New Perspectives on the Irish Abroad
The Silent People?
Contributions by David Convery, Barry Crosbie, Paul Darby, Juan José Delaney, Stephen Moore, Jason R. Myers, Sarah O'Brien, Gráinne OKeeffe-Vigneron, Bernadette Sweeney, Bill Tobin Edited by Mícheál Ó hAodha, Máirtín Ó Catháin
Not available to order
Publication date:
25 March 2014Length of book:
190 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9780739183724
The relationship between Ireland and the diversity of its diasporas has always been complex and multi-layered, but it is not until recently that this reality has really been acknowledged in the public sphere and indeed, amongst the scholarly community generally. This reality is partly a consequence of both “push-and-pull” factors and the relatively late arrival of globalization trends to the island of Ireland itself, situated as it is on the Atlantic seaboard between Europe and the US. Ireland is changing however, some would say at an unprecedented speed as compared with many of its neighbours, and the sense of Irish identity and connection to the home country is changing too. What is the relationship of Ireland and the Irish with its diaspora communities and how is this articulated? The voices who speak in New Perspectives on the Irish Abroad: The Silent People?, edited by Mícheál Ó hAodha and Máirtín Ó Catháin, “talk back” to Ireland and Ireland talks to them, and it is in telling that we see a new story, an emerging discourse—the narratives of the “hidden” Irish, the migrant Irish, the diaspora whose voices and refrains were hitherto neglected or subject to silence.
Máirtín Ó Catháin and Mícheál Ó hAodha are to be commended for presenting this fresh and often vivid overview of Ireland's complicated migration history. Anyone interested in the stories of Irish emigration, tragic, heroic, stoic, and varied, will welcome this volume.