Designing Irishness: Ethnicity, Heritage, and Imagined Connection to Place Through Language
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2010 Designing Irishness: ethnicity, heritage, and imagined connection to place through language Thomas James Sullivan Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Sullivan, Thomas James, "Designing Irishness: ethnicity, heritage, and imagined connection to place through language" (2010). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2086. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2086 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. DESIGNING IRISHNESS: ETHNICITY, HERITAGE, AND IMAGINED CONNECTION TO PLACE THROUGH LANGUAGE A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Geography & Anthropology by Thomas James Sullivan B.S., Montana State University, 1987 M.A., The University of Montana, 1995 May, 2010 For Ginny, Daniel, Mari and Mac and my father Daniel Patrick Sullivan ii Acknowledgements I first wish to thank all the language enthusiasts—students, teachers, and event organizers—who allowed me to observe and ask them questions while scribbling in my notebook, taking photographs, and recording their voices. I want to further acknowledge the late Barry Ó Donnabháin, the most intelligent and funniest Irish man I have met and a tireless and relentless advocate for the language—I miss him. To Loretta Lynde, president of the Montana Gaelic Cultural Society, I am grateful for her work with the organization that continues to promote and sponsor Irish-immersion events and the An Rí Rá Irish Festival in the State of Montana. In Ireland, Liam Ó Cuinneagáin the founder of Oideas Gael in County Donegal, offered support all along the way, and I am truly grateful to all of the diligent and hard-working volunteer organizers of Daltaí na Gaeilge, in particular Eibhlín Zurell and Liam Guidry. Without these individuals, this dissertation would not have been possible. Each member of my dissertation committee contributed to this work in important and subtle ways. I wish to thank Miles Richardson who taught me how to “transcend” from space to place. I am grateful to Craig Colten, who taught me the importance of historical geography, and Jim Flanagan, an Irish-born Mississippian, who brought his “Irish” sense of humor, musicianship, and knowledge of language to my work. Michael Bowman showed me how performance theory has a place in geography, a discourse I knew nothing of when I arrived on campus at Louisiana State University. I especially want to thank my advisor, Dydia DeLyser, who did the impossible in turning an engineer into a cultural geographer. She opened my eyes to iii an entirely new and exciting way of seeing geography, and helped me complete my dream of becoming a geographer (and a writer too). My doctoral experience was supported in many other ways, through friendships established, and encouragement from others. Patrick Hesp, Tony Lewis, and Barry Keim, all at LSU, helped enhance my graduate school experience. Jeff Gritzner, Sarah Halverson, Christiane von Reichert, and Ulli Kamp, who gave me the opportunity to teach and time to write while at the geography department at The University of Montana—my home place. Also, Traloch Ó Riordain, the tireless worker and founder of the Irish Studies program at UM. My good friends and fellow graduate students—Bethany Rogers, Paul Watts, Bess Matassa, Rebecca Sheehan, Winston McKenna, Andrew Augustine, and Mike Bitton—who are all part of this work. Finally, I want to thank all my family who suffered through the past few years as I selfishly retreated into my work, especially my wife of twenty-something years, Ginny, and my children Daniel, Mari, and Mac, who each contributed invaluably to this dissertation—I owe them big time. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements................................................................................................................iii List of Figures.........................................................................................................................vi Abstract...................................................................................................................................vii Chapter One Introduction Designing an Irish Ethnicity.....................................................................................1 Two Methods Multisites and Self-Discovery.................................................................................24 Three Immigrants to Ethnics- A History of Irish Identity in America….............................................................55 Four Ephemeral Irish Spaces Sites of Performance...............................................................................................76 Five “Hip to be Irish” Fashioning an Irish Identity.................................................................................105 Six “I Want to Be All I Can Irish” Symbolic Ethnicity and Performing Irishness...................................................135 Seven Constructing Heritage Personal Narratives of Irishness..........................................................................164 Eight Irish Places Imagined Geographies of the Irish Diaspora....................................................191 Nine Conclusion My Traditional and Authentic Irishness.............................................................220 References.............................................................................................................................237 Appendix Immersion Event Itineraries, Language School Brochures, and Posters......253 Vita.........................................................................................................................................264 v List of Figures 1. Late night music seisiún and céilí in Milwaukee……………………………….…..77 2. Marist Brothers Monastery in Esopus, New York……………………………....87 3. “Is Fearr Gaelige bhriste ná Béarla cliste”….………………………………………...89 4. The crew following a tough game of hurling outside of Saint Louis………….…93 5. Catholic Mass in Irish language in Butte, Montana………………………….…..97 6. Irish traditional band playing at céilí in Jamison, Pennsylvania...………………..103 7. “Irish Nachos” at the Milwaukee Irish Fest…………….....…………………....105 8. Saint Patrick at the Milwaukee Irish Fest in Milwaukee...……………………....106 9. Budweiser “Cat in the Hat” hat…………………………………………….….127 10. Map of the Gaeltacht areas in Ireland...…………………...…………………....210 11. Donegal Gaeltacht…………………………………………………………….213 12. Trinity Dancers at An Rí Rá—Montana Irish Festival………………………..220 13. Late night seisiún at the Sicilian Pub in Milwaukee……………………………221 vi Abstract In North America, those who are descended from “old world” immigrant groups—for example Germans, Greeks, Italians, Poles, and Irish—are thought to be assimilated or acculturated into the mainstream American culture. Since the late 1970s, however, sociologists have observed how a number of white ethnics, particularly those descended from third- and fourth-generation (and beyond) immigrants, continue to maintain a link to an ethnic group. This phenomenon— labeled symbolic or optional ethnicity—is now seen as a latter-stage development in the larger process of assimilation and ethnic-group identification. In this dissertation I show how the meaning of Irish identity has evolved in North America from a group of immigrants, to an ethnic community, and finally, a contemporary symbolic ethnicity which is positively influenced by commercialized forms of Irish culture, and is constructed from personal narratives and imagined geographies of Ireland. To study this phenomenon in more detail, this dissertation employs a multisited and autoethnographic qualitative study to focus on Irish-language enthusiasts at fifteen intensive Irish-language instructional events that took place at scattered sites in the U.S. and Canada. In this work I demonstrate how attendees at these events design, construct, and perform Irish identities for themselves by establishing parameters of what they perceive of as traditional and authentic Irishness, parameters that include ancestry, musical practice, dance, and most importantly language learning. Finally, I argue that the constructedness of their identities is part of the contemporary idea of diaspora—a concept developed by cultural theorists—that emphasizes how culture, identity, and place is a dynamic rather than static phenomenon. vii Chapter One: Introduction Designing an Irish Ethnicity In November of 2006 I was staying at a summer camp in Jamison, Pennsylvania, located approximately thirty miles north of Philadelphia. I was there attending one of what amounted to fifteen Irish language immersion events that comprised my yearlong ethnographic dissertation fieldwork on Irish ethnicity in North America. Since immersion events involve a variety of activities—language class, dances, workshops, and music sessions—the camp was an ideal setting, for it consisted of dormitories, a cafeteria,