In the April/May issue of Irish America Magazine, Robert Schmuhl takes us behind the scenes on a decade-long research project that culminated in his book Ireland’s Exiled Children: America and the Easter Rising.
"DIgging up the Past"
Facts are stubborn things,” John Adams famously remarked. Less known, though, is a clause he added to complete the thought – “and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
Mulish facts and elusive evidence have become (metaphorically speaking) my constant companions the past decade. Beginning in 2006, I started doing initial spadework for a research project about the 1916 Easter Rising, probing its American relationships and connections. Now – and just in time for the commemoration – the book has entered the world.
Continue here.