The U.S. journalists who covered Ireland’s War of Independence (1919-1921) reached a newspaper audience that included 1 million Irish immigrants and millions more of their American-born offspring. Non-Irish readers also followed the separatist struggle against Britain, the First World War ally that America itself had rebelled against nearly 150 years earlier. U.S. and British government officials, and the Irish rebels, paid close attention to U.S. press coverage, as reaveled by their public statements and private correspondence. Yet the impact of American journalists on what was then called “The Irish Question” remains an underexplored aspect of this otherwise well-detailed transnational event.

Journalist Mark Holan has spent several years reviewing the published work and uncovering the overseas adventures of American reporters in revolutionary Ireland. Several of these reporters became advocates for the Irish cause. A few worked behind the scenes to broker a peace deal between the combatants. Some of the correspondents exploited their Irish war experiences to advance their careers; while others faded into obscurity after returning home from the dangerous assignment. The U.S. press corps in Ireland included a handful of pioneering women journalists and several reporters with larger literary ambitions.

This presentation recalls the Irish war from the perspective of American journalists who covered the story for American readers.