Mitchell Smyth

Pub in Micronesia named after Tyrone man

Roamer column: Freak show’s tattooed Irishman told stories and danced jigs

Mitchell Smyth died aged 88, at home in Ontario, on July 31

Roamer: Globetrotting writer found Irish stories everywhere he went

Sharpshooter Annie Oakley

Taking a belated look-back before normal service returns

Chicago mob boss Al Capone

Roamer column: Top mobster Al Capone toppled by Irish ‘Untouchable’

Legs Diamond's mistress Marion Roberts

Too much alcohol sealed the fate of an Irish bootlegger

Policeman guarding pharmacy where Coll died

Roamer: Irish-American gunman died as he lived - in a hail of lead

General Houston (centre). Detail from McArdle’s Battle of San Jacinto

The Roamer Belfast artist painted war won by Yellow Rose of Texas

Owney Madden's Cotton Club

The Roamer: Irish gangster who’s said to have been Mae West’s lover

Frank Butler and Annie Oakley

The Roamer: Annie got her gun but sadly she didn’t get the Kaiser...

The only authenticated photograph of Billy the Kid

Two Irish men were central to the story of Wild West icon Billy the Kid

Pony Express painting marking the launch of the service on April 3, 1860

Irish Pony Express trailblazer had four wives and nine children

Bob Fitzsimmons took the World Championship title from Maher in 95 seconds

Champion Irish boxer lost ‘hide and seek’ World Championship

Nellie Cashman in the early 1920s, after retiring to Victoria, Canada

Wild West prostitutes, gamblers and gunfighters loved Irish angel

The Chestnut tree planted by Belfast evacue brothers in Tyrone at end of WWII

It will soon be exactly 80 years since the World War II ‘Blitz on Belfast’

The fatal strike. Goalkeeper Johnny Thomson dives for the ball as Sam English prepares to shoot. A split second later, Thomson's head came in contact with English's knee

Oft forgotten local link with a tragedy on the football field

Kitty Weeps as Barney McCleary Tries to Console Her

Two historic songs, a famous sunset and sunny days on the farm

“I learnt that song at the age of 10 in 1954,” News Letter reader Sam McIlwrath announced in his recent email to Roamer.

by THE ROAMER

Kitty Weeps as Barney McCleary Tries to Console Her

The truth and intrigue behind one of our best loved ballads

Gold boat, cup and bracelet, part of the Broighter hoard on display in Dublin's National Museum

Sad , sad postscript to discovery of priceless golden Broighter hoard

Belinda Mulrooney and Her Husband, the Fake 'Count Carbonneau' in 1900.

Belinda Mulrooney - the Irish girl who became queen of the gold rush

Puck Fair circa early 1900s

The unknown fate of lonesome goat from the south... lost in the north!

Poet Robert W. Service at his Desk Long after he left the Yukon

Sonof Ulster emigrants remembered forever in epic Yukon gold-rush poem

William McKinley, 25th President of the United States.

Intriguing local family connection behind headlines of world history

Samuel Robinson from Ballymoney built a supermarket empire in America

Raised on oatmeal and catechism to establish US supermarket chain

Soldiers clearing rubble after Belfast's Easter air raid, 1941

Some unusual, poignant and frightening memories passed on from two world wars

The ‘slipe’ was a cart without wheels, once common in the Glens of Antrim. James Stoddard Moore would have been familiar with them

Life as a soldier, sea farer, wanderer and gold prospector written down in poetr...

The men of Crocknacrieve

Evocative pictures of Crocknacrieve and two extraordinary near-(nick)namesakes

Loughareema, Ulster's famous ‘Vanishing Lake’

The strange lake that comes and goes with ghosts and ghouls on its shoreline

Roamer’s email and postal addresses generally appear at the bottom of this page on Wednesday and Friday inviting News Letter readers to share their ‘yarns, jokes and japes’.

By The Newsroom

Cissie Hitler worked in British War Relief Society office in New York

Tracing the unlikely Irish link between the Nazi Führer and Dublin hotel porter

Cardiff Giant's enthusiastic audience circa 1900.

America's greatest hoaxer was a banished Irishman fraudster

The Fall of the Alamo. Painting by Robert Jenkins Onderdonk shows Davy Crockett swinging his rifle at Mexican troops

Legendary '˜King of the Wild Frontier' was accompanied by Ulstermen at the Alamo

Gravestone with a Hole in Bonamargy Friary, the grave of Sister Julia MacQuillan, the legendary black nun

A hidden hoard of gold and a legendary black nun who predicted a united Ireland

Edouard ManetÂ’s painting of the Alabama's final battle in PhiladelphiaÂ’s Museum of Art

Causeway coastal route of heroic little ship that caused havoc on the high seas

Tuareg tribesman at Timbuktu's Djinquereber mosque

It's a long way to Timbuktu for Tyrone born explorer who didn't reach his gold

"Fairs, communal meals and parades, and children danced around a maypole."

The enchanted hill where dancing fairies once stole a child whose spirit returne...

SONY DSC

One of the world's most popular tunes was first played by fairies on a riverbank

Engine Number 43 pulled the last train from Ballymoney to Ballycastle in July 1949

Memories of playing on a runaway train that went down the hill 75 years ago

Storm bound for three weeks in 1938 - Rathlin Island harbour today

Eleanor marked anniversary of storm on Rathlin Island that became world news

Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn in the film trailer for Captain Blood, 1935

Famous fictional pirate based on Irish double agent who stole Crown Jewels

The Lammas Fair in Ballycastle

Everything you want to know about Auld Lammas Fair in Ballycastle O

Treasure Chest reportedly used by Captain Kidd in Museum in St. Augustine, Florida

Roamer: Did Maghera man know the way to a hidden trove?