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Constituting the Diasporic Collective: Irish-Americans at transcended time. Yet what is significant, as will be shown, is how a the Dawn of the Twentieth Century century later and a continent removed, Irish-American civic and religious leaders used the figure of Robert Emmet, marshaled into the Margret McCue-Enser ideographs of land and liberty, to constitute Irish-Americans as not only full-fledged American citizens but as an exceptional race able to Through close examination of speeches dedicated to Robert Emmet, the Irish protect and extend American interests of land acquisition and liberty Nationalist, Republican, and rebel leader, on the centennial of his death, I at home and abroad. reveal how Irish-American civic and religious leaders marshaled his memory One of America’s most accomplished Irish-American into the ideographs of land and liberty, and in doing so mitigated diaspora history scholars, Charles Fanning (2004), sums up the impact of and constituted Irish-Americans as not only a decent but also an exceptional Robert Emmet on the Irish-American consciousness: part of the burgeoning American socio-political landscape. First, I examine No other Irish historical figure had so powerful and lasting the state of Irish-American diaspora in early twentieth century America and an effect on the consciousness of Irish America in the the role epideictic speeches celebrating the legacy of Robert Emmet played in constructing the Irish Americans as a collective. Next, I delve into the nineteenth century as Robert Emmet …. In the home, one unique challenges faced by second and third-generation Irish-Americans could gaze upon the image of Emmet on the parlor wall. A who found themselves at a time in which claiming any identity other than solemn familial gesture was possible in the giving of full-fledged American rendered them suspect and insubordinate. Finally, I Emmet’s name to a child. In the wider world, one could demonstrate how the ideographs of land and liberty provided a way for belong to an organization named for Robert Emmet where Irish-Americans to leverage their dedication to land and their devout fight parish, social, or Irish nationalist business was conducted. against tyranny with the American Frontier Myth, producing a people who One could gather to bear witness to the speech and the story were not only full-fledged but actually superior Americans. in dramatic fashion at a range of venues—from school halls to amateur theatricals to professional productions. And one n September 19th, 1803, Irish Nationalist, Republican, and rebel could participate in formal observances celebrating the dates O leader Robert Emmet was tried and found guilty of high treason of Emmet’s birth or death. (p. 53) with the punishment of death. Following his sentencing, Emmet Robert Emmet, in ritual and word, is a fundamental part of delivered what is known as his “Speech from the Dock.” The most Irish-American identity passed down from generation to often quoted passage from this speech are its final lines: generation—often with no explanation of the actual events of Let no man write my epitaph: for as no man who knows my Emmet’s life or death. As Fanning goes on to expound on what he motives dare now vindicate them. Let not prejudice or refers to as “the power of Robert Emmet—or more accurately, the ignorance asperse them. Let them and me repose in power of the idea of Robert Emmet” (p. 59), we learn that the legend obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until of Emmet was a fundamental means through which nineteenth- other times, and other men, can do justice to my character; century Irish-Americans learned the values that provided them with a when my country takes her place among the nations of the past (p. 53). earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I 1 Commemorating Emmet, whether through family names, have done. speeches, or celebrations, provided Irish-Americans with an ideology While there are many details of Emmet’s life and death, the that was universal enough to span time and place, nineteenth century concluding words of his “Speech from the Dock” perhaps resound Ireland to twentieth century America, and yet specific enough to the loudest. Many interpret Emmet’s last words as a call to take up render clear and salient their present identity as second and third- the cause of freedom for Ireland. In one of the few rhetorical generation Irish-Americans. Carter (1992) argues that the “ritual analyses of Emmet’s speech, Post (1966) argues that the purpose of function of epideictic is the generation of a powerful sense of these very lasts words was to “stimulate his fellow countrymen [sic] community among the listeners” and that more than simply to continue their struggle for freedom from English tyranny” (p. 21). articulating values, “the discourse itself defines those values and thus It is no surprise that Emmet’s call for freedom from tyranny has defines the community” (p. 306-307). The legend of Robert Emmet, intersecting with the plight of Irish-Americans at the dawn of the Margret McCue-Enser (Ph.D.) is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Saint Catherine University. The author wishes to dedicate this piece to twentieth century, provided a means for Irish-Americans to cultivate Bruce Gronbeck for his support and guidance. Correspondence should be the ideological inheritance from their Irish immigrant grandparents sent to [email protected]. into the challenges of being native-born, though not quite full

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American citizens. Scholars have focused on the role of ritual and people before his [sic] audience … [who] reacts with a desire to epideictic speeches play in constituting community. Sheard (1996) participate in that dramatic vision, to become ‘the people’ described explains that epideictic discourse “serves more exigent social and by the advocate” (p. 239-240). The audience identifies with the civic functions than simply celebrating, reinforcing, or reexamining vision of them constructed by the rhetor and, by enacting that vision, values” and that it is more accurately understood as “a rhetorical they become that very people. gesture that moves its audience toward a process of critical reflection Ideographs resonate with audiences because they articulate that goes beyond evaluation toward envisioning and actualizing that ideological material that lies at the intersections of the past and alternative realities, possible worlds” (p. 787). Via the ritual of present. McGee (1980) explains that ideographs “signify and contain commemorating Emmet, Irish-Americans were able to articulate a unique ideological commitment” and “exist in real discourse, values that not only were mutually salient to old Ireland and new functioning clearly and evidently as agents of political America but also provided them with a path that integrated and consciousness” (p. 7). Ideographs occur in the everyday discourse of elevated them as American citizens. a people and serve to represent and reify the ideologies that inform and guide that culture. Condit and Lucaites (1993) offer another definition of ideographs as a “culturally biased, abstract word or Constituting the Descendants of Diaspora phrase, drawn from ordinary language, which serves as a constitutional value for a historically situated collectivity” (p. xii). Like other immigrant communities, Irish-Americans faced the Ideographs take on an even greater importance when used to challenge of reconciling their homeland’s history with their adopted construct a diasporic collective. one. As Drzewiecka (2002) explains, immigrants face an even Ideographs provide a way for a diasporic collective to retain greater challenge in that “they must present themselves as authentic part of their ideological inheritance and graft it onto their new land. diasporic and national subjects by creatively connecting their politics Irish-Americans were particularly successful in rendering in both places so that they are not perceived as disloyal or inauthentic themselves, as Drzewiecka (2002) calls, “authentic diasporic and in either” (p. 4). Diaspora places the burden on minority national subjects” by rendering their past struggles against tyranny communities to construct narratives from which a collective and oppression not only relative but central to their new identity as conscious, derived from a common history and shared contemporary Irish-Americans (p. 4). The case of second and third generation moment, can emerge. In order to do that, diasporic subjects must Irish-Americans is particularly significant because their ideologies draw on the past as it had been passed down to them. According to were so firmly rooted in the very place from which they were Brighton (2009), who draws on Said, the “mentality of a diasporic geographically and chronologically displaced. Ideographs function collective is formed in large part from created memories and as a way for a displaced collective to create identity (Flores & “imaginative histories” (p. 19). Irish-Americans had to invent a past Hasian, 1997). Delgado (1995) found in his analysis of Chicana that would be salient to the present. culture that discourse resituated cultural frames and ideologies by Irish-American rhetors assembled the fragmented ideologies combining ideologies of native homeland with the new homeland. of historical Ireland and contemporary America and in doing so, The ideograph constitutes the people by way of using myths to constituted Irish-Americans as a unique people not entirely like their provide a means to ideologically navigate their adopted countries. A grandparents and other first-generation immigrants, nor like their significant part of constitutive rhetoric is the idea that a people are full-fledged American counterparts. McGee’s (1975) work on rendered into being not only with a shared ideology but, along with constitutive rhetoric reveals how diasporic collectives reconcile the that, a shared set of motives and directives. Charland (1987) explains, experience of being neither entirely Irish nor entirely American that “to be constituted as a subject in a narrative is to be constituted through creating a “people” drawn from the ideological material of with a history, motives, and a telos” (p. 140). The ideographs of land both. According to McGee, “from time to time, advocates organize and liberty are particularly salient because they can be understood not dissociated ideological commitments into incipient political myths, only in ideological terms but in very material terms as well. Again, visions of the collective life dangled before individuals in hope of Charland (1987) states “constitutive rhetoric … positions the reader creating a real “people” (p. 243). While the ideological seeds that towards political, social, and economic action in the material world” form collectives are always present, they are not always active, (p. 141). Because of the materiality of land and liberty, it is easy for resulting in “a people” that come into as well as fade out existence. Irish-Americans to transplant what had been ambitions for Irish land The “advocate,” McGee says, “dangles a dramatic vision of the

158 McCue-Enser Iowa Journal of Communication Volume 47, Number 1, Fall 2015, pp. 154-176 McCue-Enser 159 onto American land. Similarly, the fight for Irish freedom from life; we want only Americans and, provided they are such, oppression is transposed onto the American fight against tyranny. we do not care whether they are of native or Irish or of In a truly opportune moment, Irish-Americans’ celebration German ancestry …. We have no room for any people who of land and liberty converged with the proliferation of the Frontier do not act and vote simply as Americans, and as nothing Myth as way to instruct all people on what it means to be an else. (par. 10) American as well as to distinguish good immigrants from bad ones.2 This passage reflects the dominant notion at the time that In the case of Irish-Americans, the ideographs of land and liberty immigrants, particularly newer immigrants, who clung to their ethnic functioned as a way to mark the shared ideologies of Irish and origins could not assimilate and in failing to do so, undermined American collectives, and, at this particular moment in which there America. Later in the essay, Roosevelt explains the harm immigrants was a proliferation of the Frontier Myth, they provided a way to who do not assimilate pose to themselves and the whole country: frame Irish-Americans as icons of that myth. The Frontier Myth was But where immigrants, or the sons of immigrants, do not articulated by historian Frederick Jackson Turner who, in 1893, heartily and in good faith throw their lot with us, but cling to presented a paper to the American Historical Association in which the speech, the customs, the ways of life, and the habits of he, as Carpenter (1977) explains, “argued that our national customs thought of the Old World which they have left, they thereby and character, indeed our success as a people, were largely a product harm both themselves and us. (par. 11) of our frontier experiences” (p. 117). The impact of Turner’s work Any reflection of ethnic identity other than fully-American not only should not be underestimated; other historians saw a connection rendered one suspect but also posed a threat to all of America.4 And between Turner’s argument and what many feared was the loss of a yet, Roosevelt allowed a key exception to the idea of the hyphenated- Puritan work ethic as well as American work ideals. American as a threat. Of course one of the most significant individuals to ascribe Closer examination of Roosevelt’s celebration of the to the Frontier Myth was Theodore Roosevelt. In The Winning of the Frontier Myth reveals recognition of the contributions of Irish West, his series of narrative histories published between 1885 and settlers. In Roosevelt: On the Idea of Race, Dyer (1980) explains 1894, he explains that the will and fortitude that settled the frontier how certain ethnic strains made some groups better suited for the and created the nation was a model for all Americans. Concerned challenges of the frontier. Roosevelt (1885-1894/1926) writes in The about the swelling urban areas and the disappearance of an agrarian Winning of the West Volume Three, “on the frontier, where way of life, commemorations of land provided a way for the conditions tested individual fiber, certain stocks were better suited for American frontier to remain an ideologically salient and celebrated the tasks of extending the lines of civilization. The backwoodsmen, foundation of America. As Slotkin (1992) explains, Roosevelt saw he concluded, were of “mixed race; but the dominant strain in their himself and Turner sharing the belief that “the Frontier was a vital blood was that of the Presbyterian-Irish—the Scotch-Irish as they element in shaping American institutions and national character, and were often called” (p. 65). And in Volume Nine, Roosevelt again a concern that the passing of the agrarian frontier marked a crisis in singles out the Irish as the hardiest of the settlers. The Irish, “formed American history” (p. 30). The lessons of the frontier, according to the kernel of the distinctively and intensively American stock who Roosevelt, were especially critical for newer immigrants who might were pioneers of our people … the vanguard of the army of fighting be predisposed to ease and ignorance. Daniels (1997) explains the settlers … [who] plunged into the wilderness a leaders of the white concern of Turner was that the frontier, as it had historically existed, advance” (p. 84-87). Success on the frontier, according to Dorsey was dying and that with it would die the origin and spirit of (2007), was dependent upon the “the taking and holding the land,” as American democracy. Tied up with the loss of the frontier, many well as “struggling against evil” (p. 56-57). By celebrating the looked at immigrants as a threat to democracy. endurance and willingness to forge the frontier, Roosevelt articulates Roosevelt argued that those who retain their ethnic identity a path to citizenship. undermine the greatness of America. This belief is made no clearer The Frontier Myth as a set of physiological traits, provided a than in his 1894 essay, “True Americanism” in which Roosevelt means for Irish-Americans to construct themselves as the incarnation eviscerates the notion of a hyphenated-American:3 of the will and fortitude that not only settled the original frontier but We welcome the German or the Irishman who becomes an that would lead America into the new frontier. As Dorsey (2007) American. We have no use for the German or Irishman who maintains, “by combining the philosophical appeal of national values remains such. We do not wish German-Americans or Irish- with the practical tenets of strength, integrity, and earned equality, Americans who figure as such in our social and political his Americanism contained the prescription for outsiders to bring

160 McCue-Enser Iowa Journal of Communication Volume 47, Number 1, Fall 2015, pp. 154-176 McCue-Enser 161 about their own transformation in to Americans” (p. 18). Through Their arrival in American marked them not as successors over his celebration of the Frontier Myth, Roosevelt offered a prescription adversity but as failures for having left. According to Mulcrone for successful assimilation. Dorsey explains, “immigrant explorers (1999), “the memory of past indignities and present insecurities represented the true heroes of American history, arriving in an nourished a lingering sense of unease …. Famine memories and the unknown land, exhibiting the physical strength and high character to unresolved trauma of the immigration experience continued to contend with an untamed wilderness” (p. 48). By calling on their resonate through Irish-American consciousness well into the historical roots in the fight for Irish as well as American land and twentieth century” (p. 220). Along with this inherited guilt, Irish- liberty, Irish-Americans could weave themselves into the American Americans faced wide discrimination. Memories of famine and land- narrative and also give themselves a starring role. loss were passed from generation to generation, seared into the Through close examination of speeches dedicated to Emmet collective conscious of Irish-Americans. on the centennial of his death, I reveal how Irish-American civic and While their struggles were different from those of their religious leaders assemble his memory into the ideographs of land immigrant grandparents, second and third-generation Irish- and liberty, and in doing so mitigate diaspora and constitute Irish- Americans still faced great challenges. As Shannon (1963) states, Americans as not only a decent but exceptional part of the Irish-Americans were “the closest group to being in while still being burgeoning American socio-political landscape. My discussion will out” (p. 132). Decades after the mass immigration, Irish-Americans proceed as follows. First, I will examine the state of Irish-American were still among the lowest rungs in American society. Employment diaspora in early twentieth century America and the role the myth of discrimination meant that Irish-Americans found themselves in the Robert Emmet played in constructing Irish-American as a collective. most meager and often dangerous factory work. As Mulcrone (1999) I will then turn my attention to demonstrating how, upon the explains, centennial of Emmet’s martyrdom, civic leaders marshaled the myth in 1900, one quarter of Irish-born males and one-seventh of of Emmet into the ideographs of land and liberty, rendering salient American-born males of Irish descent still labored in low- and even complimenting Irish and American identity, ultimately paying, unskilled occupations …. As late as 1915 the death constructing Irish-Americans to as uniquely primed to further rate among the Irish was the highest in New York City and interests of America at home and abroad. In order to understand how twice that of contemporary Ireland. (p. 223) the ideographs of land and liberty functioned to constitute Irish- This was a time in which claiming any affinity for Ireland American identity, it is important to understand Irish-American undermined one’s possibility of inclusion. Ignatiev’s book How the diaspora as well as the socio-political landscape Irish-Americans Irish Became White (1995) details the long struggle between African- faced at the turn of the century. Americans and Irish-Americans to rise above the lowest rungs in American society. Irish American press, Irish Catholic churches and schools, and Irish art sustained Irish-American culture. Irish or American? The Irish-American press was critical in collecting and disseminating Irish-American culture. According to Mulcrone In order to understand Irish-Americans at the turn of the century, one (1999), in 1914 there were over twenty-five newspapers devoted to must unpack hundreds of years of British occupation, the horrors of Irish issues and published in the United States. Newspapers afforded famine, and discrimination in their adopted land.5 Shannon (1963) those subscribers who lived in smaller more rural Irish-American paints a haunting picture of Ireland at the time of the exodus: “The communities a way to enact in their ethnic identity. Moss (1995) smell of the potato rotting in the fields rose and mingled with the explains that “exhaustive coverage” of the Saint Patrick’s Day parade odors of death in the cottages, by the roadside, and along the “ensured that marchers in parades across the country would hedgerows” (p. 1). Nineteenth century represents the largest exodus recognize that they were participating in a genuinely ethnic ritual” (p. out of Ireland and into America.6 Millions of Irish immigrated on the 142). According to Mulcrone (1999), “famine ships” to the United States during the latter part of the the primary role of the Irish press in the first decades of the nineteenth century only to find that, while they had escaped twentieth century was to make sense of the insecurities and hardships of home, they brought the guilt of leaving with them. aspirations of the American Irish and to devise While they themselves may have escaped death, according to comprehensible strategies by which respectability and Brighton (2009), their “connection to the homeland arises from the acceptance might be won. (p. 220) overriding sense of guilt for forsaking those who remained” (p. 19).

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No other newspaper demonstrates the way in which Irish- (1976) claims Emmet was a common speech for Irish-American Americans attempted to indoctrinate themselves into the American children to learn because it was the most “defiant.” School children socio-political landscape more than the Irish World and American were aided in their learning of Emmet’s speech as older family Industrial Liberator. Founded in 1870 by famine survivor and members would recite it often times in the shadow of Emmet’s immigrant Patrick Ford (1837-1913), this publication was the largest portrait (McCaffrey, 1976, p. 33). and most widely-circulated Irish paper in America—reaching a The myth of Emmet enlivened nearly every aspect of Irish circulation of 125,000 by 1900 (Barrett, 2012, p. 248). Originally American culture. He was commemorated in artistic renderings, founded as The Irish World, it was renamed The Irish World and prose, performance, and names given to locations and children. Industrial Liberator in the 1880s, and in 1878 it was named The Irish Fanning (2004) explains how a variety of visual renderings of Emmet World and American Industrial Liberator (Barrett, 2012; McMahon, were available, from lithographs to later chromo-lithographs. 2014). Considered a labor advocate and Irish Nationalist, Ford’s Nathaniel Currier painted a model of Emmet in the dock that, paper was directed at politically-conscientious laborers from across according to Fanning, became the model used for “widely distributed ethnicities. The binding of the struggle of the American laborer to print versions, which were available for purchase by wholesale, that of Ireland is evident in the masthead of the paper which on one retail, mail-order, and through house-to-house peddlers (p. 65). Plays side shows a scene of rural Ireland on which the harp is imposed and with such titles as “Robert Emmet: The Martyr for Irish Liberty” and on the other side an urban harbor over which the guardian of liberty “Robert Emmet: A Tragedy of Irish History” as well as dramatic stands. These images are joined together by two globes illuminated amateur and professional performances of Emmet’s speech were by a cross. Considered one of the most significant Irish-American quite popular. Finally, Emmet was a common name passed down journalists, Ford drew “parallels between the land struggle in Ireland generation to generation as well as a name given to counties, and the labor struggle in the United States” (Brundage, 1996, p. 323). communities, and settlements across the country. Fanning explains, The successful inclusion of Irish-Americans in America, for Ford and “perhaps the most convincing evidence of Irish America’s infatuation many Irish-Americans, would propel Irish nationalism. This idea with Emmet is found in the names given to its children” (p. 66)7 bound together the aspirations of laborers across ethnicities with that Additionally, Emmet’s birth (March 4, 1778) and death of Irish Nationalism under the banner of liberty. The link between (September 20, 1803) were distinct opportunities for Irish-Americans Irish-Americans and full Americans was their shared animosity to publicly celebrate their identity. Throughout the later part of the towards tyranny anywhere it affected the world. As McMahon nineteenth century, Emmet’s birthday was observed by local chapters (2014) explains, “the transnational perspective from which Irish of the United Irish League of America, the Ancient Order of Americans disavowed British imperialism shaped their stout defense Hibernians, as well as the Fenian Brotherhood.8 In many major of American democracy as well” (p. 45). Indeed Irish-Americans cities, commemorations of Emmet’s birth folded into Saint Patrick’s could point to their long fight against British tyranny as evidence of Day commemorations.9 According to Moss (1995), one of the first their hardened and tested resolve against tyranny anywhere. Irish-American societies, The Society of Friendly Sons, hosted a In addition to the press, Catholic churches and Irish Catholic dinner in 1857 that included toasts to Ireland, “Poets, Orators, and schools were critical resources for crafting Irish-American identity. Dramatists,” the President of the United States, and “The Memory of As Meagher (1985) notes, “the influence of the Catholic church was Washington.” Together, these public events served a critical function explained in the ideological terms of fair play and religious tolerance for Irish-Americans because it provided all economic classes with a that informed the spirit of American laws” (p. 90). The church would way to perform their identity in a publicly-sanctioned and even provide not only a haven for Irish-Americans but also a way to celebrated way. According to Miller and Boling (1999), articulate the universal value of social justice. in the face of Protestant prejudice and exclusion, middle- While the church was important in building community, class Irish Americans discovered they could not gain status Irish Catholic schools functioned as a way to ensure the preservation in American society until they had both mobilized the of identity. As early as 1830, Irish schools were well established and immigrant masses, to demonstrate their political leverage, were in the spirit of celebrating great oratory, for which Emmet’s and imposed bourgeois norms on them, to reassure the host speech from the dock was a common model. Fanning quotes the society’s governing classes that the Irish as a group were Lowell Courier which “praised the excellent preparation of [the sufficiently ‘civilized’ to be accepted and entrusted with Lowell] students for the secondary school by citing as their models opportunities and influence. (p. 213) “a Sheridan, a Burke, a Grattan, and an Emmet” (p. 55). McCaffrey

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Clark (1982) tells of 1806 Philadelphia Saint Patrick’s Day made their adopted land what Ireland might have been with celebration at which liberty, a land of perpetual blessing and beneficence. They the audience came together in the city to hear a reading by will be certain to advance the best interests of America if the an Irish actress of the memorable speech made by the Irish lessons of Emmet’s short life and sad death are studied and patriot Robert Emmet before his execution by the British remembered. (p. 3) crown in 1803. In addition to the annual dinner of the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick, the growing Irish community began planning events on March 17th in which orators could Land and Liberty, Irish to American speak out about England’s suppression of Irish liberty. In 1837 Joseph M. Doran at the Hall of the Franklin Institute Taken together, these public messages reflect a minority race who, delivered a vigorous patriotic oration: ‘Irishmen, naturalized instead of downplaying identity as descendants of immigrants, citizens of America!’ (p. 193) leveraged it with the best of American ideals and in doing so What is particularly telling in this example is how Irish and reflected successful integration and the celebration of Irish- American citizenship is blended and celebrated. Clearly Emmet Americans in America. Ultimately, the commemorations of Robert commemorations, blended into Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations, Emmet, reveal the rhetorical convergence of the Frontier Myth with became a way for Irish-Americans to celebrate the blended Irish and that of Irish-American identity as manifest in the ideographs of land American ideologies. These annual public demonstrations by the and liberty. masses, paired with the public and published oratories of prominent Irish-Americans were critical in collective memory and performance Land and the Triumph of National Sovereignty of Irish American identity. The centennial of Emmet’s death, celebrated by Irish- As an ideograph, land frames the interests of ancient and Americans far removed in time and place from Ireland, provides a contemporary Irish land owners and Irish-Americans in mutual rare glimpse into the ways in which constitutive rhetoric functions to terms; in both countries the vitality of a nation is measured by the mitigate diaspora. By examining the March 21, 1903 edition of The ability of the native people to conquer, manage, and extend land. In Irish World and American Industrial Liberator and its reprint of the this spirit, control of the land by Irish-Americans is cast as the only speeches and letters delivered in commemoration of the centennial of viable means to secure national prosperity not just for Irish- Emmet’s death, I reveal the ways in which civic and church leaders Americans but for greater America as well. Finally, America is cast used the ideographs of land and liberty to construct a people that not as the place where the yet untapped potential of the Irish spirit, made only reflected successful integration into the broader American visible and transferable via their ownership and care of the land, can landscape but also elevated them as representative of the best of be realized. Framing Irish-Americans this way reflects the Frontier American ideals. The titles featured on the front page included Myth that, in part, Irish-American settlers were among the most “Blake in Philadelphia: Addresses a Magnificent Demonstration Held successful and thereby representative of American ideals of land and to Honor the Memory of Robert Emmet” and “Ireland to Irish- conquest in the name of nation-building. American.” Featured between the two titles was a drawing entitled In his speech, Colonel Robert Blake (1903), a decorated the “Audience and Principal Speakers at Great Emmet Celebration: military Irish-American who fought in many different lands on behalf Academy of Music, Philadelphia.” On the lower half of the first page of America, argues that “the very existence of the Irish people” appears a large drawing of Emmet with “His Soul Goes Marching depends upon their habitation of the land (p. 1). He explains the On” inscribed on it framed by his speech. Filling page two was impact Irish have on being allowed to tend their own land: “America’s Judgment: The Spirit of Robert Emmet Saluted by the Once root the Irish people in the soil, make them the owners Republic of Washington: Letters from Representative Men: of the lands they have tilled since the days of the four Statesmen, Judges, Governors, Philanthropists, and Economic kingdoms, and they become invincible. Then with new Writers.” A brief piece, titled “Human Liberty Advanced by strength they will move forward and not all the power and Emmet’s Martyrdom,” (1903) summarizes the significance of Emmet pride and prejudice of the British Empire can prevent the to the aspirations of Irish-Americans: seating of an Irish parliament in the Irish capital. (p. 1) Irish-Americans do well in planning for the celebration of It is clear that Irish land possession is banded with political [Emmet’s] heroic sacrifice. He represents the spirit that has efficacy, but why make that argument to an American audience

166 McCue-Enser Iowa Journal of Communication Volume 47, Number 1, Fall 2015, pp. 154-176 McCue-Enser 167 situated thousands of miles away? The resonance of this claim lies in The land which is loved as no other land under heaven; the ability of the Irish-American audience to stake their own land in whose children to the uttermost parts of the earth think of America and upon successfully ingratiating themselves into this her by day and dream of her by night; whose name is poetry socio-economic landscape demonstrating themselves as a people and music in their ears, whose songs will make the youngest worthy and capable of self-determination and equal socio-economic hush and the oldest weep—Ireland is once again to be the participation. As Mulcrone (1999) explains, “Irish devotion to both land of her own people! (p. 1) Ireland and the United States could be perfectly reconciled: if anti- Irish people do not own the land, they are its “children.” As British sentiment was the hallmark of American patriotism, then Irish children and descendants of the land, they have an eternal and American interest were one and the same” (p. 229). Ireland and unbreakable bond with it; the vitality of the land and the Irish people America were bound in their shared hatred of British tyranny so depends upon their full proprietorship of it. And yet, Blake is talking much that an argument for Irish control of Irish land echoed a similar to a thoroughly Irish-American audience whose place and ambitions argument made 127 years earlier in America. For both Ireland and are in America. Converging with the burgeoning Frontier Myth, America, the sovereignty of the land is a reflection of the vitality of particularly as it recognizes and celebrates Irish-Americans as the the people. best of the original frontier settlers, the ideograph of land serves to The loss or disappearance of land is not simply a matter of ordain Irish-Americans as simply Americans. economic loss but the greater deprivation that follows. There is a Americans and Irish share a deep recognition of the vitality of the land that enlivens the people; when the people and their importance of national sovereignty and therefore will defend it native land are separated, that vitality is lost. Blake (1903) recounts whenever called to do so. Blake ties the fight for Irish land to the the tragedy of the land: fight for “freedom and justice.” Here Blake (1903) writes: Where the land is barren and stony, where they live, where But to me the noblest figure, the Irishman to whom the the land is radiant with promises of plenty, there is utter world owes the greatest honor, is the sturdy peasant who loneliness …. Here they were, mile on mile of the fairest will go from home to toll among strangers six months in the land the mind can conceive, rich with promise of fertility, year and fight with poverty the other six. In order that he green to the very verge of winter, smiling, beautiful, and – may cling to the cabin and bit of soil where his father was empty …. That is the tragedy of it. It was fertility and born, and who through it all, keeps up the fight for justice loneliness—the land that mourns for the people as the and freedom. (p. 2) people mourn for the land. (p. 1) Irish-Americans identify not only with the struggle for Irish The “fertility” of the land is merged with that of the people. land ownership but also for American land conquest and ownership. The fertility of Irish people—their talents and ambitions—is not The toil and sacrifice for land, whether in Ireland or America, ties limited to Ireland. Yes, Irish-American descendants mourn the loss Irish-Americans to the universal “fight for justice and freedom.” of land, but once recognized for their inherent link to the land and According to Blake (1903), Irish “courage and heroism” is to be given the resources to prosper, both they and their country will do so. found among all Irish peasantry: In order to understand the resonance of this ideograph it is important The people themselves their homes to be taken from them. to remember that second and third generation Irish-Americans, en Mothers and children walk out from beneath the roofs that masse, did not have the resources nor the inclination to return to shelter them, and take their places on the roadside Ireland, so for them this is both a eulogy and a call to action. As with uncomplaining. Their neighbors care for them. One evicted epideictic speeches, this passage identifies the values that should family I found who had made another home in an guide Irish-Americans as they use their Irish history to navigate their abandoned cowshed. Now, I hope my critical friends will American home. The value that figures most prominently not just in not be alarmed. That was not a typical Irish home. But it Blake’s words but in the greater American political landscape at the was typical of the courage and heroism of the Irish time, is land. peasantry who would make their home where cattle had In the collective memory of Irish-Americans, land is to be been in order that the fight for justice and freedom might be understood not simply as that in Ireland but land that is owned by won. (p. 2) Irish-Americans in America. The dream of Irish land, as told by On its surface this is a narrative of Irish land loss, tragedy, Blake takes on a transcendent value. Blake (1903) states, and triumph. As it is told to a thoroughly Irish-American audience whose own “fight for justice and freedom” is fought in America it

168 McCue-Enser Iowa Journal of Communication Volume 47, Number 1, Fall 2015, pp. 154-176 McCue-Enser 169 becomes a call to action. The fortitude required of Irish ancestors example, the inspiration of his life, and the sacred influence back in Ireland is what is required of Irish-Americans now here in of his death. (p. 5) America. While it is directed towards different ends, it endures as a Congressman Loring celebrates Emmet’s sacrifice for Ireland and for way to construct a sovereign Irish-American people as a distinct and the lesson of sacrifice for liberty it sends to the entire world. superior part of the American citizenry. Pennsylvania Congressman Hendrick Wright (1903) invokes Emmet’s legacy by stating, Liberty and the Defeat of Tyranny The epitaph of Emmet is written. Not, however, upon a cold marble or granite, encased in a mausoleums of brick and Land and liberty are tightly interwoven ideologies that constitute stone and mortar—perishable materials—but upon the Irish and American nationhood. It was the struggles of Irish- quick, throbbing, gushing hearts of all men of all nations American settlers over the rough, unsettled, and often violent frontier where the rights of man are respected, and Reason exercises that built America and demonstrated the moral aptitude necessary for its power unchecked by menaces and undismayed by the the country’s longevity. Via the collective memory of Emmet, Irish- imperial will of usurpers and imposters. (p. 5) Americans depict themselves as emblematic of the fortitude and Wright places Emmet’s unfinished fight for freedom from tyranny moral proclivity often necessary to secure and protect American onto all those who fight against it. It is striking that immediately liberty both at home and abroad. Irish-Americans hold an above Wright’s statement is an ink drawing of Emmet’s death understanding of the sacrifices that must be made for liberty. mask—another common artistic rendering of the patriot. With the Furthermore, because they are forever haunted by the tyranny of exception of one other drawing, of the Emmet monument in New Great Britain, they have a sense of duty to protect liberty in America York’s St. Paul Church, all of the other drawings are of the authors of and wherever else it is threatened. these commemorations. In both word and image, Emmet’s death is In the second major piece of the commemorative issue, woven into the lives of these American civic and cultural leaders. “Letters from Representative Men: Statesmen, Judges, Governors, The idea that Emmet should be remembered for his legacy is evident Philanthropists and Economic Writers,” the ideograph of liberty is in Blake’s commemoration as well. evident in Iowa Congressman Cummings’ commemoration of Emmet’s sacrifice for Ireland’s liberty becomes Emmet’s sacrifice. Cummings (1903) writes, representative of the sacrifice all face in the fight for liberty. The strong yearning for individual and national liberty Returning to Blake’s (1903) speech, he invokes the scaffolds not as which filled the great heart of Emmet, and for which, as a icons of death, but of ultimate victory: martyr, he surrendered up life as bravely as he contended for We are not dismayed by executions. A martyr now, a principle, gave birth to this nation and has sustained it martyr then, that is naught. We know that the scaffolds is through amid all dangers. (p. 4) [sic] simply the sign of hope, that it is simply the sign of our The idea conveyed is that Emmet gave up his life and in salvation. We reconsecrate it, we make it the type of our doing so, gave life to “this nation,” that nation being America. struggle, and in the midst of our adversities we only regard Participants are then called to act on behalf of and in the memory of it as the early martyrs did” (p. 2). he who shed his blood for them. As Cummings is commemorating Martyrdom is cast as a reflection of the inherent rightness of “individual and national liberty,” the call becomes not just one for cause. The mechanisms of Emmet’s murder come to represent not Irish-Americans to take up the fight for American liberty but a the brutality and finality of death but the transcendence of struggle of reminder of the obligation to do so. ultimate victory. Emmet’s struggle must now be, as Blake says Sacrificing one’s life for liberty is a virtue that transcends “reconsecrate[d]” and “ma[d]e it the type or our struggle, and in the Ireland and America and the entire world. The idea that Emmet’s midst of our adversaries” (p. 2). In his long record of fighting in legacy belongs to all who value liberty is evident in Massachusetts American conflicts on behalf of American interests, Blake recasts the Congressman George Bailey Loring’s (1903) commemoration. He righteousness of Emmet’s fight against tyranny onto America’s fight. states, The lesson of Emmet constitutes Irish-Americans as not Let us hope that the voice of Emmet will continue to be only being devoted to freedom and liberty but, as a result of their heard until freedom shall be universal, and that the world unique race, absolute in their dedication to ensuring its universality. will never forget that debt it owes to Ireland for his lofty Blake (1903) argues it is time to “embrace the power of Irish- Americans” (p. 4). He further states the following:

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No race has done so much for America as ours. No men Commemorating Emmet, via the ideograph of liberty, functions to making up its population have such lofty ideals, such noble embed Irish-Americans in the socio-political landscape of America devotion to the spirit of freedom. We look on political and to ultimately elevate them as the people with the inherent spirit to subjects differently from other men. We regard freedom as ensure its success. a thing so highly prized that we refuse to deny it to others. This race of ours, from the day that the fires of liberty were first lighted on this soil, has been the evangel of freedom, Irish-Americans as Vanguards of American Land and and God grant that you will still proclaim the right of every Liberty people to liberty, whether they are black or white, or Filipino or Irish or American. (p. 2) One hundred years and an ocean away, Robert Emmet became the This fundamental “devotion” to freedom designates Irish- icon around which Irish-Americans crafted an identity Americans as a separate and superior among all others. This passage simultaneously rooted in the struggle for land and liberty in Ireland bears the need for pause because it reveals a people who, though by and the flourishing American Frontier Myth. The diaspora faced by all accounts were among the lowest socio-economic rungs, were second and third-generation Irish-Americans was distinct from that of arguing not simply that they share greater America’s understanding their parents and grandparents. Although they had by now achieved and valuing of freedom but that they do so to such an extent that they representation across political, religious, and cultural circles, they are superior to all other Americans. As this passage reveals, the were still considered an immigrant community. As immigrants, Irish- collective memory of Emmet served to carve out a place for Irish- Americans used the ideographs of land and liberty to reconcile the Americans in the cultural landscape of America and to construct ideologies of their past with those of their present so as to make them as a people vital to its success. themselves not only full Americans but, as I have demonstrated, Constituted via the commemorations of Emmet, Irish- exceptional Americans. Commemorations of Robert Emmet, evident Americans cast themselves as superior among those who value in the ideographs of land and liberty, framed contemporary Irish- liberty. From “America’s Greatest Philanthropist Peter Cooper” Americans as descendants of the Irish-American settlers who, by (1903): their physical and moral fortitude, conquered the American frontier. I must express my sympathy with an occasion that not only At a time in which the Frontier Myth was evolving from the called Irish patriots together, but men of all nationalities and historical settling of American land to the policing and management parties who sympathize with the struggles of those of foreign lands, the framing of Irish-Americans as emblematic of the politically oppressed, and the heroic efforts of such noble myth itself would frame them as exceptional immigrants who men as Robert Emmet to throw off oppression. Though represent the best of American ideals at a time during which those unsuccessful themselves in the field, such men set an ideals would be in high demand. The ideographs of land and liberty example in history that keeps unquenched the love of liberty provided Irish-Americans with a common ideological ground to in the hearts of men, that intimidates tyrants and gives merge their Irish past with their American present. success at last to the struggles of freedom in all countries. At first glance the ideographs of land and liberty would (p. 4) seem fixed to Irish soil and nationhood yet, as I have shown, Irish- By casting Emmet as one among a company of men who Americans transposed the fight for Irish land and liberty into the sacrifice for liberty, this passage works to simultaneously embed and fierce devotion to American land and liberty. The ideograph of land yet distinguish Irish-Americans among all other races who share such reflects McGee’s (1980) explanation of how ideographs can expand a virtuous inheritance. The vitality of the myth of Emmet not only as well as contract. McGee explains the “diachronic structure” of an functions as a watch dog against tyranny, but ultimately establishes ideograph as the “expanding and contracting from the birth of the Irish-Americans among all other “noble heroes” who stand guard society to its “present” and the “synchronic structure” of ideographs against it. as “reorganizing itself to accommodate specific circumstances while Irish-Americans inherited a legacy of liberty through which maintaining its fundamental consonance and unity” (p. 14). Land they positioned themselves as the protectors and martyrs for it was taken from its historical origin—Irish private and national land wherever it is threatened. Martyrdom, in the name of liberty, ownership—to the American ideal of acquisition and expansion. becomes an indisputable measure of the righteousness of the cause Liberty was taken from the eternal struggle Irish faced in fighting for and in turn, a measure of the worthiness of the people themselves. their liberty to the expansive endeavors America has taken on in the

172 McCue-Enser Iowa Journal of Communication Volume 47, Number 1, Fall 2015, pp. 154-176 McCue-Enser 173 name of liberty. Irish-Americans essentially took these ideographs out of their original context and, while retaining their ideological 5 For a thorough examination of Irish diaspora see Brighton (2009). origins, cultivated them into the American ideological landscape. Besides a thorough understanding of diaspora and the origins of its Irish-Americans used the stories of Emmet to construct themselves as study, Brighton also explains that the contemporary understanding of his descendants and therefore sacred trustees of his sacrifice and duty “the term diaspora has become an analytical category of establishing to land and liberty—wherever that may be. These ideographs interpretive frameworks for studying the economic, political, and provided a means for Irish-Americans to invoke their sense of duty to cultural modalities of historically specific forms of migrancy and the fight for liberty in Ireland and transpose it onto the fight for their relation within subjective social relations of identity” (p. 14). American freedom. Ireland and America, reflected in Irish- 6 These figures provide some background: “Over three million Irish Americans, are bound in their shared struggle and appreciation for came to the United States in the years between 1845, the first year of land and liberty; the lessons from one are transposed onto the other as the Famine, and the death of Charles Stuart Parnell in 1891 …. [The a way of legitimating their mutual endeavors. immigrant population] was at flood in 1851, when more than 221,000 Examining Irish-Americans at this particular moment in entered and lowest in the depression year of 1877, when less than history, generations and miles removed from Ireland and its fight for 15,000 came over” (p. 328). The majority of Irish immigrants were land and liberty, reveal a people weaving that fight into America’s located in the big cities, 190,418 in New York; 71,441 in Boston; and fight for land and liberty. This rhetorical invention is particularly 70,028 in Chicago (Brown, p. 330). According to Shannon (1963), profound because through it Irish-Americans laud their fundamental “[b]y 1850, 26 percent of the population of New York City (133,000 dedication to land and liberty at a time during which America was out of 513,000) were persons born in Ireland. If their children and modifying the Frontier Myth to reflect the physical and moral will other second- and third-generation Irish are included, New York was necessary for not just domestic but also international strength. already more than one-third Irish. Boston in 1845 had an Irish-born Emmet’s final words call for his tomb to remain uninscribed “until population of only one in fifty. Ten years later, the ratio was one in other times, and other men, can do justice to [his] name.” I have five. Philadelphia and Baltimore also showed sharp increases” (p. demonstrated how Irish-Americans used the figure of Emmet, 28). The male and single-female Irish workforce could be found in through which the mutual Irish and American ideologies of land and the harshest of factories, with married-females working in the home liberty are woven together, to constitute themselves as a people who as well as taking on borders and seamstress work. Overall, the are not simply Americans, but exceptional Americans. working conditions of the Irish-Americans were harsh and extreme low-paying. 7 Fanning cites a number of famous American figures such as Notes “Emmet Kelly the circus clown (born 1898), Emmet Larkin the historian (born 1927), and M. Emmet Walsh the actor (born 1935)” 1 This passage is taken from robertemmet.org. There has always (p. 66). Also according to Fanning, most places bearing Emmet’s been some debate over the authenticity of the speech. I have chosen name were settled in mid nineteenth century, including, Emmetsburg this version because it is the most commonly cited. A complete copy settlement and county, Iowa; Emmet county in Michigan; and the of the speech can be found at towns of Emmet in Kansas, Nebraska, and Arkansas (p. 67). http://www.robertemmet.org/speech.htm. 8 Another reason for the commemoration of Emmet was quite 2 For a fuller discussion of Turner’s Frontier Myth see Carpenter possibly the influence of his older brother, Thomas Adis Emmet, of (1977). Also, the capitalization of “Frontier Myth” reflects Dorsey’s the United Irishmen, who came to New York in 1803 and, as Brown (2007) work on Roosevelt’s and his use of the Frontier Myth. who quotes Madden’s The United Irishmen, Their Lives and Times 3 The phrase “hyphenated-Americans,” relative to this discussion, is (1860) explains, “found that his ‘principles and his sufferings’ first articulated by Brands in his book The Last Romantic (1997). opened the most fashionable doors in New York to him” (p. 334). 4 While Roosevelt’s America was open to immigrants as well as 9 In Saint Paul MN, for example, the Saint Patrick’s Day Association Native Americans and African Americans, the dominant race was holds its “Wearing of the Green” formal dinner on March 3rd. The white. As Dorsey (2007) explains, Roosevelt’s “mythic rhetoric event celebrates the accomplishments of Irish Americans in the Twin popularized “outsiders,” identifying what these newly forged citizens Cities. brought to the nation’s development, while assuring white audiences that they remained at the top of the social hierarchy” (pp. 6-7).

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Lindsey K. Odom (M.A.) is a visiting instructor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Erin Sahlstein Parcell (Ph.D.) is an Associate Professor, and Benjamin M. A. Baker (M.A.) and Valerie Cronin-Fisher (M.A.) are Ph.D. candidates at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. The article is based on the first author’s M. A. thesis at UNLV under the second author’s supervision. A version of this paper was presented at the 2013 Western States Communication Association convention in Reno, Nevada. We thank the journal reviewers, Editor David T. McMahan, and the members of Ms. Odom’s thesis committee at UNLV (Tara G. McManus, Tara Emmers- Sommer, and Katherine M. Hertlein) for their helpful comments at different points in this process. Correspondence should be sent to the second author at [email protected].