Reviews (5)

A Good Book, and a Great Gift Item
Overall a very good book and a very scholarly work. The book's Introduction provides us a brief insight into O'Donnell's motive for embarking on this work:

This book ... is my answer to a question I've heard countless times in the past: Where can I find a book about the history of the Irish in America that is both accurate and accessible? My goal has been to write just such a book --- a fun yet factual look at the people and events that have marked Irish American history. I've brought to this task an inclusive approach that recognizes that Irish Americans always been characterized by an extraordinary diversity --- from religion to politics to class and identity. My inclusive approach has likewise led me to chronicle not simply the triumphs of Irish Americans, but also their failures.

I feel that in 1001 THINGS ..., O'Donnell met his goal!

I'm a regular reader of O'Donnell's weekly Hibernian Chronicle column in the Irish Echo. So his "easy to read and understand" writing style comes as no surprise to me. But the other user friendly features are: A sensible organization of 10 chapters; about 175 illustration or photographs; numbered entries, and a good index. Indeed the book is "accurate and accessible," and provides a handy reference to answer questions. Not only questions raised by others, but also questions that arise in one's mind while reading news accounts, books, watching films, etc.

I always rely on reading to reduce the ardors of travel. I001 THINGS ... is a perfect travel book. The individually numbered entries, in a flexible paperback book, are very compatible with "stop and go" reading in an airport terminal or in flight --- particularly in the 'hurry up and wait" environment of these post 9-11 days.

And the price? I purchased several copies because the price is reasonable, and it makes a great gift item. I generally trust my judgement. If I enjoy a book, the recipient of my gift probably will too.

I've read many reviews of 1001 THINGS ... All have been favorable. Overall I share that assessment.

But I'm a little disappointed about the omission of some notables.

The McCourts --- Frank, Malachy, and one or two other brothers we have yet to hear from --- are not mentioned. I first thought that perhaps O"Donnell only included personages no longer with us. But this doesn't appear to be the case. Live personages such as Michael Flatley, Jean Butler, The Berrigan brothers, and Ted Kennedy make the pages of 1000 THINGS ...

Then there is the omission of General O'Reilly, the second Spanish Governor of Louisiana. Yes, I was surprised too. Spain also ruled Louisiana. And a man with the decidedly Hispanic-Hibernian name of Alejandro O'Reilly was the second Spanish Governor of Louisiana. Indeed an interesting career in politics in the new world, for a descendant of a "Wild Geese" family.

The most unfortunate omission is the Healy family. In the early 1800s, Michael Healy, an Irish-born Georgia planter, purchased Mary Eliza, a mixed-race slave. Laws during the slavery era prohibited interracial marriages, but Michael and Mary Eliza carried out their family life as husband and wife. Their union produced 10 children. Three brothers entered the priesthood ---

James Healy was the first black American to be ordained a Roman Catholic priest. He later became Bishop of Portland Maine (certainly another first), where he provided distinguished leadership in pastoral work, education, social advocacy, and public welfare.

Sherwood Healy reportedly received a doctorate in Canon Law from the North American College in Rome in 1860.

Patrick Healy was ordained as a Jesuit priest, going on to serve as Georgetown University's prefect of studies from 1868 to 1878, and its president from 1873 to 1881 ---- the first African-American president of a predominantly white university. Healy Hall, one of Georgetown's major buildings is named in his honor.

Unlike his brothers, Michael Healy did not embark on an ecclesiastical career. He ultimately joined the US Revenue Service, the forerunner of today's US Coast Guard. He mostly served in the waters of Alaska, attaining the rank of Captain and the Commanding Officer of the BEAR. The Coast Guard icebreaker, HEALY, is named in his honor.

We know little of the remaining Healy children except that three of the girls became nuns, with one of them attaining the rank of Mother Superior of her order.

Indeed the Healys were a distinguished Irish - American family.

Aside from the omissions, 1001 THINGS ... is still a good book. I hope that O'Donnell will address the omissions with a future sequel to 1001 THINGS. Perhaps a suitable title might be ANOTHER 1001 THINGS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT IRISH AMERICAN HISTORY. In the meantime, I'll keep distributing the current version as suitable gifts to friends.

A lively, concise surveys of Irish-American experiences
Irish immigrants have played central roles in defining the American character and identity, sharing their history and resources for generations. 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American Historys provides lively, concise surveys of Irish-American experiences, including both ancient Irish history and religion to modern surveys of Irish lives. A historical timeline format by topic allows readers quick and easy access to Irish facts, biographies of notable figures, and events.

Reviews (1)

reporting the facts
This book needed a better editor. Professor Kenny is allowed to repeat himself constantly. In his introduction he apologizes in advance for the number of statistics that he will present in the book. He then proceeds to provide a moderate number of statistics three or four times, sometimes in subsequent paragraphs. This is merely mildly irritating.

A more irritating habit of the author's is to provide a selection of analyses of a particular historical or cultural question and then provide a very lame summary or feint at providing his own analysis without writing anything of substance. For example, he brings up the question of "Why do the Irish have such an alcohol problem?", sketches out various other scholars' theories about this cultural phenomenon, "straightens out" some misunderstandings (e.g., they don't drink more, they drink differently (!?)) and you finish the section having no idea why alcholism is prevalent in Irish culture.

Professor Kenny is fine at reporting the facts (especially if you need to be told more than once). I finished this book knowing a great deal more about the "what" and the "where" of Irish Americana, but very little more about the "why". Aside from these basic complaints I would say that this is a book worth reading. Kenny arranges his book chronologically, beginning in the 18th century, well before the Famine diaspora. He makes an explicit effort to explain the relationship between largely "Scotch-Irish" immigrants from Ulster of the 18th and earliest 19th century and later largely Catholic immigrants from Munster and Connacht. The Ulster people had been in Ireland less than 200 years before they uprooted themselves and moved on; their identification with Ireland was considerably weaker than that of emigrants from Munster and Connacht. The appellation "Scotch-Irish" was invented in the US by the Ulster people in order to distinguish themselves from the famine Irish, who were altogether more destitute, culturally distinct (different folkways), not to mention Catholic.

Editorial Review

For more than 800 years, Ireland has had to define itself politically in relation to its next-door neighbor and sometime occupier, England. That fact has fueled generations of Irish revolutionary activity--and given rise to countless heroes, ordinary men and women who suffered and died in the cause of freedom.

Editorial Review

Reviews (6)

How So Many Irish Became American
Emigrants and Exiles:Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America is a well documented history of the emigration of more than seven million Irish people who left Eire for North America in five time periods from pre-Revolutionary days to 1921.Author Kerby Miller's research included more than 750 sources in both public and privately held collections in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, Canada, 20 U.S. states and the District of Columbia as well as more than 5,000 emigrants' letters,memoirs, poems, songs and folklore.

Miller begins and ends the book with recollections of Irish oral tradition to help understand the essence of the Irish emigration experience. He refers to Irish poems, songs and ballads from as early as the 11th century to explain an almost original sin-like belief that all Irish are exiles whether they emigrated or not. He explains how the Irish wake became a metaphor for the departure of the emigrants. In the last moments before Maura O'Sullivan left her mother's cottage to begin her journey to America, the old women of the village gathered `round to sing a mournful goodbye that just as easily could have been a funeral dirge:"Oh, musha, Maura, how shall I live after you when the long winter's night will be here and you not coming to the door nor your laughter to be heard!"

By the 1830s, less than 10,000 families literally owned Ireland, with several hundred of the wealthiest proprietors and large tenants monopolizing the bulk of the land.The Irish Diaspora flowed from an extreme concentration of property and power in an agrarian, export-based economy where too many people competed for too few jobs.In 1841, 80 percent of the more than 8.1 million Irish lived in communities of less than 20 houses.Most people were forced to lead lives of impoverished subsistence agriculture, poorly paid urban common labor or to emigrate.

Miller says Irish country people were "preliterate;" that is, they were illiterate while preserving a rich oral tradition and robust cultural heritage through their Gaelic language.Gaelic tradition had been sustained in Ireland by hereditary storytellers and poets who met in "courts of poetry" at farmhouses where established bards judged the compositions of their successors.Hundreds of thousands of Gaelic speakers emigrated to North America.

Music and dancing also played a prominent role in rural Irish culture from whence most emigrants came.Miller says visitors were often astonished that people so poor could exhibit such skill and spontaneous pleasure in song and dance.He quotes a traveling Englishman who observed, "We frog-blooded English dance as if the practice were not congenial to us, but here they moved as if dancing had been the business of their lives."

Prior to 1815, most Irish emigrants either were able to pay their passages or "emigrated for nothing" as indentured servants.After that, overseas demand for indentured servants practically disappeared while opportunities to earn livable wages in Ireland continued to deteriorate.A pattern of family chain migration developed that financed over half of all Irish migration after 1840.

In 1845, Ireland's population was about 8.5 million.Ten years later, after the worst of the Famine, it stood at 6 million.Many had died from starvation and disease, but most had emigrated to North America.Those who arrived in North America were temperamentally as well as economically less prepared for assimilation into their new lives abroad because of their strong peasant heritage.One Irish emigrant wrote, "Had I fallen from the clouds amongst this people, I could not feel more isolated, more bewildered."Another wrote, "We are a primitive people wandering wildly in a strange land ..."

Miller tells us at least 200,000 Irishmen served in the U.S. Civil War, the vast majority for the Union, which paid lucrative bounties to many recruits. He shares a letter from emigrant Thomas McManus to his family in Ireland in which Thomas assured them he wasn't forced to enlist, but "by `Gor' the bounty was very tempting and I enlisted the first day I came here."Thomas sent $350 of the $700 he received for joining up to help his family in Ireland. $700 was more than ten years' wages for an Irish laborer at the time.

Irish-Catholic immigrants brought their own factions, secret societies, sports and boisterous wakes to their neighborhoods and work sites in North America.Vicious battles over employment opportunities and territory were common among rival bands of workers from different parts of Ireland, as well as between the Irish and workers of other nationalities.The Irish were always sensitive to anti-Irish prejudice, symbolized by the "No Irish Need Apply" slogan, the source of which apparently was a song from England.Irish clannishness was often expressed in allegiance to strong-willed, often stridently Irish priests, to Irish street gangs, volunteer fire companies, political clubs and frequent mob actions against non-Irish competitors.The St. Patrick's Day observance was celebrated to extol Irish Catholic solidarity and build political strength.

This is not to say Irish Catholic immigrants were unified.On the contrary, Miller shows how they were deeply divided in several ways.Significant differences existed between Irish- and American-born generations, between different waves of emigrants in different stages of adaptation and affluence and between those who earned formal educational credentials and those who pursued trades and manual labor.Other factions arose between the English-speaking majority and the approximately half-million who still spoke Irish.Gender equality was also a prevalent issue between Irish men and women.In fact, Miller reports Irish-American women enjoyed significantly greater upward mobility and more successful adjustment to American society than did their male peers.

Kerby Miller's work is unquestionably a rich treasure of outstanding historical scholarship.It should occupy prime space on the shelf of anyone interested in emigration generally or the histories of the United States, Canada, Australia, England and any other country in which Irish emigrants have settled.

Pretty thorough look at the Irish Diaspora
An excellent book covering the migration out of Ireland.Miller looks at the different time periods and at the different kinds of immigration, and traces the idea of emigration as "exile."Great background materials are included, as well as good statistical appendices and notes.

Reviews (13)

"Now ,don't go getting above buttermilk."

I've not heard the above saying before,but knew immediately exactly what it meant.This book is an excellent review of what it means to be Irish and what Irish,and particularly Catholic Irish is all about.
There are over 50 million scattered around the world who claim Irish ancestory;and by no means are they all alike.
"Almost anything you can say about Irish Americans is both true and false."
Dezell's discussion about CWASP's, Catholic/Celtic White Anglo Saxon Protestants,is a bit different ,but right on the mark.
The book is loaded with one-liners or epigrams.Here are a few to get your curiosity:

"No point being Irish unless you think that the world is going to break your heart someday."

"As is often the case, conventional wisdom is wrong."

"Irish blood doesn't water down very well,the strain must be strong."

"God gives us no more than we can bear."Rose Kennedy

"There is no race of people for which pychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever ." Sigmund Freud

"If you're feeling something,for Gods's sake take something."

"If I'm Irish and I lose my arm,someone is going to tell me,'it's a good thing I didn't lose them both."

A great read for anyone interested in Irish culture ,be it in Ireland,America or even here in Canada.

Oh, It's So True!
I'm a Jew from New York, married to someone from South Boston. One of my familys closest friends (now regrettably desceased) came to the US from Belfast at the age of 10. Maureen Dezell has great interviews and made me laugh because I can see all of what she is talking about. I also have friends in Toastmasters from Ireland, and look forward to visiting in 2004. Then I can see the other side of Maureen Dezell's book. The book can be read in a quiet evening. Think of a deep psychological tome, only very readable and funny.
Her description of Michael Flatley and Riverdance keeps popping up.
No, I wont tell you. Read the book!

looking over a four-leaf clover
A lot of the reviewers here have remarked how surprised they were to see themselves and their families in Maureen Dezell's synoptic view of Irish culture in "America" (including Canada?).I have to join these reviewers in saying what a revelation this book was to me.There is Irish blood on both sides of my family and I am also somewhat active in the local Irish-American community, so I see a lot of the type of behavior that she describes, particularly the cheerful bleakness in outlook ("It could all go wrong tomorrow, but we'll be all right ... probably.") and the careful "chopping down of the tall wheat" (as I am told the Australians say).

When I was growing up we thought of the Italians members of the extended family as having discernible "culture" and it was tacitly assumed that the Irish relatives were just "normal Americans"; Ms. Dezell points out that this is the general condition in Irish America.It is not so much that the Irish are ashamed of their heritage (although sometimes they are), but more that they don't see any reason to make a big deal about it most of the time, so each generation takes more and more of the family character for granted.The Irish have a tendency to stick together in neighborhoods and in social organizations, and I can testify to the fact that they seem to unconsciously gravitate toward one another in a crowd, drawn together by their shared suspicion about putting on airs or taking an occasion too seriously.These reasons, and their enormous numbers, enable them to forget that they are in fact a distinct ethnic group.

Reviews (3)

So Many Names, So Much History!!
This encyclopedia is a wonderful source of information that is delightfully synthesized into one volume.The beauty of this book is that it acts as a source of historical information and provides hours of leisure entertainment in one volume.From Bing Crosby to Eamon De Valera, the Irish American relationship is well embraced and honored wonderfully.With reference to the Irish influence in virtually every state, this book provides a unique look at the history of these hard-working and successful immigrants.A must have in any Irish-American household.

Reliable Information - NOT!
I purchased this book as a researcher to assist me in my work and serve as a tool to both speed-up processes and use as a source to back-up my findings. One would imagine that the publishers would have provided accurate information. I found several errors in the information provided which demonstrates a lack of research and sloppiness in proofing of material contained within it.For instance; Judy Garland (a well known Irish American with very public information) is listed as the granddaughter of a FITZGERALD she was a FITZPATRICK ( big difference when you are using the information for research and genealogy and want a reliable source document for footnotes or bibliographies! the errors can result in un-substantiated work and wrong information. There are other errors less obvious but are too numerous to list. In short, this book was a waste of money and time on my part being of no help at all. I question all the data contained in it. The publisher has not provided a correction of the page as requested by me.

Editorial Review

Though long ago bulldozed away and remade, the rough-and-tumble lower Manhattan district called Five Points was once considered to be so representative of New York that foreign journalists traveled there to gather horrifying stories for their readers. Wrote a Swedish reporter, "lower than to the Five Points it is not possible for human nature to sink."

In his wide-ranging reconstruction of Five Points's few square blocks, historian Tyler Anbinder shows that that journalist was not far off the mark. "Dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of its residents lived in windowless, teeming apartments that were unfit for habitation," he writes. Alcoholism, violence, and prostitution were commonplace. Poverty was epidemic, and living conditions were so intolerable that the reforming sociologist Jacob Riis used the area as a case study for the wretched excesses of urban life. A corrupt city government kept the police at bay, making the neighborhood safe for a succession of crime lords but woefully dangerous for residents--most of whom, in time, would be newcomers from Ireland, Italy, Russia, and other faraway lands, as well as African Americans newly arrived from the South. "Locked into the lowest-paying occupations," as Anbinder writes, they labored, saved, and eventually moved on, making room for the next wave of immigrants.

Reviews (1)

Reviews (5)

Feisty Flag Waver Teaches Us Much About Ireland's Image
IRISH ON THE INSIDE is a fast-paced, entertaining and lucid look by long-time activist Tom Hayden at the history of the Irish immigrant image and the role of the Irish in American politics/business as well as an excellent survey of the seemingly unsolvable schism between Northern Ireland and the country of Ireland as a whole.

Hayden is somewhat of a fanatic in his style of writing and that only adds a tasty morsel of Irish to the flavor!He is out to challenge misconceptions of the Irish image (drunken, wild living, fighting, wife beating, lower class citizens) that is a welcome addition to the literature.Though the numerous famous writers, playwrights, and poets from Ireland have tended to play up the Irish wild side, Hayden looks at history and fact and seeks to prove that though the Irish have definite life ties to their mother country no matter where they emigrate, their contribution to global welfare is a positive.

Hayden spends a lot of this book giving us insight into the history of the longstanding political fighting in Northern Ireland and does so in a manner that is more illuminating than most essayists.But it is Hayden's feisty commitment to restructuring the worldview of the Irish people that is the most heartwarming and entertaining aspects to this bubbly book. A worthy read, this, no matter what your previous opinions of Tom Hayden's own political career might be!

Great work of nonfiction
I just finished reading Dan Sheehan's novel Irish American Hero. I wanted to learn more about Northern Ireland and picked up a copy of Irish On the Inside. It is a great book and I'd suggest that people pair up the two books to get a real feel for what has been going on in Northern Ireland!

Reviews (1)

A Must for Your Coffee Table!
If you are of Irish descent (and are proud of it) and live in America, you should own and proudly dislay a copy of this book.It is a beautiful pictoral presentation of how the Irish immigrated, integrated, and adjusted to life in this country.

By a quirk of fate I can be found in the two page picture of the Murphy family reunion of 1988 on pages 188 and 189.

Reviews (24)

Enlightening and easy to read
I don't understand some of the negative critiques listed by other readers (or who I presume read the book, it's hard to tell). I recently read the book and heard a speech by Mr. Ignatiev and the label of "racist" doesn't apply. Pointing out how 'whiteness' became a major part of the Irish-American identity and a method of securing a better place for themselves in America vis-à-vis free Blacks and slaves, he introduces a very useful analytical tool for looking at labor, politics, and immigration in the U.S. The hardships of the Irish aren't glossed over and neither are the consequences of their support of slavery and race-based politics - a choice that many other groups have seemingly made in coming to the United States.

Most importantly, this book helps us to see how much we take for granted the social construction of ‘whiteness.’ The reviewer who commented that the Irish were already white might not have paid close attention to the history of Catholic Irish in Ireland (especially Ulster). They were treated as a distinct race and this oppression is depicted concisely, but effectively, in "How the Irish Became White."

Overall, it is a well-written history book that promotes serious thinking.

Why shoot the messenger?
Wow. When the best argument your reviewers can come up with for disliking your book are "[the author] is a Jew" and "blacks weren't discriminated against [even at the time covered in the book, during which black people could legally be bought and sold in the South, disenfranchised and barred from most jobs in the North; apparently being legally defined as property doesn't qualify as discrimination], the Irish just worked harder," you know you've struck a nerve.

As a Canadian of Scots-Irish ancestry, I found this book fascinating. The history of the Irish in Canada is a bit different from the history of the American Irish; overall I'd say it's less painful. This book shed a lot of light on issues that I didn't expect it to touch, like black-white relations, abolitionism, and the contrast between the antebellum North and South (now I understand a little better why Southerners say they have been unfairly demonized; the Philadelphia and Boston described in the book were hardly freemen's paradise).

When the author says he wants to get rid of the "white race," he doesn't mean that he wants to get rid of white PEOPLE; he means that he wants to get rid of the category, "white," which is neither traditional nor especially meaningful. (I note that the reviewer below refers to the pale-skinned author of the book as "a Jew" rather than as "white" - demonstrating the author's point about race quite handily. "White" clearly refers to something beyond skin colour.) What the author is trying to point out is that blacks were enslaved before the theory of white supremacy came about; people with white skin (in this case the Irish) were not necessarily treated or regarded as "white" automatically; white isn't just a colour, it's a social position that the Irish had to struggle very hard to get, and which was more or less defined by separation from the people who could NOT get that position no matter how hard they tried, i.e. blacks.

I do not see this book as an attempt to smear or blame the Irish.It's not really about the Irish so much as it's a study of American immigration and assimilation to racial ideals, using the Irish as an example.Others could tell and have told similar stories about the Italians, the Jews, etc.In an atmosphere of scarcity, disorder, and brutal competition, people do what they need to do to get by. When there is an upper class and an underclass, people will do their damnedest to get into the upper class, or at least not to fall in with the underclass - this is a matter of survival as well as pride. It's sad to read about disadvantaged people fighting over scraps; it would be nicer to read that blacks and poor immigrants had banded together to fight for freedom, more rights, better pay and working conditions, etc. - but if this is not what happened, it's not Noel Ignatiev's fault, is it?

I would have liked to see a few more chapters - the book ends rather abruptly around the time of Reconstruction, and clearly the assimilation of the Irish into "white" society was not finished at that point. I also think a few of the earlier chapters are a bit unfocussed, but I may just need to re-read.

Editorial Review

The Booker Prize-winningSchindler's List (on which Steven Spielberg based his Oscar-winning film) demonstrated that Thomas Keneally could make history as compelling as any novel. His latest book, The Great Shame, expands upon the achievement of his earlier fiction. This is more than just the story of the Keneally family tree, transported from Ireland to Australia in the 19th-century. It is the story of how Irish men and women came to be dispersed all over the world, and what they made of their lives in their new homes. It is the epic history of a whole people.

Reviews (9)

Full consideration of a complex historical event
Kenny digs into the broader social and historical forces that operated in the Irish coal miners and the community in which they found themselves. The events under review are themselves shocking. Like the 9/11 attacks, they seem almost incomprehensible because of their violence and the drama surrounding the events. The Molly Maguries were more than simple killers -- the women's clothing, for example, is a clue that something beyond a simple murder. Kenny gives his explanation of WHY events unfolded as they did.
Kenny has a scholarly point to make and academic readers will be rewarded with Kenny's solid analysis. This is a serious work on a serious subject. It is well worth a bit of intellectual effort. It also makes a fine addition to the reading list of an upper level undergraduate or graduate history course. However, the general reader with an interest in Irish-American history, labor history, and/or European immigrant history will also find this book interesting and informative.

Kenny really did his homework
His explanation of the beginning of the union and the people it involved was very clear.There were a lot of details on the exploitation of mineworkers of that era. This is a one the best on the subject.

Reviews (11)

The message is what matters?
I make no apologies for the structural defects of this book, nor do I mean to suggest they should be ignored. They deserve criticism. Grammatical errors and poor editing are never welcome, however with History a factualmistake or contradiction is at best never acceptable, and at its worst cancause credibility to be questioned. I still recommend this book as theerrors do not negate the events that took place, and as frustrating as theymay be, they do not detract from the horror that was The Famine, nor theconduct of those involved. That the book did not gain a wider audience,possibly because of these faults is sad.

Ireland has been fertile groundfor reprehensible behavior by England for over 700 years. Ireland too, attimes has committed acts of violence via a variety of Catholic andProtestant groups. The dead, wounded, and the mutilated are all that eitherside has gained. The hatred exists to this day, and while violence has beencalmer of late, a great period of time must pass before memories fade andforgiveness is accepted for apologies offered.

Prior to the ships in thisbook becoming "Famine Ships" many plied another trade as "Slave Ships", itis true that there were structural changes made, but beyond a certain pointconditions become inhuman, period. The Potato Blight is often the only, orthe primary reason given for the mass immigration that devastated theisland. The truth is always more complex, it is no different here.

Whilestarvation was rampant the food that was available, food grown right therenext to those that were starving was exported to England. The EnglishLandowners often paid for the cost of passage on these ships where so manydied. These ships did carry the victims of Famine like they had carried thevictims of slavery before. Transportation was almost secondary, how can itbe anything else when conditions are created that are deadly by definition.It was cheaper to pay for transit than keep people alive on their ancestralland. And if they left they no longer had any use for land, so it wasbought and accumulated by the same individuals that often paid for itsowner's permanent eviction.

Ireland today is experiencing the return ofsome of the descendants of those that made that terrifying crossing. As anation it has become one of the most prosperous in Europe by many economicstandards, but that is not enough. Tolerance is not good enough, nor areplans of peace that neither party believes in their heart to be fair. Itwould be pleasant to site examples of hatred hardened by centuries of painthat have been put aside and new beginnings made. Perhaps the newfoundeconomic health will help the process, perhaps not.

I hope for those wholive there, be they Catholic or Protestant, that a way is found in acomparatively brief span of time to pause, heal, for apologies to be made,and accepted.

One book badly in need of an editor
This may be the most disorganized book I have ever read, and it contains numerous factual errors to boot, a kiss of death for a supposed history book.The vignettes come at you with no apparent thought about how oneinter-relates with another.It is just a jumbled mess of repetitiousincidents randomly presented.A simple solution would have been to buildeach chapter around a port of emigration.As for factual errors, how aboutthe Titanic sailing on its maiden voyage from New York City.Or, on onepage you are told a ship sank but most of its 200 passengers survived.Onthe next page you are told that most died.And there is no furtherexplanation or clarification given.Dates of events are given as one yearin the book, and pages later as another year.The book is published byreputable Henry Holt.Boy, they were totally asleep on this one.Even ifthere are some interesting facts given, how can you trust them in the faceof all the errors.If you like watching movies to find the mistakes - likePlane 9 From Outer Space -- then this book is for you.All otherpotential readers, beware.

Reviews (2)

Excellent piece of history
This unknown history at it's finest. The reseach was outstanding done by Stevens. It's the perfect match adventure and history this did really occur as hard as it is to believe. If your interested in Irish/Australian/American History it is a must read.

Keelhaul the nautical proof reader!!!!!
I have read this book with a mixture of interest and annoyance.I was interested in a part of Irish history that I had not read about previously. The author has managed to compile a quantity of factual documentation on this subject.

My annoyance arises from two main areas;

1.His �factional� way of writing.Interspersing historical documents with the attributed thoughts and actions of his subjects. While I agree that it is the authors choice how he tells the story, his stereotypical approach of �Cruel Britannia� versus the �Noble Irish� gets a little tiresome after a while.Irish history (like most history) varies considerably depending on who does the telling. The �Irish Question� is seldom black or white, a fact that has been discovered by several generations of US presidents.(I say this as an Irishman and a Nationalist).

2.An area where I am more qualified to comment is in his writing about the seagoing element of the story.If Mr. Stevens has a nautical proof reader he/she should be keelhauled.Some of the howlers are as follows;

Sailors raced up the ratlines to sheaf the ship�s sails (p. 52) �Sailors reef sails.

From the quarterdeck, a sailor called out �twelve bells� (p.71). � No, NO, NOOO, bells are rung (on a bell � duh), and the highest number is EIGHT.12 midnight is 8 BELLS.

� asked if he might see the ship�s chronometer and learn how one used its winding key to arrive at the ships position. (p.199)

AND

, took out his new chronometer, wound the key, and read --- ninety miles away (p. 232). � �Mother of the Devine!!!!!!!!!�� Mr. Stevens is mixing a Sextant with a Chronometer � A chronometer is a CLOCK.A sextant is used to measure angles � e.g. stars, sun, mountains etc.By combining an accurate CLOCK and a sextant angle of a heavenly body, using tables you can plot a ships position.

The first cry of �Ah!Blows!� rang out (p.220) � If a whaler cried out this he would be harpooned.The cry is �Thar she blows�

"greasy luck" was the standard whalers cry, not �greasy voyage�

Isbn: 0815605099
Sales Rank: 704380
Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Elements In The U.S. Population    3. Ethnic Cultures - General    4. Fiction    5. History    6. History - General History    7. Irish Americans    8. Minority Studies - Ethnic American    9. Rich people    10. Social History    11. Social life and customs    12. United States    13. United States - General    14. Upper class   

Reviews (22)

Fascinating for predictions about Benedict XVI too!
I put down this book the night before the papal election, exactly at the point where Morris discusses how Ratzinger actually put the rein on some of John Paul II's more forceful moves towards declaring statements blocking women's ordination as infallible; carefully nuanced exegesis by Morris reveals very subtle but nonetheless wiggle room for future movement away from some of the last pope's more dogmatic pronouncements. He fits this into a battle between cardinals and the episcopate promoting a collegial right to establish doctrine based on their accumulated experience as part of the Church's magisterium against the centralisation of papal power. This data which may indicate the new pope's ability to create flexibility despite what on surface may appear to the casual observer only more rigidity, buried inside a footnote on pg. 349, is typical of the wealth of detail--you must read the extensive endnotes as well as the text proper to appreciate how thorough has been the author's research--found in this popular yet scholarly treatment of the Church from about the mid-19 c to the late 1990s.

In retrospect, some of the concerns Morris finds diminishing in his 1997 study have only increased, such as the pedophilia (or more often adolescent boys rather than pre-teens with priests, Morris and many critics parse) scandals that grew more prominent rather than less so in the beginning of the current decade. Vocations appear to keep tumbling at least in the West; non-compliance with Catholic teaching by the rank-and-file grows in the American segment due to democratic tendencies constantly eroding the earlier, pre-assimilationist culture that codified American Catholicism mid-20 c. These tendencies, as Morris shows, created tension from the later 19 c onward, and the battles with Rome by the U.S. bishops are far from new. Also, the role of the Hispanic church seems, despite many references, to be diminished (perhaps reflecting an East Coast orientation naturally taken for the majority of the narrative). As a related correction, St Thomas the Apostle parish in L.A. is not on its Eastside--typical of Morris's scholarship, this was a rare mistake in an admirably solid resource that taught me an enormous amount about everything from John Stuart Mill's liberalism to moral theology to John Ireland's far-reaching impact upon the course of the national Church. However, I was disappointed to find that two sources that would've aided Morris' often moving depiction of life in the triumphal, dogmatic, and secure mid-20c decades were absent from his notes: Garry Wills' "Bare Ruined Choirs," and Jubilee Magazine, a forerunner of the liturgical and cultural renaissance that the post-Vatican II era either expanded or truncated.

When describing how Fulton Sheen lectured, how the old Mass flowed, or how theologians battle it out over birth control, Morris never loses sight of the telling quote to illuminate larger issues. His discussion of subsidiarity and how polarised opposites Dorothy Day and Fr Coughlin could argue from this same basis of natural law and social justice doctrine fascinated me! From the Irish famine to Americanist vs. separatist controversies, through the dispersal of urban ethnics into suburbia, the connection between sex and rural ethos in traditional Catholicism, to current dichotomies in various dioceses in a time of fewer priests and more lay people running parishes, Morris is excellent. He's fair to all sides, although he shows a bit of bias against the hardest right-wing and left-wing factions both. His model is one of adaptation without dilution, certainly a challenge for such a vast institution on the one hand suffering losses to not only non-practicing millions but evangelical sects, on the other struggling to avoid the fate of mainstream Protestantism, which has, according to Morris, seemingly lost its moral and cultural clout in today's nation. Although on the Americanist controversy and the labor movement in the mid 20c, he bogs down in too much detail, at other moments, as in his travels in late-20c American parishes, his mastery of minutiae to explain big issues winningly works well.

As he warns, the tug of secularism--whatever one's view on the current state of Catholicism--presents a warning to those who want the Church to adjust totally to its surroundings. He takes heed of the fate of Episcopalians--fewer in all of America than Catholics in Los Angeles: "Once a religion assimilates to the culture, it almost invariably diminishes into a social center or a low-cost therapy program." (411)

An excellent view of the Church in America
I greatly enjoyed this well-written history of American Catholicism. The earliest chapters, primarily about the influx of Irish immigrants (and the reasons behind it) were particularly fascinating.

However, this book primarily focuses on America from the Victorian age on. There is almost no discussion of Catholicism in the colonial period (the founding of Maryland, the denial of rights to Catholics, etc.), which I feel should have been included.

Outstanding and Objective Assessment of American Catholicism
This is the best book on American Catholicism I have ever read. It objectively looks at the good, bad and ugly in a way few have ever done. There's a lot of warts in this book, but there also is wonderful anecdotes about our shared Catholic faith and how it evolved into what it is today!

This book told me as much about who I was, where I come from and where I am going as a Catholic as anything I've ever read. I could not put the book down and read it over and over again for the sheer joy of reading. I'm afraid I might have missed something.

The story about Dennis Cardinal Dougherty, Philadelphia's long-time Archbishop, was worth the price of admission alone. The author's story about how Cardinal Doughtery dealt with racial prejudice was compelling as was the anecdotes about the Cardinal's ego, his need to curry favor with ROme and his eccentricities. And the book provides a marvelous look at William Cardinal O'Connell of Boston, alias "Gangplank Bill," for his wintering in warm tropical locales. You sometimes wonder when the next Martin Luther would evolve after reading some of this story.

But this is just part of the story.

The assessment this book brings to contemporary conservative Catholicism was eye-opening. Those who are liberal Catholics might gag at what the book describes as happening in Lincoln, NE, but the story is real and the results quantified and quite positive. The book has considerable advice for the future and talks glowingly of how some Bishops due what we in corporate America have done for years, evaluate priestly sermons, rate them and recommend ways to better reach congregants.

Reviews (2)

An Excellent Book
I grew up in Boston in the 40's and 50's, Roxbury actually.I left in 1959 when I was 19.I view it as having escaped.The neighborhood was virtually all Irish Catholic.

My parents, while not active in party politics were very politically conscious.There political philosophy was quite simple.Roosevelt's Democrats walked on water; the Republicans were for the rich and against the poor (we, of course, were poor).To this day, over 43 years after leaving their house, I have a bit of trouble pulling the lever for a Republican candidate.

As I grew older I realized that their philosophy, which was generally shared by all in the neighborhood, created problems such as complacency and corruption.In our neighborhood the Boston police from Station # 9 made no effort to conceal what they were doing while they picked up their payoffs from the many bookie joints along Dudley Street.Whenever the state investigated a corrupt official or the very corrupt Boston Police Dept. my mother would say that it was just the Republicans taking their revenge on good Irish Catholics.Somehow she always knew that these good Irish Catholics went to mass every morning.The corruption and incompetence in front of her made no difference in her thinking.

Professor O'Connor's book helped me understand how my parents came to develop these political attitudes.Much of what he talked about still existed in the Boston Irish neighborhoods while I was growing up.I suspect to some extent it still does.I just finished reading "All Souls: A Family Story From Southie" by Michael Patrick McDonald.This is a very sad story which shows just how much the Irish Catholic's in South Boston have allowed their communities to degrade and allowed themselves to be snowed by their own Irish Catholic politicians.

If you have any interest in Boston political history or Irish American history you will love this book.I'm sure that the history of the Irish in Boston is similar to the Irish in most major US cities.

Reviews (1)