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Diasporan Intervention in International Affairs: Irish America as a Case Study

1991; Oxford University Press; Volume: 1; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/dsp.1991.0001

1911-1568

Paul Arthur,

Irish and British Studies

Diaspora 1:2 1991 Diasporan Intervention in International Affairs: Irish America as a Case Study Paul Arthur University of Ulster at Jordanstown, Northern Ireland This tiny island ofIreland has made, during thepast three centuries, agreater contribution to the character and development oftheAmerican people than any other territory ofcomparable size and population on the face of the earth. Arthur S. Link This examination of the contemporary influence of the Irish diaspora in the United States will not be a portrait ofthe Irish-American community; by its nature, a portrait would be static. Instead, I will place contemporary Irish America in context by examining the interaction between the domestic and foreign policy processes; in doing so, I follow Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan's assertion that the immigration process could be considered "the single most important determinant ofAmerican foreign policy" (qtd. in Mathias 979). In moving outside a narrow survey of Irish America , I hope to contribute to the literature on diaspora studies. According to the 1980 census—the first that enabled Americans to identify their ethnic origin or heritage group—43.7 million Americans (19% of the total population) identified themselves as Irish. That figure needs to be treated with some caution; it is best seen in the perspective provided by examining the spread of the Irish diaspora elsewhere. Britain has 13 million people of Irish descent; Canada, 5 million; Australia, almost 5 million (one-third of its population ); New Zealand, 700,000; and Argentina, 300,000. Ireland itself has a population of about 5 million (Kearney 25, n. 1). In such circumstances, it is not surprising that a myth has arisen about the political clout that Irish Americans possess. But several points need to be made about the 1980 statistics. The first is that no distinction is made between Irish Americans of Catholic and Protestant origin or, for that matter, between those who came originally from what is now called Northern Ireland and those from the Republic of Ireland. The distinction is important, since many perceive the Northern Ireland problem in terms of religious identity.1 143 Diaspora 1:2 1991 In the American context, the first great wave of Protestant emigrants to the United States—the "Ulster-Scots" or "Scotch-Irish"— arrived in the eighteenth century and helped to shape modern America through the Revolution. All told, 200,000 or more Ulster Presbyterians emigrated to America between 1700 and 1776; one authority has calculated that by 1790 perhaps one-half or more of the settlers on the trans-Appalachian frontier were ofUlster lineage and by the end of the century one-sixth ofthe total European population of the United States claimed Scotch-Irish descent (Quigley 74). By 1800 they were "integral parts of the American nation"; thereafter, "if any man left his impress on American life, he did it as the individual he was, not as a member of the Scotch-Irish community ." With limited exceptions, they seem to have lost "the kind of distinctive identity maintained by the Irish-American community" (Quigley 74). They were to pass President Woodrow Wilson's "infallible test" for the proper hyphenated American, namely, that while he might retain "ancient affections," nonetheless "when he votes or when he acts or when he fights his heart and thought are centered nowhere but in the emotions and the purposes and the policies ofthe United States" (qtd. in Mathias 977). Some would query whether the Catholic Irish emigrants might sail through the same test. They arrived in the United States in great numbers during the nineteenth century; some 3,873,104 between 1820 and 1900. Ireland's great famine of 1845-49 marks their huge exodus and the birth of Irish America. One million Irish died in the famine and another million emigrated, most to the United States. They set the tone of Irish-American ethnic activity. Moynihan has described them as "our first foreigners, the first perceived internal threat to the American way of life" (63). "Nothing before had so threatened the essential Englishness of our society. And the heart of it was religion, which Americans then considered the foundation of our political institutions" (62). These emigrants brought with them a strong sense of...