Irish Nationalists in Boston: Catholicism and Conflict, 1900–1928 by Damien Murray

Abstract

Reviewed by: Irish Nationalists in Boston: Catholicism and Conflict, 1900–1928 by Damien Murray Mathieu W. Billings Irish Nationalists in Boston: Catholicism and Conflict, 1900–1928, by Damien Murray (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2018, 284 p., hardcover, $75) One of the most important developments in the scholarship of Irish America over the past few decades has been for historians to emphasize how events in Ireland shaped the experiences of immigrant communities in the United States. Following the work of Kerby Miller, Kevin Kenny, and others, scholars have continued to expand upon this trend. Damien Murray's splendid monograph, Irish Nationalists in Boston: Catholicism and Conflict, 1900–1928, elevates this theme to new heights. Murray argues that between 1900 and 1928, the independence struggle in Ireland helped transform what politics and ethnicity meant to the Boston Irish—shifting from a spirit of cooperation with liberal Protestant elites to the unabashedly Catholic domination of local institutions. As he puts it, "The growing animosity between the Irish and Yankees, along with the advocacy of government policies inspired by the principles of Catholic social justice, demonstrated that the evolution of Irish ethnicity during this period was as much the product of international developments as it was of local inter- and intra-ethnic [End Page 149] divisions." During the prewar years, John Redmond's campaign for Home Rule in Ireland found support among Boston's Irish middle and upper classes. That began to change following the Easter Rising and America's entry into World War I, events that challenged the authority of the city's Irish elite. Following the war, intra-Irish fissures might have intensified as a result of Roxbury's May Day riot and the Boston police strike of 1919. Nevertheless, the onset of the Anglo-Irish War, followed by Éamon de Valera's wildly popular fundraising campaign for the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic (AARIR) in Boston, smoothed over their divisions. The city's Catholic leaders, such as the "staunch Romanist" cardinal William H. O'Connell, threw their support to de Valera and promoted Vatican policies, especially regarding the dignity of working people. With the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 and the conclusion of the Irish Civil War that followed, politicians such as Mayor James Michael Curley, like most of the Boston Irish, turned their attention toward the "tribal twenties." More unified than ever, they no longer sought nor required the support of their former Yankee allies. Over the long term, Murray concludes, the Boston Irish secured a victory for liberalism and multiculturalism—paving the way for "a political philosophy that advocated government support of the needy and the rights of members of different ethnic groups," of which President John F. Kennedy was a legacy. The efforts of the Catholic Church in Boston are essential to Murray's argument. The Boston prelate waged a campaign against socialism during the prewar years. With three-quarters of the city's Irish population being American-born and eager to show their allegiance to the United States in 1917, Cardinal O'Connell's message was particularly effective. Yet the city's Catholic leaders also sympathized with the plight of the working classes. Cardinal O'Connell, editors of the Boston Pilot, and faculty at Boston College openly defended the rights of workers. "By the late summer 1919," Murray contends, "local expressions of support for Irish revolutionary separatism and Irish ethnicity in Boston were being shaped by Catholic Church teachings that condemned socialism while advocating government reforms that improved the living and working conditions of the working class." Their influence did not stop there. The church condemned the bigotry of nativist organizations such as the American Protective Association and the Loyalty Coalition. It refuted xenophobic claims that the United States was an "Anglo-Saxon" nation. Alongside Irish nationalist organizations such as the Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF) and the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), the church opposed the Immigration Act of 1924. It emboldened the politics of Mayor Curley, who refused to grant the Ku Klux Klan permission to hold meetings in Boston. "Catholic Americanism and ethnic nationalism," as the author puts it, helped "propagate an inclusive vision...