Alfred "Al" Smith was born on 174th South Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the area where he resided his entire life.  He was the son of Catherine (née Mulvihill), the daughter of Irish immigrants from County Westmeath, Ireland, and Joseph Smith, the son of an Italian immigrant; Smith would always identify with his mother's Irish heritage.  The family was … [Read more...] about Al Smith, ‘The Happy Warrior’

In the early days of Baseball, Irish Americans dominated the sport and helped transform it into America's national pastime.  Young men made strong through the strenuous physical labor in what were often the only jobs available to them took what little relaxation they had in the new sport and soon came to dominate it and were innovators who transformed it into the game we … [Read more...] about ‘King Kelly’

January 30, 1972, was an uncharacteristically bright and sunny day for an Irish winter in Derry, Northern Ireland.  It was the day of a planned peaceful protest march against the policy of internment without trial instituted by the British Army; a policy that, while allegedly created to curtail sectarian violence, was itself hypocritically sectarian in its targeting of … [Read more...] about The 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday

Fr. Nicholas Callan was born in 1799 in County Louth. He was the fifth of six children born to a prosperous farming family. Noting that their son was remarkably clever, they sent him to the best private school available, which was run by a Presbyterian Clergyman (in the wake of the recent Penal Laws, there were few Catholic school options) while entrusting his Catholic … [Read more...] about Fr. Nicholas Callan, Forgotten Genius

On August 9, 1971, British Army Saracen armored cars rolled out at 4:00 AM onto the streets of Belfast to begin Operation Demetrius, the forcible internment of Irish Catholics suspected of being involved in paramilitary activity without charge or trial. Ironically, the British Army was now interning members of the community that they claimed upon their arrival to be protecting … [Read more...] about The Ballymurphy Massacre