Addiction in Irish History

On March 17th, thousands of St. Patrick's Day Parades take place across the globe. New York's parade, dating back to the 1760s, draws three million people and reinforces the stereotype that the parade is an American invention. Yet parades have been taking place since at least the ...  Show more

Éamon de Valera is one of the most influential figures in modern Irish history. Born in New York in 1880s and raised in rural Limerick, he rose from obscurity to become a central figure in the Irish Revolution. He played a major role in the 1916 Rising, became the most internatio ...  Show more

Between 1845 and 1852, Ireland suffered an appalling famine after the repeated failure of the potato crop, its national staple. But though caused by a natural blight, a combination of ancient prejudices, simmering tensions and political short-termism turned a national emergency i ...  Show more

Fintan O’Toole was born in Dublin in 1958, the same year that T.K. Whitaker, a member of the Irish government, published an influential report suggesting that Ireland open its doors economically and culturally to the rest of the world. O’Toole’s new book, <a href="https://www. ...

At least 23 of the Presidents of the United States can have their ancestry traced back to Ireland.

So why did this diaspora come to America? What was their reception like? And how have they reached the top of the power structure so regularly?

We are finding ...

When a German U-boat torpedoed the RMS Lusitania on Friday, May 7th, 1915, Americans found two new enemies: Germany and the beer it was so associated with. Anti-German sentiment grew, and with it hostility to the breweries founded in the 19th century by German immigrants. Soon ...