Routledge History of Irish America

Cian T. McMahon is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Honors College at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is the author of two books, The Global Dimensions of Irish Identity: Race, Nation, and the Popular Press, 1840–1880 (2015) and The Coffin Ship: Life and Death at Sea during the Great Irish Famine (2021), and has also published articles in a range of scholarly journals including Irish Historical Studies and The American Historical Review.Kathleen P. Costello-Sullivan is Professor of Modern Irish literature at Le Moyne College. Along with articles and book chapters, she has written Mother/Country: Politics of the Personal in the Fiction of Colm Tóibín (2012) and Trauma and Recovery in the Twenty-first-Century Irish Novel (2018) and edited J. Sheridan Le Fanu's novella Carmilla (2013) and Norah Hoult's Poor Women! (2016). She is the current Series Editor for Syracuse University Press’s Irish line and a former ACIS President.

“Ranging from the colonial era to the present day and addressing a remarkably wide range of themes—including migration, labor, race, gender, sexuality, religion, politics, nationalism, literature, language, music, and the environment—this Routledge History will be an invaluable resource for all readers interested in Irish-American history and culture.”Kevin Kenny, New York University"This volume represents a spectacular achievement that will appeal to scholars, students, and general readers. Innovative and wide-ranging, it beautifully illustrates the diversity and complexity of Irish-American culture and history from the earliest waves of migration up to the present time."Marjorie Howes, Boston College“Carefully structured into seven well-defined sections and written by both rising stars and leading scholars in the field, The Routledge History of Irish America is a breathtakingly wide-ranging exploration of the lives, activities, and reception of Irish America across the centuries. A must for students and scholars alike.”Donald M. MacRaild, London Metropolitan University and Honorary Fellow at Ulster and Edinburgh universities"[This book] implicitly questions what “Irish America” is, positing it, as the editors have it in their introduction, as a shifting and sometimes contradictory “social construct”. It does this so successfully that it surely can never again be reduced to that old singular identity. Perhaps the best tribute one can give this consistently vigorous and critically minded history is that it does not feel like the story of a phenomenon that is now in the past."Fintan O'Toole, review in The Irish Times, November 16, 2024

• ForewordMarion R. CaseyIntroductionPart 1: From Colonial Era to Early RepublicChapter 1: Ireland and the Irish in the Atlantic WorldAudrey HorningChapter 2: Ulster Presbyterians and the Development of a “Scotch-Irish” IdentityPeter GilmoreChapter 3: Family and Labor in Eighteenth-Century Irish AmericaJudith RidnerChapter 4: The Irish in the Revolutionary AtlanticSamuel K. FisherChapter 5: Race, Labor, and Slavery in Antebellum Irish AmericaAngela F. MurphyChapter 6: Cosmopolitan Insights from Early Irish-American Letter NetworksJennifer OrrPart 2: The Great FamineChapter 7: The Great Famine ExodusAnelise Hanson ShroutChapter 8: American Catholicism and the Irish from Colonial Times to 1870Oliver P. RaffertyChapter 9: The Rise of the Popular Press in Irish-American CultureDebra Reddin van TuyllChapter 10: Anti-Irish Nativism in the Mid-Nineteenth CenturyHidetaka HirotaChapter 11: Irish-American Drama in Mid-Nineteenth-Century AmericaMary TrotterChapter 12: Folklore in Irish AmericaE. Moore Quinn and Cara DelayChapter 13: Irish-American Famine LiteratureMarguérite CorporaalPart 3: After the FamineChapter 14: How Remembering the Famine Shaped Irish-American IdentityMary C. KellyChapter 15: The Irish in the Civil War and ReconstructionDavid T. GleesonChapter 16: Race, Gender, and Irish Labor in U.S. Northeastern CitiesDanielle Phillips-CunninghamChapter 17: California, Race, and the Irish in the WestMalcolm CampbellChapter 18: Irish Americans in American Politics and the Catholic Church, 1870-1945Timothy J. MeagherChapter 19: The Emmets and the Jameses, an Irish-American Case StudyColm TóibínPart 4: The Turn of the Twentieth CenturyChapter 20: America and Irish-American NationalismDavid BrundageChapter 21: America and Irish Unionism, 1870-1930Lindsey FlewellingChapter 22: Irish-American Women and Political Activism in the Early Twentieth CenturyTara M. McCarthyChapter 23: The Irish and Labor in the Industrial Era, 1880-1930sJames R. BarrettChapter 24: Irish Labor, Liberty, and Literature in the Twentieth-Century Atlantic WorldMaria McGarrityPart 5: After World War IIChapter 25: The Irish and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965Ray O’HanlonChapter 26: Irish-American Politics in the Mid-Twentieth CenturyMatthew J. O’BrienChapter 27: Revisiting the Role of the United States of America in Northern IrelandAndrew SandersChapter 28: Capturing Fading Communities in Post-World War II Irish-American FictionBeth O’Leary AnishChapter 29: Lorraine Hansberry, Sean O’Casey, and the Common Space of the TheatreCara McClintock-WalshChapter 30: Irish Americanness in Late Twentieth-Century Hollywood FilmsMatthew J. FeePart 6: Irish America in the Third MillenniumChapter 31: Media and the Irish Diaspora from the Twentieth Century to the PresentMark O’BrienChapter 32: Irish America, the “Celtic Tiger,” and AfterSeán Ó Riain & Nessa Ní ChasaideChapter 33: Irish Americans and U.S. Politics in the Twenty-First CenturyTed SmythChapter 34: Breaking the Silence of Child Sexual Abuse in the Irish-American Catholic ChurchSally Barr EbestChapter 35: LGBTQ Irish Activists and the Queering of Irish AmericaBridget E. KeownPart 7: The Twenty-First Century and BeyondChapter 36: The Irish Language in AmericaNicholas M. WolfChapter 37: Irish Music in AmericaMéabh Ní FhuartháinChapter 38: Disabilities in Irish-Catholic AmericaJoseph ValenteChapter 39: Animals in Irish-American PoetryKathryn KirkpatrickChapter 40: Whiteness and the Contemporary Irish-American Family SagaSinéad MoynihanChapter 41: Contemporary Irish America and the EnvironmentChristine Cusick