Irish Nationalists and the Making of the Irish Race

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Nelson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Irish Nationalism ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Irish Immigrants ◽  
Full Independence ◽  
The Caribbean

This is a book about Irish nationalism and how Irish nationalists developed their own conception of the Irish race. The book begins with an exploration of the discourse of race—from the nineteenth-century belief that “race is everything” to the more recent argument that there are no races. It focuses on how English observers constructed the “native” and Catholic Irish as uncivilized and savage, and on the racialization of the Irish in the nineteenth century, especially in Britain and the United States, where Irish immigrants were often portrayed in terms that had been applied mainly to enslaved Africans and their descendants. Most of the book focuses on how the Irish created their own identity—in the context of slavery and abolition, empire, and revolution. Since the Irish were a dispersed people, this process unfolded not only in Ireland, but in the United States, Britain, Australia, South Africa, and other countries. Many nationalists were determined to repudiate anything that could interfere with the goal of building a united movement aimed at achieving full independence for Ireland. But others, including men and women who are at the heart of this study, believed that the Irish struggle must create a more inclusive sense of Irish nationhood and stand for freedom everywhere. The book pays close attention to this argument within Irish nationalism, and to the ways it resonated with nationalists worldwide, from India to the Caribbean.

“Come out of such a land, you Irishmen”

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Nelson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Irish Nationalism ◽  
Irish Immigrants ◽  
Daniel O'connell ◽  
Essential Components ◽  
Irish Identity ◽  
Irish Americans

This chapter examines Irish nationalism in the context of the debate over slavery and abolition. It focuses on the figure of Daniel O'Connell. O'Connell was by reputation Ireland's liberator; he certainly was the most authoritative and charismatic voice of the emerging Irish Catholic nation of the early and mid-nineteenth century. He was also an outspoken opponent of slavery—in fact, one of the most powerful antislavery voices in all of Europe. Seeing the White Republic, and Irish Americans, through O'Connell's eyes requires us to explore the complex circumstances that confronted Irish immigrants in the United States and to understand why they would not—and to some degree could not—embrace his antislavery views. What is perhaps most remarkable about O'Connell, though, is not his success or failure in this regard but his attempt to construct an Irish identity that required opposition to slavery and other forms of oppression as one of its essential components.

Emigrant responses to war and revolution, 1914–21: Irish opinion in the United States and Australia

2000 ◽  
Vol 32 (125) ◽  
pp. 75-92
Author(s):  
Malcolm Campbell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
New World ◽  
The United States ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Irish Immigrants ◽  
Easter Rising ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Self Rule

Throughout the course of the nineteenth century North America and Australasia were profoundly affected by the large-scale emigration of Irish men and women. However, by the eve of the First World War that great torrent of nineteenth-century emigration had slowed. The returns of the registrar general, though deeply and systematically flawed, suggest that in the period 1901–10 the level of decennial emigration from Ireland fell below half a million for only the second time since 1840. According to these figures, the United States continued to be the preferred destination for the new century’s Irish emigrants — 86 per cent of those who left between 1901 and 1910 journeyed to America. In contrast, Australia now attracted few Irish-born, with only 2 per cent of emigrants in this decade choosing to settle in Australasia. As the number of Irish emigrants declined from the peaks of the mid-nineteenth century, so the proportion of Irish-born in the populations of the United States and Australia also fell. By 1910 less than 1.5 per cent of the United States population were of Irish birth; in Australia in 1911 only 3 per cent of the nation’s population were Irish-born men or women. But, although the influence of the Irish-born was diminished, there remained in both societies large numbers of native-born men and women of Irish descent, New World citizens who retained strong bonds of affection for Ireland and maintained a keen level of interest in its affairs.Concern with Irish affairs reached new levels of intensity in the United States and Australia between 1914 and 1921. In particular, from the Easter Rising of 1916 until the signing of the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 Irish immigrants and their descendants in both New World societies observed Ireland’s moves towards self-rule with keen anticipation. They publicly asserted the need for an immediate and just resolution to Ireland’s grievances and sought to obtain the support of their own governments for the attainment of that goal. However, this vocal support for Ireland was not without its own cost.

scholarly journals Which Irish men and women immigrated to the United States during the Great Famine migration of 1846–54?

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (156) ◽  
pp. 620-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler Anbinder ◽  
Hope McCaffrey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
The United States ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Irish Immigrants ◽  
Great Famine ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Port Of New York

AbstractDespite the extensive scholarly literature on both the Great Famine in Ireland and the Famine immigration to the United States, little is known about precisely which Irish men and women emigrated from Ireland in the Famine era. This article makes use of a new dataset comprised of 18,000 Famine-era emigrants (2 per cent of the total) who landed at the port of New York from 1846 to 1854 and whose ship manifests list their Irish county of origin. The data is used to estimate the number of emigrants from each county in Ireland who arrived in New York during the Famine era. Because three-quarters of all Irish immigrants intending to settle in the United States took ships to New York, this dataset provides the best means available for estimating the origins of the United States’s Famine immigrants. The authors find that while the largest number of Irish immigrants came from some of Ireland’s most populous counties, such as Cork, Galway, and Tipperary, surprisingly large numbers also originated in Counties Cavan, Meath, Dublin, and Queen’s County, places not usually associated with the highest levels of emigration. The data also indicates that the overall level of emigration in the Famine years was significantly higher than scholars have previously understood.

Modern Rebels?

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niall Whelehan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Irish Nationalism ◽  
Revolutionary Violence ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Revolutionary Movements ◽  
New Strategies

This chapter explores different types of revolutionary violence adopted by Irish nationalists in Ireland and the Irish diaspora in the nineteenth century. Due to the limitations of past rebellions, militant nationalists sought to adopt new strategies that embraced science and modernity. This led to the adoption of an urban-bombing campaign in the 1880s carried out by networks of militants across Ireland, Europe, and the United States. Far from being peculiar to Irish nationalism, these violent strategies found parallels with other revolutionary movements in Europe and the United States.

Swiss-German Music Books in the Mason-McConathy Collection: Accounts from Europe to the United States

2000 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-38
Author(s):  
Sondra Wieland Howe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Music Education ◽  
School System ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Music ◽  
Cultural Center ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Swiss German ◽  
Music Books

This article describes an examination of the Swiss-German music books in the Luther Whiting Mason—Osbourne McConathy Collection, undertaken to learn about music education in nineteenth-century Switzerland and its influence on American music education. Pfeiffer and Nägeli introduced Pestalozzi's ideas to Swiss schools, teaching the elements of music separately and introducing sounds before symbols. Swiss educators in the mid-1800s published numerous songbooks and teachers' manuals for an expanding school system. Foreign travelers praised the teaching of Schäublin in Basel. In Zurich, a cultural center with choruses for men and women, music directors continued to produce materials for schools and community choruses in the 1800s. Because travelers like Luther Whiting Mason purchased these books, Swiss ideas on music education spread to other European countries and the United States.

Britain and decolonization in an Era of Global Change

2017 ◽  
pp. 64-84
Author(s):  
Sarah Elizabeth Stockwell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Informal Empire ◽  
Colonial Empire ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Liberal Imperialism

This chapter considers processes of decolonization in Britain’s ‘empires’, incorporating discussion not just of the key dynamics and manifestations of decolonization in the colonial empire in India, Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere, but also in Britain’s residual ‘informal’ empire in the Middle East, and in the ‘old’ Commonwealth countries of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. The chapter argues that decolonization across these different contexts was driven by geo-political forces operating across the European empires, as the international order was reconfigured by two world wars, tilting power away from Britain and other European imperial powers. Stockwell nevertheless identifies elements of British imperial exceptionalism. She suggests that these were not to be found, as contemporaries liked to claim, in the form of a British liberal imperialism. Rather, Britain, which was at the centre of an empire larger than any other, retained a semblance of great power status, shaping British relations with the United States and Britain’s ambitions to exercise influence after empire.

Antislavery Orthodoxy: Isaac Nelson and the Free Church of Scotland, c. 1843–65

2015 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Ritchie
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Irish Nationalism ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Chattel Slavery ◽  
Christian Fellowship ◽  
High Esteem

The ‘Send back the money’ controversy between the Free Church of Scotland and zealous abolitionists was one of the most important events in nineteenth century Scottish religious history. The Revd Isaac Nelson of Belfast is best remembered for his anti-revivalism and his advocacy of Irish nationalism. What has often been forgotten is the centrality of antislavery to the making of Nelson's controversial reputation, even though he was held in high esteem by abolitionists on both sides of the Atlantic. Accordingly, this article examines his opposition to the Free Church's receipt of monies from and extension of christian fellowship to the slaveholding churches in the United States. It highlights his critique of leading ecclesiastical statesmen, including Thomas Chalmers, William Cunningham and Robert S. Candlish. The essay also considers the sophisticated intellectual critique of chattel slavery that under-girded Nelson's opposition to the policy of the Free Kirk, as well as his evaluation of the nature of proslavery religion in America. By means of a biographical case study of an interesting outsider, this article seeks to provide a lens through which one of the most tragic incidents in Scotland's ecclesiastical past can be freshly examined.

Seeking Influence Abroad

2020 ◽  
pp. 209-253
Author(s):  
Atul Kohli
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Central America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
Pacific Asia ◽  
The Caribbean

Born an anticolonial nation, the United States burst upon the global scene as an imperial power at the end of the nineteenth century. This chapter analyzes the American expansion into the Caribbean, Central America, and Pacific Asia. When the United States became a major industrial power in the late nineteenth century, it sought profit and power overseas, especially new economic opportunities. The United States experimented with colonialism but settled on creating stable but subservient regimes in peripheral countries as the main mechanism of control. Benefits to the United States included gains in trade, opportunities for foreign investments, and profitable loans. Countries under US influence, including the Philippines, Cuba, and Nicaragua, experienced some economic growth but became commodity exporters with sharp inequalities and poor-quality governments.

Alternative Wests

2017 ◽  
Vol 86 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-17
Author(s):  
Andrew C. Isenberg ◽  
Thomas Richards
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
American West ◽  
Manifest Destiny ◽  
The United States ◽  
Significant Extent ◽  
North American West ◽  
The North ◽  
The Caribbean

The mid-nineteenth century territorial growth of the United States was complex and contradictory. Not only did Mexico, Britain, and Native Americans contest U.S. territorial objectives; so, too, did many within the United States and in some cases American western settlers themselves. The notion of manifest destiny reflects few of these complexities. The authors argue that manifest destiny was a partisan idea that emerged in a context of division and uncertainty intended to overawe opponents of expansion. Only in the early twentieth century, as the United States had consolidated its hold on the North American West and was extending its power into the Caribbean and Pacific, did historians begin to describe manifest destiny as something that it never was in the nineteenth century: a consensus. To a significant extent, historians continue to rely on the idea to explain U.S. expansion. The authors argue for returning a sense of context and contingency to the understanding of mid-nineteenth-century U.S. expansion.

The Chinese Question

2018 ◽  
pp. 109-136
Author(s):  
Mae M. Ngai
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Gold Mining ◽  
Trade Credit ◽  
The United States ◽  
British Isles ◽  
American Power ◽  
Anglo American

This chapter, by Mae M. Ngai, locates the origins of the Chinese Question as a global racial discourse in the gold rushes of the nineteenth century and the broader context of the globalization of trade, credit, labor, and the rise of Anglo-American power. The gold rushes launched into motion hundreds of thousands of people from the British Isles, continental Europe, the Americas, Australasia, and China. Notably, they were the first occasions of large-scale contact between Westerners (Europeans and Americans) and Chinese. The chapter traces the development of anti-Chinese politics as it arose in the United States, Australia, and South Africa from conditions that were specific to gold rushes and gold mining in these regions, as well as how politics borrowed from each other and evolved into a global political discourse.

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