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The following article appeared in Time Magazine in their Education Section   In the U. S., the Ancient Order of Hibernians is an association of Irish-born zealots, sensitive to the slightest slight to their kind. In a world preoccupied by other matters, for instance, it frequently appears to good Hibernians that the impact of the Irish on U. S. history is belittled or neglected. In Rochester last week, where the Hibernians of New York State were holding convention, fiery charges were heard that U. S. schoolbooks are unfair to the Irish. "We need a real American history!" shouted … [Read more...] about Time Magazine Article on Hibernians on History

Patrick Gallagher was born in Derrintogher, County Mayo, Ireland, on February 2, 1944. At the age of eighteen, like so many you Irish men and women before him, Patrick immigrated to the United States and the promise of a new life filled with opportunity. He quickly started on the immigrant dream: studying law while working in real estate, even getting involved in local politics as a campaign worker for Senator Robert Kennedy.  In 1966, Patrick was drafted for service in Viet Nam. Despite pleas from a heartsick sister living in the states to avoid the horrors of war by merely returning to … [Read more...] about Irish American Heritage Month: Patrick Gallagher, USMC

Did you know that the Irish played a major part in the victory on the bloodiest day in American history, the victory that let Lincoln issue the Emancipation Proclamation? It was at Antietam on September 17, 1862, and it was the victory that emboldened President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Foremost among Union forces was the Irish Brigade led by Irish-born Gen. Thomas F Meagher. Their story is an extraordinary chronicle of military valor in America’s cause; once when President Lincoln visited General McClellan’s Union camp, he lifted a corner of the Irish Brigade Flag, … [Read more...] about Irish American Heritage Month: The Irish Brigade at Antietam

A TV documentary on the St. Louis World Fair mentions how John Philip Sousa and his band dominated the entertainment, which included a young John McCormack singing at the Irish Pavilion. It brought to mind a forgotten era when American superstars were not individuals with a current hit record, but band leaders – people with the ability to not only play, but compose, arrange, and lead a musical organization. And, in the beginning, America’s first superstars were the leaders of America’s first bands – her marching Brass Bands and though Sousa was certainly one of them, he was not the … [Read more...] about Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, America’s First Superstar

  When you visit the beautiful city of New Orleans, be sure to visit the old business part of the city where a statue of a woman overlooks a little square at the corners of Camp and Clio streets.  The woman sits in a chair with her arms around a child.  The woman is nither young or pretty and she wears a plain dress with a little shawl.  She is a bit pudgy and her face is a square-chinned Irish face, but her eyes look at you like your mother's.  It is one of the first statues ever erected in America to honor a woman, for this was a woman unlike any other.   She … [Read more...] about Irish American Heritage Month: Margaret Haughery

John Joseph Hughes was born on 24 June 1797 in Annaloghan, Co. Tyrone, to a poor farmer. As a Catholic in English-ruled Ireland, he couldn’t even receive a Catholic education. When John was 15, his younger sister, Mary, died and British law barred a Catholic priest from presiding at her burial; the best he could do was to scoop up a handful of dirt, bless it, and hand it to John to sprinkle on her grave. Hughes never forgot that and dreamed of ‘a country in which no stigma of inferiority would be impressed on my brow, simply because I professed one creed or another.’ Fleeing poverty and … [Read more...] about Irish American Heritage Month: Archbishop “Dagger John” Hughes