Chapter Three. Ethnicity, Security, And Public Diplomacy: Irish-Americans And Ireland’s Neutrality In World War II

Abstract

This chapter argues that to understand the nature and effectiveness public diplomacy initiatives that involve ethnic communities in the United States, historians must expand the definition of public diplomacy to include a study of how ethnic communities themselves practice a form of public diplomacy. Irish Americans used public diplomacy to influence not only American responses to the war but also their fellow Americans' understanding about Irish-American and Anglo-American relations. It examines how the public diplomacy efforts developed, for what ends and to what effect, and how public diplomacy intersected with issues of identity for both the Irish and Irish Americans and with issues of security in the Anglo-American alliance. The chapter also uses this Irish American experience as a lens to focus on the broader issues of public diplomacy efforts aimed at ethnic groups and offers a broader definition of public diplomacy as a concept for historical study. Keywords: Anglo-American relations; Irish-Americans; public diplomacy; World War II