The United Irishmen and Abolition: A Transnational Investigation

FAIN: FT-56528-09

David T. Brundage
Regents of the University of California, Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA 95064-1077)

The project focuses on an early and important strand of the history of Irish abolitionism, placed in a broad transnational context: the nature of the antislavery commitments of the United Irishmen, both in Ireland and in the United States, where many of them ended up following their defeat in the massive Irish rebellion of 1798. The study seeks to explain (1) the various transatlantic links that shaped the deep antislavery commitments of the organization; and (2) the causes for the widely divergent positions on slavery that the various United Irish exiles adopted over the course of their lives in the new American republic. The results of the research will take the form of a scholarly article and may also serve as the first section of a full (book-length) history of Irish abolitionism.

Media Coverage

Irish Nationalists in America: The Politics of Exile, 1798-1998 Review (Review)
Author(s): Chris Kissane
Publication: The Irish Times
Date: 6/18/2016
URL: http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/irish-nationalists-in-america-the-politics-of-exile-1798-1998-review-1.2689074

Associated Products

Irish Nationalists in America (The Politics of Exile, 1798-1998) (Book)
Title: Irish Nationalists in America (The Politics of Exile, 1798-1998)
Author: David Brundage
Abstract: David Brundage reveals not only how vital the Irish in United States were to the course of Irish nationalism, but also how their divisions and diversity defy the green monolith of “Irish America” often stereotyped on this side of the Atlantic. Many Irish discovered a deeper nationalism while adapting to their new lives and identity in the diverse but often intolerant American melting pot. It was a troubled relationship from the start: Wolfe Tone hated living in America (“a churlish, unsocial race, totally absorbed in making money”), while his wife Matilda – the unsung founding mother of Irish America – warned new arrivals to not “expatriate” themselves. Yet exile, “the nursery of nationality”, was permanent for millions, and Brundage argues that we should see Irish nationalism in the US not just as a source of practical support for the struggle at home, but also as an “imaginative” endeavour, one which created and developed identities and ideas in a transatlantic dynamic of Irish nationalism.
Year: 2016
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780195331776
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

---