Synopsis
America gained her freedom in a nine-year-war by fighting three-dozen battles from Georgia to Canada, and hundreds of engagements on the high seas, occurring along the coastlines of North America, the Caribbean, the British Isles, and Western Europe. Buy the Book!
We owe France for significant financial and military aid and for providing a safe haven for the ships of John Paul Jones and Luke Ryan. Let us not overlook the financial support supplied by Holland, and the involvement of Spain.
But most importantly, the manpower provided by Irish-born, Irish-Americans, and Scot-Irish without which we might still be vassals of England’s king.
Author 
The
grandson of Big John Meehan from Sligo, Mary Ellen McLaughlin-Keane
from Galway, Bridget Munnelly from Mayo, and Matthew Smith from Cavan
ended up with the least recognized Irish name of them all. I can’t begin
to tell you how many times, I’ve been asked, “Smith, huh! English …
right?” When I meet up with my ancestor Mac an Gabhann—the one who
anglicized our family name to Smith—he and I are going to have words.
Even my wife, Elizabeth McCarthy McGinty Smith, would’ve retained her
maiden name if such a thing were fashionable when we were wed.
Before I continue on to the little I’ve accomplished in life, there are a
few items from my family history that need emphasizing. The Smith
homestead in Beagh Upper, Parish of Upper Killenkere, was “situate”
within 200 yards of where General Phil Sheridan was born. And since, my
uncles have stated that their grandmother was a Sheridan, well … you do
the math. If you have an issue with that, there’s no sense going into
the story Big John Meehan told of my Galway-born grandmother being
related to a member of Columbus’s crew.
When I began writing
narrative-history, I didn’t plan to write the complete Irish-American
Story, it just happened, or it will happen when later this year I add,
The Revolutionary War Irish to the series.
