The Big Book Of Irish American Culture

Describes the achievements of Irish Americans in a variety of fields.

"This book focuses on the intersection between the assimilation of the Irish into American life and the emergence of an American popular culture, which took place at the same historical moment in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During this period, the Irish in America underwent a period of radical change. Initially existing as a marginalized, urban-dwelling, immigrant community largely comprised of survivors of the Great Famine and those escaping its aftermath, Irish Americans became an increasingly assimilated group with new social, political, economic, and cultural opportunities open to them. Within just a few generations, Irish-American life transformed so significantly that grandchildren hardly recognized the world in which their grandparents had lived. This pivotal period of transformation for Irish Americans was heavily shaped and influenced by emerging popular culture, and in turn, the Irish-American experience helped shape the foundations of American popular culture in such a way that the effects are still noticeable today. Dowd investigates the primary segments of early American popular culture--circuses, stage shows, professional sports, pulp fiction, celebrity culture, and comic strips--and uncovers the entanglements these segments had with the development of Irish-American identity."--Provided by publisher.

Old-time politics, piety, and St. Patrick’s Day parades loom large when the Irish come to the American mind. None truly represents the complex legacy or contributions of the nation’s oldest ethnic group, who rank among the most highly educated and affluent Americans today. In Irish America, Maureen Dezell takes a new and invigorating look at Americans of Irish Catholic ancestry—who they are, and how they got that way. A welcome antidote to so many standard-issue, sentimental representations of the Irish in the United States, Irish America focuses on popular culture as well as politics; the Irish in the Midwest and West as well as the East; the “new Irish” immigrants; the complicated role of the Church today; and the unheralded heritage of Irish American women. Deftly weaving history, reporting, and the observations of more than 100 men and women of Irish descent on both sides of the Atlantic, Dezell presents an insightful and highly readable portrait of a people and a culture.

"Arranged chronologically by decade, from the 1890s to the 1990s, each decade is divided into two different types of writing: critical/documentary and imaginative writing, and is accompanied by a headnote which situates it thematically and chronologically. The Reader is also structured for thematic study by listing all the pieces included under a series of topic headings. The wide range of material encompasses writings of well-known figures in the Irish canon and neglected writers alike. This will appeal to the general reader, but also makes Irish Writing in the Twentieth Century ideal as a core text, providing a unique focus for detailed study in a single volume."--BOOK JACKET.

A comparative study of Irish communities in a Canadian and an American city.

This is the first major anthology of Irish American poetry. It breaks new ground by collecting for the first time the work of over two hundred Irish American poets, as well as other American poets whose work enjoins Irish American themes. The Book of Irish American Poetry draws together the best and most representative poetry by Irish Americans and about Irish America that has been written over the past three hundred years. Daniel Tobin begins with poetry of the populist period (poets such as John Boyle O'Reilly), and moves to the work of Irish Americans who have made an indelible imprint on American poetry: Robinson Jeffers, Marianne Moore, Louise Bogan, John Berryman, Thomas McGrath, Robert Creeley, Frank O'Hara, Ted Berrigan, Galway Kinnell, and Alan Dugan, among others. The anthology concludes with distinctive poems by contemporary Irish Americans whose work is likely to stand the test of time, such as Tess Gallagher, Brendan Galvin, and Brigit Pegeen Kelly. The Book of Irish American Poetry recovers many poets who have been forgotten and places already notable figures in American poetry within the context of a distinctively Irish American tradition. to come.

Between 1600 and 1929, perhaps seven million men and women left Ireland and crossed the Atlantic. Ireland and Irish America is concerned with Catholics and Protestants, rural and urban dwellers, men and women on both sides of that vast ocean. Drawing on over thirty years of research, in sources as disparate as emigrants' letters and demographic data, it recovers the experiences and opinions of emigrants as varied as the Rev. James McGregor, who in 1718 led the first major settlement of Presbyterians from Ulster to the New World, Mary Rush, a desperate refugee from the Great Famine in County Sligo, and Tom Brick, an Irish-speaking Kerryman on the American prairie in the early 1900s. Above all, Ireland and Irish America offers a trenchant analysis of mass migration's causes, its consequences, and its popular and political interpretations. In the process, it challenges the conventional 'two traditions' (Protestant versus Catholic) paradigm of Irish and Irish diasporan history, and it illuminates the hegemonic forces and relationships that governed the Irish and Irish-American worlds created and linked by transatlantic capitalism.

Virtually every aspect of American culture has been influenced by Irish immigrants and their descendants. This encyclopedia tells the full story of the Irish-American experience, covering immigration, assimilation, and achievement. The Irish have had a significant impact on America across three centuries, helping to shape politics, law, labor, war, literature, journalism, entertainment, business, sports, and science. This encyclopedia explores why the Irish came to America, where they settled, and how their distinctive Irish-American identity was formed. Well-known Irish Americans are profiled, but the work also captures the essence of everyday life for Irish-Americans as they have assimilated, established communities, and interacted with other ethnic groups. The approximately 200 entries in this comprehensive, one-stop reference are organized into four themes: the context of Irish-American emigration; political and economic life; cultural and religious life; and literature, the arts, and popular culture. Each section offers a historical overview of the subject matter, and the work is enriched by a selection of primary documents.