Irish America [Paperback]

Few writers have asked how the notion of an Irish-American ethnic identity in contemporary America can be reconciled with five, six, or seven generations of intermarriage and assimilation over the last century and a half. This study, based on interviews with 500 people of Irish ancestry, aims to discover in what senses the present-day descendants of nineteenth-century Irish immigrants possess distinctive social practices and ways of seeing the world.

1. Prologue
2. Colonists and Immigrants
3. As Irish as any City in America
4. The Past in the Present
5. Over the Generations
6. Irish-Catholic-Democrat
7. The Importance of being Irish
8. The Wearing of the Green
9. A Socioscape of Irish America
Bibliography