Offaly and the Battle of Gettysburg. Michael Bennett, James Campbell and the Edenderry connection. By Kevin Guing

Was it chance and circumstances that led fourteen Offaly men to be present in early July 1863 on the fields, hills, and laneways of Gettysburg in what was, and still is to this day, the single most important battle in American history?

Chance:  the absence of any cause of events that can be predicted, understood, or controlled

Circumstances:  a condition, fact, or event accompanying, conditioning, or determining another

On reading any account of the single most pivotal battle in American History it quickly becomes obvious to even those with zero knowledge of battlefield tactics and military history that the main factors that decided the final outcome came about as a result of chance and circumstances, good and bad luck, decisions that only after the dust settled on the fields of Pennsylvania in early July 1863 were deemed correct and, fatally, one single decision made by a seemingly invincible General Robert E. Lee that doomed his Confederate Army to defeat and almost by accident won a victory for a Union Army commanded by a seemingly hesitant General George Meade. The margin of victory for the Union army, in the opinion of most military historians, was so tight that small and snap decisions were the deciding factor and not brilliant military tactics.  It seems that in the late evening of the 3^rd of July 1863 it was chance and circumstances that had played the most important role in the outcome of the battle.

Gone With the Wind and the Offaly Connection. By Danny Leavy

The 1937 Pulitzer Prize winning book and subsequent Oscar winning movie were set in Clayton and Atlanta, both in Georgia, during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era. It depicts the struggles of young Scarlett O’Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of poverty following Sherman‘s destructive March to the sea.

The author of Gone with the Wind was Margaret Mitchell. While Margaret Mitchell’s Irish heritage is well known, most of the focus has centered on her maternal great-grandfather, Philip Fitzgerald. It’s believed Philip emigrated from the Fethard area of Tipperary and eventually settled on a plantation near Jonesboro, Georgia; where he had one son and seven daughters with his wife, Elenor McGahan, who was from an Irish Catholic family.

From a hedge school in Cappincur to adventures in the American Civil War: the story of Peter Cavanagh. By Michael MacNamara

Offaly Archives received a very interesting donation of manuscripts in recent times. Michael MacNamara, a native of Colehill and long-time resident of County Limerick, donated archives relating to his great grand-father, Peter Cavanagh, who was born in Cappincur in 1824 and ended up as a solider in the US army during the American Civil War.  Before all those adventures, Peter undertook high level tuition from a Mr Patrick Glowry in a hedge-school arrangement through the famine years of 1844-1848.   His copybook survived and is among the items donated to Offaly Archives. Michael MacNamara has spent many years researching Peter Cavanagh and summarised his unusual life and times for an interview in the Midland Tribune in 2005: