On Every Tide: The making and remaking of the Irish world

(Paperback)

Available Formats

---

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

On Every Tide is an immensely impressive, authoritative history of the Irish diaspora. Calling on thirty years of research, Sean Connolly broadens out the conventional stereotypes of the downtrodden masses fleeing oppression and starvation, and looks at the individual stories and local forces that propelled individuals and families and communities of Irish to come over to England, or cross the Atlantic, or go much further afield to South Africa, Australia and elsewhere.

Irish migration happened so far in advance of the other mass migrations from Europe, and in such great numbers, that they had dug in to the local economies, planted themselves at the centre of politics and policing, and stamped their identities indelibly on New York, Boston, Sydney and elsewhere before all those other nationalities turned up en masse. Inevitably they took with them all the divisions - religion, class, status - from their homeland and in many cases replicated them where they arrived. But alongside the export of street politics, sectarianism and militant trade unionism there are the energetic businessmen, famous public-spirited dynasties and generations of enfranchised women finding the kind of freedom they couldn't achieve in Ireland. It's a complex and fascinating picture, animated for us though a multitude of stories.

The book follows the story through the great nineteenth century famines and into the twentieth century, where the question of Irish emigrant identity becomes a lot more opaque: intermarriage and global travel and the mythologizing of Ireland lead to far more people claiming an Irish identity around the world than have actual roots there. The book plays directly into the wider debates about migration that are swirling around now, as well as offering a unique and distinctive view of 200 years of Irish history.

Reviews

A richly detailed, scholarly and challenging history of the Irish diaspora.... challenges conventional wisdom - and captures the emigrant struggle for power and prosperity * Sunday Times *
A brilliant and thorough account of a formative part of the Irish experience... [Connolly] brings to this, his first work of popular history, the same ability to describe his subjects in their own terms * Tablet *
An absorbing, lucid and sometimes harrowing account * Daily Telegraph *
A masterwork of Irish diaspora history and immigration studies * Kirkus *
Rich in detail and well researched, this is essential reading for understanding how the people of Ireland shaped the world * Belfast Telegraph *
'An impressive [...] feat of scholarship and research -- Andrew Lynch * Business Post *
One of the great migrations in history... Sean Connolly, an expert in the field, offers an accessible and impressively lucid overview * Literary Review *
Impressive, provocative and perception-tilting... This is an exhaustive, yet never exhausting, historical account of the multi-faceted story of the Irish diaspora... For Irish history buffs, it's indispensable * Irish Independent *
Stylish and lucid, this intrepid and provocative book traces in a manner at once bold and nuanced the movements of Irish migrants across space and time over the past two centuries. Sean Connolly is alert to the complex fate of victims, exploiters, soldiers of fortune or the merely footloose, who used the wide world to explore themselves. In his analysis, imaginative audacity is tempered only by sound scholarly scruple. A work of unprecedented synthesis which is magisterial and informed, yet whose challenge to conventional wisdom will generate animated debate for years to come. -- Declan Kiberd, University of Notre Dame
On Every Tide, is the first comprehensive history of the Irish diaspora from pre-famine times to the present. This remarkable book, which is both readable and scholarly, ranging from North America and Britain to South America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, highlights the diversity of the Irish diaspora: Protestant and Catholic, unionist and nationalist, and their different experiences in the places where they settled. -- Mary E. Daly, professor at University College Dublin
Connolly draws on an impressive array of primary evidence, including census records, personal testimonies, and popular fiction, without getting bogged down in statistics and minutiae... a seamless and well-rounded study * Publishers Weekly *
Wide-ranging... based on Sean Connolly's long-standing research and takes us from the grim realities of the famine years through to the present day... bringing the story full circle * Family Tree Magazine *
A provocative and at times audacious challenge to this [narrative], Connolly examines the complexity of Irish identity and reassesses the lived experience of Irish immigrants... He doesn't pull his punches * Irish Examiner *
Connolly employs extensive research to weave an engaging account of emigration from Ireland... an authoritative but accessible and illuminating read * Who Do You Think You Are Magazine *

Author Bio

Sean Connolly is professor of Irish history (emeritus) and visiting research fellow at the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen's University Belfast. He is the author of five books, including Contested Island and Divided Kingdom, and was general editor of The Oxford Companion to Irish History. Born in Dublin, he lives in Belfast.