Looking for Jimmy: A Search for Irish America

by Peter Quinn

An evocative portrait of the Irish in America draws on the author's investigation into his own past and those of thousands of immigrants whose culture and values have played an important role in American society, redefining the Irish-American image that has transformed American politics, street culture, religion, and creativity. Reprint.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ireland, Irish Literature

320 pages, Hardcover

First published February 15, 2007

About the author

Peter Quinn is the author of the novel Banished Children of Eve (winner of an American Book Award) and previously served as speechwriter for New York governors Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo. A third-generation New Yorker whose granparents were born in Ireland, he is currently Editorial Director for Time Warner and lives in Hastings, New York.

Reviews

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Along with the oppressed immigrant angle, I really liked the history Peter Quinn's captured of the anti-Catholicism the Irish faced.
Here's a line to remember from this work of non-fiction: "If I thought less of my saliva, I'd expectorate in your face."
It's a quote from the author's father, who was a member of Congress. A Republican heard Quinn's Democrat father quote Shakespeare and remarked that he was "unusually cultured for an Irishman."

And then there was the description of a Quinn's grandfather by an aunt: "He'll be the last man out of Purgatory, if, God willing, he was lucky enough to get in."

The connection I made is that the immigrant experience of the Irish translates pretty well for other ethnic groups who came to this country. It's American history at gut level.

I was impressed with the quality of research Quinn did. His connecting historical fact with fictional writing on those facts is an interesting tool. It reinforced for me the concept that in some ways fiction can tell history better than non-fiction.

As an active Catholic -- one who works for a Catholic diocesan newspaper -- and as a "hypenated-American" although non-Irish -- I connected with Quinn's understanding of the cultural value of Catholicism.

I'll need to think a bit more about this, but my first thought is that he crossed the line when he included his opinions about a celibate clergy, for example. Not that that opinion shouldn't have been expressed -- I'm not saying that at all -- but it seemed as though that subject matter belonged in a whole other book, not one about the Irish-American immigrant experience.

[Carie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've always known the Irish had a special spirit. I felt it growing up the 3rd generation of Irish immigrants. On both sides of my family, my fathers of hard times, and my mothers a little more lace Irish, but not without down times and sorrow. It was kind of like seeing things from both sides. This book brought so many things to light for me, and answered some questions. Peter Quinn is very right when he says the "famine" was never spoken of. He goes through the sorrow, loss, devastation, diversity, to the point of almost being wiped out as a people so well you can feel it. Yet, helps you see the incredible triumph, resilience, and ability to rebuild and overcome every horror imaginable. The strength and power of the "tribal" mentality, taking care of each other, building communities out of the filth of tenement life in a strange land. The power and structure of the Catholic Church that held its people together in faith and education. Politics and Tammany Hall, "The Machine" mindset. These things took the Irish from near distinction to the building of America as we know it. American history is soaked with Irish rooting. Mr. Quinn also brings the wonder of Daniel Cassidy's "How the Irish Invented Slang." What a wonderful treasure his book is. So many of the words sounded out in my mind with remembrance of childhood. Quinn's point is well taken; "As always, the past belongs to the living. It is ours to understand or to ignore." I choose to understand and pass along the importance of my heritage so it won't fall far from the conscious of my generations to come.

[Scott Pomfret · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this collection of essays, Quinn, a historical novelist and sometimes political speechwriter, takes on defining the Irish-American immigration experience. He largely recycles essays and writings he produced piecemeal in prior times, but the whole hangs together fairly well.

Quinn’s at his best describing his father (politician) and the role of Tammany Hall and political machines in general. Strict notions of morality gave way before the overriding preoccupation with achieving security and avoiding the greatest obscenity—a British system that impoverished a father and starved his children before his eyes. Quinn also shines when he points out the disappearance of the insular tribal Irish in America is a sign of triumph and success and not a tragedy. While he is nostalgic for his childhood and its apartness from Protestant America, he argues that “assimilation” has actually been a conquering of American culture by the Irish. He illustrates is point with some wonderful etymological evidence that American slang owes as much a debt to Irish as to Yiddish or to African American idioms. (Throughout Quinn is quick to identify his debt to various authors and studies and I kept a running list of all the works he referred to, so that I could run out and take a look, such was his enthusiasm for them.)

Where Quinn is less effective is writing about the effect of the Great Famine on Irish American culture. He makes a lot of assertions about its power but is not convincing in producing evidence. Moreover, his recitation of the facts of the famine is rote and uninspired; the story has been much better told elsewhere. About all that rings true is that the shame and silence characteristic of some but not all Irish is somehow famine-born, but the mechanism is unclear.

Quinn does have one somewhat unrewarding success to claim: he very presciently predicts today’s virulently anti-immigrant impulses a full 25 years before they unfolded. He offers no prescription, but one senses that he would scold any Irish American who shares the anti immigrant view for being entirely ignorant of their own American experience.

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Quinn's Looking for Jimmy: A Search for Irish America is fresh and historical--not an easy combination to acheive. People, if you are at all fascinated by human migration, by immigration, by emigration, by assimilation, by narration, I say read this book. Quinn begins with the premise that the real narrative of the Irish in America is obscured by the Irish immigrants themselves--and understandably so. Suffering the immense trauma of the famine experience they, unlike many other groups, elected silence in personal narrative and a focus on the future, on success, on protecting the group. Quinn looks at the emotion of shame and how it attaches itself to survivors and what that means for subsequent generations. The book is complex and loaded with interesting pit stops. It's also conversational in a way that, perhaps, helps to create that missing personal narrative. While it's about the Irish in particular, I think it also may give readers a paradigm that will help us to understand today's refugees of disaster as they too (if in smaller numbers now) find themselves caught between the opposing forces of present assimilation and past trauma.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book of essays. My favorite of course was the Famine Remembrance I heard Anjelica Huston read at the Remembrance at St Patrick's Cathedral in 1997 which I attended with my mom and my sister Sharon. As stunning as I remembered. I've had the privilege to hear Mr. Quinn speak many times as he is a pillar at NYU's Glucksman Ireland House and it was great to read it with his voice in my mind.

[Sherry Wilmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sound familIar: “With the revision of the Irish Poor Law in 1847, Britain’s guiding policy was to use famine as a tool to eliminate resistance to a large-scale reordering of the Irish economy. Thus was fulfilled the goal that...the London Times had announced the previous years “an island, a social state, a race is to be changed.” In other words, using genocide. There are lovely stories in these essays which I used since Summer 2017 as subway travel reading. It was purchased in the gift shop of The Tenement Museum on the lower east side of Manhattan. If you have time ever, you should visit. Add a visit to the Famine Memorial on the west side in Battery Park City. That’s a good dose of Irish NYC to go with this lovely, scholarly book of essays.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. As an American of mostly Irish descent, I was more interested in the sections that focused on the general history of the Irish experience in America rather than the author’s personal history, but I’m glad I finally read this book, a decade or so after I purchased it.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best books for understanding how the IRISH became American ☘️

[Mom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part history, part memoir, part storytelling, this is a collection of essays and articles related to the topic of Irish-Americans. Some chapters were engrossing, some felt like filler only tangentially related to the topic. Most memorable are the historical chapters. Even after years of reading Irish history, it was shocking to read how terribly the Irish were treated and how much prejudice they met in America in the late 1800's. Equally interesting were the sections on the origins of American slang in Gaelic -- who knew? Scam, fluke, snazzy, nincompoop... all from the Gaelic.

[Marge · Rating 3 out of 5]

I heard Peter Quinn read a chapter of this recently at a symposium on being Irish American, and I'm glad I read the complete book. Much of my own life story is reflected in his, and I began to think of my heritage a bit more realistically, and to wonder about the lives of my ancestors. The opinions of the WASP majority about the Irish in America came vividly home to me, and, again, I think I understood more of my father's choices and life.

[Gene McAvoy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A couple of interesting chapters - a couple that weren't. This book begins well but has somewhat of a drift to it. Several sections were gleaned from his other writings and were added more as semi-related filler...which detracts from the titled premise of the book.
Buy it used or borrow it from a friend.

[Kate Kerrigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This bunch of essays has become an invaulable resource for me as a novelist writing about Irish America from the 1920's to the 1940's. Quinn is a cunning historian hiding fact in fascinating stories - but this is not one of his novels, instead it's an exploration of his own past as an Irish American - equally as gripping as his works of fiction. Very entertaining and informative.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I always proclaim to be Irish, I'm actually quite removed from my Irish ancestors. Still, I insist on my heritage and continue to search it. Quinn's collection of essays most assuredly speaks to both the Irish in me and the discerning reader.

[Maura · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a page turner.

[Peggy Doherty]

Very interesting, but I couldn't finish it. Lots of history.

[James R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two good chapters and the rest were hard to get through... too much detail about historical political events in New York.