Book contents
- Race in Irish Literature and Culture
- Cambridge Themes in Irish Literature and Culture
- Race in Irish Literature and Culture
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Editors’ Note
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 “Our Heroic Ancestors”
- Chapter 2 Racializing Irish Historical Consciousness
- Chapter 3 Race, Minstrelsy, and the Irish Stage
- Chapter 4 Race and Irish Women’s Novels in the Long Nineteenth Century
- Chapter 5 Blackface Minstrelsy, Irish Modernism, and the Histories of Irish Whiteness
- Chapter 6 Joyce’s Racial Comedy
- Chapter 7 W. B. Yeats, the Irish Free State, and the Rhetoric of Race Suicide
- Chapter 8 “Ulster’s White Negroes”
- Chapter 9 Learning from Walcott
- Chapter 10 Race, Irishness, and Popular Culture in Australia
- Chapter 11 White Nationalism and Irish America
- Chapter 12 Diasporic Afterlives
- Chapter 13 “Dubh”
- Chapter 14 Split Selves and Double Consciousness in Recent Irish Fiction
- Chapter 15 Race, Place, and the Grounds of Irish Geopolitics
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 11 - White Nationalism and Irish America
A Cultural History Told through Works by James T. Farrell and Eugene O’Neill
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2024
- Race in Irish Literature and Culture
- Cambridge Themes in Irish Literature and Culture
- Race in Irish Literature and Culture
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Editors’ Note
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 “Our Heroic Ancestors”
- Chapter 2 Racializing Irish Historical Consciousness
- Chapter 3 Race, Minstrelsy, and the Irish Stage
- Chapter 4 Race and Irish Women’s Novels in the Long Nineteenth Century
- Chapter 5 Blackface Minstrelsy, Irish Modernism, and the Histories of Irish Whiteness
- Chapter 6 Joyce’s Racial Comedy
- Chapter 7 W. B. Yeats, the Irish Free State, and the Rhetoric of Race Suicide
- Chapter 8 “Ulster’s White Negroes”
- Chapter 9 Learning from Walcott
- Chapter 10 Race, Irishness, and Popular Culture in Australia
- Chapter 11 White Nationalism and Irish America
- Chapter 12 Diasporic Afterlives
- Chapter 13 “Dubh”
- Chapter 14 Split Selves and Double Consciousness in Recent Irish Fiction
- Chapter 15 Race, Place, and the Grounds of Irish Geopolitics
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter traces Irish America’s place in the lineage of today’s white nationalist movement, to help explain the remarkable prominence of Irish American Catholics in contemporary America’s racist, alt-right movement, as well as the far-right wing of the Republican Party. Irish American Catholics are prominent also among Democratic Party’s progressive left-wing, too. However, given the history of vilification of Irish Catholic immigrants by hard-right groups such as the Know-Nothings in the nineteenth century and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in the twentieth, the sheer number of Irish American extreme right-wingers has puzzled and merits deeper investigation. The chapter investigates how the Catholic Irish transmuted from a redundant, expendable people in the British colonial state in Ireland, to valuable American citizens, and ultimately white American nationals, through an analysis of the work of the most accomplished and prolific of all Irish American writers, Eugene O’Neill and James T. Farrell.
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- Race in Irish Literature and Culture , pp. 225 - 241Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024