Honors Thesis Submission Form Graduation Term: ______

(For Office Use Only) Major: _________________ Designation: ____________ Honors Thesis Submission Form Graduation Term: ________ Name _Helen Miney________________________________ UF ID _6418-8399_____________ Thesis Title _The Irish Emigrant: A Nation in Miniature__________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ Date _April 4, 2014___________________ Length _47_____ pages Bibliography Yes No Illustrated Yes No College _Liberal Arts & Sciences______________________________________________________ Thesis Advisor _Dr. Sheryl Kroen_____________________________________________________ Advisor’s Department _History________________________________________________________ Is your thesis or any part being submitted for publication? Yes No If any part has been submitted for publication, please indicate where: _University of Florida Journal of Undergraduate Research_____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ Keywords (provide five) _diaspora, cultural commodification, liberalism, literary heritage ____ Abstract (100-200 Words) Over the course of hundreds of years, emigration, or leaving home, has become a uniquely Irish institution or “habit.” No other culture is as well known for its tightly-knit emigrant communities, or for the deep sense of cultural pride expressed by members of its diaspora whose ancestors emigrated decades or centuries ago. There are more than 70 million people in the Irish Diaspora worldwide, who identify themselves as being of Irish heritage, and yet fewer than five million people currently live in the Republic of Ireland. In the face of economic and social upheaval, the emigrant has become a representation of a nation on the move. Since the Great Famine, the Irish have evolved from the model of the liberal imperial subject, to the champions of self- determination, to the perpetrators of terrorism, and finally, to the poster children of neoliberal economic success. The experience of Ireland’s emigrants has been a direct reflection of this transition, as those people who once represented the specter of national doom have become national saviors, as well as a symbol of Irish cultural solidarity. The Irish Emigrant: A Nation in Miniature Helen Miney 2 Table of Contents Introduction 4 I. From Victim to Champion: The Emigrant as a Political Force 12 II. A Culture of Connections: The Emigrant and the National Imagination 24 III. Cherishing the Diaspora: The Return of the Emigrant 35 Conclusion 42 Bibliography 44 3 Introduction One of the most well-known Irish legends is that of Oisín and Tír na nÓg, known as “the Land of the Young” in English. Oisín, an Irish prince, falls in love with Niamh, a princess from Tír na nÓg, a magical land of eternal happiness where no one ever grows old, on which “the sun never set and the rain never fell.”1 Niamh convinces Oisín to travel “far out beyond the western sea”2 and return to Tír na nÓg with her. Although Oisín is welcomed and greatly loved by the denizens of Tír na nÓg, after a year he wishes to visit his home in Ireland once again. Niamh gives Oisín her horse for the journey, but warns him that if he touches the ground in Ireland, he may never return to Tír na nÓg. Upon arriving in Ireland, Oisín discovers that more than three hundred years have passed, and all of his friends and family are dead. As he turns his horse to leave Ireland for Tír na nÓg, a group of men ask Oisín to assist them with moving a boulder out of the road. They marvel at his strength as he easily lifts the rock, but as he does so the saddle girth snaps and Oisín falls to the ground. Oisín transforms from a young and handsome man to an old, withered creature, before turning to dust. The story of Oisín and Tír na nÓg is one of the earliest tales of Irish emigration. It serves as an illustration of what historian Enda Delaney characterizes as “the Irish habit of going away.”3 As the inhabitants of a small island on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, the Irish have been leaving home for centuries. Emigration has become deeply ingrained in the Irish consciousness, manifesting in many different cultural and political arenas. The figure of the emigrant has become almost mythical in Irish culture. The deep sense of loss affiliated with emigration has been the subject of ballads and novels, and has fueled political debate in Ireland. 1 Reg Keating, Oisín and Tír na nÓg (Dublin: Owl Records Ltd, 1997), 5. 2 Ibid, 3. 3 Enda Delaney, “Traditions of emigration: The Irish habit of going away,” The Irish Times, 2 November 2011. http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/generationemigration/2011/11/02/traditions-of-emigration-the-irish-habit-of- going-away/ 4 Kerby Miller takes a particularly politicized view of the subject in Emigrants and Exiles, but makes a very important observation regarding the popular perception of Irish emigrants, especially in the nineteen and early twentieth centuries: that “newspapers and orators and orators characterized those who left Ireland as ‘exiles,’ compelled to emigrate.”4 Thus the emigrant came to be represented as a kind of tragic hero in the Irish consciousness; one that is both an innocent victim of external forces as well as a symbol of adventure and the pursuit of a better life. The origin of these myths is rooted in a long history of migration in Ireland, but they became particularly salient in nineteenth century Irish society, during and after the Great Famine of 1845. Migration has been an integral part of Irish culture for thousands of years. Society is often shaped by geography, and this is particularly true for small islands like Ireland. It is believed that Ireland’s first inhabitants arrived around 6,000 BC, bringing their tribal cultures with them.5 Tribal wars prompted small waves of emigration, as those who were defeated in combat either fled or were ejected from the island. Over the centuries, the tribes that inhabited Ireland conquered neighboring areas and were themselves the subjects of invasions from outside forces. Despite constant instability on the island, Miller identifies the English conquest of Ireland, beginning in 1166 AD6, as the beginning of the waves of mass emigration that would define the Irish “culture of exile”.7 Miller identifies several large waves of transatlantic migration from Ireland, during which “as many as seven million people emigrated from Ireland to North America.”8 He broadly labels these “patterns”9, which took place between 1607 and the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1921, as 1) before the American Revolution, 2) 1783 to 4 Kerby Miller, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 4. 5 T.W. Moody and F.X. Martin, The Course of Irish History, (Lanham, Maryland: Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 2001), 15 6 Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 11 7 Ibid, 102. 8 Ibid, 3. 9 Ibid, 131. 5 1814, 3) “the pre-Famine Exodus”10 of 1815 to 1844, 4) the Great Famine, and 5) post-Famine emigration. Although Miller focuses on transatlantic migration, and particularly Irish migration to the United States and Canada, during these periods millions more Irish immigrated primarily to English-speaking areas like England and Australia. Many Irish men and women travelled with wealthy English businessmen or families to the farthest reaches of the globe, as indentured servants to the Caribbean, South Africa, India, China, etc., hoping to one day earn their freedom and possibly some land of their own. A smaller number of wealthy Irish Protestants joined the English in establishing plantations throughout the New World. During the late eighteenth and most of the nineteenth centuries, many Irish men and women were deported to British penal colonies in Australia and North America in order to alleviate pressure on overpopulated British prisons and workhouses.11 Although extreme poverty and overpopulation spurred a steady stream of emigrants prior to 1845, the Great Famine, also known as an Gorta Mór, the Great Hunger, has become infamous as the largest wave of mass emigration in Irish history. The Irish Famine of 1845 set the stage for the creation of the archetype of the Irish emigrant in the Western historical imagination. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the Irish population grew rapidly to an all-time high of 8.5 million people.12 From 1845 to 1850, it is estimated that between 750,000 and 1,000,000 Irish people died of starvation or famine- related illnesses, and another 2,000,000 people emigrated.13 Based on census statistics, the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland has estimated that during this period an average of 1,000,000 10 Ibid, 193. 11 “Convicts and the British Colonies in Australia,” Australian Government, last updated February 17, 2010, http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/convicts-and-the-british-colonies. 12 Marjie Bloy, “The Irish Famine: 1845-9,” The Victorian Web, August 13, 2013, http://www.victorianweb.org/history/famine.html. 13 “The Irish Potato Famine,” University of Houston, last updated April 3, 2014, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/irish_potato_famine.cfm. 6 Irish immigrated to the United States alone.14 Another 1,000,000 immigrated to Australia, while an additional 750,000 Irish traveled to the British mainland in search of work and shelter.15 These men and women left Ireland on dangerously overcrowded “coffin ships,” and arrived at their destination starving and diseased, if they arrived at all.16 The image of these skeletal figures has taken root in the Irish national imagination, as the Great Famine stands out as one of the most significant and painful events embedded in the national memory. The Great Famine is significant not only because of the magnitude of the loss of life, but also because it served as the catalyst for a series of home rule campaigns in the latter half of nineteenth century that eventually led to the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1921.

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