Irish people have had a long and complex engagement with the lands and waters encompassing the Pacific world. As the European presence in the Pacific intensified from the late eighteenth century, the Irish entered this oceanic space as beachcombers, missionaries, traders, and colonizers. During the nineteenth century, economic distress in Ireland and rapid population growth on the Pacific Ocean's eastern and western shores set in motion large-scale migration that exerted a deep political, social, and economic impact across the Pacific. Malcolm Campbell examines the rich history of Irish experiences on land and at sea, offering new perspectives on migration and mobility in the Pacific world and of the Irish role in the establishment and maintenance of the British Empire. This volume investigates the extensive transnational connections that developed among Irish immigrants and their descendants across this vast and unique oceanic space, ties that illuminate how the Irish participated in the making of the Pacific world and how the Pacific world made them.

Follows a group of people exiled from Ireland after a failed rebellion and the role they had in the building of new nations and states This book is about the Young Irelanders, a group of Irish nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century, who were responsible for a failed rebellion in Ireland during the Great Famine, who once exiled from Ireland, came to play formative roles in the fledgling democracies of Australia, Canada, and the United States. Christopher Morash illustrates how the Young Ireland generation developed particular philosophies of nationalism, democracy, citizenship, and minority rights in Ireland, which became an integral part of how they engaged with their adopted nations, where they came to occupy significant political and cultural roles. Christopher Morash explores the stories and political trajectories of an acting-Governor of the Territory of Montana and Union Army General, a Confederate newspaper owner, a Premier of Victoria, and many other important figures. Despite their divergent trajectories, these individuals applied many of the same ideas that they had developed during their original Irish political project to their respective nations and movements. Young Ireland is a vital new perspective in the field of Irish diaspora studies, highlighting the impact the Young Ireland generation had on emerging democracies and international debates, both in spite of and because of their defeat and dispersion.

This volume gathers over 40 world-class scholars to explore the dynamics that have shaped the Irish experience in America from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries. From the early 1600s to the present, over 10 million Irish people emigrated to various points around the globe. Of them, more than six million settled in what we now call the United States of America. Some were emigrants, some were exiles, and some were refugees—but they all brought with them habits, ideas, and beliefs from Ireland, which played a role in shaping their new home. Organized chronologically, the chapters in this volume offer a cogent blend of historical perspectives from the pens of some of the world’s leading scholars. Each section explores multiple themes including gender, race, identity, class, work, religion, and politics. This book also offers essays that examine the literary and/or artistic production of each era. These studies investigate not only how Irish America saw itself or, in turn, was seen, but also how the historical moment influenced cultural representation. It demonstrates the ways in which Irish Americans have connected with other groups, such as African Americans and Native Americans, and sets “Irish America” in the context of the global Irish diaspora. This book will be of value to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as instructors and scholars interested in American History, Immigration History, Irish Studies, and Ethnic Studies more broadly.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1873.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1873.