-
Author Biography
Editors: J. J. LEE is Director of Glucksman Ireland House NYU where he has also been Glucksman Professor of Irish Studies and Professor of History since 2002. He has taught in Ireland, Britain, continental Europe, and the United States and is the author of numerous books, articles, and reviews, including the prize-winning Ireland, 1912-1985: Politics and Society (Dublin, 1989), now in its eleventh reprint; Miriam Nyhan Grey is Associate Director of Glucksman Ireland House NYU where she is also Director of Graduate Studies for the Masters in Irish and Irish-American Studies. A graduate of University College Cork (NUI) and the European University Institute, she has been largely based at New York University since 2006.
Description
During the Easter of 1916, in the middle of the war in Europe, a rebellion took place in Ireland that sowed the seeds for the establishment of an Irish state independent of Britain. A seminal event in Irish history - the equivalent of America's 4 July - the Easter Rising had significant implications for other imperial relationships. By invoking the spirit of her 2.3 million 'exiled children in America', the rebels in Dublin proclaimed a new Republic one of whose role-models was the United States of America. As the Allies increasingly sought American support, Anglo-American relations were pressed on the Irish question and on Britain's role in determining the fate of her small nation neighbour. Renowned historian J. J. Lee has observed, 'No America, no New York, no Easter Rising. Simple as that.' Ireland's Allies: America and the 1916 Easter Rising interrogates that assertion by placing the Rising in a transnational and transatlantic setting, thereby making a new contribution to the historiography of modem Ireland, to our understanding of ethnic allegiances in neutral America, and to the mechanics of revolutionary networks and diaspora nationalism.Irish cultural and political nationalists had worked assiduously for years to mobilise American opinion against the British presence in Ireland.Indeed, the United States of America provided an important post-colonial republican model and the Irish were cognisant of that revolutionary legacy. Twenty-four scholars, from a variety of disciplines and including a foreword by Joe Lee, excavate the ways in which the United States was a critical theatre of war in Ireland's journey towards independence. It is the first work to assess the range and depth of American interest in self- government for Ireland in the two decades preceding the Rising and the first to contextualise the actions and motives of hitherto overlooked American-based individuals and organisations that made up a dynamic nationalist landscape abroad.
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Contributors
List of Illustrations
J. J. Lee
- Foreword
Miriam Nyhan Grey
- Introduction
Terry Golway
- John Devoy and the Easter Rising
Francis M. Carroll
- The Collapse of Home Rule and the United Irish League of America, 1910-18
- The Centre Did Not Hold
Gerard MacAtasney
- Tom Clarke's New York
- A Refuge (1880) and a Home (1889-1907)
Judith E. Campbell
- The Bold Fenian Wife
- Mary Jane O'Donovan Rossa
Miriam Nyhan Grey
- Dr Gertrude B. Kelly and the Founding of New York's Cumann na mban
Lucy McDiarmid
- Casement, New York, and the Easter Rising
Maura Anand, Andrew Hicks, and R. Bryan Willits
- The Man in Philadelphia
- Joseph mcgarrity and 1914
Maura Anand
- 'St. Enda's Is Now Only Part of a Bigger Thing ...'
- Padraig Pearse's American Interlude
Emmet O'Connor
- 'Big Jim' Larkin, the United States and the Easter Rising
Michael Doorley
- Judge Cohalan and American Involvement in the Easter Rising
Marion R. Casey
- Victor Herbert, Nationalism, and Musical Expression
R. Bryan Willits
- The Stereopticon
- German and Irish Propaganda of the Deed and the Word and the 1916 Easter Rising
Una Ni Bhroimeil
- An American Opinion
- John Quinn and the Easter Rising
Patrick M. Sweeney
- 'Bursts of Impassioned Eloquence'
- William Bourke Cockran, American Intervention, and the Easter Rising
Mary C. Kelly
- The Hand of Friendship
- Protestants, Irish Americans and 1916-Era Nationalism
Nicholas M. Wolf
- The Irish-Language Community in New York on the Eve of the Easter Rising
John T. Ridge
- The Irish County Associations in New York and the Easter Rising
Robert Schmuhl
- Bifocalism of US Press Coverage
- The Easter Rising and Irish America
Kate Feighery
- Timely and Substantial Relief
- New York's Cardinal John Farley and the Easter Rising
Thomas J. Rowland
- The American Catholic Press and the Easter Rising
Marion R. Casey and Ed Shevlin
- An American in Dublin
- John Kilgallon's Rising
Daphne Dyer Wolf
- James Connolly's 'Good End'
- The Irish Relief Fund Bazaar Poster
Patricia Keefe Durso
- The Other Narrative of 'Sisterhood' in 1916
- Irish and Irish- American Suffragists
David Brundage
- The Easter Rising and New York's Anticolonial Nationalists
Notes
Index.
'Ireland’s Allies presents varied perspectives on the Easter Rising and how it was
understood and re-evaluated by the inhabitants of New York City in the aftermath
of General John Maxwell’s order to execute its leaders. The collection complements
the wide-ranging literature which emerged in Ireland during the centenary year,
incorporating a small number of New York City’s Irish community influencers. This
book provides an interesting discussion on ideas of state and community neutrality in
the time of war, and the decision of contributors to use short biographical pieces, to
explore themes of identity, networks, and transnationalism, also makes this collection
a useful body of work for scholars of ethnic identity formation and Irish nationalism.'
Sophie Cooper
Australasian Journal of Irish Studies
2017
You can read the full review here
‘A welcome feature is the focus on women and especially Mary Jane O’Donovan Rossa, the “Bold Fenian Wife”, and Gertrude Kelly, the chapter on whom by the editor provides a very insightful account of the founding of Cumann na mBan … A word should be said for how beautifully produced this volume is by UCD Press … [The book supplies] ample evidence of the ongoing vibrancy of research on many aspects of the rebellion.’
Dr Marie Coleman, Journal of American Studies, May 2017
You can read the full review here
‘In the opening paragraph of his foreword to this lavishly produced volume, Professor J.J. Lee ponders how historians should approach the Easter Rising of 1916 … what is perhaps most engaging about the essays in their totality is how they make us think and rethink Ireland’s relationship to America. This polished tome … will stand as one of the most well-appointed productions of 2016 … it will be consulted for years to come by undergraduates drawn to the aura that surrounds Ireland’s romantic revolutionary tradition. It should prove attractive to a mainstream audience seeking an informed view of a defining moment of modern Irish history.’
Irish History Review, 29 March 2017
You can read the full review here
‘The book arises out of a conference held at Glucksman Ireland House in April 2016 to mark the centenary of the Easter Rising. The editor, Miriam Nyhan Grey, and the publisher, UCD Press, are to be commended on getting the volume out in record time – and for producing such a handsome volume … One of the strengths of the volume is that the chapters are linked by cross-references as appropriate, so that the volume has an overall coherence that is rarely found in essay collections. Another noteworthy feature is the well-chosen illustrations.’
Felix M. Larkin, The Irish Catholic, March 2017
You can read the full review here
‘This book is an invaluable resource for anyone looking to learn more about Americans’ relationship to the Rising and offers a sweeping platform for scholars and amateur historians alike to drive into further research.’
Irish America, February/March 2017
You can read the full review here
‘All readers seeking an in depth knowledge and as a reference book, with regard to America and the Easter Rising 1916, this volume is recommended reading.’
An Costantóir, February 2017
You can read the full review here
‘truly excellent book … There are 24 chapters, each taking a different aspect of the American connection with the Easter Rising in 1916. The endnotes run to over 100 pages and the sources cited will be a treasure trove for a generation of scholars and lay readers alike … this book will be a standard reference book for many years to come.’
Frank MacGabhann, The Irish Times, 21 January 2017
You can read the full review here
‘One hundred years after the 1916 Easter Rising, a remarkable new book explores the American contribution, and more precisely the New York contribution, to that revolutionary Irish turning points … In this handsomely produced and elegantly edited new study, 25 prominent scholars examine the ways in which the US served as both an inspiration and example in Ireland’s halting path to independence … An instant classic, it belongs in every home as a foundational text in the story of the Rising.’
Irish Voice, 14 December 2016
You can read the full review here
Twitter: @UCDPress