Douglas Hyde’s 1905/06 fundraising tour of North America on behalf of the Gaelic League was one of the highlights of his career as its President. During this highly successful whirlwind tour he visited some fifty cities and twelve university campuses, and was twice invited to lunch in the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt. He succeeded in collecting $50,000 dollars, the equivalent of $1.25 million today. The visit was meticulously planned and choreographed by John Quinn, a wealthy New York-based lawyer, and spear-headed by Tomás Ó Concheanainn, the League’s chief organiser, who had previously lived in the States for many years. This paper will examine the practical arrangements which had to be made, as well as the impact of the interpersonal tensions between Quinn and Ó Concheanainn and the need to navigate the labyrinthine and often fraught relationships between Clan na Gael, the AOH and the Irish-American Catholic hierarchy. It will draw on Hyde’s detailed, published account of his experiences in Mo Thurus go hAmerice (1937), as well as the English-language diary he kept during the tour and contemporary newspaper coverage on both sides of the Atlantic. These sources will be complemented by a wide range of private correspondence and other documentation. The paper will illustrate how the tactful diplomacy and political adroitness displayed by Hyde and Quinn kept most of the strains and stresses well hidden from the public gaze.

In the 1880s debates about the merits of Irish Land League, land nationalization and Henry George’s theories extended to Argentina’s Irish community. John Creaghe, a Limerick-born doctor, was a keen promoter of George’s influential work Progress and Poverty. The book appealed to Creaghe for its potential to transform land ownership in Ireland, yet equally, if not more, important for him were the positive benefits that the application of George’s theories could bring to his new home in Argentina, to break up large monopolies of land, some of which were in the hands of first- and second-generation Irish emigrants. Influential voices in the Irish community disagreed, and the debate around George’s work was revealing of divergent political tendencies in the small Irish community. This paper seeks to reveal how the Irish diaspora in Argentina was connected to the world of Irish radicalism in the era of the Land League, with a focus on the fascinating life of John Creaghe, who later became a key figure in the Argentinian anarchist movement. Often a neglected part of the Irish Atlantic world, Argentina, and the mixed reception of the land reform movement there, offers us valuable insights into webs of transnational exchange in the late-nineteenth century world.

During 1914 a flurry of nationalist activity can be plotted in Irish New York as new organizations sprung up, mostly taking their lead from similar developments in Ireland. One such example is the formation of a branch of Cumann na mBan in Manhattan in December of 1914. An accomplished Irish-born physician, Dr. Gertrude B. Kelly, was a founder of this organization and played a significant role in socio-political landscape of New York for many decades. The trajectory of Dr. Kelly in 1914 allows us to unpack the ways in which New York became a hub of invigorated fervor around the issue of Irish independence in this important period. From an Irish perspective, Kelly provides an illustrative example of how agitation in Ireland could, and indeed did, reverberate in the diaspora. From an American perspective Kelly is significant as she demonstrates the legacy of the radical, social-reform bloc of Irish America and a counterpoint to the more prominent and more conservative profile of the Irish in the United States. The changes in her worldview on Ireland during 1914 offer a fascinating lens through which the wider shifts in Irish New York can be mapped and contextualized. 

For Yale’s William Graham Sumner, writing in 1886, the practice of boycotting was ‘the severest trial to which our institutions have yet been put’. Although similar incarnations of the practice had previously been evident in the United States, this form of social ostracism was widely perceived to be an importation from Ireland, and as ‘inhuman as it is un-American’. As evinced by Charles Stewart Parnell, such social excommunication relied on notions of shame and cultural conformity to operate. This paper will explore the problems these non-economic impositions on individual freedom posed for American liberalism. In exploiting ethnic and class-based loyalties, those engaged in boycotting were able to utilise tactics such as public shaming by widely circulating the names of transgressors. By refraining from physical violence, these forms of protest made it ‘practically impossible to frame a legal indictment against them’. More than merely a practical problem however, these activities were conceptual irritants for opponents.
The paper seeks to highlight how this form of collective action, dependent on its particular ethno-cultural associations and with roots in a complex web of agrarian social practices, was reconstituted by the diasporic population. Consequently, this ‘modern and popular crime’ destabilized prevailing conceptions of individualism, autonomy and property, and forced liberal critics to reshape the legal and rhetorical boundaries of citizenship.
 

At the height of American socialism, Irish-American involvement in socialist circles remained low. Many leading socialists argued this was because American socialist propaganda failed to address the distinct nature of Irish identity. The formation of the Irish Socialist Federation along with the increase in Catholic socialist propaganda in the early twentieth century were attempts to address this failure. Opponents, however, argued these developments validated an unjustified sense of difference among Irish workers and threatened to cause further fragmentation within the American socialist movement. This paper will use American socialist print culture from the period from 1900 to 1910 to explore how socialists attempted to reach the Irish working-class. It will interrogate the aims and methods used by socialist leaders to outline the characteristics some believed were unique to the Irish. The purpose is to assess the arguments surrounding Irish identity within the American working-class movement.

This paper will outline the ideological and cultural components of Mid Nineteenth Century Irish-American Nationalism. Foremost among the Irish revolutionary organizations at that time were the Emmet Monument and its successor the Fenian Brotherhood which was gradually built into a mass movement for Irish Independence. The involvement of its members in the state militias and subsequently in the Irish regiments of the Union Army during the American Civil War will be discussed. This paper will also explain the crucial relationship between and the Fenian Brotherhood and the United States government and outline the commitment of the Fenian leader John O’Mahony to the promotion of the Irish Language in America.

This paper will focus on one oil painting, An Irish Immigrant landing at Liverpool (1871, Scottish National Gallery of Scotland) by Erskine Nicol (1825-1904) which has been much reproduced to illustrate the Irish diaspora of the second half of the nineteenth century. In this close focus on just one large painting, the issues raised will include the physical setting of Liverpool as a place of embarkation for Irish immigants and more importantly the retitling of the picture from a depiction of a specific person to a generic image of Irish migration. The main source used to structure this argument is a published account by a former Irish servant of the artist of a visit to London which was illustrated by Nicol. The paper traces the details of this published account of 1867 through to the creation of the 1871 painting and its eventual bequest to Edinburgh in 1905. Other issues raised include the attempt by Nicol, a popular Victorian artist of humorous and often condescending paintings of the Irish to produce more serious works on a big theme (emigration). All of this is framed by an awareness of the visualisation of emigration in nineteenth century art and concludes by arguing that Nicol’s painting is a work that needs to be seen within an imperial context as represented by Liverpool docks as well as one of emigration.

This paper looks at the diasporic Irish-American identity as performed by Saoirse Ronan and Aidan Quinn in the media, particularly surrounding the promotion of their respective films with strong Irish-American themes, Brooklyn (2015) and This Is My Father (1998). Celebrity identity is carefully constructed, economically rooted and highly performative, and, as such, overtly illustrates our own identity construction, and the influences on it, making it perfect for an examination of the performance of hyphenated and national identities. As the levels of identification with various nationalities in a hyphenated identity shift, in line with the concept of identity salience, heightened performance of one side over another can occur in a given context, often resulting in a division between each side of an individual’s identity, rather than a cohesive singular performance. Following this, both Ronan and Quinn, who hold dual citizenship from Ireland and America and have resided in each country, enact each side of their hyphenated identity as needed. By looking at how each actor frames his/her relationship with Ireland and America, I will interrogate the various connections of the contemporary Irish-American (with direct experience living in both countries) and ultimately argue that the two sides of the hyphenated identity are kept separate, resulting in multiple identity performances, rather than forming a cohesive, singular identity.

 Acknowledging the inseparability of music and emotion, this presentation asks: what happens to the emotional expression of a language community when its song practice shifts contexts? Specifically, what happened to Irish-language songs when their traditional linguistic and cultural contexts incorporated an American diasporic context? Did they survive? And, if so, how and why? Focusing on music-collectors who gathered Irish-language songs among emigrants in urban and rural America in the aftermath of An Gorta Mór, the discussion highlights the challenges then faced by minority language communities in majority language contexts, including the emotional impact of such fundamental changes to how people express themselves. Their experience speaks to that of minority language communities today that face similar challenges.

Rosaleen Crowley shares language and imagery from her Irish culture and poetic heritage. She will showcase paintings, poetry and stories from her new book, "Point of Connection” and other new material. “Home”, “Distance”, “Culture” are recurring themes throughout the collection. Rosaleen uses her experience as a teacher to share and draw from the audience their interpretation of her art, poems and experiences. This poetry reading takes on an interactive life of its own as Rosaleen tailors each program to meet the needs of her audience.

Mary Curran’s The Parish and the Hill explores class dynamics in an Irish immigrant community in Massachusetts during the early to mid-twentieth century. Specifically, Curran gives due attention to the geographical mapping of the landscape, and how socioeconomic relations are dictated by it. The more affluent Irish members of, “The Hill,” and the mill workers of “The Parish,” are divided socio-economically as well as geographically. Curran maps the community for the reader by using particular streets, shops, and churches to mark this division, and construct local identity. The significance of animosity between Curran’s “lace curtain” and “shanty” Irish-Americans becomes a greater metaphor for the complexities woven into the socio-economic landscape of the Massachusetts city. This paper will explore the class relations depicted in the novel that are reinforced by the city’s geography, as well as how women specifically navigate it. Women within this narrative are often the agents of social and fiscal exchanges. The protagonist’s matriarch in particular maneuvers physical space, caring for different neighbors, and in doing so, signifies different cultural distinctions, indicated by where she is located physically. In this way, social identity becomes tied to economy. Purchasing fish from a shop on “The Hill” suggests affluence, but buying meat from “The Parish” signifies loyalty. By positioning women as authorities, Curran also presents their economic, social, and political agency. The image of the lace curtain becomes a greater metaphor for the intricacies and nuances for life in these Irish immigrant communities.

The Worldwide Irish Diaspora, Canadians of Irish Heritage, from coast, to coast, to coast, and Irish citizens were taken aback when the Development Concept (1992) for Grosse Ile (locally known as the Irish Island in French) was released with the title of "Canada - Land of Hope and Welcome" on the former quarantine station (1.5 km long and 1 km wide, 50 km down river from Quebec City) over the largest Irish Famine mass grave site in the world, outside of Ireland. In 1994, then Irish President Mary Robinson visited Grosse Ile "a hallowed place" as the first stop, on the first day of the first state visit, by an Irish President to Canada. In 1996, in a joint press release by the Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Canadian Heritage, the honourable Sheila Copps and the Chair of Action Grosse Ile jointly announced the creation of " Grosse Ile and the Irish Memorial National Historic Site". In 1998 Minister Copps and the then Irish President Mary MacAlessse unveiled and dedicated a series of 12 glass panels with names of the over 6000 burried in the mass grave.

When New Zealand introduced conscription in 1940 a large group of young Irishmen living in New Zealand refused to be drafted into the armed forces. Technically they were British subjects and liable for service but they were determined not to fight for Britain under any circumstances . They formed an organisation called the Eire Nationals Association (ENA), hired a pro Irish lawyer and six of their members volunteered to appeal their conscription as a test case for their colleagues. One of these was my father, Mathias Burke. Their appeal was based on Eire’s neutrality in WWII, and that for them to fight for Britain would be a betrayal of their loyalty to Eire given the terror inflicted on their families which they had personally witnessed during the war of independence. The paper will reveal details of their trial before an Armed Forces Appeal Board and the interaction between the New Zealand, British and Irish governments and the ENA to deal with this situation and to overcome this impasse. It will also examine some of the close relationships between the Irish Prime Minister, Eamon de Valera and the New Zealand wartime Prime Minister, Peter Fraser. This is a unique and as yet untold piece of Irish/New Zealand social history which will form the basis of a book to be published in the next 12 months.