Irish Presbyterians and the Shaping of Western Pennsylvania, 1770-1830

by Peter E. Gilmore

Irish Presbyterians and the Shaping of Western Pennsylvania , 1770–1830 is a historical study examining the religious culture of Irish immigrants in the early years of America. Despite fractious relations among competing sects, many immigrants shared a vision of a renewed Ireland in which their versions of Presbyterianism could flourish free from the domination of landlords and established church. In the process, they created the institutional foundations for western Pennsylvanian Presbyterian churches.

Rural Presbyterian Irish church elders emphasized community and ethnoreligious group solidarity in supervising congregants’ morality. Improved transportation and the greater reach of the market eliminated near-subsistence local economies and hastened the demise of religious traditions brought from Ireland. Gilmore contends that ritual and daily religious practice, as understood and carried out by migrant generations, were abandoned or altered by American-born generations in the context of major economic change. 

280 pages, Paperback

Published October 13, 2020

Reviews

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book is good. These social histories are important for unsettling the often flat view of history that occurs with the dissemination of intellectual histories. I think his thesis could have been a bit stronger (he might have accomplished that by trimming away some of the considerations of how Irish Presbyterians shaped western Pennsylvania and just focused on Irish Presbyterians in western Pennsylvania). Notably, I think he demonstrates that these settlers saw themselves as Irish (the large number of United Irishmen who settled in western PA has tantalizing implications for Irish history) and formed communitarian socieites rather than individualistic societies (the popularly conceived story). I think he could have made the book longer and gotten into how Irish Presbyterians were both persecuted and persecutors in the early parts of the book. It might have done his thesis some service in explaining why the Irish Presbyterians formed such communally rigid enclaves. Overall a well-researched book that I think unsettled a lot of common assumptions about Protestantism, Calvinism, and the Irish.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read. Tons of interesting and occasionally entertaining detail on early Ulster-American frontier life and Presbyterian faith. Well written and a thoughtful use of sources. Would be worth reading for anyone with an interest in frontier religion, revivalism, and regional Presbyterian histories, not just those of us with deep roots in this region.