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  • Chapter 11 - US Nation Building and the Irish-American Novel, 1830–1880

  • from Part III - From the Four Nations to the Globalising Irish
  • Edited by Matthew Campbell, University of York
  • Book:
    Irish Literature in Transition, 1830–1880
    Published online:
    29 February 2020
    Print publication:
    12 March 2020, pp 179-196

  • Summary

    This chapter examines the role played by Irish American Catholic novels published between 1830 and 1880 in the US nation-building project. The novels of what Charles Fanning has labelled the ‘Famine Generation’ dominate the period in question. Famine Irish American literature has been considered insular, aimed primarily at keeping alienated immigrant readers within the Catholic flock. The literature’s US nation-building role has been ignored by Americanists and Irish studies scholars alike. This chapter strives to correct that anomaly. Situating Famine Irish writing firmly within the unfolding narrative of the US racial state, it shows the ways in which the Famine generation of Irish American writers performed crucial ideological functions on behalf of the US state.