The Irish Americans
A History
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to basket failed.
Please try again later
Add to wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Remove from wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Adding to library failed
Please try again
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 Months Free
£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Offer ends on 15 July 2026 at 11:59 BST.
The Irish Americans
Narrated by:
Jay O'Connell
Buy Now for £21.99
-
Narrated by:
-
Jay O'Connell
-
By:
-
Jay P. Dolan
Jay Dolan of Notre Dame University is one of America's most acclaimed scholars of immigration and ethnic history. In The Irish Americans, he caps his decades of writing and teaching with this magisterial history of the Irish experience in the United States. Although more than 30 million Americans claim Irish ancestry, no other general account of Irish American history has been published since the 1960s. Dolan draws on his own original research and much other recent scholarship to weave an insightful, colorful narrative. He follows the Irish from their first arrival in the American colonies through the bleak days of the potato famine that brought millions of starving immigrants; the trials of ethnic prejudice and "No Irish Need Apply;" the rise of Irish political power and the heyday of Tammany politics; to the election of John F. Kennedy as president, a moment of triumph when an Irish American ascended to the highest office in the land.
Dolan evokes the ghastly ships crowded with men and women fleeing the potato blight; the vibrant life of Catholic parishes in cities like New York and Chicago; the world of machine politics, where ward bosses often held court in the local saloon. Rich in colorful detail, balanced in judgment, and the most comprehensive work of its kind yet published, The Irish Americans is a lasting achievement by a master historian that will become a must-have volume for any American with an interest in the Irish-American heritage.©2008 Jay P. Dolan (P)2026 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_c
Critic reviews
No matter how many times it is told, the story of these immigrants is awe-inspiring... Jay P. Dolan tells this familiar story with the care and consideration befitting someone holding the title of professor emeritus of history at the University of Notre Dame -- as Irish-American an institution as New York St. Patrick's Day Parade. Mr. Dolan is nothing like the Irish storyteller (seanchaí) of old whose imagination, as Yeats wrote, is always "running off to Tír na nÓg," the earthly paradise of Celtic mythology. He is judicious and accurate, unemotional and lucid.
Dolan doesn't whitewash history: he notes the ‘rogues' gallery of Irish politicians' and continuing pockets of Irish-American poverty. His writing is colorful and comprehensive with impeccable scholarship evident throughout.
Jay Dolan has written a superb history of the Irish in this country, both scholarly and popular. Indeed on publication it became the best available story of the Irish in America
No reviews yet