Damian Shiels’s new book Green and Blue explores Irish American service in the United States military by analyzing the written correspondence of ordinary rank-and-file soldiers drawn from across the Union’s armed forces. It uses a vast and largely untapped collection of letters penned by Irish American combatants to their families to build the most detailed and intimate picture yet of Irish Americans' service in the United States military during the Civil War. In this lecture, Shiels will explore the range and extent of Irish service during the conflict, and explain how Irish American enlisted men navigated their duties from multiple perspectives--including how they adapted to and experienced military life, how they engaged with their faith, how they interacted with the home front, and how they saw themselves and the cause for which they fought.
Damian Shiels is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Northumbria University, where he currently works on the Civil War Bluejackets digital humanities project.
In 2010 he founded the award-winning www.irishamericancivilwar.com website, which primarily focuses on using military records to explore the social impact of the Civil War on Irish people and communities. The Irish experience of the conflict has been the topic of two of his previous books, The Irish in the American Civil War (History Press Ireland, 2014) and The Forgotten Irish: Irish Emigrant Experiences in America (History Press Ireland, 2016). His latest volume, Green and Blue: Irish Americans in the Union Military 1861-65 (LSU Press, 2025) uses 1100 newly identified letters written by enlisted Irish American men to explore how they experienced the American Civil War.
Beyond his Civil War research, Shiels also specializes in public history and conflict archaeology. He was one of the curators of the National Museum of Ireland's Soldiers & Chiefs permanent military history exhibition, and has directed archaeological research projects on Irish battlefield and conflict sites ranging from the medieval period through to the Irish Civil War.
