Description
Book SynopsisWINNER, Lawrence J. McCaffrey Prize for Books on Irish-America, given by The American Conference for Irish Studies
Follows a group of people exiled from Ireland after a failed rebellion and the role they had in the building of new nations and states
This book is about the Young Irelanders, a group of Irish nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century, who were responsible for a failed rebellion in Ireland during the Great Famine, who once exiled from Ireland, came to play formative roles in the fledgling democracies of Australia, Canada, and the United States. Christopher Morash illustrates how the Young Ireland generation developed particular philosophies of nationalism, democracy, citizenship, and minority rights in Ireland, which became an integral part of how they engaged with their adopted nations, where they came to occupy significant political and cultural roles.
Christopher Morash explores the stories and political trajectories of an acting-Governo
Trade Review
The most comprehensive account of the dispersal of the Young Ireland members away from their homeland . . . No other work synthesizes so effectively the experience and worldview of Young Ireland as well as the members’ legacies. -- Malcolm Campbell, the University of Auckland
“Young Ireland is a well-researched and timely study of Irish nationalism, politics, and ideas as seen through a trans-national lens. Morash weaves the post-1848 stories of the Young Ireland expatriates into the settler narratives of Canada, the United States, and Australia. In so doing, the book underscores the ironic twist in the careers of many Young Irelanders who had fought against British colonialism in Ireland, but who in exile emerged as leaders and agents of the colonial project in the British Empire, or as advocates of American Manifest Destiny. It is a provocative read indeed. -- Mark G. McGowan, St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto
Will make a significant contribution to scholarship in several distinct areas . . . The importance of the argument is clear, the research in both primary sources and secondary works is comprehensive, and the writing is lively and engaging. -- David Brundage, author of Irish Nationalists in America: The Politics of Exile, 1798–1998
Hitherto, most studies of Young Ireland have focused on the movement’s Irish activities during the 1840s and its impact on subsequent generations of Irish nationalists. Christopher Morash broadens the lens, and argues that the careers of many Young Ireland leaders had a greater impact in the countries where they wound up rather than in Ireland itself. Their legacy, he shows, was mixed: in the United States, Canada, and Australia they not only played a major part in nation building, but also perpetuated forms of settler colonialism that displaced and dispossessed Indigenous peoples. -- David A. Wilson, University of Toronto
Morash has produced a wide-ranging and beautifully written book. In it, he recovers the complex intellectual world of Ireland’s ‘1848’ and the lasting imprint Young Ireland left on not only Irish nationalism but also on a ‘globalized liberalism,’ and its many tensions and contradictions, that still define our world today. -- Patrick Griffin, Director, Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, University of Notre Dame
