IRISH ON THE INSIDE: In Search of the Soul of Irish-America

Hayden, a leading student activist in the 1960s and now a California state senator, writes about finding his Irish roots in a book that will have many Irish-Americans up in arms with its take-no-prisoners, leftist spin on Irish history. But he makes some very good cultural points. He speaks, for instance, of the "colonization of the mind" and how this affected the Irish under British rule and as immigrants in America, which largely started with the potato famine of the 1840s. Hayden's humor is mordant and dry as he takes on such "experts" on the Irish as former senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (who thought the Irish lacked intellectual curiosity), and former governor Pete Wilson of California, who boasted of his Irishness while running anti-immigrant ads. He speaks of growing up in an Irish-Catholic family which could have come out of a Eugene O'Neill drama; his admiration for John and Robert Kennedy, particularly the thoughtful, saturnine Bobby who emerged after the death of JFK. Hayden then goes on to report on everything Irish in America, from the Molly Maguires and the "forgotten" San Patricios, to the politics of the wild Fenian revolutionary, Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. He then gives his spin on the struggle in Northern Ireland and how it was sabotaged for years by such Irish-Catholic luminaries as Tip O'Neill, Ted Kennedy and former House Speaker Tom Foley. Some of his points will outrage the Irish establishment in this country, but Hayden makes a strong case for his leftist interpretation of Irish and Irish-America history.. (Oct. 25)