Symbols, Myth-Making, and Identity: The Red Hand of Ulster in Late Nineteenth-Century Paterson, New Jersey

Abstract

Symbols are manipulated to express social identity and to reaffirm or create a sense of place. Smoking pipes recovered from late nineteenth-century privies in the Dublin Section of Paterson, New Jersey, bear the symbol of the Red Hand of Ulster. Today, the Red Hand of Ulster is ubiquitous on Unionist murals throughout Northern Ireland symbolizing Northern Irish Protestant identity. Originally, the Red Hand symbolized the dawn of the Irish High King of Ulster. In late-nineteenth-century Paterson, it is argued here, the symbol was embedded in ethnic politics involving the Irish Diaspora and Irish–American identity developed through the Gaelic revival and Irish–American organizations and labor unions.