The recent HBO Mini-Series The Pacific has brought a long overdue recognition to the sacrifices and hardships endured by the U.S. Marines in the Second World War. These battles were fought on isolated islands that one would struggle to locate on a map: Guadalcanal, Roi-Namur, Saipan-Tinian, Peleliu, Okinawa. Combat was often at point blank range; not only did the men involved battle the enemy, but poisonous snakes, insects, disease and the climate. Nowhere was the fighting harder than the Battle of Iwo Jima, a battle where Admiral Nimitz later observed “Uncommon Valor was a Common Virtue.” No … [Read more...] about Irish American Heritage Month: Col. Joseph Jeremiah McCarthy
Past Irish American Heritage Month Profiles
Irish American Heritage Month: The Irish Contribution to America’s Independence
DID YOU KNOW that when America was born, the Irish were there? The Irish, both Protestant, and Catholic, were a major part of Washington’s volunteers from foot soldiers to high ranking officers. When increased Crown exploitation drove the colonists to protest, among the loudest were the Irish who had no great love for the Crown, to begin with. And there were many Irish in America’s colonies. Among them were those who fought the English theft of their Irish lands and ended up hunted men; they were followed by those Catholics and Presbyterians who fled persecution by the Church of England. Some … [Read more...] about Irish American Heritage Month: The Irish Contribution to America’s Independence
Irish American Heritage Month: “Wild Bill” Donovan, “The Last Hero.”
At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, for the first time in over four years, the guns fell silent across the trenches that scarred the face of Europe during the First World War. America had been latecomers to the conflict but at a tremendous cost had tipped the scales in what had been a murderous stalemate. No division had sacrificed more than the 42nd Division, nicknamed the "Rainbow Division," as it had been formed from National Guard Units whose origins stretched across the country. No unit in the Rainbow Division fought on more fronts, nor suffered more … [Read more...] about Irish American Heritage Month: “Wild Bill” Donovan, “The Last Hero.”
Irish American Heritage Month: The Emmets, an Irish and Irish American Story
Robert Emmet Thomas Emmet in Later Life On the surface, the brothers Thomas Addis Emmet and Robert Emmet were the most unlikely of revolutionaries. They were born (Thomas Addis 1764, Robert 1778) into an affluent family of Ireland's Protestant ascendency. Their father was the State Physician of Ireland; firmly positioning the family as members of the British establishment. Yet the spirit of the enlightenment ran strong in the Emmet family; they were sympathetic to the struggle for independence of the American Colonies during the Revolutionary War and critics of the disenfranchisement … [Read more...] about Irish American Heritage Month: The Emmets, an Irish and Irish American Story
Irish American Heritage Month: Kathleen McNulty, an Irish American “Hidden Figure”
Kathleen Rita McNulty was born in the village of Creeslough on February 12, 1921, the third of six children of Anne Nelis and James McNulty. Her father was Commandant of the Doe Battalion of the Irish Volunteers. On the night of her birth, he was arrested and imprisoned in Derry Gaol for two years for his republican activities. On his release, the family emigrated to the United States and settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where James worked as a stonemason and went on to establish a successful construction business, frequently working with Irish American John B Kelly, the father of … [Read more...] about Irish American Heritage Month: Kathleen McNulty, an Irish American “Hidden Figure”