The Irish In Philadelphia

Reveals a number of significant and interesting insights into Irish immigrant history in America

An extensively documented collection of essays examining various aspects of Irish-American life in Philadelphia over a major portion of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Philadelphia has been a magnet for the Irish since the 17th century. The Irish distinguished themselves in the Revolutionary War with dozens of heroes, such as Wexford-born sailor Commodore John Barry. When refugees from Ireland s Great Famine poured into Philadelphia after 1845, the city changed forever. The famine generation of Irish immigrants used their religious and cultural traditions to promote their own advancement by constructing a network of schools, Catholic churches, fraternal clubs, and cultural organizations. In Irish Philadelphia, images of their accomplishments and advancements are featured along with vibrant, personal stories of Irish residents. Prominent Irish Philadelphians highlighted include Bishop Francis Kenrick, Martin Maloney, Joseph McGarrity, Henry McIlhenny, Grace Kelly, Jack Kelly, Patrick Stanton, John McShain, and Fr. John McNamee."

Outlines of a Gaelic public sphere -- Inserting the Gaelic in the public sphere -- Irish Philadelphia in and out of the Gaelic sphere -- Transatlantic origins of the Irish American Voluntary Association -- A microanalysis of Irish American civic life : Ireland's Donegal and Cavan emerge in Philadelphia -- The forging of a collective consciousness : militant Irish nationalism and civic life in Gaelic Philadelphia -- Sport, culture and nation amont the Irish of Philadelphia -- A Gaelic public sphere : its rise and fall.

Philadelphia has been a magnet for the Irish since the 17th century. The Irish distinguished themselves in the Revolutionary War with dozens of heroes, such as Wexford-born sailor Commodore John Barry. When refugees from Ireland's Great Famine poured into Philadelphia after 1845, the city changed forever. The famine generation of Irish immigrants used their religious and cultural traditions to promote their own advancement by constructing a network of schools, Catholic churches, fraternal clubs, and cultural organizations. In Irish Philadelphia, images of their accomplishments and advancements are featured along with vibrant, personal stories of Irish residents. Prominent Irish Philadelphians highlighted include Bishop Francis Kenrick, Martin Maloney, Joseph McGarrity, Henry McIlhenny, Grace Kelly, Jack Kelly, Patrick Stanton, John McShain, and Fr. John McNamee.

'...from time to time a study comes along that truly can be called ‘path breaking,’ ‘seminal,’ ‘essential,’ a ‘must read.’ How the Irish Became White is such a study.' John Bracey, W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Massachussetts, Amherst The Irish came to America in the eighteenth century, fleeing a homeland under foreign occupation and a caste system that regarded them as the lowest form of humanity. In the new country – a land of opportunity – they found a very different form of social hierarchy, one that was based on the color of a person’s skin. Noel Ignatiev’s 1995 book – the first published work of one of America’s leading and most controversial historians – tells the story of how the oppressed became the oppressors; how the new Irish immigrants achieved acceptance among an initially hostile population only by proving that they could be more brutal in their oppression of African Americans than the nativists. This is the story of How the Irish Became White.