The Global Dimensions of Irish Identity: Race, Nation, and the Popular Press, 1840-1880 - Softcover

McMahon, Cian T.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1469620103 ISBN 13: 9781469620107

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015

Synopsis

Though Ireland is a relatively small island on the northeastern fringe of the Atlantic, 70 million people worldwide--including some 45 million in the United States--claim it as their ancestral home. In this wide-ranging, ambitious book, Cian T. McMahon explores the nineteenth-century roots of this transnational identity. Between 1840 and 1880, 4.5 million people left Ireland to start new lives abroad. Using primary sources from Ireland, Australia, and the United States, McMahon demonstrates how this exodus shaped a distinctive sense of nationalism. By doggedly remaining loyal to both their old and new homes, he argues, the Irish helped broaden the modern parameters of citizenship and identity.

From insurrection in Ireland to exile in Australia to military service during the American Civil War, McMahon's narrative revolves around a group of rebels known as Young Ireland. They and their fellow Irish used weekly newspapers to construct and express an international identity tailored to the fluctuating world in which they found themselves. Understanding their experience sheds light on our contemporary debates over immigration, race, and globalization.

About this title

About the Author:

Cian T. McMahon is assistant professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Review:

McMahon makes valuable contributions to the historiography of Irish nationalism and the nineteenth century popular press, as well as our ever more complex understandings of Irish and Irish American racial identity.--Journal of American Ethnic History
Demonstrate[s] how the Young Ireland movement has helped to reinvent the identity of the Irish population at a crucial moment in its history. . . . Rich [and] abundant.--Cercles
Well written and meticulously researched.--Choice
A scholarly, well-researched, and well-written work that raises interesting questions, makes several pertinent observations, and manages to shine some light into a somewhat neglected area of Irish historiography.--Breac: A Digital Journal of Irish Studies
[A] valuable contribution to the literature on the Irish diaspora.--American Historical Review
A great study of how Irishness was forged in foreign fields.--Newstalk
McMahon has done a masterful job in tracing Irish national ideology across the diaspora.--Journal of British Studies
A valuable intervention in the debate about nineteenth-century Irish attitudes on race.--Journal of American History
Offers a compelling and persuasive account of the translational evolution of Irish nationalism.--Irish Literary Supplement

About this edition

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1469620103
• ISBN 13: 9781469620107
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 254