University of Rhode Island DigitalCommons@URI Open Access Dissertations 2017 Writing Irish America: Communal Memory and the Narrative of Nation in Diaspora Beth O'Leary Anish University of Rhode Island, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/oa_diss Recommended Citation Anish, Beth O'Leary, "Writing Irish America: Communal Memory and the Narrative of Nation in Diaspora" (2017). Open Access Dissertations. Paper 598. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/oa_diss/598 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WRITING IRISH AMERICA: COMMUNAL MEMORY AND THE NARRATIVE OF NATION IN DIASPORA BY BETH O’LEARY ANISH A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 2017 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DISSERTATION OF BETH O’LEARY ANISH APPROVED: Dissertation Committee: Major Professor Ryan Trimm Naomi Mandel Scott Molloy Nasser H. Zawia DEAN OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 2017 ABSTRACT In this project I trace Irish ethnic identity formation in the United States and the creation of the Irish-American narrative throughout the twentieth century as reflected in Irish-American life-writing—autobiographical or at least semi-autobiographical fiction and memoir—from just after World War II to the early 2000s. All of the works included in this study examine in some way the question of what it means to be Irish in America. The authors in this study collectively show how an Irish identity was given up in America and eventually pieced back together again. Some of the original elements remained, but others were forgotten, misunderstood, or invented. The Irish- American narrative tells of a rise from poverty and oppression to American comfort and respectability. There is pride in this rise, but there is also loss. I argue that symbol has replaced substance in popular representations of the Irish in America, and that imagination has been used to create an Irish-American identity that attempts to soothe the pain of what has been lost. To think through these works in terms of ethnic identity formation, I employ theories of home and nation, applying those concepts to a people in diaspora and how they see themselves in relation to two different homes, the one they left behind but that still informs their identity, and the one in which they live and raise their families. In the early twentieth century, the way Irish Americans see themselves against a dominant Anglo-Protestant culture can be traced back to the colonial setting they have left. For this reason I apply some tenets of postcolonial theory to this American literature of a displaced Irish population. This move from one homeland to another, especially when forced by poverty rather than a desire to leave, does not come without trauma. As such, I also employ theories of individual trauma and trauma as it is passed down the generations. The theory of ethnic identity formation as an ongoing process is also useful to understand how the Irish understand themselves in America. Finally, what makes it into a national or diasporic narrative has at least as much to do with what is forgotten as what is remembered in the name of presenting a unified whole. I use theories of cultural memory and forgetting to understand the fractured nature of the Irish-American story that is passed on, and the gaps and fissures found therein. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to thank Ryan Trimm for his guidance through this project. His suggestions for theoretical readings provide the underpinnings for much of the work I do related to postcolonialism, nation, home, and memory. I am thankful, too, that Naomi Mandel agreed to join my committee. She added the much-needed perspective of ethnic identity formation in the United States, as well as transgenerational trauma. Detailed feedback on my chapters from both Ryan and Naomi has led to a more focused and well-supported argument. To Scott Molloy for his expertise on Edward McSorley’s Our Own Kind, and the position of the Irish in America in the twentieth century, I also owe my gratitude. Finally, I could not have started this project without Eve Sterne’s reading list on Irish-American history. Thanks as well go to Michelle Caraccia for helping me navigate the dissertation process at URI. My education on Irish Studies has happened outside the bounds of any one university. I am forever grateful to Phil O’Leary, a mentor since my undergraduate days at Boston College, for still responding to my e-mails after all of these years, and for sharing his wisdom, humor, and vast knowledge. I came into this project with an idea on the symbolic nature of Irish-American identity at the end of the twentieth century, and the seemingly contradictory idea that Irish Americans still consider Ireland home. Both of those ideas came from Michael Patrick MacDonald’s memoirs of growing up in South Boston, so I am thankful for his writing and correspondence. Those ideas flourished in the presence of my colleagues in the American Conference for Irish Studies (ACIS), many of whom have become friends. Parts of all of these chapters were previewed and refined at ACIS conferences. Thanks go to Jim Rogers iv for his mentorship, and his suggestion that I look at Elizabeth Cullinan’s work. Chapter 3 would not have happened without Jim’s input. I cannot forget the brilliant group of ACIS women with whom I have been fortunate enough to surround myself: Mary Kelly, Eileen Moore Quinn, Kelly Matthews, Áine Greaney, Ellen Scheible, Meg Carroll, Jeanne Lakatos, Catherine Shannon, Suzanne Buckley, Rachel Lynch, Mary Burke, who first invited me to the New England ACIS conference at UConn, and most recently Celeste Ray. Their conversations, reading suggestions, many laughs, and constant support and encouragement have been invaluable. Constant support and encouragement has been a theme throughout my life, starting on day one from my parents Bob and Rita O’Leary. For my father education was second only to faith in his priorities for us growing up. Both he and my mother taught me what it means to be a life-long learner. Like them I will never be done learning, although I am glad to see this leg of the journey come to an end while my father is still “an earth creature” to witness it, as per his request. My mother, my greatest cheerleader and role model, may have had her speech limited recently but never her love. I have six living siblings and one guardian angel sister who have always shown me how proud they were of what I accomplished. They are all rooting for me still. The same goes for two friends who are like sisters, Michelle and Lynn. I am grateful to them all. Finally, to the little family I helped create, my husband Ron and our children Maura and Brendan, I need to express my deepest thanks for their patience while I undertook this project that so often took me away from them in mind and body. That they have been behind me the whole time means the world to me. v DEDICATION For Maura and Brendan, the next generation of my Irish-American story. vi PREFACE The Personal Becomes Academic: Grandpa O’Leary’s “O” and the Loss of Connection to Ireland This dissertation is the culmination of a lifelong interest and passion. I cannot recall a time when I was not somehow invested in my Irish ancestry and learning more about Ireland. My elementary school was Gates Lane, and our mascot was the Gators, making green our school color. That was a happy coincidence when I was able to get my first green Gates Lane jacket, the perfect outerwear for my home city of Worcester’s Saint Patrick’s Day parade. I wore that jacket to the parade as long as I could squeeze into it, always with my “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” button attached. I also recall a family tree project in my 5th grade Social Studies class when my Grandma Ferris was still around to ask about her ancestors. I gained attention from the teacher because I could trace both sides of my family back to Ireland. Few of my fellow students could go so far back. In high school my Advanced Placement English and U.S. History research projects on Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Irish contributions to the United States allowed me to begin my academic study of Ireland and Irish America. These were followed quickly by my enrollment as an undergraduate at Boston College because of the university’s Irish roots, and my subsequent passion for the Irish Studies courses offered there. Through all those years I never stopped to ask why my Irish heritage was so important to me. The questions of the fraught relationship between home and diaspora I am attempting to answer for the literature I have chosen here in this dissertation may just possibly answer some similar questions for me and for my family. vii A brief look back through four branches of my family shows just how diverse the experience of the Irish in America could be: from early arrivals of the 1820s who quickly established themselves and fought to establish their church, to later arrivals of the 1880s whose children thrived as Americans in their already-established communities, to that large wave of Famine immigrants in the middle who were looked down upon for their poverty and their non-Yankee ways, and whose specific roots in Ireland were lost to their desperate circumstances and the crush of trying to survive once they arrived here.