Emigrants at Play: Gaelic Games and the Irish Diaspora in Chicago, 1884–c.1900

Abstract

This article uncovers the origins and early history of Gaelic games in late-nineteenth-century Chicago and examines the ways in which membership of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) allowed sections of the city's Irish population to preserve and express their ethnic specificity and support for Irish nationalism. In doing so, it adds to the author's earlier research which has begun to redress the neglect of Gaelic sport in the broader historiography of the Irish in America.