Making the Irish American: History and Heritage of the Irish in the United States

This massive volume, copublished with Glucksman Ireland House at NYU, covers the Americanization of the Irish in 29 chapters. Eileen Reilly takes a comprehensive, albeit sanitized, look at the history of Ireland up to the present, covering everything from famine to the Good Friday accords. One thing that stands out is the remarkable misogynistic burden that Eamon DeValera's policies placed on Irish women (a married woman could not teach, and the government seemed to have a vested interest in her sexual habits, even through the 1980s). As the Irish inundated America during the Great Famine, we see them crawl up the ladder of success with the help of the "Ubiquitous Bridget," the indispensable Irish maids whose work spanned two centuries. Novelist Peter Quinn looks at "Irish progress from Paddies to Pats." The importance of labor unions in the rise of the Irish into the middle class is documented, as well as how, through battle in two world wars, the Irish finally earned their acceptance as nonhyphenated Americans, capped off by John F. Kennedy's election as president in 1960. This extremely thorough, thoughtful volume covers all the Irish bases up to the present. 70 illus. (Feb.)