholson’s accounts put human faces on the statistical reports. Her account of those who served the poor is a record of grace.

In the fall of 1848, when she thought the Great Irish Famine was over, Nicholson left Dublin quietly for London. In fact, famine conditions continued until 1852.

The “lone Quaker” who saw her to her boat was probably her friend the abolitionist Quaker printer Richard Davis Webb. In England she published "Lights and Shades of Ireland" (1850), the third part of which was “Annals of the Famine.” She joined the cause of world peace, joining delegations to Paris and Frankfurt. She returned to New York without notice and lived quietly in declining health until she died of typhoid fever in Jersey City on May 15th, 1855.

Almost forgotten, her books are now back in print, so we know how she would have wished to be remembered.

During her first visit to Ireland while walking the road from Oranmore to Loughrea, Nicholson stopped to rest her blistered feet and thought of her prudent friends who had warned her against this reckless adventure. Did she wish to be back in her parlor in New York? She did not.

She said, “Should I sleep the sleep of death, with my head pillowed against this wall, no matter. Let the passerby inscribe my epitaph upon this stone, fanatic what then? It shall only be a memento that one in a foreign land lived and pitied Ireland, and did what she could to seek out its condition.”

* Originally published in 2013.