What We Know About the Irish in the United States: Reflections on the Historical Literature of the Last Twenty Years

Autores/as

  • William H. Mulligan, jr Murray State University in Kentucky

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v10i0.3675

Palabras clave:

Irish Diaspora, United States, Catholic Irish.

Resumen

For many years, scholars and others who wrote about the Irish in the
United States focused on the Catholic Irish, especially those who arrived around the time of the Irish Potato Famine and the several decades after that great calamity. Over roughly the last twenty years, the historical literature has come to grips with the more varied nature of the Irish experience in the United States and now better reflects the diversity of the varied religious backgrounds of the Irish in the United States. Further, while the literature on the Catholic Irish in the United States
focused heavily on the Irish in northeastern cities there has been increasing attention to the Irish in other sections of the United States. The result of this new research and writing has been to expand and enrich our understanding of the Irish experience in the United States. My intention in this article is to sketch out this expanded and enriched understanding of the Irish experience in the United States which is also part of a larger, global process, the Irish Diaspora. The Diaspora approach to the study of the Irish in the United States offers a great
many advantages. One of the limitations on the study of United States history has long “American exceptionalism.” In its simplest form this approach begins by seeing United States history as a unique experience, separate from the larger flow of world events, and stresses the distinctiveness of the American (U.S.) experience. The Diaspora approach moves away from this and places the experience of the
Irish in the United States in global context. 

Biografía del autor/a

  • William H. Mulligan, jr, Murray State University in Kentucky

    MULLIGAN, WILLIAM H. JR. Professor of History and coordinator of the History graduate program at Murray State University in Kentucky USA. He is co-moderator of the Irish Diaspora Discussion list. A graduate of Assumption College he has his M.A. and PhD from Clark University, both in Worcester, Massachusetts. He has published a
    number of books and articles in United States social and industrial history. His current research is on migration from copper-mining areas in Ireland to the Michigan Copper
    Country beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. He published on that project in New Hibernia Review, the Journal of the Mining Heritage Trust of Ireland, Radharc, and a number of collections of essays. In 2006, he gave the Ernie O’Malley Memorial Lecture at Glucksman Ireland House, New York University and in 2007 the DeSantis Lecture at the University of Notre Dame. In 2009, he will be a Fulbright Scholar at University College Cork.

Descargas

Publicado

2008-06-17

Número

Sección

Diasporic Studies

Cómo citar

Mulligan, jr, W. H. (2008). What We Know About the Irish in the United States: Reflections on the Historical Literature of the Last Twenty Years. ABEI Journal, 10, 97-108. https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v10i0.3675