Fianna: A story every Canadian school child learns, but one conveniently forgotten in America. - Paperback

by Michael Plemmons (Author)

Harry Truman famously said: "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know." Truman would love this book. Fianna recounts the largely forgotten story of an army of Union and Confederate Irish-American veterans who joined forces after the Civil War to invade British North America - what is now Canada. Their purpose: to overthrow centuries of British rule in Ireland by capturing sovereign territory on this side of the Atlantic. And for one brief historical moment, they almost pulled it off. As author Michael Plemmons says in his foreword, even for most well-educated Americans this history is "news." It's a story rarely taught in classrooms here, yet considered a seminal event in Canadian national history.

Author Biography

Michael Plemmons began his career as a sports writer and Associated Press features contributor on the Gulf Coast. He has since worked in Washington, Milwaukee, Chicago and Tokyo, writing on subjects from professional football, crime and government to architecture and the arts. His work has appeared in dozens of periodicals, and his short stories in a number of acclaimed fiction anthologies and textbooks. Michael studied under Howard Mahan at the University of South Alabama, where he earned a history baccalaureate with honors, and with biographer John Bartlow Martin at Northwestern University (Master's program). He now lives in Wisconsin.