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The grandson of an Irish nationalist who became ‘Boy Mayor of New York’
- September 3, 2019
John Purroy Mitchel was elected age 34 with the highest share of the vote ever recorded
What brought so many Irish people to live in Zimbabwe?
- June 21, 2019
First St Patrick’s day celebrated on 1891 in a roofless mud-hut building with whiskey, gin and ham
The trailblazing Galway nun who helped eradicate TB from Southeast Asia
- June 5, 2019
Cathleen Monahan became a medic and trained generations of Hong Kong doctors
The Scotch-Irish author of America’s best-selling reading primer
- May 27, 2019
William Holmes McGuffey's books sold more than 120 million copies
The Irish nun who opened schools for the deaf in Australia
- May 22, 2019
Sr Gabriel Hogan provided education for children whose needs would otherwise have been neglected
Elizabeth Bowen, the Big House heiress with the ‘constricted mind’
- May 17, 2019
Extraordinary Emigrants: Writer was a chronicler of her class in its dying days
Johnny Patterson, the Irish singing clown who met a tragic end
- April 2, 2019
Clever songsmith’s irreverent wit was informed by his fluent Irish
The Waterford naval officer who became first governor of New Zealand
- March 26, 2019
William Hobson was implicated in the transfer of land from Maori to profit settlers
The Irish naval officers in imperial Russia
- March 19, 2019
Irish military migrants sought opportunities in the expanding Russian Empire
Dubliner Frances Stewart, one of the first women pioneers in Canada
- March 12, 2019
Letters offer valuable account of loneliness of settler life in the 19th-century
Beatrice Grimshaw, the Belfast explorer treated as a ‘male chief’ on Samoa
- March 5, 2019
She was also a sports journalist, travel writer, novelist, and plantation owner
Harry Ferguson, the ‘Mad Mechanic’ who invented the modern tractor
- February 26, 2019
Before tractors, Ferguson was first in Ireland or Britain to build and fly his own plane
‘Bad Bridgets’: The criminal and deviant Irish women convicted in America
- February 20, 2019
Lizzie Halliday, serial killer from Co Antrim, was dubbed ‘the worst woman on earth’
The Carlow man who became a US founding father (and one of the biggest slave owners)
- February 12, 2019
Pierce Butler was one of three Irish immigrants to sign the US Constitution in 1787
The Westmeath emigrant who found himself at the heart of the Napoleonic wars
- February 5, 2019
General Laval Nugent led 8,000 soldiers into Italy to depose ‘First Horseman of Europe’
Thomas Heazle Parke, the first Irishman to cross Africa
- January 29, 2019
Surgeon to the British army became a celebrity after bloody expedition to rescue governor
Tyrone Power, the actor who humanised the ‘stage Irishman’ stereotype
- January 22, 2019
Character was a comic staple on stage: sentimental, buffoonish, cowardly but popular
The ‘Irish Tinker Lady’ whose songs captivated London
- January 16, 2019
Margaret Barry shared a billing at the 1965 Newport Festival with Joan Baez and Bob Dylan
Mary Swanzy, one of Ireland’s leading modernist painters
- January 9, 2019
Artist achieved success in her lifetime only to be relatively forgotten in death
Mary Lee, the Irishwoman who campaigned for women’s rights in Australia
- January 2, 2019
Monaghan-born Lee became prominent suffragist and advocate for asylum residents
Juan O’Gorman, architect behind Mexico City’s most intriguing buildings
- December 26, 2018
Architect designed two houses for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, linked by a bridge
Mabel Cahill, Irish tennis champion who won five US Opens
- December 19, 2018
Forgotten Kilkenny player was the first non-American to win the title
How treasured objects help us create a home away from home
- December 11, 2018
Irish nurse still has cardboard Christmas crib she brought to England in 1954
‘Cinderella Man’ James Braddock, the Irish-American boxer who became world champion
- December 5, 2018
Son of Irish immigrants with ‘more brawn than brains’ won 51 victories in 82 fights
Annie Besant, the first woman to endorse birth control
- November 27, 2018
London-Irishwoman was a trade unionist, socialist, and later an Indian nationalist
Josephine Hart, writer and ‘heroine’ who inspired Herstory
- November 20, 2018
Hart harnessed early tragedy to become a publisher, writer, poetry promoter and television producer
Fanny Durack, the Irish-Australian who won the first women’s Olympic swimming medal
- November 13, 2018
Durack caused scandal by rejecting the modest woollen swimsuit for a close-fitting one
Flora Sandes, the only British female soldier to fight for the allies in WW1
- November 7, 2018
Daughter of Irish couple became Belgrade’s first taxi driver after Armistice
Daisy Bates, the Edwardian Irishwoman in the Australian outback
- October 23, 2018
Journalist spent four decades living among Aborigines, writing hundreds of articles
The Irish-American who invented the modern tattoo machine
- October 18, 2018
Samuel O’Reilly’s invention made him famous and revolutionised the tattoo industry
How an Irish athletics club in New York became ‘best in the world’
- October 10, 2018
110 years ago the first African-American won Olympic gold, representing the Irish club
The pioneering Irishwomen who made exciting Space discoveries
- October 8, 2018
Space Week: Remarkable women strategically navigated a male-dominated field
Peg Woffington, the best Irish actress of the 18th century
- October 3, 2018
Charismatic star was as well known for dating men as playing them on stage
The Irish woman who became ‘prisoner’ of a Russian princess
- September 24, 2018
Martha Wilmot published the memoirs of Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova
Florence Burke, American Civil War soldier and my great-great-grandfather
- September 19, 2018
200,000 Irish-born immigrants volunteered to fight in the bloody war
Remembering Fr Mychal Judge, the Irish-American priest killed in 9/11
- September 11, 2018
Son of Leitrim emigrants was a supporter of addicts, the homeless, and 1980s Aids victims
Lady Edith Blake, Irish polyglot, botanical artist and travel writer
- September 5, 2018
Nellie Bly, the pioneering journalist who feigned madness to expose asylum abuse
- August 22, 2018
Bly went around the world in 72 days in 1889, beating Phileas Fogg's fictitious record
The Irish-American animator who put the ‘looney’ into Looney Tunes
- August 1, 2018
Bob Clampett animated Daffy Duck and Tweety, with his unique wacky style
The Irish nun who survived floods, famines and shipwrecks
- July 25, 2018
Mother Mary Patrick was rescued in a coal bucket after her ship was torpedoed in 1940
Mike 'King' Kelly, the Irish-American baseball star who inspired the first pop song
- July 18, 2018
Children of Irish Famine emigrants became baseball superstars in the game's 'Emerald Era'
The Irishman who 'invented' milk chocolate, and served the royal family
- July 11, 2018
Hans Sloane also acted as private physician to three British monarchs
The only Wimbledon finalist to be convicted of murder was an Irish man
- July 4, 2018
Vere St Leger Goold and his wife were discovered with a dismembered torso in their luggage
The crossdresser from Dublin who tricked the British Army
- June 27, 2018
Christian Davies donned her missing husband’s clothes and went to war to find him
Kay McNulty, the Irish ‘mother of computer programming’
- June 20, 2018
Was ‘Crusher’ Casey Ireland’s toughest emigrant sportsman?
- June 15, 2018
Irish wrestler was World Heavyweight Champion for six years, while fighting in WWII
