This is one of the very best images of Irish troops from the American Civil War. Surprisingly, it's not very well known, despite Thomas Francis Meagher's presence. Taken in the summer of 1861, it contains lots of fascinating details. A short🧵on some of them👇#IrishDiaspora This is Meagher before he was a General, taken only a short time before he and the men around him - Zouaves attached to the 69th New York State Militia as Company K - would see action for the first time at the Battle of Bull Run on 21 July 1861.

100 years ago today the most intensive day of fighting in the Battle for Cork was taking place around Rochestown. To mark the anniversary of the bloodiest engagement of Cork's revolutionary period, this🧵explores some of the archaeological traces left behind. #BattleforCork100 /1 The National Army had landed in Passage West the previous day, moving to engage IRA defenders on the high ground to the west. Some of the very first fire of this engagement can be traced today- these are impact scars from National Army bullets on buildings opposite the docks. /2

The Irish and the start of the American Civil War-A Short Thread. The conflict began today in 1861, when Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. Within the Fort's walls, there were more Irish-born than American-born soldiers. 1/9 #IrishDiaspora Within the Fort, Captain Abner Doubleday is regarded as the man who gave the command to return fire- the first U.S. shot of the war. Galwegian Private James Gibbons (below) may well have served that gun. Years later he would claim to be the man who physically fired that shot. 2/9

The taoiseach: “iconic and historic locations such as this should be preserved or at a minimum incorporated into any new developments” But successive govts have not acted to identify & map these sites so they can be considered in planning. Thread /1 irishtimes.com/news/ireland/i… The damage and destruction of revolutionary sites is wholesale around the country. For a small number of them (not many), a public outcry has occurred, but almost always late in the planning process (e.g. Moore St/O'Rahilly home). Very few have any significant protection. /2

We have to try and start to resist the temptation to place new memorials and "tidy up" already memorialised revolutionary sites for the centenary when there hasn't been landscape archaeological assessments. Aside from other issues, we have no clue about any damage being done. Having been banging on about if for years it's a bit exasperating to see additional memorialisation is still the unquestioned mainstay of remembrance. We need some funding guidelines at Council level. It would be great to see @HeritageHubIRE develop best practice guidelines.

An urgent appeal re Vinegar Hill. Planning permission is being sought for a major development that will have an irreversible and catastrophic impact on the 1798 battlefield site. Details here. Time is short, but anyone who can should seek to lodge objections this week. Please RT We have recently lost one portion of the battlefield in the vicinty of Green Hill, but this development will be even more detrimental. Located on the site of the former golf course, on 21 June 1798 it was within the United Irishmen's lines and is part of the core battlefield area

The New York City Draft Riots began #OTD in 1863. The Irish dominated among the rioters, and African Americans were particularly targeted and murdered. The Irish American noted: "wherever a colored person was seen, he was hooted, pelted, or badly beaten; and one even hanged." 1/8 Among the buildings singled out by the rioters during those tumultous days was the Colored Orphan Asylum, which was set ablaze (above image). The New York Irish American Weekly gave their accounting of the week's events here: irishamericancivilwar.com/2013/07/18/150… 2/8

I'm writing about late American Civil War economic enlistees. Every time I do so I find myself discomforted by how groups such as substitutes still tend to be characterised in much of the literature. Unreliable, untrustworthy and somehow "lesser" than early war volunteers. 1/7 Aside from the problems that privileging early war volunteers as somehow being "better men" creates, the reality is that the majority of eligible white men in the U.S. chose not to serve during the Civil War. These late war recruits were willing to do what most were not. 2/7

There really needs to be a major effort to change the widespread mindset that referencing websites and scholarly web-articles cheapens academic writing. I'm growing increasingly weary of seeing sources and ideas drawn from my site appear with no corresponding reference. Thread /1 It's less and less credible in my view to see a bibliography that doesn't have at least a handful of non-primary source driven web references in it. We all use the web extensively-there's no reason why the efforts of those who share content openly online shouldn't be referenced/2

We know little about the survival/condition of RIC Barracks targeted by IRA as a key component of the war. With all the controversy surrounding the proposed RIC event, community-led archaeological research projects would be just one alternative method of exploring this history. These type of landscape projects can also help to demonstrate how the Civil Power was used during the conflict, and how the IRA sought to target that control of the countryside. Individual events can also be explored within such projects.

100 years ago today IRA Volunteers successfully assaulted a semi-fortified RIC Barracks at Carrigtwohill, #Cork. It was the first in a series of attacks which for many marked the transition of the conflict into what could be called a war. 1/7 The violence of the engagement was seen as particularly noteworthy, and was a harbinger of things to come. Here is how Mick Leahy, the Volunteer who led the attack, remembered the event 2/7

"Christmas Remittances to the Old Country." Sending money home for Christmas, Irish Citizen Advertisement, New York, 21 December 1867. #IrishDiaspora This ad also demonstrates how many of the Irish American diaspora had been step-migrants through Britain, and were looking to send money to the Irish community there. I frequently encounter British-born Irish Americans in the Civil War pension files.

It's worth noting on this anniversary of the Kilmichael Ambush that this site was irreparably damaged due to grant-funded landscaping works to "enhance" the location. One of the greatest missed opportunities of the Decade of Centenaries is that this is likely to occur again 1/9 Ireland has never conducted a nation-wide survey of War of Independence/Civil War sites to determine the surviving nature and extent of the historic conflict landscape. This makes it impossible for them to be appropriately managed, or dealt with during the planning process. 2/9

For #RemembranceSunday, a pictorial thread about the Sheehan brothers, three young men from Fermoy, #Cork who lost their lives in separate bombing missions while serving with @RCAF_ARC who were remembered yesterday @CWGC's Heverlee War Cemetery, Belgium by @irishineurope. 1/18 The brother's parents, James Joseph Sheehan & Mary Ellen Hearne, had married in #Carlow around 1905, but made their home in Fermoy, where James was a baker and confectioner on Queen Square (now Pearse Square), seen here. Image: NLI. 2/18

A little while back my research into the Irish who died in Canadian service during #WW2 uncovered the story of the three Sheehan brothers from Fermoy, #Cork, who all lost their lives in separate missions while serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force. 1/4 Their deaths may represent the greatest loss of life suffered by a single family from what's now the Republic during Allied combat operations. I was humbled to discover that the research has now led to the brothers becoming the focus of this year's @irishineurope Remembrance. 2/4