From: "Marion R. Casey"

Subject: Return Migration


The New York Times had a small article on December 5th, "The Celtic Tiger
Draws Many of City's Irish Home." It reproduced the following figures
from the Irish Central Statistics Office on the number of "documented and
undocumented Irish immigrants in the United States who have returned to
Ireland" through 1997. Figures for the past 2 years are not available.

1989 3,100
1990 3,900
1991 4,300
1992 4,600
1993 5,000
1994 4,300
1995 4,000
1996 6,600
1997 6,000


The series "Irish Immigration at the Millenium" currently running in the
Irish Echo newspaper reports CSO estimates that 4,300 emigrated from the
Republic to the US between April 1997 and April 1998. The US Immigration
and Naturalization Service reported 5,315 for 1995. This is legal
immigration. The Irish Episcopal Commission for Emigrants estimated the
illegal (or undocumented) volume at over 4,100 per year between 1995 and
1997. These are young people whom the Celtic Tiger has passed by, 80%
under the age of 25.

So, for Ireland's diasporic relationship with the US, out-migration is
at the very least still balancing in-migration.


Marion Casey
Department of History
New York University

From: "Thomas J. Archdeacon"
Subject: Re: Ir-D Vector Map of Ireland



Hello, Ruth Ann:

Thanks, but all I need is a map with county outlines. I'm glad to know
about your, however, in case the need arises.

Tom


Thomas J. Archdeacon, Prof. Office: 608-263-1778/1800
Department of History Fax: 608-263-5302
University of Wisconsin -- Madison Home: 608-251-7264
5133 Humanities Building E-Mail: tjarchde[at]facstaff.wisc.edu
Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1483

From Patrick O'Sullivan


Those interested in the study of the Irish language outside Ireland have
been nattering - some interesting projects are in development.

Meanwhile, I thought that the Irish-Diaspora list might like to see 4
abstracts - the kind of thing that is now emerging. All I would note,
at this stage, is how quickly, once you move away from purely linguistic
study, you are trying to connect with history, politics, social policy,
and economics...

P.O'S.


1.
Journal of Historical Geography
Vol. 19, No. 2, April 1993
ISSN: 0305-7488

Building a nation: an examination of the Irish Gaeltacht Commission
Report of 1926

pp. 157-168 (doi:10.1006/jhge.1993.1011)
Nuala C. Johnson

Abstract

Studies of nationalism and nation-building have emphasized the
importance of language in defining cultural identity. This paper
explores how the Irish language in the context of the Irish Free State
was placed in a position of cultural importance but the region in which
the language was most alive was economically neglected. Whilst the west
of Ireland was represented as the most quintessentially Gaelic part of
the independent state, an image that was bolstered both by academic,
quasi-academic writers and by politicians; the economic policy of the
Irish Free State ignored the clear spatial variations in economic
development that characterized the new state. While the eastern part of
the state was comparatively prosperous, the western regions presented
the state with a regional economic problem. This problem was identified
through a government commissioned report designed to make
recommendations for the maintenance of the Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking
district) but the state refused to adopt a regionally based economic
strategy that would enhance the continued viability of the Gaeltacht
regions. As a consequence, the state adopted a paradoxical cultural
policy that separated its success from the economic circumstances
prevailing in the Gaeltacht and ensured the declined of Irish-speakers
in this part of the state. Copyright 1993, 1999 Academic Press


2.
Absno: 98M/196
Title: Changes in the Celtic-language-speaking populations of
Ireland, the Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales from 1891
to 1991.
Author(s): I. Mate
Source: Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

Abstract:
This paper brings together the census data from 1891 to 1991 on the
numbers of Irish, Manx, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh speakers in all parts
of the British Isles except England. The paper concentrates on the
changes in age structure of the Celtic-language-speaking populations as
well as the percentage of people speaking the language.


3.
Absno: 98M/204
Title: The Irish language in Britain: a case study of north west
England.
Author(s): M. N. Craith & J. Leyland
Source: Language, Culture and Curriculum

Abstract:
This essay sketches the continuing presence of the Irish language in
Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries. In order to set Irish as a
foreign language in context, it begins with a review of the emigration
of Irish-speakers from Ireland in the 19th century. Specific attention
is then paid to the problems encountered by speakers of this tongue in
various locations in England in the last century. Reports of distinct
Irish-speaking communities illustrate that the language was an integral
part of everyday life in some quarters of Liverpool at the time of the
Famine (1845-52). In order to demonstrate the continuing demand for the
language, a profile is offered of those who learn Irish at evening
classes in the north west of England. The final section outlines their
views of the vitality of the language in Britain.


4.
Absno: 96M/424
Title: A future for English/Irish bilingualism in Northern Ireland?
Author(s): M. Northover & S. Donnelly
Source: Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

Abstract:
While English continues to be the dominant language of government,
business and education in the South of Ireland, and is the only official
language of Northern Ireland, there is a growing interest in the
learning of Irish in the North - primarily among Catholics, but also
among some Protestants who have an ideological commitment to Irish
language and culture. Meeting these aspirations, the attitude of the
government has become more sympathetic to the use of the Irish language,
most notably through funding some Irish-language primary schools and
"legalising' the display of bilingual street-name signs. The BBC and
UTV, too, have an active programming policy for Irish language
broadcasts. The authors argue that, despite attainment of these rights
by the Irish-language lobby, there is no pressure or ground-swell of
demand to make Irish an official language in Northern Ireland because
the sociolinguistic preconditions for bilingualism do not exist.
Moreover, recent research among Irish language learners describing
themselves as "Irish', demonstrates that those who do not speak or learn
Irish have no less a sense of having an Irish identity than do fluent
speakers or those learning Irish. Conditions for a limited increase in
the popularity of Irish are then discussed.



- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/

Personal Fax National 0870 0521605
Fax International +44 870 0521605

Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Interdisciplinary Human Studies
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England

From: "Ruth-Ann M. Harris"

Subject: Re: Ir-D Vector Map of Ireland

Hello Tom,
That's fine. They are here when you need them. Ruth-Ann

Information from
Dr Judy Johnston judithj[at]cyllene.uwa.edu.au

AVSA, the Australasian Victorian Studies Association, has a Web site at
. The association is an academic one started by
two English Department academics at the University of Sydney, Margaret Harris
and Peter Edwards.

There is information on the Web site about our forthcoming AVSA conference
which is titled 'Victorian Mediations: Gender, Journalism and the Periodical
Press', 2-6 February, 2000, to be held at St. George's College. Our keynote
speaker is Patrick Brantlinger and his address will be 'The Irish Famine:
Gender, Race, and the Limits of Victorian Liberalism'.

Professor Brantlinger will also be giving a public lecture at a venue yet
to be announced titled 'Fatal Impact-Theories about the Extinction of
Primitive Races'.

Patrick Brantlinger is a noted historian, the editor of *Victorian Studies*
(the most prestigious of the many journals currently publishing in Victorian
history and literature) and author, among other titles, of *Rule of
Darkness*. Professor Brantlinger's address is the keynote address for the
conference which is on the Victorian Periodical Press - so that his focus will
be the accounts in the English press of the Irish famine.

For further information visit the Web site

or contact...

Dr Judy Johnston judithj[at]cyllene.uwa.edu.au
English Department +61 (08) 9380 2075
University of Western Australia +61 (08) 9380 1030 FAX
Nedlands WA 6009

From: "Brian McGinn"

Subject: Re: Ir-D Irish in Oregon


The April 1992 Journal of the West (1531 Yuma, Box 1009, Manhattan, Kansas
66502-4228) was a special issue devoted to the Irish in the West. These
Oregon references/quotations are from Nancy J. Emmick's Bibliographical
Essay on Irish-Americans in the West:

Eileen Hickson Donnell reports on the Irish sheep-herders of Oregon in
"Rowe Creek, 1890-1891: Mary L. Fitzmaurice Diary," Oregon Historical
Quarterly, 83 (1982): 171-194.

Reverend Hugh S. Gallagher, CSC, recounts the work of Patrick Hughes in
the building of the Curry Company at Cape Blanco in "Cape Blanco", American
Irish Historical Society 30 (1932): 91-96.

A light tale of a school and an Irish family in Oregon forms the basis of
John F. Kilkenny's article, "Alpine: A School to Remember," Oregon
Historical Quarterly, 75 (1974): 270-276.


Brian McGinn
Alexandria, Virginia

Subject: Re: Ir-D Irish in Oregon

From: Eileen A Sullivan

Dear Paddy,

Today at Brian's suggestion, I have mailed you a copy of the article on
the Irish in Oregon as it appears in THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE IRISH IN
AMERICA ed by Michael Glazier and published by Notre Dame Press. If not
available now, it should be available at the beginning of next year.
Publication date would be 1999 or 2000. I have a complete copy of the 988
pp. galley.

You will find the Irish presence in Oregon of interest. Enjoy.

My nephew, Jonathan Sullivan living in California , informed me that
there is a St Paddy's Parade in Portland worth the trip. He hopes to
attend.


Dr. Eileen A. Sullivan, Director
The Irish Educational Association, Inc. Tel # (352) 332
3690
6412 NW 128th Street E-Mail :
eolas1[at]juno.com
Gainesville, FL 32653

I am going to post again Oliver Marshall's Report on Irish Studies in
Brazil. This version has the contact information included...

P.O'S.

Forwarded....

------- Forwarded message follows -------


Oliver Marshall is back in Oxford, England - after travels in South and North
America.

He sends us this report on Irish Studies in Brazil...


FROM Oliver Marshall...

One of the first things that I did in Brazil was to meet Peter O'Neill, the
energetic promoter of pretty-well all things Irish in Rio. Perhaps
surprisingly given the Brazilian context, he finds a great deal to do.
He's now working on the second issue of his annual Brazil-Ireland Links
publication which is sure to be as great a success as the first issue
genuinely was. Those of us who have promised a contribution should get
moving ......

Note that Peter O'Neill can be contacted at kskt[at]openlink.com.br

In Sao Paulo I met with Laura Izarra and Munira Mutran of the Brazilian
Association of Irish Studies. Munira is very much the pioneer of Irish
Studies in Brazil and she now runs a highly successful post-graduate
programme with Laura at the Universidade de Sao Paulo (USP). I can't
recall how many Masters (in Brazil a Master's dissertation is far more
significant a piece of work than in Britain, Ireland or North America) and
Doctoral candidates they have between them but they are certainly kept
busy. At USP, Irish Studies means, in effect, literary studies, and Laura
is especially keen to develop more clear diaspora content to their work and
this certainly makes sense within the context of the immigrant-based
society that is Sao Paulo. Just looking at the corridors of USP's
Humanities Faculty, evidence of other diasporas is clearly apparent (a
Centre for Japanese Studies, a Centre for Arab Studies, a Centre for Jewish
Studies) and comparative work would seem one way forward for Irish
diaspora studies in a place, such as Brazil, with an insignificant Irish
element. By the way, to anyone out there wishing to support the promotion
of Irish Studies in Brazil, how about sending Laura and Munira books for
the small Irish Studies library that is slowly being created to support
post-graduate teaching at USP?

The address to which books could be sent is:

Dr. Munira Mutran/ Dr. Laura Izarra
Departamento de Letras Modernas
Universidade de Sao Paulo
Rua Luciano Gualberto 403
05508-010 Sao Paulo - SP
Brazil

On the topic of books, on the same evening that I left Brazil "Finnicius
Revem" was launched at, appropriately, Finnegan's Pub in Sao Paulo. The
translation of Finnegans Wake into any language is a remarkable
achievement, but what I found particularly interesting was how this
Brazilian literary event was being handled: the publisher (Atelie
Editorial/Casa de Cultura Guimares Rosa) is launching the work
chapter-by-chapter. So, every three months one chapter is appearing, with
the text produced in both Portuguese and English. I don't know the exact
reasoning for publishing in this way, but it does allow for plenty of
launch parties: with 17 chapters, it will take over four years for the
entire book to appear. Apparently, Donaldo Schler, the book's Porto
Alegre-based translator, has been interested in Finnegans Wake for some 40
years - and so four years is nothing for the Brazilian public to have wait
for the arrival of the complete Portuguese text. The cost? 595 reais, or
about US$330. (The monthly minimum wage in Brazil, by the way, is about
US$80).

All the best,

Oliver Marshall

Centre for Brazilian Studies
University of Oxford

From Patrick O'Sullivan

I've not been well.

I am recovering from what - I suppose - must be described as a bad cold.
But was, in fact, a week long exploration of the outer bounds of human
existence.

I did the usual thing for the first two days - 'I am FAR too busy to be
ill...' Then... One week later...

A miraculous moment last night. When I suddenly re-discovered the
ability to breathe, and the ability to think...

The Irish-Diaspora list has, in fact, been very quiet. Scholarly lists
usually go quiet during the holiday period. There are a number of items
in the pipeline, and I will get back on top of things over the next few
days.

P.O'S.
- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/

Personal Fax National 0870 0521605
Fax International +44 870 0521605

Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Interdisciplinary Human Studies
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England

Forwarded on behalf of Thomas Dillon Redshaw, Editor, New Hibernia Review

From: "Redshaw, Thomas D"
New Hibernia Review

Dear Folks,

Nollaig shona daoibh uilig!

In the midst of finishing graduate papers and undergraduate
examinations I have the pleasure of letting you all know about the twelfth
issue of New Hibernia Review (3: 4) to be mailed at the very end of
December in time for your new year's reading.

The issue opens with Belfast's Prof. John Cronin reflecting on the
writing and biography of Flann O'Brien's brother Ciaran O Nuallain.

Then follows an expansive and hopeful essay by Gearoid Denvir on the
present condition of the Irish language in Ireland.

Thomas McCarthy then provides a suite of Irish-American poems and a
set of intriguingly versed snapshots of Cork as viewed from the brow of
Montenotte.

David Krause next weighs in with an essay weigh Pearse and Connelly
against each other. This essay closes this volume's series of assessments
of Irish republicanism.

O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock figures in the next essay in which
Maria Keaton anatomizes Juno Boyle's redevelopment of her maternal
character.

Andrew Haggerty offers a masterful rendition of the motives and
circumstances that led, in 1931, to the Free State governments commissioning
and then rejection of Harry Clarke's stained glass Geneva Window.

In an excerpt from his forthcoming Yale biography of George Moore,
Adrian Frazier recounts the cruciual incident that alienated George from his
beloved brother Maurice.

Writing from Maynooth, Conrad Brunstrom recounts the elopcutionary
theory of the actor-manager Thomas Sheridan and sees in it a nascent
Ascendancy nationalism.

To close the issue, Dan Tobin offers a survey of Irish-American
poetry that begins to define that long tradition and self-renewing
tradition.

The issue closes with the usual reviews and news of authors. It
opens with the usual suite of Editors' Notes. Also, this issue closes our
sequence of covers reproducing paintings from the Crawford Municipal
Gallery. This cover reproduces Patrick Hennessy's The Silent Room (c.
1955).

Readers of New Hibernia Review interested in submitting their work
for possible publication in the journal may wish to contact me at this
e-mail address: tdredshaw[at]stthomas.edu. Readers interested in subscribing
should contact Jim Rogers at: jrogers[at]stthomas.edu
.

Blessing,
Thomas Dillon Redshaw, Editor

From: DanCas1[at]aol.com

Subject: query: Murphy & Morash


Dear List:

I know this has been mentioned before, but I have been off in the virtual
ozone. I have an MA student who is looking for a copy of Tom Murphy's play,
"Famine". Suggestions appreciated.

Also, the same student is trying to locate a US library that has a copy of
Chris Morash's Ph.D. thesis: Imagining the Famine: Literary representations,
1991, (Trinity).


Thanks & Happy Holidays

Daniel Cassidy
Director
The Irish Studies Program
An Leann Eireannach
New College of California
766 Valencia St.
San Francisco. Ca. 94110
(415) 241-1302, ext. 714
dancas1[at]aol.com

From: "joan hugman"

Subject: Re: Ir-D Cough! Sniff...


Dear Paddy
I am sorry to hear that you have succumbed to academic flu (that is
the kind that absorbs all of the students bugs with apparent
indifference and then just as you wax complacent, and the
holidays loom, wham!)
Take large amounts of whatever you consider a self indulgent treat
(this will cheer you up and that is a crucial element in the
recovery stakes), add vitamin C and zinc (by way of insurance) and
give up all thought of work for at least 10 days.

And... have a merry christmas!
Joan

From: h.holmes[at]napier.ac.uk

Subject: Ir-D Cough! Sniff...


Dear Paddy,
I see you have the cold as well. It must be contagious through the Ir-D list!.
Thanks for all the effort you put into the list over the year. I really
appreciate hearing what goes on. I've just returned from the EFACIS conference
in Paris which I heard about from the Ir-D list - I had a good time and my
paper went well.
Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.

Heather Holmes (Dr)
Department of Print Media, Publishing and Communication
Napier University
Craighouse Road
Edinburgh
EH10 5LG
Email: h.holmes[at]napier.ac.uk


From Patrick O'Sullivan

I've not been well.

I am recovering from what - I suppose - must be described as a bad cold.
But was, in fact, a week long exploration of the outer bounds of human
existence.

I did the usual thing for the first two days - 'I am FAR too busy to be
ill...' Then... One week later...

A miraculous moment last night. When I suddenly re-discovered the
ability to breathe, and the ability to think...

The Irish-Diaspora list has, in fact, been very quiet. Scholarly lists
usually go quiet during the holiday period. There are a number of items
in the pipeline, and I will get back on top of things over the next few
days.

P.O'S.

This book review appears here on the Irish-Diaspora list through the
courtesy of its author, John McGurk.

A version of this review appears in Irish Studies Review, Volume 7, Number
3, December 1999.

Copyright remains with the author, John McGurk.


Donald Harman Akenson, If the Irish Ran the World: Montserrat, 1630-1730
(Liverpool University Press, 1997), pp.273, eleven maps, tables, notes ,
bibliography and index.

Reviewed by John McGurk

To find an If in a history title makes one wonder about the seriousness of
the work. What if the Spaniards had conquered these islands in the sixteenth
century? What if James II had won at the Boyne? ?If the Irish ran the world
?? We could look for a possible answer in how they run Ireland today under
some of the best politicians money can buy! All this can be great fun in
imaginative literature, such as can be found in Stewart Parker?s drama of
1978 when he used Montserrat as the setting for a commentary on late
twentieth century Irish politics. Akenson?s Montserrat 1630-1730 is not
imaginative literature but a well-researched history in which the
central argument and conclusion is that ?at heart, the history of the Irish
on Montserrat?was a very simple one. They saw; they came; they used; they
abused; they discarded; and they levanted? ( p.170). The theme that Irish
settlers overseas helped to sustain the British imperial edifice and that
the exploited and imperialized at home became expert exploiters and
imperialists abroad. is not now historical news. Emigrants from Ireland
cannot now forever be seen as passive victims. However, Akenson does not
fall into the racist trap of treating the Irish on Montserrat as if they
were a homogenous bunch ?the Irish? ? they included native Gaelic Irish,
Old English and New English and in North America ?Ulster Scots?. Hence it
is good to see how Professor Akenson in his ch. 2 ? Ireland?s neo-feudal
empire,1630-1650? has analysed and acknowledged his predecessors? work on
the Caribbean especially on Montserrat such as Richard Dunn?s Sugar and
Slaves; the rise of the Planter class in the English West Indies 1642-1713
(1972), Howard Fergus?s Montserrat: the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean (1983)
and the notable contributions of Brian McGinn to Montserratian history.
Likewise, it is good to see the re-habilitation of the godfather of
Montserratian history, Aubrey Gwynn whose immense labours clearly eased the
burden of successive historians of the island even if he made the Irish
colonizers out to be more holier than their British counterparts. But was
there ever a ?nice? slave-owner or holder? The case studies on the Blake
family from Galway and the Gallway family from Cork excellently support the
general thesis of the book ? but is it not too stridently insisted upon
throughout? Atkenson?s tough line on the Catholic Church on Montserrat is
of a piece with his general thesis and some readers may very well find it
equally hard to stomach and yet he persuasively answered the religious
question set by John C. Messenger, anthropologist and Hibernian enthusiast:
Why in the years from slave emancipation to the 1970s the number of
Catholics had been reduced to a 1000 while Anglicans, Methodists and Seven
Day Adventists combined had grown to 10,000, the number once claimed by the
Catholics? Akenson claims that despite ?invented traditions? there was no
great loss of a previously held catholic faith on the island, because it
never was there, and that even allowing for the restrictions of the penal
code in the late 17th and early 18th centuries catholicism showed little
interest in the black population ? it was for ?whites only, and whites meant
Irish?. And that the real miracle is that catholicism did not disappear
entirely when most of the former slave-owners sailed from Montserrat in the
1840s. What then had happened to the descendants of the early Irish
settlers on Montserrat expelled by the English of Virginia on account of
their Catholic faith? Did they become victims, or imperialists or both?
These questions are posed by the author but not yet satisfactorily answered.
In the final chapter ?Usable Traditions? Akenson gives us a rare old
bout of myth debunking in a mischievous style which is indeed
characteristic of the book as a whole ? the original lectures of which the
book is the fruit must have been an Horatian treat of information with
humour! However, before he begins to dispell the myths of the Hibernian
(surely not Hibernicist?) view of Montserratian history he makes two
important suggestions for the historians of the British West Indies: firstly
that they re-examine the relationship of white indentured labour and black
slave labour and secondly to re-assess the implication that, ?because
indentured labour was important, it was dominant?. Then the harp and
shamrock heritage aspects ? beloved of the black entrepreneurs of tourism,
and also useful to the Catholic Church - receive critical treatment. John
Messenger who did so much to promote the Hibernian heritage sees at least
twelve residual effects of the former Irish domination on Montserrat
including place and family names, oral arts, musical and dance styles,
hospitality ( mainly illegal distilling and drinking,- hardly just Irish in
origin ), bits of ancient Irish mythology in a West Indian context and
even motor habits - i.e. bodily postures of the ?black Irish? are to
Messenger Irish derived. And yet, there is now a rival interpretation to
all of this: the Afrocentric West Indian, or simply African heritage, but
then our author points out that this is no less invented than the
Hibernian and he quits while he?s winning with the conclusion: ?How
Montserratians of the twenty-first century should invent their own history
is no business of professional historians such as myself?, but mercifully
adds, ?Professionally written history may be more accurate than are invented
traditions, but usually it is less useful?. (p.186). If the Irish ran the
world? is a challenging work which may well prove a delight to the few and a
scandal to the many but it is hardly the last word on the Irish who settled
that volcanic shard of the British Empire.

John McGurk
Garranagerra
Glensaul
Tourmakeady
Co. Mayo
Ireland

E.mail: jmcgurk[at]tinet.ie tel.no. (00 353) 92 44249

I thought that the Irish-Diaspora list might like to see how the 'whiteness'
debate is developing...
in another part of the forest...

P.O'S.


- -----Original Message-----
Subject: book review & response: Hammack on Brodkin, _How Jews Became
White Folks_


H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-Urban[at]h-net.msu.edu (June, 1999)

Karen Brodkin. _How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says
About Race in America_. New Brunswick, N.J. and London: Rutgers
University Press, 1998. xi + 243 pp. Bibliography and index.
$48.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8135-2589-6; $18.00 (paper), ISBN
0-8135-2590-X.

Reviewed for H-Urban by David Hammack , Hiram C.
Haydn Professor of History, Case Western Reserve University

_How Jews Became White Folks_ is an engaging, provocative, and
nicely written contribution to the expanding field of "whiteness
studies," and it raises questions that will be of interest to many
urban historians. Anthropologist Karen Brodkin is interested in the
ways "our racial-ethnic background ... as well as our class and
gender, contribute to the making of social identity in the United
States" (p. 1), and particularly in the way "we construct
ethnoracial identities ourselves ... within the context of
ethnoracial assignment" by others. Her approach is both
enthnographic and personal, and some of the best parts of her book
consist of her reflections on the experience of her own family, and
of her reports of sustained conversations with her parents. These
personal touches should make parts of the book a model for
reflection by others and an effective teaching tool.

The personal touches she includes also infuse Brodkin's discussions
of theory with the reality of lived experience. "My sons, who did
not grow up in a Jewish milieu, tell me they don't really think of
themselves as Jewish but rather as generic whites," she writes.
"When I asked my parents ... what they thought of that, they both
gave me a funny look ..." (p. 3). Yet as she makes clear,
Brodkin's parents, teachers who lived in the post-World War II
suburb of Valley Stream, Long Island, defined their Jewish
identities in ways that differed sharply from those of their own
parents, who had worked in the garment industry and in small shops
in Brooklyn. With these and other vivid vignettes, and with some
striking discussions of both the personal experiences and of
stereotypes of Jewish women, she makes it very clear that we
construct our own identities in the historical contexts in which we
find ourselves. She also makes an excellent case for the notion
that subjective identities are as historically contingent as are the
"assignments" we encounter.

A second element of _How Jews Became White Folks_ consists of
Brodkin's personal and political reflections on several of the
recent books on "whiteness" and related questions of race, class,
and gender in American history. In these passages, Brodkin reaches
far beyond the experience of her own family and friends. Her
perspective is consistent and clear. As she puts it in her
conclusion, she argues that the United States parallels ancient
Athens as a "democracy ... for the few, built upon the labor of
those excluded from the circle of national democracy" (p. 176). The
"logic underlying [this] construction of nationhood," she adds, "has
its historical roots in an economy and culture built upon slavery
and expropriation. A kind of unholy trinity of corporations, the
state, and monopolistic media produces and reproduces patterns and
practices of whiteness with dreadful predictability" (p. 177).
These are very broad claims indeed, covering a long span of time and
many thorny issues. What exactly is the relation between colonial
slavery and twentieth century corporations? What generalizations
about the fragmented American "state" make sense? To what degree
is "the media" "monopolistic," now and at what points in the past?
Is there no role for the agency of the ordinary citizen? Although
Brodkin devotes much of this short work to her claims on such
matters, she provides here very little reason for the unconverted to
accept them.

Regrettably, she also misses the opportunity to clarify exactly what
she means by "whiteness." Does she mean subjective
self-identification with other people in a way that downplays what
she calls "Euroethnic" identities, or varied non-Protestant
religious identities? Or a subjective self-identification as
"not-colored"? Or does she mean self-identification with some set
of "middle-class" views and aspirations? Much of her discussion of
family conversations is along these lines. Or does she mean
assignment by a vaguely defined business and political elite to a
group that enjoys special privileges, as in her comments derived
from works on "whiteness"? Does she also include assignment to such
a group by members of a putative unified white Protestant middle
class--the process Milton Gordon and Will Herberg described as
"Anglo-conformity" over forty years ago? What of the assignment of
Jews to one group or another by Catholics or descendants of Eastern
Orthodox groups? Or by those who remain "people of color"? To what
extent has it really been necessary to use racist strategies to get
ahead in America?

Between the personal story of her own family and the untested
metahistory of the "white nation," Brodkin offers a third story, the
one implied by the title of her book. For this story she does
adduce pertinent and persuasive evidence. She reviews some of the
history of American antisemitism, the residential segregation, the
use of quotas to exclude Jews from many colleges between 1910 and
the 1950s, the refusal of many employers to hire Jews for many kinds
of jobs as late as the 1960s. She recalls the anxieties raised by
the decision to execute both Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, by the
attacks on writers and filmmakers, and McCarthy. She "is willing to
affirm" the "ethnic heritage" belief that Jewish upward mobility
since the 1950s "was due to our own efforts and abilities,
reinforced by a culture that valued sticking together, hard work,
education, and deferred gratification" (p. 26).

Despite her attractive loyalty to family tradition, Brodkin rejects
the triumphalism of much "ethnic" history and memory, insisting both
that others created the conditions for Jewish success, and that the
price of Jewish advancement was a willingness to embrace America's
oppressive racism. More important than self-help for Jewish
success, Brodkin insists, was the GI Bill, which she describes as
"the most massive affirmative action program in American history"
(p. 38). She also quotes Hasia Diner's suggestion that Jewish
participation in the civil rights movement allowed many to assert
that they were more devoted to American ideals of liberty and
equality than were many Protestants. Brodkin does not develop this
idea or discuss the ways in which many Jews, as well as many
Catholics, benefited directly from laws and court decisions prompted
by the civil rights movement. Nor does she really explore the
degree to which it is fair to accuse Jews as a group of racist
attitudes today.

In any case, she views legislative and legal changes such as the
G.I. Bill as strictly the product of calculations by "government and
business leaders," not as the response of Congress to pressures from
the voters who fought--or members of whose families fought--in World
War II. She ignores the extensions of the G.I Bill in the Great
Society and in the expansion of state systems of secondary and
higher education, and she ignores the various policy cross-pressures
set off by real revulsion against Nazi racism and the even more
powerful pressures of the Cold War. Thus in her view Jews, like
other recently "whitened" "Euroethnics," owe their advances more to
the business elites that "really" run America than to their own
self-help and political action.

Those of us who are not persuaded that all key decisions in American
life are made by a permanent power elite will not be willing to
follow Brodkin through the political assertions that underlie much
of her argument. Many will lament her decision to ignore religious
feeling entirely as the basis for thought and action by Jews and
non-Jews alike: very many American Jews, even in New York, were
deeply engaged in Orthodox lives or Conservative initiatives between
1890 and the 1950s and were deeply opposed to secularism and
Marxism. (Brodkin slights or ignores historians who take religious
ideas more seriously than she does; her extensive and useful
bibliography omits references to the centrally relevant works of
Arthur Goren, Jeffrey Gurock, Thomas Kessner, Marc Rafael, and
Harold Wechsler). Many students of labor markets, of the garment
industry, and of retailing will reject her definition of "working
class," including the idea that all contractors and shopkeepers
belonged to it. Contrary to her broad assertions, many Russian and
Eastern European Jewish immigrants--like many Germans, Czechs, and
others--brought with them to America commercially valuable business,
technical, and linguistic skills as well as manual skills. The idea
that New York's Jews of the 1920s and 1930s can be divided almost
entirely into a small business elite and a massive secular,
left-wing working class would have astonished Fiorello LaGuardia and
will persuade no one familiar with New York City's history.

If Jews were in fact much more successful before the G.I. Bill than
Brodkin assumes, her premise that they enjoyed extraordinary success
in the 1950s and 1960s requires reconsideration, and so does her
explanation for whatever degree of success we might agree they
enjoyed. If many Jews were politically conservative and engaged in
religious communities that looked inward in the 1920s and 1930s--and
if various kinds of religious renewal are currently prominent in
Jewish communities in the U.S.--her account of the "price" Jews have
paid for success also needs reconsideration. Altogether, much of
_How Jews Became White Folks_ is more provocative than persuasive.
But it presents its provocative ideas in engaging plain English, and
is likely to be useful for a variety of teaching purposes.


Professor Brodkin responds:

I thank David Hammack for having written an intelligent and
thoughtful review of my book. I would like to respond to a couple
of the points he raises. In particular, I think he misses the
"both/and" nature of its message about the relationship of structure
and agency when he argues that I deny "the agency of the ordinary
citizen" in general, and Jewish agency in their own success.

The book is an argument for the need to understand agency in the
context of social structure, and the need to analyze social
structure with an eye toward what those on its margins thought and
did about it. They are two, very related, aspects of a larger
whole. Chapters One through Three foreground the structure; the
Introduction and Chapters Four and Five foreground a variety of
Jewish agencies. The conclusion puts the pieces together. My
message is that ordinary people may use dominant discourses, but
this should not lead us to believe that their embrace of the
prevailing social structure is wholehearted, not even when it gives
them important privileges. We need to understand the social and
cultural grooves that shape our thoughts and deeds because that
understanding makes visible the dis-ease, critical distance and
ambivalence that lies behind apparent conformity--in my family
narrative and in fifties and sixties popular Jewish culture. It is
an optimistic message, not the pessimistic reading Hammack gives it.

Emphasizing agency without social structure leads to trouble.
Hammack's understanding of my argument about Jewish upward mobility
after World War II is that Jews "owe their advances more to the
business elites that 'really' run America than to their own
self-help and political action." My message is that the advance is
not either/or, more/less. After World War II Jews gained the
privileges that law, policy, business practices and popular cultural
understandings formerly granted only to whites of northern and
western European ancestry. That doesn't diminish the agency of
Jews. As Hammack and I both say, Jews were upwardly mobile before
the war, in the face of discrimination. But that mobility was
limited indeed compared to what happened afterward, when the cement
boots of institutional discrimination were removed. What I take
issue with is a triumphalism that is willing to recognize structural
discrimination against Jews, but not the advantages that accrued to
Jews from being allowed to run the race from the
forward--white--starting line.

The triumphalist story is blind to structure when it does not
constrain Jews, even if it constrains others. Hammack is quite
right to point out that pressure for greater civil rights after
World War II came from many voters and families of veterans, as well
as from widespread revulsion against Nazi racism. But shouldn't
that pressure, which included anti-Jim Crow pressure, have led to
extending equal rights to African Americans as well as
Euroamericans? Why did it take a prolonged and massive Civil Rights
movement (in which Jews participated) to lower the legal barriers of
segregation? Blindness about the structural nature of persistent
ethnoracial discrimination in the U.S. has supported Jewish (and
others') arguments against affirmative action--that Jews made it on
their own, and so should everyone else. The racist corollary of a
triumphalist view is that if African Americans and Latinos aren't
making it, it must be because they aren't as able, as meritorious.

At the core of model minority arguments is the idea that some
ethnoracial groups, the model minorities, have better "cultural
stuff," and hence are more deserving than others. Appeals to
stereotypic versions of ethnoracial cultures to explain unequal
socioeconomic success is part of a structurally, culturally, and
discursively shaped system of explanation of the American
sociocultural landscape. Such explanations appear to be "common
sense" only if we refuse to confront the way political economy is
structured along lines of race and ethnicity. So, when Hammack asks
"to what extent has it really been necessary to use racist
strategies to get ahead in America?" he misses the point. So too
does his demur that it is not "fair to accuse Jews as a group of
racist attitudes today." That's not what I said. What I did say is
that model minority arguments are rationalizations for
self-interested strategies and for denying the persistence of
discrimination. When Jews make such arguments against African
Americans or any other group by referencing Jewish success, I submit
that these are racist arguments and that Jews are making them. But
Jews aren't the only ones making these arguments, and Jews are also
prominent among those fighting against those arguments as well as
institutional racism.

Paying attention to Jewish agency reveals Jewish resistance to the
triumphalist story. It highlights continued Jewish participation in
progressive movements as well as Jewish economic success. It gives
us a window on the many kinds of Jewishnesses there are and have
been. Hammack is right that I have given relatively little space to
religious variants and emphasized secular and progressive strains,
and I acknowledge this as a weakness in Chapter Four. At the same
time, it is important to understand the reason for my emphasis. I
wanted to follow up the implications of Arthur Liebman's argument
about the importance of a secular "Jewish socialism" in the early
twentieth century. I refer to Jewish socialism as "hegemonic"
within a Jewish community that was fundamentally working class. I
do not mean that all Jews in this community were working class, or
even that most Jews were socialist, but rather that even those who
disagreed violently recognized it as an important way of being
Jewish; that they had to engage with it; and that they recognized
and defended it as Jewish. It is important to me as a way of
thinking about specifically Jewish cultural heritages of democratic
ideals. In this context, Hammack misunderstands my treatment of
Jewish shopkeepers, business owners and contractors. He thinks I am
classifying them as belonging to the working class and arguing that
the entire Eastern European Jewish community was made up of manual
workers. Hardly. My point is non-working-class members of a
class-diverse community were held accountable to a working-class
culture of reciprocity. That culture was shared across the slices
of Jewishness, including, but not restricted to, Jewish socialism.

Copyright (c) 1999 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work
may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit
is given to the author and the list. For other permission,
please contact H-Net[at]H-Net.MSU.EDU.

I thought this might be of interest...

No entry under 'Irish' seems to be planned...

P.O'S.

------- Forwarded message follows -------

>CALL FOR PROPOSALS
>
>The Family in the United States, Colonial Times to the Present;
>An Encyclopedia
>
>Joseph M. Hawes, Ph.D.
>Elizabeth F. Shores, M.A.P.H.
>Co-editors
>
>The editors call for proposals for encyclopedia entries on topics
>related to the history of the family in the United States. The
>two-volume encyclopedia will cover the experiences of American families
>from social, political, economic, and policy perspectives. It also will
>include some comparative treatments considering the experiences of
>families in other countries.
>
>This is a project of ABC-CLIO, the international publisher of reference
>books, serial abstracting and indexing services, and interactive media.
>The Editorial Advisory Board for this project includes Stephen Mintz,
>Ph.D., Department of History, University of Houston; Sally Helvenston,
>Ph.D., Department of Human Environment and Design, Michigan State
>University; Steven Noll, Department of History, University of Florida;
>Elizabeth Rose, Department of History, Trinity College, and others to be
>appointed.
>
>A preliminary entry list appears below; the editors welcome proposals
>for additional entries. Individual entries shall be brief (approximately
>300 words), short (approximately 1,000 words), medium-length
>(approximately 2,000 words), or long (approximately 4,000 words). All
>must reflect current and important historiography and must include brief
>bibliographies.
>
>Proposals that promise illustrative material, such as photographs,
>artwork, tables or graphs, or other figures, will receive special
>consideration. Contributors will be required to obtain written
>permission to reproduce the illustrative material.
>
>Submit a 1-2 page proposal, including entry title, approximate length in
>words, abstract, and brief bibliography, with contact information
>including a professional title, institutional affiliation, degrees,
>snail-mail, e-mail, and telephone. Prospective contributors should list
>all publications of their own related to the topic of the entry.
>Proposals via e-mail are welcome but must be in the body of the message,
>not attachments. Deadline: Jan. 3, 2000.
>
>Send proposals to:
>
>Elizabeth F. Shores, M.A.P.H.
>Shores Research and Editorial Services
>3303 Shenandoah Valley Dr.
>Little Rock, AR 72212
>e-mail: efshores[at]aristotle.net
>tel: 501-686-8394
>
>Prospective contributors will receive guidelines for manuscripts and
>delivery upon acceptance of their proposals.
>
>About the Editors: Joseph M. Hawes, Ph.D., is professor of history at
>the University of Memphis and author of The Children's Rights Movement;
>A History of Advocacy and Protection (Twayne, 1991). Elizabeth F.
>Shores, M.A.P.H., is an independent historian and author of several
>books on early childhood education, as well as scholarly articles on the
>history of education in Arkansas. She was editor of the journal
>Dimensions of Early Childhood in 1990-1995.
>
>
>The Family in the United States, Colonial Times to the Present
>
>Entry List
>
>Lengths:
>
>Long = 4,000 words
>Medium = 2,000 words
>Short = 1,000 words
>Brief = 300 words
>
>abortion [long]
>adolescence, changes in [long]
>adoption (interracial; international; closed; private) [long]
>adultery [medium]
>affection as a basis for marriage [short]
>African-American families, demographics of [long]
>after-school care [brief]
>Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) [short]
>Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) [long]
>AIDS [medium]
>alimony [brief]
>American Family Association [brief]
>anorexia nervosa [brief]
>apprenticeship [medium]
>Asian-American families [long]
>athletics in family life, organized [long]
>Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder [brief]
>
>baby boom [medium]
>Baby M [short]
>babysitter as occupation for adults, teenagers [short]
>Banns [short]
>biracial couples [medium]
>birth order, theories of [brief]
>blended families [brief]
>breast-feeding [medium]
>bulimia [brief]
>Burgess, Ernest W. [brief]
>businesses, family-owned [medium]
>
>Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure
>[brief]
>caregivers, adult children as [short]
>Catholic Church and family life [medium]
>celibacy [short]
>child advocacy [medium]
>Child Health Improvement and Protection Act of 1968 [brief]
>child abuse [long]
>child care [long]
>child development, understanding of [long]
>child welfare policy (including state-sponsored adoption) [long]
>childbirth, medical practices related to [long]
>Children of God [brief]
>Children's Bureau, U.S. [medium]
>Children's Defense Fund [medium]
>chores in family life, role of [short]
>Clinton, Hillary Rodham [short]
>common-law marriages [short]
>communes, families in [medium]
>companionate family [short]
>complex marriage [short]
>contraception [long]
>Cooperative Extension Service [brief]
>courtship [medium]
>cults, families in [medium]
>custody, child [long]
>customs, family [long]
>
>Davis, Katherine B. [brief]
>Decoration Day [brief]
>delinquency [brief]
>demograpics of the family [long]
>disabilities and family life [long]
>discipline [medium]
>divorce [long]
>drug abuse in families [long]
>
>early childhood education, history of [long]
>Earned Income Tax Credit [brief]
>educational achievement of parents [medium]
>Ellis, Havelock [brief]
>employment, maternal [medium]
>employment, paternal [medium]
>employment of children [long]
>Erikson, Erik [brief]
>eugenics [long]
>extended family [short]
>
>family as a political theme [long]
>family courts [medium]
>Family and Medical Leave Act [brief]
>family therapy [medium]
>family practice physicians [medium]
>farm families [medium]
>Father's Day [brief]
>Feminine Mystique [brief]
>fertilization, in vitro [medium]
>fertility drugs [medium]
>fiction, families in popular [medium]
>first-cousin marriage [brief]
>freedmen families [medium]
>Freud, Sigmund [brief]
>Funerals [medium]
>
>games in family life [medium]
>geneaology [medium]
>gerontology [brief]
>grandparents as caretakers [medium]
>grandparents in family life [long]
>Great Society [long]
>
>Hall, G. Stanley [brief]
>Head Start [long]
>higher education, access to [long]
>HIPPY (Home Instructional Program for Preschool Youth) [brief]
>Hispanic families [long]
>home economics [long]
>home schooling [long]
>homelessness [long]
>homosexual children [long]
>homosexual parents [long]
>Housing and Urban Development, Department of [brief]
>
>immunization [medium]
>infant mortality rate [medium]
>inheritance [short]
>
>Japanese-American families during World War II, internment of [medium]
>Jewish families [medium]
>juvenile justice [long]
>
>Key, Ellen [brief]
>kidnapping [medium]
>Kinsey, Alfred [brief]
>
>La Leche League [brief]
>latch-key kids [brief]
>Law, family [long]
>Little League [brief]
>Lynd, Helen [brief]
>Lynd, Robert [brief]
>
>marriage [long]
>marriage counseling [medium]
>maternal mortality [short]
>matriarchy [brief]
>matrilineal societies [brief]
>Medicaid [short]
>Medicare [short]
>military, families in [medium]
>minimum wage and its effects on families [medium]
>milk carton kids [brief]
>miscegenation [medium]
>Mother's Day [brief]
>movies, families in [medium]
>music, families in popular [medium]
>
>Native-American families [long]
>neighborhoods in family life [long]
>
>Oneida Community [brief]
>orphanages [long]
>
>PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) [brief]
>PTA (Parent Teacher Association) [brief]
>parenting education [medium]
>parental involvement in schools [long]
>parents movement for special education [medium]
>parents, children as [medium]
>parents, overprotective [short]
>Parsons, Talcott [brief]
>pastimes, family [long]
>paternity suits [short]
>patriarchy [brief]
>patrilineal societies [medium]
>pediatricians [long]
>pill, the [short]
>Planned Parenthood [brief]
>polio [medium]
>politics, family as an issue in [long]
>polygamy [medium]
>poverty [long]
>premarital sex [long]
>
>
>religion in family life [long]
>remarriage [medium]
>reunions, family [short]
>Richards, Ellen Swallow [brief]
>Roe v. Wade [short]
>Sanger, Margaret [brief]
>sex education [medium]
>sexual revolutions of the 1920s, 1950s, 1960s [medium]
>Shakers [short]
>Sheppard-Towner Act [brief]
>single-parent households [medium]
>Smith-Lever Act [brief]
>Social Security Act [medium]
>Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children [brief]
>step-parents [medium]
>Spock, Benjamin [long]
>suburbanization [medium]
>Supplemental Security Income [short]
>syphilis [short]
>
>teenaged pregnancy [long]
>
>urban renewal [brief]
>
>vacations, family [long]
>venereal disease [medium]
>virginity [brief]
>Watson, John B. [brief]
>weddings [medium]
>White House Conferences on Children, Families [long]

I am sure that Irish-Diaspora list members will know of young scholars
whose work might be eligible for these awards. I can think of a
number...

P.O'S.

------- Forwarded message follows -------
> ABC-CLIO and the Association for the Bibliography of History are
> pleased to announce a series of awards for students' efforts in
> history bibliography. The official launch of the awards program will
> be at the AHA meeting in Chicago in January 2000 but ABC-CLIO would like
> to take this opportunity of letting the history community know in advance
> about this incentive for undergraduate research. The ABH Council and
> members of various H-Net communities have provided very helpful feedback
> on the earlier drafts of this proposal and ABC-CLIO would like to thank
> them for the insights they have provided. We also hope that these groups
> will help identify and recruit judges for the various award categories.
> We hope to find a wide variety of professors, reference librarians, and
> history bibliographers who would like to be judges. Since this is a new
> award program and needs a lot of publicity to ensure that there are a
> number of qualified entries, we will be promoting it throughout 2000. For
> further information on the contest or what is involved in being a judge,
> please contact Vicky Speck at ABC-CLIO at vspeck[at]abc-clio.com or talk with
> representatives from ABC-CLIO at the AHA meeting in Chicago. Thank you.
>
> ABH/ABC-CLIO STUDENT BIBLIOGRAPHY AWARDS
> RULES
>
>
> The purpose of these awards is to recognize the efforts of undergraduate
> students in historical research. The students are evaluated on the quality
> and quantity of their research and their use of traditional and
> nontraditional sources. ABC-CLIO will post the winning bibliographies on
> one of its websites.
>
> The awards are $250 to the winning student and $250 to the student's
> professor in the following 12 categories:
> 1) U.S./Canadian history to 1775
> 2) U.S./Canadian history 1776-1876
> 3) U.S./Canadian history 1877-1945
> 4) U.S./Canadian history 1946-
> 5) Europe west of Russia 1450-1914
> 6) Europe west of Russia 1915-
> 7) Russian history
> 8) Latin American/Caribbean history
> 9) African and Middle Eastern history
> 10) Central and East Asian history/Australia/Pacific Rim
> 11) Gender history
> 12) Military/diplomatic and international history
>
> 1. The paper must be the work of a student who was an undergraduate at
> the time (during the 2000/2001 academic years) the paper was written.
> There is no requirement that the student be a declared history major. The
> entry form and the paper must be submitted between January 15, 2001, and
> March 1, 2001. The paper itself must have been completed after February
> 1, 2000. A paper can only be submitted in one category.
>
> 2. The entry form will be on an ABC-CLIO website and can be submitted
> electronically or in hard copy. An entry form can be submitted by either
> the student or the professor on behalf of the student.
>
> 3. The entry form must contain a thesis statement or introductory
> paragraph of the student's paper.
>
> 4. Electronic submission of the entry form and a copy of the paper is
> preferred but hard copy is acceptable.
>
> 5. The student's bibliography must contain a minimum of 20 sources but
> not more than 200. Variety in the types of sources is encouraged.
>
> 6. The judges within a category have the right to not award a prize if
> they feel that no entry exhibited a sufficient level of undergraduate
> history scholarship.
>
> 7. Judges are excluded from the evaluation process for papers that are
> submitted for consideration by their own students. We hope to publish a
> list of judges for each category by Fall 2000.
>
> 8. The criteria that the bibliography will be judged on include:
>
> A. How well does the bibliography support the thesis statement
> of the paper?
>
> B. How comprehensively does the bibliography address the most
> important current debates in the field?
>
> C. What is the balance among types of material? These may
> include primary and secondary sources, monographs, journal articles, and
> audio or video tapes.
>
> D. Does the bibliography include references to both traditional
> and electronic publications?
>*********************************************************
>This announcement has been posted by H-ANNOUNCE,
>a service of H-Net, Michigan State University.
>
>For an archive of announcements and information about how
>to post, visit: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/announce
>*********************************************************

- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/

Personal Fax National 0870 0521605
Fax International +44 870 0521605

Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Interdisciplinary Human Studies
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England

From Patrick O'Sullivan



There was a query a little while ago about the Atlantic Passenger lists -
and we wondered if there was now anything on the Web that might be helpful.

A good place to start is the Web site of the Immigrant Ship Transcribers'
Guild...
http://istg.rootsweb.com
Note that the ISTG is hosted by the very useful Rootsweb.

The volunteers of the Guild have so far transcribed and displayed at that
Web site - in a searchable form - the full passenger lists of 2000 ships,
mostly from the second part of the nineteenth century. There is a fair
sprinkling of ships leaving Irish ports, and a fair sprinkling of Irish
names in other ships. I am not sure that much can be done with the ISTG's
work at this stage - I will leave it to the methodologists to have a look.
But it is certainly a start, and an interesting start.

Just as interesting are the links from the ISTG Web site, which very quickly
take you to information about most - if not all - of the Atlantic Passenger
list archives, up and down the east coast of North America. And to the
debates about their usefulness as a research source.

P.O'S.

- - --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/

Personal Fax National 0870 0521605
Fax International +44 870 0521605

Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Interdisciplinary Human Studies
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England

From: "Brian McGinn"

Subject: Uncherished Diaspora


An excerpt from "Silent Night", Kathy Sheridan's commentary on the state of
Ireland at century's end. Full text can be found in THE IRISH TIMES,
FEATURES, December 24, 1999

BEGIN:
The absence of visionaries has never been more acutely felt. Apart from the
planting of oak trees (at a smattering of locations which can only dilute
the impact and symbolism), what do our millennium plans say about the
Irish? That we have as much vision and imagination as Mister Magoo? That,
if God is good, that useless spike will never see the light of day? That
maybe the fact that the projects are so short-lived is a blessing?

A true visionary would never have countenanced something as feebly literal
as chucking a candle in the post for millennium's last light. He or she
would surely have inspired us to fetch our own candle by articulating the
metaphor, filling us with the symbolism of the act. True visionaries would
somehow find a language to inspire; new, unfamiliar words and deeds to
express the new challenges facing the smooth, swaggering New Ireland.

Remember the hilarity surrounding Mary Robinson's "Diaspora" speech to the
Oireachtas? "D'ye take a couple of them diasporas with a glass of water,"
joked one of the comatose deputies, in an attempt to convey how hilariously
out of touch she was with the popular vocabulary. But what Irish person now
does not understand the "diaspora", does not know it to be a meaningful
description to the Irish scattering?
END

From Patrick O'Sullivan

I thought that the members of the Irish-Diaspora list would like to see the
following Millennium Message from Mary McAleese, President of the Republic
of Ireland...

P.O'S.


- -----Original Message-----

MILLENNIUM MESSAGE

Is mór an chúis áthais dom sonas agus séan a ghuí oraibh go léir ar ócáid
na Míleaoise Nua.

It is a great joy to share with you this very special moment in history as
we celebrate a new beginning, a new Millennium.

At no other time in our history have we been able to look to the future
with such confidence, hope and optimism. There is pride in our new-found
self-confidence, our culture of achievement. A country which in living
memory knew levels of widespread poverty reminiscent of the Third World, is
now celebrated as an economic miracle, an example for others to follow.
This generation has seen the turn of history?s tide, has seen the old
shadows lift. We have been witnesses to the dawn of peace in Northern
Ireland. A new generation now has the chance to build much healthier and
happier relationships among those who share this island and between these
islands. With our rich cultural and spiritual heritage, today?s cultural
vibrancy, our membership of the European Union, our legendary missionary
and peace-keeping endeavour, we have made an impact on the world far above
what might be expected from a small island nation. Around the world the
huge global Irish family joins us in looking at this new Ireland with
gratitude and respect.

So many achievements, that only a decade ago still seemed impossibly
idealistic, have now come to pass. We need no other proof that miracles can
and do happen.

But miracles do not happen by chance. Our miracles have come about because
ordinary, sometimes extraordinary, individuals looked at the world around
them, at what needed to be done, and they used their talents and energy to
make it happen. They countered the counsel of despair, the cynical voices
which drain us of energy and imagination. They gave a country belief in
itself and a record of achievement to spur us on to more.

Now our prosperity gives us choices and opportunities that previous
generations could only have dreamed of. From those who have been given
much, much is expected in return. And there is still so much to be done.
This is a society which believes passionately in the equality of each human
being. It is a society which has all around it living proof of the enormous
benefits of widening the embrace of opportunity. Yet many in our community
still endure life on the margins, watching as today?s successful Ireland
passes them by. Beyond our shores, the reality for millions is that of
hunger, disease, destitution and the abuse of human rights.

We now have the means and the opportunity to make of Ireland, the best, the
most egalitarian society it has ever been, to fulfill the hopes and
ambitions of all those who have long dreamed of such an Ireland. There is a
lot of wisdom in the old Irish saying: ?Ní neart go cur le chéile?. What we
can accomplish together is extraordinary . But any partnership starts with
a collection of individuals. It relies on the spirit of generosity that
lies in the human heart, on the extent to which each of us engages with the
needs around us, and works to bring about a difference.

Two thousand years ago, the man whose birth we celebrate in this Jubilee
year, worked miracles. As we celebrate this new Millennium, a blessed
generation has the chance to create miracles of its own.

END