Irish America (Oxford Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology) [Paperback]

Reginald Byron (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 24, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0198233558 | ISBN-13: 978-0198233558

Few writers have asked how the notion of an Irish-American ethnic identity in contemporary America can be reconciled with five, six, or seven generations of intermarriage and assimilation over the last century and a half. This study, based on interviews with 500 people of Irish ancestry, aims to discover in what senses the present-day descendants of nineteenth-century Irish immigrants possess distinctive social practices and ways of seeing the world.

Editorial Reviews

Review

`This is a refreshingly intriguing book with no trace of misty-eyed self-indulgence about the sea-divided Gael.' Irish Review 27

`Irish America asks whether people who identify themselves as Irish-Americans have distinctive ways of behaving or thinking, five, six or seven generations down from the period of heaviest immigration around the time of the Famine.' Ian Jackman, London Review of Books, September 7th 2000

`Byron believes that one effect of multiculturalism has been to force people to choose an ethnie - a politically and socially divisive practice.' Ian Jackman, London Review of Books, September 7th 2000

`What a tonic this excellent book is for serious and non-partisan students of Irish America, and for commentators and analysts of the Irish diaspora generally. At last a superbly researched and rigorously though through challenge to - I would say demolition of - the mythological orthodoxy generated by the dominance, in image-making, of the Irish ghettos of New York, Boston, Philadelphia.' Patrick O'Farrell, Irish Studies Review, Vol. 8, No.2

`What a marvelous Liberation for scholarship!' Patrick O'Farrell, Irish Studies Review, Vol. 8, No.2

`it is a highly professional, very well-informed, and toughly intelligent sociological exercise, based on wide and exhaustive interviews. These are set on a firm historiographical and geographic base, subjected to constant discussion between the author and his two research assistants, and analysed with patient, open-minded, care and balance.' Patrick O'Farrell, Irish Studies Review, Vol. 8, No.2

`If only sociology were always like this!' Patrick O'Farrell, Irish Studies Review, Vol. 8, No.2

`It is a pleasure to welcome this book into the front ranks of Irish diaspora studies.' Patrick O'Farrell, Irish Studies Review, Vol. 8, No.2

About the Author

Adjunct Professor of Anthropology, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Long Island, New York Research Professor of Anthropology, Union College, Schenectady, New York

Product Details

• Paperback: 317 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press (February 24, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198233558
• ISBN-13: 978-0198233558
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,434,577 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This book debunks the myths of the Irish in America, October 31, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Irish America (Oxford Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology) (Paperback)

Usnig data gathered from over 500 interviews conducted with Irish-Americans in Albany, NY in the early 1990s, Byron's book shows how "Irishness" is constructed in contemporary America. Arguing that people mix knowledge of their own ancestors and genealogy in with widely held myths that the Great Famine and English oppression forced Catholics to leave Ireland, the book examines the commercialisation of Irish ethnicity in the USA at the end of the Twentieth Century. With chapters centred on issues like contests over the meaning of St. Patrick's Day in America's northeast in the 1990s, this book is a welcome change from other discussions of the Irish in America that focus mainly on biographies of famous Irish-Americans or nineteenth century immigration data and experiences.