Recovering the Voices of West Cork in the American Civil War

Zoom Lecture

by

Dr Damien Shiels

Thurs May 13 2021

at

8.30pm

Around 250,000 Irish Americans fought for the Union during the American Civil War. The records they left behind offer us some of our most detailed insights into the ordinary lives of Irish emigrants in nineteenth-century America. Utilising new research, this talk will explore what these records can tell us about emigrants and emigration from West Cork to the United States, and what they reveal about how those from the area were impacted by the war. It will partly do so by using the words of the men and women themselves, left behind in their letters and statements from more than 150 years ago.

Dr Damian Shiels is a historian and archaeologist. A former curator in the National Museum of Ireland, he has run www.irishamericancivilwar.com website since 2010. He is the author of The Irish in the American Civil War (2013) and The Forgotten Irish: Irish Emigrant Experiences in America (2016). His PhD at Northumbria University focused on the correspondence of Union Irishmen during the conflict. 

You are invited to a Zoom webinar.