IrishAmerica250.org

Historians supporting Irish America 250

Our efforts to tell the story of Irish America will be led by a group of Irish and American historians assembled by  Prof. Darragh Gannon from Georgetown University, the co-director of its Global Irish Studies program.Over the course of the anniversary year these and other historians will be writing a series of essays on the Irish American experience including the many strands that link our two nations together. 

• Prof. Darragh Gannon, Global Irish Studies, Georgetown University
• Prof. Stephanie McCurry, Columbia University
• Prof. Liam Kennedy, UCD
• Prof. Mary Murphy, Irish Institute, Boston College
• Prof. Brendan O’Leary, University of Pennsylvania
• Prof. Christine Kinealy, Quinnipiac University
• Prof. Miriam Nyham Grey, Mary Immaculate College
• Niamh Hamill, Institute for Studies Abroad, Donegal
• Prof, Laura Kelly, Tulane University   https://www.lauradkelley.com/
• Prof Tim Meagher  Catholic University   https://fulbright.ie/custom_alumni/tim-meagher/
• Prof. David Emmons  https://www.umt.edu/history/news-stories/emmonserratics.php

History

Coming soon: We are developing several facts sheets about the Irish in America with the help of our historical team.  You may be surprised that the first Saint Patrick’s Day in America took place in 1601 in Saint Augustine, Florida then under Spanish rule led by Padre Ricardo Artur. According to the Washington Post Richard Arthur “long before he was the priest in St. Augustine, he’d been an Irish soldier”.   You’ll also learn about the thousands of Irish emigrants who got hoodwinked by shipping companies and instead of landing in New York or Philly wound up New Orleans helping to create the historic Irish Channel District. The descendants of these Irish emigrants in  1918 created the Irish Channel Corner Club, the second oldest marching club in New Orleans, La.  More to come.

We’re developing this site as a resource for learning more about the experience of the Irish in America across a host of realms. This list of books is a starting point for learning more – watch this space for more resources developed by our partners.

1. General Histories & Overviews

• The American Irish: A History by Kevin Kenny (Routledge, 2000).
• Making the Irish American: History and Heritage of the Irish in the United States edited by Joe Lee and Marion Casey (NYU Press, 2007).
• The Routledge History of Irish America edited by Cian McMahon and Kathleen Costello-Sullivan (Routledge, 2024).
• Becoming Irish American: The Making and Remaking of a People from Roanoke to JFK by Tim Meagher (Yale University Press, 2023).
• Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America by Kerby Miller (Oxford University Press, 1985).

2. Regional and Community Studies

• The Irish in Illinois by Mathieu Billings and Sean Farrell (Southern Illinois University Press, 2020).
• Beyond the American Pale: The Irish in the West, 1845-1910 by David Emmons (University of Oklahoma Press, 2012).
• The Butte Irish: Class and Ethnicity in an American Mining Town, 1875-1925 by David Emmons (University of Illinois Press, 1989).
• The Irish in the South, 1815-1877 by David Gleeson (University of North Carolina Press, 2001).
• The Shamrock and the Lily: The New York Irish and the Creation of a Transatlantic Identity, 1845-1921 by Mary C. Kelly (Peter Lang, 2005).

3. Scots-Irish / Ulster Scots 

• The People with No Name: Ireland’s Ulster Scots, America’s Scots Irish, and the Creation of a British Atlantic World, 1689-1764 by Patrick Griffin (Princeton University Press, 2001).
• Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America by James Webb (Broadway Books, 2004).

4. Irish in American Wars & Military

• The Greatest Brigade: How the Irish Brigade Cleared the Way to Victory in the American Civil War by Thomas Craughwell (Crestline, 2013).
• The Irish in the American Civil War by Damian Shiels (History Press, 2013).
• The Green and the Grey: The Irish in the Confederate States of America by David Gleeson (University of North Carolina Press, 2013).
• George Washington and the Irish: Incredible Stories of the Irish Spies, Soldiers and Workers Who Helped Free America by Niall O’Dowd (Skyhorse Publishing, 2022).

5. Politics, Nationalism & Diaspora Activism

• Irish Nationalists in America: The Politics of Exile, 1798-1998 by David Brundage (Oxford University Press, 2016).
• Irish-American Diaspora Nationalism: The Friends of Irish Freedom, 1916-1935 by Michael Doorley (Four Courts Press, 2005).
• Two Irelands Beyond the Sea: Ulster Unionism and America, 188-1920 by Lindsey Flewelling (Liverpool University Press, 2018).
• Irish-America and the Ulster Conflict, 1968-1995 by Andrew Wilson (Catholic University of America Press, 1995).

6. Irish America and US Politics

• Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics by Terry Golway (Liveright Publishing, 2014).
• From Whence I Came: The Kennedy Legacy, Ireland and America edited by Brian Murphy and Donnacha Ó Beacháin (Irish Academic Press, 2021).
• JFK in Ireland: Four Days That Changed a President by Ryan Tubridy (Lyons Press, 2011).
• The Irish and the American Presidency by Nicole Anderson Yanoso (Taylor & Francis, 2017).

7. Transatlantic Relations & Ireland–America Connections

• Ireland, Philadelphia and the Re-invention of America, 1760-1800 by Maurice Bric (Four Courts Press, 2008).
• Irish Opinion and the American Revolution, 1760-1783 by Vincent Morley (Cambridge University Press, 2002).
• Ireland’s Allies: America and the 1916 Easter Rising by Miriam Nyhan Grey (University College Dublin Press, 2016).
• Ireland’s Exiled Children: America and the Easter Rising by Robert Schmuhl (Oxford University Press, 2016).
• United States Foreign Policy and Ireland: From Empire to Independence, 1913-1929 by Bernadette Whelan (Four Courts Press, 2006).
• The Long Peace Process: The United States of America and Northern Ireland, 1960-2008 by Andrew Sanders (Liverpool University Press, 2019).

8. Identity, Gender & Social History

• Erin’s Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century by Hasia Diner (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983).
• Inventing Irish America: Generation, Class and Ethnic Identity in a New England City, 1880-1928 by Tim Meagher (Notre Dame, 2001).
• The Shamrock and the Lily: The New York Irish and the Creation of a Transatlantic Identity, 1845-1921 by Mary C. Kelly (Peter Lang, 2005).

9. Civil Rights, Social Justice & Race

• Black and Green: The Fight for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland and Black America by Brian Dooley (Pluto Press, 1998).
• Black Abolitionists in Ireland by Christine Kinealy (Routledge, 2020).
• American Slavery, Irish Freedom: Abolition, Immigrant Citizenship, and the Transatlantic Movement for Irish Repeal by Angela Murphy (Louisiana State University Press, 2010).