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A coil of serpents (JEWEL SAMAD/AFP via Getty Images)
Irish Americans are used to hearing certain stories from our elders about the diaspora and the glorious cause of the Republic. Back in the day, we’re told, the barrels in the back of every pub from Boston to the Bronx to Buffalo to Butte, Montana overflowed with rifles and pistols and munitions of all calibres to be stamped and mailed to patriot cousins in Belfast and Limerick. Every Irish American bricklayer, patrolman, coal miner, domestic servant, prostitute, and politician was Thomas Jefferson in Paris: absent from the Revolution, yes, but loyally doing his duty across the Atlantic.
You can’t help but love the way an old-timer in a white aran sweater and houndstooth flat cap tells it. You want to believe in the solidarity of the diaspora. But if what he says is true, the Irish would not have just won their independence; we’d control India, Australia, and, God forbid, Canada.
Instead, what we got was the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, signed 100 years ago this week. The treaty promised Ireland self-government under British dominion, as well as an exit plan for the Ulsterman in the counties to the north. With peace restored after centuries of violence, the Irish, naturally, decided to have another war. The victorious rebels now found themselves fighting the IRA and Éamon de Valera, who rejected the treaty as being too favourable to the British.
The provisional government, led by Michael Collins and the subsequent Irish Free State, turned their attention to an important front in the civil war: the United States. The Government lacked diplomatic recognition under the terms of the treaty, but its mission was not to wrangle support in Washington, DC; it was to convince the Irish Americans who had financed and armed Irish revolutionary forces to rally behind the treaty.
Two years earlier, the American-born de Valera had arrived in the United States as a stowaway on the SS Lapland, having just escaped from prison in England. Once ashore, the self-proclaimed president of the Irish Republic raised the equivalent of $70 million for the revolution in a coast-to-coast barnstorming tour, which drew disapproval from American elites. The grandees of Washington may have thought it uncouth to welcome a phantom dignitary from a non-existent country, but local and state politicians knew they would be whipped from office if they ignored the visit.
Babe Ruth’s Boston Red Sox drew 15,000 fans to its 1918 World Series victory, the club’s last championship for nearly a century. Nine months later, 50,000 people packed the same stadium to witness de Valera speak, flanked on the podium by former Mayor James Michael Curley and every member of the city’s Democratic machine. The rapture from the crowd prompted invitations from the governors of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, as well as city leaders in Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco.
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SubscribeThere is no such creature as an “Irish American”. You are either Irish or you are American. It is time that America put its infantile identity politics to bed. I don’t run around calling myself “Anglo British”, claiming roots in Frisia, the glorious land of my forefathers.
For the record: Joe Biden is just another American.
There does seem to be an uptick of certain very-online people calling themselves Mercians and Northumbrians though.
Strangely enough not Wessexian so far (at least as far as I have heard).
Wessex girl born and bred!
I’m not sure you’ve understood. The question isn’t whether you think people should leave old allegiances behind the moment they get an American passport. The question is whether they actually do and it doesn’t surprise me that Hispanics now living in the USA still dream of their ancestral countries and Irish Americans fantasize about the Old Country. Human nature doesn’t work in the way you seem to want it to. And I’m not convinced that retaining a love for your old ancestral home comes under the modern and rather nasty heading of ‘identity politics’.
Just as in Poland. The “Polish Americans” are largely responsible for the success of the current PiS govt. Most of them follow the Trumpian homophobic anti abortion retoric. Yet most of them have never even been to Poland, and, yes, they can vote in Polish elections as long as the can keep their passports.
Do you disapprove on a matter of principle – i.e. no one should be able to vote in a country where they aren’t resident? – or would it be okay if they voted for the party of your choice?
The further from Rome, the deeper the beliefs in ways that mean european US residents can take up hardline positions affecting EU nations and their slide to wars that nationals still in Europe will then have to fight.
Interesting point, in that the very act of becoming an American citizen (as opposed to a “real” American) is usually a lie–as it requires an oath stating essentially that the new citizen hereby renounces all former loyalties. The language is a bit dated, but you get the idea. Therefore, everyone who makes this oath yet retains his former citizenship/s is lying. Look at Ghislaine–a citizen of France, the UK, and the US–though she offered to renounce France and the UK in order to make bail. Didn’t work.
As you might infer, I’m not in favor of dual (or multiple) citizenship. Oxymoronic.
I find the official definition of one’s nationality i.e. ‘I have an American passport, therefore I’m American’ remarkably ‘thin’. Can it really be the case that ancestry, history, genetic similarity, language, culture, cultural knowledge, allegiance in time of war, amount of time your family has resided there, your religion or lack of it, play no part at all? Isn’t it more likely that ‘nationality’ is a cluster concept with the more boxes ticked, the more American you are?
Remarkably thin? I find it insane! Birthright citizenship=birthright tourism! Advertised packages from Russia and China–surely other countries but these I know of–and word of mouth with the rest of the world. Pregnant invaders striving to get over the Southern border (Southern region, there is no border) to spawn. Incredible.
Even diplomats and royalty get into the act–look @ MM! I still implore UnHerd to do a piece on her citizenship–and that of her “royal” children. Of course I’d like to deport all of them. UK can have them!
‘UK can have them!’
Yeah, thanks a lot.
I occasionally console myself with the thought that in future American liberals and Beltway Conservatives will facepalm and say to themselves, ‘What on earth was I thinking? Was my brain hijacked by some kind of virus. I’m so sorry to have done this to you’. But of course that’s not going to happen since it would require some honesty. And even if it did happen tomorrow, it would already be 56 years too late.
Agree, 100%. I said as much to a UK friend who got US citizenship and she just shrugged “It’s just something you say, isn’t it?”, which shows how much value she places on citizenship of either country.
I understand very well. After half a dozen generations it’s time to give the land of my forefathers routine a rest. An I call it identity politics because that is exactly what it is.
How about one generation?
I was being generous to the plastic paddies (Always a mistake).
When you start talking with an American accent, then American is what you are.
This is probably anecdotal, but amusing nonetheless: A black Briton is referred to as a black Briton. A passing American objects loudly that he must be called African-American. Said black man points out, testily, that he has never been to Africa and that his grandparents were born in Jamaica.
Accent is picked up by the children of migrants pretty much automatically . The Isis 4 Beetles were so named because they sounded comically British to the US journalists they were holding captive .
But most of them are Scottish and not Irish and most of the Irish were from the upper classes who resented the lands reforms bought in by the British.
You’re fairly close. It’s more appropriate to refer to them as Ulster Scots, because that’s what they were. I’m someone born in the same tradition but still living in Ireland. Lots of ‘Irish’ Americans make the journey across the Atlantic to discover their Irish roots. They always land in Dublin, mostly to find that if they want to gaze upon the graves of their ancestors they’ll need to get the bus north. Ironically, they’ll find themselves standing in Presbyrterian graveyards among people who are fiercely British & Unionist.
If you are tempted to think this is a rarity, there’s actually a concession in immigration that legally permits such coach loads of Americans to travel north (still legally UK territory) without visa clearance. They all, without exception apply for an Irish, not a British, tourist visa.
Us locals generally have a laugh at their expense. In pre Covid times they aren’t scared to ‘splash the cash’ even on stuff that’s obviously twee or tat to the rest of us.
Shops in Donegal love them as they queue up to buy Arran jumpers at €100 each, blissfully unaware that they’re made in a factory from merino wool imported from Australia.
Need I say more.
The problem is that your ancestral home has moved on – for better or worse.
Having moved from Europe to the US, I’m constantly surprised by how much stock Americans put into their ethnic roots. They don’t seem proud to be simple Americans. Going off on a rather anecdotal tangent, I think the American work ethic is to blame. It makes for a pretty dull life for many and so I think that Americans are more prone to look to identity (sexuality, ethnicity, gender-rainbow) to make themselves seem more interesting.
You’re alluding to the America I remember from my childhood, not the America which is. That America was interested in its various ancestries, and ours – my family and our friends and acquaintances being White – were European. We were interested to learn about others’ forebears, might spend a few minutes of conversation if we discovered regional commonalities, and rarely mention it again.
Circa 1900, there were 10 or 12 daily Swedish newspapers published in the United States for Swedish immigrants in our Upper Midwest. I suspect other immigrated people had similar parochial journals. But we did a sane thing in 1925, curtailing immigration essentially for the next forty years. I remember our amazement in first grade when we discovered our new classmate was a little girl from France.
It is the current America which puts too large an amount of stock in its various ethnic roots. You read about someone described as an “Anglo Greek Syrian America” and any other combination you could imagine. ( Look at our Vice – President, as disheartening as it may be. ) It’s happening in correlation with the fractitiousness and tribalizing of our people into all sorts of categories, but the biggest reason, I think, is the all but uncontrolled immigration of the last 55 years.
I had a moment’s pleasant, routine, entirely civilized encounter with a young father and his two girls in a supermarket last night. The family were Middle Eastern, I noticed with vague interest, as we maneuvered our shopping carts past each other’s with smiles and little nods, but as I got beyond them, it occurred to me briefly that I’d had less pleasant encounters with other immigrants’ families: a hard to specify clannishness and lack of affability in them, even resentment.
It’s amazing things aren’t worse. The Democrats have made identity politics one of their mainstays, as people know. And I think as we become more more diverse, we’ll tend to become even more variously chauvinistic. The remarkable incidence of racial intermarriage in the United States will only increase its likelihood.
The British had most of a millennium to get used to one another before they welcomed the Third World to themselves.
Even in the 1990s you could find NORAID collection buckets in “Irish” bars in most US cities.
It was only after 9/11 that most Americans woke up to the idea that funding terrorists (even if you romantically called them “Freedom Fighters”) had real world consequences – and the donations fell to a trickle.
America’s ongoing faux-Oirish romanticism has implications that spill over into modern day politics, needlessly creating problems out of sheer ignorance. Irish Joe Biden, steeped in dreamy emerald-green nostalgia, badly needs a history and geography lesson, but given his supposedly “Irish roots” he no doubt thinks he already knows it – and thus blunders into the fray trying to exert pressure over the UK/EU’s Irish border negotiations. His total lack of understanding is only likely to embolden Republicans and EU negotiators against the UK Govt and Unionists, once again turning the border into a potential flashpoint for trouble.
All to true.
After years of funding Irish terrorists to bomb and murder in the UK it was hard not to see 9/11 as a bit of just deserts.
Also, it would have been amusing to the self-proclaimed defenders of human liberty, who contrived any pretext to decline to extradite suspected terrorist to the UK, go round the world kidnaping ant torturing on flimsiest of pretexts if it were not for the kidnapping and torturing. Land of the free and home of the brave my aRse.
Sir, I do hope your second paragraph is the fruit of a few moments’ suspension of decency. Just desserts? I’m doubtful that the explanation of corporate judgment has credibility outside of God’s dealings with Old Testament Israel.
No I meant what I said. It was not just the UK where the US fermented terrorism. The actions of the US in furtherance of its national interests lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide.
To paraphrase Bomber Harris, American foreign policy in the second half of the 20th Century was conducted under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb and terrorise everyone else, and nobody was going to do it to them them. In Vietnam, Cambodia, the UK, the Middle East and Central and South America, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and it was difficult see any justification for their shock and outrage when they reaped the whirlwind.
Biden’s recent blundering into a US air base in England to tongue wag us with Yeats quotes aimed at domestic “Irish” US votes, over NI border trade concerns, raises one option: move the runway to Shannon.
Hypocrites all.
I just feel that Eire threw off the British yoke to replace it with a Catholic Church yoke to then replace that with an EU yoke. What about being simply Irish folk.
Hard to throw of the EU when it just comes down to money. Per usual the EU bought the Irish off.
Not any more – we are net givers now. Highest percentage per capita in the EU.
Then now is the time to leave!
I appreciate that the majority in Ireland wish to remain in the EU, but changing from beneficiary to giver may eventually change some minds. Likewise, if it’s noticed that French and Spanish fishermen like to fish overmuch in Irish waters because their own have been fished out, more minds might start changing. It takes time. It took me 25 years to change from enthusiast to sceptic.
Well done. Long may it last. Although GDP is grossly inflated by financial transactions that mean nothing to the poor and favour SF. Also, in aggregate, contributions to the EU are small due to popn size – and with no real defence spending (formal uniformed, that is). Others paying taxes bear the costs of Irish “neutrality” or “open to all”.
For neutrality, read cowardice
All more or less true, although some of us still go to Mass. One or two even go to confession. Ireland is a midden, but middens eventually fertilize the ground. Something worthwhile may yet spring forth. (And for clarity, I am Irish, born, bred and living there. I get to slag the place off.)
Agreed.
I moved from the UK to the US to take up a job outside of Boston, Mass in the early 80’s. At the company where I worked there were collections for the IRA every pay day. The prevalent view of the conflict in Northern Ireland was very simplistic and considered it to be the equivalent of the American Revolution. IRA bombers were pictured as fighting for the freedom of the Irish people in the face of British oppression. The Protestants of NI simply didn’t exist in the prevailing narrative; it was Irish freedom fighters versus redcoats.
I found the situation quite ironic. Most people I met couldn’t find Ireland on a map and their image of Ireland came from a John Wayne movie.
I remember a time, when the “Troubles” were at their height, that I was in Bath for a long week-end and there was a middle-aged American couple staying in the same hotel as my husband and me. The man was reading a British newspaper and looked up aghast and said to his wife that there had been a bombing in NI and a child had been seriously injured. What I found interesting was her comment that it must have been the British army that did it; her husband said that it was reported that the IRA did it, to which she reply it must have been an accident then. At this point the man turned to me and asked if I had read the report and what I thought; I am slightly ashamed to say that I replied yes I had, but it happens all the time so it now had little effect on me. This surprised him, and he went on to say, in a horrified tone that a child, had been injured, to which I replied that children had been killed and added – killed by the IRA. His next comment was shocking to me – he said none of the newspapers he had ever read in the US said that the IRA had killed children. Now I’m sure some must, but none that he had read gave the truth about what was happening; rather disturbing. I think, but perhaps one of our US contributors can either confirm or deny this.
Were any of the contributors in the twin towers?
..
A common experience. Try LA.
Did you dare to refuse to contribute to the eh holes and state your reasons for your refusal?
No need. Accent sufficed (although more catholic “Irish” than most of them). What Americans never get before sponsoring terrorism is that most of us get on across these isles: many have mixed parentage/ancestry through 2-way border moves.
The author’s tone that seems to be praising the impoverished and backwards crypto-theocracy that De Valera promoted during the early years of the Free State and Republic is of course is exactly why those in Ulster were and are so reluctant to be roped into the business of an United Ireland in the first place.
Oh, be honest. The real reason was that Protestant identity in Ireland was all about domination of Catholics. If you couldn’t have that, there was just no point.
The only reason they were dominated is because they were tied to Rome that encouraged the Catholic peasantry to be poor, superstitious and lazy. Thus consequentially placing them in a position of economic subservience to the innovative and hardworking Protestant artisans, yeomen and business owners. It’s no coincidence only Belfast or Armargh has had any industry worth mentioning on the island, is it?
The same could be said of the famine and the refusal of the church to permit literacy, the spread of modern agricultural techniques and crop diversity. All of which would have been more useful than creating cults about supposed apparitions of the Virgin Mary. But by this point everyone has bought the Fenian lies about the British exporting wheat and deliberately starving Ireland, so why bother.
This is what we mean when we say protestantism is the antechamber of atheism.
Unlike Catholicism which is of course is the antecamber of paganism, satanism and child abuse. Merrily led by the corrupted, commie antichrist in Rome.
Paganism – the superstitious and craven veneration of saints and relics when Christian are supposed to believe in one God. Satanism – the belief in the human hierarchy of the church as the source of truth and not what all early Christians believed that the Word of God Himself in the bible was the source if truth. The last is self-evident. Antichrist because as Martin Luther pointed out the Pope by setting himself as a direct intermediary to Christ exactly fulfils the defintion set in the Book of Revelations.
A pre-Christian parasite on Christianity designed to infantalise and stupefy its devotees, which is of course why I am proud to remain a subject of the kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, where, at least traditionally, rationality, diligence, stoicism and morally rectitude prevailled over credulity, idleness, sentimentality and moral laxity.
On a concrete level: an example, which reveals much, I would refer to the Catholic Church’s war against grammar schools and academic selection as excellent examples of how it would rather the talents of bright boys were redirected to poverty and ignorance whereas only the right sort of Catholics receive a decent education.
Beginning to see why we don’t want them back, folks?
What’s the difference between a theocracy and a crypto-theocracy?
Look up the definition of the prefix “crypto” in the dictionary.
Ireland and Russia.
The Republic of Ireland is no longer the monolithic Catholic state it once was – for better or for worse. Many lament the passing of the ‘Isle of Saints and Scholars’ in the USA and in Ireland – a romanticised view if ever there was one, certainly.
Already, in 1913, Yeats’ turned the phrase: ‘Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave. Church going and charitable giving per capita is falling steadily in the last 30 years. And these days, we are busy destroying any vestige of respect for our heritage in our haste to burnish our post-modern credentials for the the EU/UN/WHO.
Our government and media desperately seek approval from the powers-that-be, it seems to me… So much for independence.
I’m an American, one of whose favorite books is the Flann O’Brien collection published under the title, “The Best of Myles.” ( The chapter, “The Brother,” is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read. ) Thank God for O’Brien. I’ve never been able to get beyond page 1/2 of “Ulysses.”
Irish-Americans are a pathetic lot, in my experience. Culturally-vacuous simps, desperate for substance so they attach themselves to some fiction as if it makes their lives more meaningful. “I’m 1/16th Irish” “Errr, okay… now can you get my drink please waiter?”
Like Joe Biden, who’s paternal ancestry is English, but he would never admit to that.
I find the article very our of touch with modern Irish thinking (in the few comments made on that). As to whether it is accurate in its Irish-American assertions I have no idea though I assume they are not homogeneous either and must vary from deluded to well informed?
It’s been a long time since Britain had a special relationship with the US (or Ireland). Such myths were put to bed even before US-sponsored NI terrorism, followed by Iraq and the financial crisis. Lingering links are transactional at best as the US heads down its ideological rabbit holes. Its phony tax-haven “Irish identity” smacks of a US wish to find misty-eyed solace beyond Oxy-consumerism, to side-step its brutal colonizing of the Americas alone post-1812 or to bask in Ireland’s hokey blameless purity when faced by its later history. We all need a comfort blanket at midnight: a green one will do. But it’s also a retro-white Narnia to hang on to, compared to bustling, polyglot England: the most diverse and forward-looking of these isles – to the horror of some in the so-called (but not) “Celtic” fringe.
Given its rates of Third World immigration, it can look forward to surpassing France, which seems to think its losing its Frenchness, and becoming the new Sweden, rape and gunshot murder capital of Europe.
We look forward to … looking forward. England overall isn’t doing too badly and it has managed change perhaps better than others, with less friction. You clearly have a dislike of our country as it is – but we find it OK.
Not dislike, apprehension.
Our population is forecast to reach circa 80m ( we don’t know the real total as illegal immigration is only guessed at around 70m by using footfall stats- the gov hasn’t a clue) by mid century in the most ecologically depleted country in Europe. We have a truly pathetic 8% forest- most of it commercial. Forget rewilding. London declined to 6m a decade ago and is now 8m. Those 2m all use resources. In the pandemic an item on a hospital. All lovely people- all immigrants treating… other immigrants. Mass (and it is mass) immigration is a GDP Ponzi Scheme that really is going to destroy efforts to go green.
On environmental carrying capacity (not really an Unherd topic and open to misuse to make points) there are more real risks ahead – notably popn density vs EU states and food security amid cc.
From reading this article I would deduce that the “Washington Free Beacon” is probably not highly prized as a journalistic source. If Mr McMorris is a senior editor one wonders if there are any junior ones, certainly this piece could have benifitted from editing.
The piece is entitled “The Problem with Irish Americans” though it is not clear whether they have problems or are causing them. This is a typical “Unherd” piece which posits the existence of something without proving it, but proceeding to explain why it is the case whether or not it is.
I would imagine that Irish Americans (a large and very disparate demographic) may be surprised to be told they have a problem. They have one of their number as President after all and while they are by no means all Democrats there is probably widespread enthusiasm for the fact, and they would probably be none the wiser for reading this article. There is, of course the usual cliches and stereotypes with an attempt to be funny (we should be grateful Mr McMorris doesn’t say “Top o the Morning to you Begorrah”)
Ireland, we should note, is a country that has made best use of what the EU gave it, in terms of infrastructure. The days when most Irish chidren would emigrate when they grew up are gone for the moment, there are now many more jobs and further education places for them to go for and training to get them there. The population is now reaching levels not seen since the 1850s before the baleful stewardship of the United Kingdom drained the life, money and people out of the land.
I recall during the Brexit process it was confidently stated that Ireland would be in a rush to leave the EU and rejoin the United Kingdom, made in the same vein as those who argued that Frau Merkel would be begging and pleading with us to sign trade deals and buy their cars, “they need us more than we need them” and “we hold all the important cards”. Ireland, in fact has found ways of getting stuff to mainland Europe without going through the UK and the Six Counties are in the Single Market and thus a step closer to unification with the Republic. Boris Johnson, when he made the suggestion of putting the border down the Irish Sea did not actually intend to keep this promise but he will find the EU, the Republic of Ireland and the US rather less easy to shake off than his creditors or his discarded women and children.
Not quite sure what the Paragraph with Mark Zuckenburg really adds to the piece though I know that sort of thing is de Rigeur on here sometimes.
As someone who frequently has to freight time-critical stuff from a base in Ireland to mainland Europe, I can say that we are back to using the “UK landbridge” almost all the time now as it’s simply quicker.
Yes, January was a sheetshow and yes, Cork to Roscoff capacity quadrupled, (but boats are still way slower than trucks) but moving things via the UK has got progressively better.
As you would expect – and all the more reason why Theresa May should have “got Brexit done” within two years of the referendum result, instead of wasting three years asking the EU for permission to leave, trying to get a “deal”, which led them to believe they had the upper hand.
It was like the Life of Brian scene, “How shall we F.O?” Painful. Get out, then negotiate (as we’re doing now, making progress all the time). Business can handle change but we can’t handle prolonged uncertainty.
The EU gave Ireland nothing: other net creditor nations paid for the infrastructure and other minor details such as western defence. Although Ireland presumably has nothing to fear on that front – because only others (UK) are so beastly enough to deserve what they get. The coy moral purity washes in Washington – but when that fades history suggests Ireland will run as happily with Russia or China.
Ireland’s neutrality in the face of evil Nazism and then refusal to help with the Battle for the Atlantic is shameful.
Ireland’s history is discussed here (links). Relations with England are perhaps at a permanent all time low now after its govt’s anti-Brexit tactics, pro-Corbynism and falling just short of inviting renewed terrorism (with tacit US support?).
Ireland’s Special Relationships: while US ambassador to London Jo Kennedy (yes IRA promoter Ted’s father) was worshipping at the shrine, Ireland’s ambassador to Germany was doing the same – later joining Goebbels’ Reich Propaganda Ministry after stopping jews escaping. Meanwhile, “Collaboration between the IRA and Abwehr during World War II ranged in intensity between 1937–1943 and ended permanently around 1944, when defeat of the Axis forces was seen as probable.”. (not before).
Why is there a UK-Ireland Common Travel Area (why not Poland?) as the EU seeks revenge, Sinn Fein prepares to take over (and good old Sally Rooney singles out Israel!)?
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/three-hatreds-drove-him-the-english-the-jews-and-de-valera-1.3083499
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/ireland-and-the-nazis-a-troubled-history-1.3076579
‘With peace restored after centuries of violence, the Irish, naturally, decided to have another war.’. May I ask you to explain what you mean by the use of the word ‘naturally’ here…?
My grandfather was in the Black and Tans and I am very proud of it as I make clear to every plastic Paddy I meet
Many of the Polish workers (they certainly weren’t all “labourers”) in Ireland have since moved back to Poland and the trickle will turn into a flood now that Ireland has given in to the EU and OECD’s combined attack on their competitive corporate tax rates.
There were of course, already shocks in that direction when the likes of Dell quite Limerick for Poland 12 years ago.
Many poles have stayed in the UK post- Brexit and they are most welcome: they bring a lot to our island, for which they fought bravely in WW2 (quite apart from pioneering Enigma and suffering the Katyn massacre). As usual, cynical US corporate habits of playing workers from both countries off against each other by factory purchases and transfers sour the well. UK-Poland citizens need to stick together as new threats arise east/west.