Ireland, Migration and Return Migration: The “Returned Yank” in the Cultural Imagination, 1952 to present

by Sinéad Moynihan

Drawing on historical, literary and cultural studies perspectives, this book examines the phenomenon of the "Returned Yank" in the cultural imagination, taking as its point of departure the most exhaustively discussed Returned Yank narrative, The Quiet Man (dir. John Ford, 1952). Often dismissed as a figure that embodies the sentimentality and nostalgia of Irish America writ large, this study argues that the Returned Yank's role in the Irish cultural imagination is much more varied and complex than this simplistic construction allows. Throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, s/he has been widely discussed in broadcast and print media, and depicted in plays, novels, short stories and films. The imagined figure of the Returned Yank has been the driving impetus behind some of Ireland's most well-known touristic endeavours and festivals. In the form of U.S. Presidential visits, s/he has repeatedly been the catalyst for questions surrounding Irish identity. Most
significantly, s/he has been mobilised as an arbiter in one of the most important debates in post-Independence should Ireland remain a "traditional" society or should it seek to modernise? His/her repeated appearances in Irish literature and culture after 1952 - in remarkably heterogeneous, often very sophisticated ways - refute claims of the "aesthetic caution" of Irish writers, dramatists and filmmakers responding to the tradition/modernity debate.

288 pages, Paperback

Published February 1, 2022

Reviews

[Tim Morrissey · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting study, but it strays far from its original “returned yank” subject. The notably large gap in Moynihan’s study is late stage Irish American return fiction, and popular culture, such as the return arc in Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and the like. Moynihan’s book is hibernocentrist, and is highly limited because of this.

It also cannot commit to a full critique of Irish society, something it does not hold back on for Irish American society. As such, there is an obvious double standard applied to the diaspora. Notable claims, such as those about the Irish American ethnic revival of the 1960s being out of the blue reversals of otherwise assimilationist drives within the diaspora, are outright untrue, as shown in the history work of Timothy Meaghar.

Moynihan no doubt subscribes to the much contested “becoming white” thesis, but does so because it is more comfortable for Irish academics to view the diaspora as moving away from a “true center,” an authentic Irishness, rather than allowing Irish America to forge its own path, one that can be deeply critical of Irish attitudes.