The Irish In New Jersey

Since Irish immigrants began settling in New Jersey during the seventeenth century, they have made a sizable impact on the state's history and development. As the budding colony established an identity in the New World, the Irish grappled with issues of their own: What did it mean to be Irish American, and what role would "Irishness" play in the creation of an American identity? In this richly illustrated history, Dermot Quinn uncovers the story of how the Irish in New Jersey maintained their cultural roots while also laying the foundations for the social, economic, political, and religious landscapes of their adopted country. Quinn chronicles the emigration of families from a conflict-torn and famine-stricken Ireland to the unfamiliar land whose unwelcoming streets often fell far short of being paved with gold. Using case histories from Paterson, Jersey City, and Newark, Quinn examines the transition of the Irish from a rejected minority to a middle-class, secular, and suburban identity. The Irish in New Jersey will appeal to everyone with an interest in the cultural heritage of a proud and accomplished people.

This book is a collection of nine essays exploring the Irish-American experience in the New Jersey and New York metropolitan area, both historically and today. The essays place the local Irish-American experience in the wider context of immigration studies, assimilation, and historical theory. Using case studies, interviews, scholarly research in primary historical documents and theory, and first-hand experience, the authors delve into what it has meant, and means, to be Irish American in the New Jersey and New York area, projecting what this ethnic identity will signify in years to come. Representing a variety of scholarly and professional disciplines, from archivists; to historians; to lawyers; to scholars of literature and theology; the authors share their own unique perspectives on the significance of the contributions of Irish-Americans to American life in various arenas. Each chapter is interdisciplinary, revealing the interconnections among cultural history, biography, contemporary events, and literary appreciation. It is through these intersections of disciplines, of past and present, of individual and community, that we can best analyze and appreciate the ways that Irish-Americans have shaped life in the New Jersey/New York area over the past two centuries.

The Irish have a long and proud history in America, and New Jersey is no exception. Beginning with the first Irish immigrants who settled in every corner of the state, this vital ethnic community has left an indelible mark on all facets of life in the Garden State. New Jersey's Irish natives expressed their own discontent over British oppression by fighting alongside colonists in the American Revolution. Brave Fenians fought to preserve their new home in the Civil War. New Jersey's Irish also have become professional athletes, Unites States representatives, religious leaders, spies and business trailblazers. Author and Irish heritage researcher Tom Fox relays these and other stories that demonstrate the importance of Ireland to the development of New Jersey and the United States.

Here Ireland's premier economic historian and one of the leading authorities on the Great Irish Famine examines the most lethal natural disaster to strike Europe in the nineteenth century. Between the mid-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, the food source that we still call the Irish potato had allowed the fastest population growth in the whole of Western Europe. As vividly described in Ó Gráda's new work, the advent of the blight phytophthora infestans transformed the potato from an emblem of utility to a symbol of death by starvation. The Irish famine peaked in Black '47, but it brought misery and increased mortality to Ireland for several years. Central to Irish and British history, European demography, the world history of famines, and the story of American immigration, the Great Irish Famine is presented here from a variety of new perspectives. Moving away from the traditional narrative historical approach to the catastrophe, Ó Gráda concentrates instead on fresh insights available through interdisciplinary and comparative methods. He highlights several economic and sociological features of the famine previously neglected in the literature, such as the part played by traders and markets, by medical science, and by migration. Other topics include how the Irish climate, usually hospitable to the potato, exacerbated the failure of the crops in 1845-1847, and the controversial issue of Britain's failure to provide adequate relief to the dying Irish. Ó Gráda also examines the impact on urban Dublin of what was mainly a rural disaster and offers a critical analysis of the famine as represented in folk memory and tradition. The broad scope of this book is matched by its remarkable range of sources, published and archival. The book will be the starting point for all future research into the Irish famine.

While many older American cities struggle to remain vibrant, New Brunswick has transformed itself, adapting to new forms of commerce and a changing population, and enjoying a renaissance that has led many experts to cite this New Jersey city as a model for urban redevelopment. Featuring more than 100 remarkable photographs and many maps, New Brunswick, New Jersey explores the history of the city since the seventeenth century, with an emphasis on the dramatic changes of the past few decades. Using oral histories, archival materials, census data, and surveys, authors David Listokin, Dorothea Berkhout, and James W. Hughes illuminate the decision-making and planning process that led to New Brunswick’s dramatic revitalization, describing the major redevelopment projects that demonstrate the city’s success in capitalizing on funding opportunities. These projects include the momentous decision of Johnson & Johnson to build its world headquarters in the city, the growth of a theater district, the expansion of Rutgers University into the downtown area, and the destruction and rebuilding of public housing. But while the authors highlight the positive effects of the transformation, they also explore the often heated controversies about demolishing older neighborhoods and ask whether new building benefits residents. Shining a light on both the successes and failures in downtown revitalization, they underscore the lessons to be learned for national urban policy, highlighting the value of partnerships, unwavering commitment, and local leadership. Today, New Brunswick’s skyline has been dramatically altered by new office buildings, residential towers, medical complexes, and popular cultural centers. This engaging volume explores the challenges facing urban America, while also providing a specific case study of a city’s quest to raise its economic fortunes and retool its economy to changing needs.

Anthropologist Brighton (Maryland) offers a historical archaeological investigation of the diaspora of Ireland, reflecting the migration of Irish immigrants to the US during a turbulent period in Irish history from the mid-1840s to the 1850s. Brighton's work is the first to offer a study through an archaeological lens connecting Irish communities spanning two continents and covering four sites: two in Ireland, specifically, in County Roscommon, and two in the US, the Five Points section of Manhattan, New York, as well as the historically Irish community in Paterson, New Jersey. There have been some recent diasporic studies on Irish migrations of the 19th century, such as Catherine Nash's Of Irish Descent: Origin Stories, Genealogy, and the Politics of Belonging (2008). However, Brighton's technique is inspired from transnational investigations of the African diaspora to the Atlantic world. This volume can serve as an excellent research tool for students of Ireland as well as diasporic archaeology. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All students of archaeology of the modern world." --B. C. Ryan, Syracuse University, Choice Between 1845 and 1852, a watershed event in Ireland's history--the Great Hunger--forced more than one million starved and dispossessed people, most of them poor tenant farmers, to leave their native country for the shores of the United States. Further weakened by the arduous voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, many sought refuge in the harbor cities in which they landed. Not surprisingly, Irish immigrants counted as one quarter of New York City's population during the 1850s. In Historical Archaeology of the Irish Diaspora, Stephen A. Brighton places Irish and Irish American material culture within a broad historical context, including the waves of immigration that preceded the Famine and the development of the Irish American communities that followed it. He meticulously details the archaeological research connected with excavations at two pre-Famine sites in County Roscommon, Ireland, and with several immigrant tenements located in the Five Points, Manhattan, and the Dublin section of nearby Paterson, New Jersey. Using this transnational approach to link artifacts and ceramics found in rural Ireland with those discovered in sites in the urban, northeastern United States, Brighton also employs contemporary diaspora studies to illustrate how various factions sustained a distinct homeland connection even as the Irish were first alienated from, and then gradually incorporated into, American society. With more than forty million Americans claiming Irish ancestry, fully understanding Ireland's traumatic history and its impact on the growth of the United States remains a vital task for researchers on both sides of the Atlantic. Brighton's study of lived experience follows a fascinating historical path that will aid scholars in a variety of disciplines. Stephen A. Brighton is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Maryland. His articles have appeared in the International Journal of Historical Archaeology and Historical Archaeology.