Irish-American Research Articles

Networks between Ireland and the Irish American Diaspora during the Northern Ireland Peace Process

Abstract This article explores the complex relationship between the network of actors in the United States and Ireland who sought to influence American foreign policy in the Northern Ireland peace process. These networks operated in civil society, representing numerous Irish American organizations linking corporate and church leaders and the media to members of the Irish American diaspora in government to influence the United States’ diplomacy. These Irish American groups and individuals interested in influencing events in Northern Ireland were linked with a wide array of governmental and non-governmental actors in Ireland. Often, Americans were quite deferential to leaders and groups in Ireland and Northern Ireland who sought to mobilize the Irish diaspora in the United States for their cause. Thus, the United States’ role in Ireland and Northern Ireland was not that of a hegemonic power but one of an empathetic actor responding to developments and cues provided by various actors in the Irish context. Transatlantic networking, made more possible due to technological changes in communication and transportation, facilitated increased exchanges of ideas, agents, and information. These networks allowed groups across the Atlantic to elicit support for local groups in Northern Ireland and mobilize the US government to play a political and diplomatic role in the conflict and peace process. Ultimately, the majority of Irish Americans moved from supporting the nationalist/republican side in the early years of the Troubles to becoming strong supporters of the peace process in the 1990s.

Emigrant Letter Writers as Immigrant Regulation Agents: A Reconsideration of Epistolary Practices among 19th-Century German and Irish Americans

Emigrant Letter Writers as Immigrant Regulation Agents: A Reconsideration of Epistolary Practices among 19th-Century German and Irish Americans

Irish American Civil War Songs: Identity, Loyalty, and Nationhood

Irish American Civil War Songs: Identity, Loyalty, and Nationhood

Irish American Civil War Songs: Identity, Loyalty, and Nationhood by Catherine V. Bateson (review)

Irish American Civil War Songs: Identity, Loyalty, and Nationhood by Catherine V. Bateson (review)

Singing the New Scot: Parody, Contrafacta, and Dainty Protest Songs in Cape Breton

ABSTRACT CJCB Radio’s Cape Breton Songs Contest (1949–1952) solicited new lyric submissions on local themes set to popular songs of the day. Successful entries were recorded and became part of the station’s airplay rotation. The songs would often playfully address contemporary concerns in light of a desire for greater cosmopolitanism. One such theme was the still-nascent reframing of Nova Scotia as “Scottish,” a once maligned ethnic heritage now considered the inherent personification of place. As a means to negotiate this new interpretation of Scottishness, songwriters turned to American pop songs doing similar identity work for the Irish American.

‘The mendacious Irish character:’ Molly Maguire, anti-Irish sentiment, and anti-labor propaganda in the American press, 1880–1920

ABSTRACT This paper evaluates the prevalence and impact of nativist and anti-labor narratives built on the claim that the ‘Molly Maguires’, a vague 1860s and 70s militant Irish labor phenomenon of the Pennsylvania anthracite region, was still active between the 1880s and the 1910s. It finds that such narratives were widespread until the late 1890s, and still regionally significant until the late 1900s, finally fading into obscurity in the 1910s. ‘Molly Maguirism’ as a media narrative was primarily directed at organized labor and the (Irish) working class; it is best understood as a form of ethnicized proto-Red Scare tactic, but could incorporate other elements, such as broader nativist ideology and sectarianism. Based on these findings, prevailing models of Irish acculturation, such as Painter’s ‘second enlargement of whiteness’, are obsolete; the paper recommends a thorough revision of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Irish American working-class history, accounting for the continued and hitherto massively underestimated presence of anti-Irish sentiment.

Michael Collins at 100: Exaltation or Execration?

In the wake of the heightened attention accorded Michael Collins on the occasion of the centennial anniversary of his death in August 2022, this review essay addresses both the most recent and the most influential scholarly and popular treatments of his life and legacy. This material provides a window on both Ireland’s past and present – and also its future. When addressing Collins’s role in that contentious and much-contested past, new and more established scholarly studies by biographers and historians assist us not only to understand it better, but likewise also grasp the unique symbolic role that Collins occupies in Irish political life today. The fact is that many Irish people – and Irish Americans – simply cannot easily talk about Collins in balanced terms, or with the sort of historical detachment that they can bring to other bygone leaders of Ireland. He is a lightning rod for controversy in contemporary Ireland, with his very name sparking a debate whenever politically minded Irishmen get together. Unlike other Irish historical figures who have largely receded into the past, his life and death remain subjects of fascination on a national scale, with radio and television documentaries, fictionalised dramatisations, and even multimedia spectacles dedicated to the scrutiny of his brief life and tragic death. The review essay covers more than twenty biographies and biographical portraits, the majority of which have appeared in the twenty-first century, along with three dozen Collins-themed topical monographs as well as several research articles and selected pieces of journalism.

Mary M. Burke, Race, Politics, and Irish America. A Gothic History

Mary M. Burke, Race, Politics, and Irish America. A Gothic History

The XVII Amendment’s impact to Economy, Politics, and European Immigration during Prohibition in the United States

Prohibition occurred between the years 1920 to 1933. The United States Congress ratified the XVII amendment prohibiting the sale, manufacture, and transport of intoxicating liquors. During these years United States emerged from its involvement in World War I, experienced the Roaring Twenties, and felt the impact of the Great Depression. The era historically transformed the United States during the period of thirteen years. Upon the ratification of XVIII amendment, the Volstead Act became the enforcing mechanism of the law, Prohibition took effect within the United States on January 17, 1920. The economy, law enforcement and European immigration were all sectors uniquely affected during the Prohibition era in the United States. The United States government political fallout occurred because they believed the ratification would positively impact the country’s economy, however; the government lost tax revenues immediately after the tax on liquor sales halted. The law’s goal was to eliminate all liquor within the United States. The government did not expect illegal smuggling nor the establishment of a bootlegging industry. The closure of saloons led to an illegal development of underground speakeasies. Alcohol smugglers thrived, while the National Anti-Saloon League influenced distinguished members of Congress and the government with their use of “pressure politics.” The Treasury Department assigned a Prohibition Unit agency known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation to follow paper tracks and anonymous tips about speakeasies and illegal smuggling. The United States endowed Border Patrol with law enforcement authority allowing them to make arrests without warrants on any violation of immigration laws. Immigrants found opportunities sidestepping the law and built speakeasies to supplement their incomes. Germans, Italians, and Irish Americans were all targeted because of citizens preconceived prejudices against immigrants in the United States.

Hashtags and heritage: the use of #italianamerican on Instagram

Abstract Purpose Using both framing theory and Collier’s cultural identity theory, this paper seeks to study the use of #italianamerican on Instagram by first attempting to determine if it is used exclusively by Italian Americans as a way to demonstrate their own cultural identity. The paper will then examine whether the message valence of posts using #italianamerican demonstrates users’ personal perceptions of Italian American culture. Finally, the paper will examine if there is a relationship between #italianamerican posters’ ethnicity and the message valence of their posts. This paper does not argue that Italian Americans are the only Americans of European ancestry taking part in the hashtag phenomenon; rather, this paper is meant to examine how one ethnic group attempts to define itself by its use of digital and social media. Design/methodology This simple exploratory study examined the 50 most recent Instagram posts using #italianamerican as they appeared on November 1, 2022. The posts were sent to two independent coders who analyzed their visual content. Findings This study provides insight into how ethnicity and cultural familiarity are associated. Results show that message valence and ethnicity are not linked, as anyone can admire and respect a culture and post a positive message about it on social media, even if it is not their culture of origin. Members of a specific ethnic group tend to have a stronger familiarity with their culture of origin, as demonstrated by the posts selected for this study. Implications This study showed that Italian Americans use social media to educate others about their heritage, as well as to celebrate their culture of origin. Value The methods used in this study could be applied to other European American ethnic groups and their social media usage, including Irish Americans, Polish Americans, and German Americans, among others.

Alice McDermott's Almost Invisible Narrators

Why do Alice McDermott's narrators not acknowledge a statutory rape and a murder? Why does she make it hard for readers to detect who her narrators are? She compels us to work with her to construct her stories and makes the task unusually hard for the first-time reader. Laszlo F. Földényi's collection of essays, Dostoyevski Reads Hegel in Siberia and Bursts into Tears (2020), helps us to understand the philosophical basis for McDermott's narrative strategies in her depictions of Irish America. Her narrators reveal the emptiness occasioned by a false dichotomy between subject and object – a contemporary disease. McDermott restores mystery as the antidote to systems of knowledge. Analysis of her novels, especially Child of My Heart (2002), Someone (2013) and The Ninth Hour (2017), suggests McDermott's cure for the narrators’ quest for control over the stories they tell. Someone is a key novel for understanding what ails our contemporary consciousness.

Dancing enriched whiteness: race and gender in commercial Irish dance performance from Riverdance to the Trump Inaugural Ball

ABSTRACT In January 2017, Michael Flatley introduced male members of the cast of Lord of the Dance performing at President Donald Trump’s Inaugural Ball. Flatley’s decision for the cast to perform at the Inaugural Ball was widely criticised as showing support for a white nationalist president. In this article, I demonstrate how this performance – and the implicit aligning of Irish dance with white American nationalist rhetoric – were not aberrant but in fact followed a trend developed in commercial Irish dance stage shows of the late 20th century. Through an analysis of the early performances and rhetoric surrounding Riverdance and Lord of the Dance in the mid-late 1990s, I demonstrate how Irish American whiteness is performed in these shows and directly contributes to Irish American identity as a form of what Diane Negra calls “enriched whiteness.” I further argue that the Inaugural Ball performance built on this history, embodying white nationalist hypermasculinity through the use of Irish dance and American nationalist projections alongside the exclusion of women.

“I Fear Turning into Her”: The Reframing of Domestic Service in Modern Irish American Literature

“I Fear Turning into Her”: The Reframing of Domestic Service in Modern Irish American Literature

Race, Politics, and Irish America: A Gothic History

Race, Politics, and Irish America: A Gothic History

Race, politics, and Irish America: a Gothic history

Race, politics, and Irish America: a Gothic history

The Irish People and the American Presidency

ABSTRACT Irish People was a New York-based newspaper with the single mission of supporting Catholics in Northern Ireland as they faced discrimination from the British-controlled Ulster government. While Irish American magazines promoted a romantic view of Ireland that encouraged tourism to the Republic of Ireland, Irish People reported on political and social conflict. This article examines Irish People’s role as a propaganda newspaper that targeted the American presidencies of the 1980s and 1990s. While it was mostly a “white propaganda” operation—truthful and overt propaganda—that reported British offenses and applied pressure on the American government to intervene, some of the money the newspaper helped to raise for Northern Irish charities may have gone to the Irish Republican Army.

Twentieth-Century Irish Catholic Militarism: Father Patrick O'Connor and the End of American Irish Catholic Identity

Twentieth-Century Irish Catholic Militarism: Father Patrick O'Connor and the End of American Irish Catholic Identity

Mary M. Burke, Race, Politics, and Irish America: A Gothic History

Mary M. Burke, <i>Race, Politics, and Irish America: A Gothic History</i>

Review: Mining Irish-American Lives: Western Communities from 1849 to 1920, by Alan J. M. Noonan

Book Review| May 01 2023 Review: Mining Irish-American Lives: Western Communities from 1849 to 1920, by Alan J. M. Noonan Mining Irish-American Lives: Western Communities from 1849 to 1920. By Alan J. M. Noonan. (Louisville, University Press of Colorado, 2022. 378 pp.) David Brundage David Brundage University of California, Santa Cruz Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Pacific Historical Review (2023) 92 (2): 305–306. https://doi.org/10.1525/phr.2023.92.2.305 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation David Brundage; Review: Mining Irish-American Lives: Western Communities from 1849 to 1920, by Alan J. M. Noonan. Pacific Historical Review 1 May 2023; 92 (2): 305–306. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/phr.2023.92.2.305 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentPacific Historical Review Search Scholars have long recognized that the history of the Irish in New England, New York, Philadelphia, or Chicago cannot simply “stand in” for that of Irish immigrants and Irish Americans in the nation as a whole; and David T. Gleeson and David M. Emmons have provided us with rich overviews of the Irish in, respectively, the South and the West. While building on Emmons’s work, Alan J. M. Noonan provides an intensive focus on a specific occupational group (miners) and sensitively explores the interaction of occupational and ethnic identities in a range of locales and time periods, from the California Gold Rush to Montana in the era of the First World War. In so doing, he has fashioned a complex and persuasive analysis, built on a truly remarkable array of sources, that will be welcomed by historians of Irish migration, western community building, and the American mining industry. Noonan’s first... You do not currently have access to this content.

Mick Moloney (1944–2022)

Mick Moloney (1944–2022)