The American Irish: A History

by Kevin Kenny

The American A History , is the first concise, general history of its subject in a generation. It provides a long-overdue synthesis of Irish-American history from the beginnings of emigration in the early eighteenth century to the present day. While most previous accounts of the subject have concentrated on the nineteenth century, and especially the period from the famine (1840s) to Irish independence (1920s), The American A History incorporates the Ulster Protestant emigration of the eighteenth century and is the first book to include extensive coverage of the twentieth century. Drawing on the most innovative scholarship from both sides of the Atlantic in the last generation, the book offers an extended analysis of the conditions in Ireland that led to mass migration and examines the Irish immigrant experience in the United States in terms of arrival and settlement, social mobility and assimilation, labor, race, gender, politics, and nationalism. It is ideal for courses on Irish history, Irish-American history, and the history of American immigration more generally.

Genres: History, Irish Literature

358 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2000

About the author

Kevin Kenny is Professor of History and Glucksman Professor in Irish Studies at New York University. He received his Ph.D. in American History from Columbia University in 1994, where his dissertation won the Bancroft Award. He taught at the University of Texas from 1994 to 1999 and at Boston College from 1999 to 2018. His first book, Making Sense of the Molly Maguires (Oxford University Press, 1998) examines how traditions of Irish rural protest were transplanted into industrial America. His second book, The American Irish: A History (Longman, 2000), offers a general survey of the field. A third book, Peaceable Kingdom Lost (Oxford University Press, 2009) analyzes the unraveling of William Penn’s utopian vision of harmonious co-existence between Native Americans and European colonists. Professor Kenny’s latest book, Diaspora: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press 2013), examines the origins, meaning, and utility of a central concept in the study of migration, with particular reference to Jewish, African, Irish, and Asian history. He is also editor of Ireland and the British Empire (Oxford University Press, 2004) and he has published articles on immigration in the Journal of American History and the Journal of American Ethnic History among other venues. His latest book, The Problem of Immigration in a Slaveholding Republic: Policing Mobility in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Oxford University Press, 2023), explains how slavery shaped immigration policy as it moved from the local to the national level in the period from the American Revolution through the end of Reconstruction.

Reviews

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Assigned for a class, and a challenging read, this is book works to show what drive the Irish to America and how both Ireland and the USA were changed by this mass migration.

[Ryan Murtha · Rating 5 out of 5]

The difference between reading a historian that knows how to write and a historian that's a shit writer...wild.

[Scott Pomfret · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a solid if somewhat slow-moving introduction to the history of the Irish in America. It does a better job with the period before the twentieth century. The twentieth century portion seems hasty and consists of a number of brief sketches of the lives of certain Irish politicians, writers, clergy, and labor activists, though it is not clear what the selection criteria were (Mother Jones, for example, merits but a brief sentence).

What was useful to me were some of Kenny's tentative conclusions. First, that the Irish did not come to America with a specific "Irish identity," but rather developed it here, especially in light of nativist anti-Irish forces: "Acquiring an Irish identity was the first prerequisite for Irish assimilation," Kenny writes. Second, that the high rates of alcoholism were due in part to the phenomenon of Irish men, in particular, drinking in order to become Irish. Third, that the Irish made space for a broader conception of what it means to be or become American than simple conformity: " Despite or perhaps because of the vehemence of the nativist attacks, the Irish had become American without, for the most part, sacrificing their religion, their culture, their heritage. They thereby helped establish the primacy of cultural pluralism over more repressive models of assimilation such as Anglo-conformity (enforced entry into the American melting pot)."

[M. Apple · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only an Irishman could write a book like this, that intimately ties the history of Irish Americans to Ireland, itself. As a matter of course, much of the book is spent regaling the reader about Irish history rather than Irish American history. But as a matter of course the two are inextricably linked, from the 18th century through the 20th century (which is where the book stops, having been published in 2000).

Could such a book be written now, in 2022, some twenty years later and after such events as 9/11, the “war” in Iraq and Afghanistan and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic?

There are many times that information is repeated in this book…even within a few pages…and a stronger editorial hand surely was needed. But this is about an even-handed history as one is bound to come across in such a concise format of the intermingled history of the Irish in the US and their long hopes for homeland, one of exile, dream, pain, and deliverance.

[Georgie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting, informative, and accessible history of the Irish in America (and of course the general history of Ireland).

Particularly interesting was the chapters on 18th century and early and late 20th century Irish emigration to America, and Irish American life, which has not been as much in the spotlight of the history books as nineteenth century Irish history in Ireland and the U.S.
Also interesting was the way Irish immigrants reacted to and compared to other immigrant or ethnic minority groups.

Kenny does a good job of portraying the Irish emigrants to the US fairly, looking at both the discrimination they faced (from native born Americans and particularly Scotch-Irish Protestants who went over in the eighteenth century) and the discrimination (often violent) they practised against other ethnic groups, especially African Americans and Asian Americans.

Well written and researched, unflinching and honest, which is what a good history book should be. Interestingly, Kenny himself is an Irish immigrant which adds a nice personal touch without making him seem biased.

[Kathy Orben Hall · Rating 2 out of 5]

very very slow read