This book provides scholarly perspectives on a range of timely concerns in Irish diaspora studies. It offers a focal point for fresh interchanges and theoretical insights on questions of identity, Irishness, historiography and the academy’s role in all of these. In doing so, it chimes with the significant public debates on Irish and Irish emigrant identities that have emerged from Ireland’s The Gathering initiative (2013) and that continue to reverberate throughout the Decade of Centenaries (2012-2023) in Ireland, North and South. In ten chapters of new research on key areas of concern in this field, the book sustains a conversation centred on three core questions: what is diaspora in the Irish context and who does it include/exclude? What is the view of Ireland and Northern Ireland from the diaspora? How can new perspectives in the academy engage with a more rigorous and probing theorisation of these concerns? This thought-provoking work will appeal to students and scholars of history, geography, literature, sociology, tourism studies and Irish studies.
Provides scholarly perspectives on a range of timely concerns in Irish diaspora studies Opens up fresh interchanges and theoretical insights on questions of identity, Irishness and historiography Sheds light on the significant public debates on Irish and Irish emigrant identities that have emerged from Ireland’s The Gathering initiative (2013)
Johanne Devlin Trew
Irish diaspora Irish emigration The Gathering Irish Studies Irish identity transnational Ulster Scots Scots Irish white slavery Robert Tressell Patrick MacGill London Irish James Hanley Northern Irishness working-class history
“This timely book achieves two unusual aspirations in Irish diaspora studies as it seeks to appraise various lacunae in relevant policy, academic and commercial fields. It considers perspectives from Northern Ireland on diaspora alongside those of the more commonly addressed Republic of Ireland, demonstrating in the process the rootedness in the national of all diaspora imaginaries. And, while both the main destinations of Irish emigrants - USA and Britain - are examined, more space is devoted to reviewing the dynamics of diasporic relations between Britain and Ireland, an often neglected aspect of Irish diaspora imaginations and images.” (Mary Hickman, Emeritus Professor of Irish Studies and Sociology, London Metropolitan University, UK)