The Irish at Rorke’s Drift, 1879

‘Usuthu! Usuthu! Usuthu!’ As the Zulu battle cry echoed along the banks of Buffalo River, the 140 British and Irish soldiers encamped within old Jim Rorke’s trading compound watched and waited, their mouths dry, their hearts lurching. Thousands of Zulu warriors were...

The San Patricios and the Mexican War of 1847

In the winter of 2001, I chanced to stay with friends of friends in the affluent suburb of San Ángel outside Mexico City. It was my first time in Mexico and, at my hosts suggestion, I went for a walk around the neighbourhood. My attention was drawn to a marble...
Johnny Meehan & the Spanish Civil War

Johnny Meehan & the Spanish Civil War

68 Irish men and women died in defence of the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1938. The war ended with victory for Franco, who would remain in power until his death in 1975. This story focuses on Galway-born Johnny Meehan, one of eight Irishmen...

Men in Tights – The Battle of the Boyne 1690

MEN IN TIGHTS – THE BATTLE OF THE BOYNE 1690 On a warm and sunny summer afternoon, I am walking across the River Boyne at Oldbridge, County Louth, when I chance upon an old codger taking his hound for a stroll. We strike up a conversation, about a ruined shell of a...
The Flag of the Easter Rising

The Flag of the Easter Rising

On Easter Monday in April 1916, Padraig Pearse and his cohorts hoisted two tricolour flags outside the GPO in Dublin. ‘In the name of God and of the dead generations’, declared Pearse’s Proclamation of the Republic’, ‘Ireland, through us, summons her children to her...