From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Welcome!

Hello, Watchmike, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page
• Help pages
• Tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} after the question on your talk page. Again, welcome!  Jokestress 18:50, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Contents 1 Reversion? 2 Drew Gilpin Faust 3 Corcoran Birthplace Dispute 3.1 Background 3.2 Carrowkeel 3.3 So, the question remains: From which Carrowkeel did our General Corcoran hail? 3.4 Conclusions

[edit] Reversion?

I'm sorry but you are a new user, and I've never reverted edits made by you.

And if you don't want to see your edits reverted, you must explain what you did in the "edit summary" box. Thank you for your understanding. Martial BACQUET 11:28, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

PS: Do not forget to sign your messages.

[edit] Drew Gilpin Faust

Hi! Thanks for your recent contributions. I see that you have removed a lot of cited sources from this article. Generally, sources are not removed like that; they are either incorpoarted into footnotes or discussed prior to removal. If you wish to make such a change, you should lay out your reasons on the talk page first. I am going to add them back for now. Thanks! Jokestress 18:50, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Corcoran Birthplace Dispute

[edit] Background

I have been engaged in a revert war with an IP user over the issue of in which Irish county Michael Corcoran was born.

[edit] Carrowkeel

• There are at least six places called "Carrowkeel" in Ireland, one in County Donegal[1], one in County Fermanagh[2], one in County Galway[3], two in County Roscommon[4] and one in County Sligo[5]. This is undoubtedly the source of our confusion.

• "Carrowkeel" is an anglicization of the Irish An Cheathru Chaol meaning "the narrow quarter." It is a description of terrain features and therefore a completely unexceptional placename.

[6] [7] These sites that our IP contributor attempted to reference list Corcoran's place of birth as "Carrowkeel, County Donegal"

[8] [9] [10] These sites list Corcoran's birth place as "Carrowkeel, County Sligo."

So, it seems that there are reputable published sources in support of a Sligo birth and a Donegal birth, we can safely rule out the Carrowkeels in Fermanagh, Galway and Roscommon.

[edit] So, the question remains: From which Carrowkeel did our General Corcoran hail?

• It seems significant that Corcoran served in the constabulary in Donegal.[11]

It is easy to see how the fact that Carrowkeel is a common Irish placename, coupled with the fact that Corcoran served in the constabulary in Donegal could lead someone to assume that Corcoran was from the Carrowkeel in Donegal and never give the matter a second thought. One might even enshrine this confusion in a published history book.

• It also seems significant the the Mayor of New York dedicated a memorial to Corcoran in Sligo[12] and the local newspaper in Sligo calls Corcoran a " . . . Carrowkeel native . . . who left Sligo for America . . . "[13]

• No such contemporary sources link Corcoran to Donegal, only Civil War History books and websites that reference them.

[edit] Conclusions

It seems probable that an early historian of the Civil War mistakenly assumed Corcoran was from Donegal for the reason discussed above and that numerous other historians cited his/her mistaken assumption in their own histories.

I cannot prove my hypothesis through internet research alone. However, I would venture that an unbiased and reasonable reading of the evidence I have provided will lead the reader into agreement that Corcoran was from Sligo. Windyjarhead 18:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)