I'VE BEEN THINKING about the Irish-American identity for a while now, as you can imagine, and it's got me digging about and reading up on the subject of ethnicity, which is quote an interesting subject. And I think it is important to try and understand ethnicity, because the Irish-American identity is an ethnic identity, which is different than the Irish identity, which is a national identity, and that means Irish-Americans and Irish are going to think about who they are differently, and they're going to go about constructing and maintaining their identity differently.
The subject of national and ethnic identities is an awesomely complicated one, and there are different schools of thought about these things, but, in general, sociologists agree that these identities are, in part, manufactured. That doesn't mean that there is something illegitimate about them, or that there is an element of deception to them. Instead it means that there have been times in history where codifying an identity was desirably or necessary. The Irish national identity, like every other national identity, developed in order to distinguish the Irish from other developing nations, which coincided with the development of the nation-state, which is actually a relatively new development. National identities didn't really start getting codified until 1800; before then, people defined themselves by tribal, or familial, or religious, or regional affiliations.
This was certainly true of the Irish. The Irish mythology doesn't see the Irish as natives to Ireland -- instead, it tells of successive groups of Irish occupiers, some of them Gods, who displaced each other until the ancestors of modern Irish finally showed up. These early Irish basically engaged in turf warfare for a while, which is a bit odd to think about. I mean, Ireland is only about the size of Maine, and it's sort of hard to imagine there being a king of Bangor (Stephen King, presumably) and a king of Millinocket (maybe Andrew St. John from television's General Hospital), and that these two cities war with each other. But that's how it was in early Ireland, and it wasn't until a success wave of invaders -- the Vikings in 800AD, the Normans in 1169, and the English, starting in the 1500s -- that the Irish started seeing themselves as a unified group, in opposition to the invading outsiders.
So the Irish really developed a group identity in order to distinguish themselves as a national group, and they did this by asking "What are the things that make us different from everybody else." This is a very hard question. There's religion, of course, but not all Irish are Catholic, and some of the people who contributed most to Irish culture were Protestants (most of the founders of the Abbey Theatre, for example). The country also has a small number of Jews who have generally been treated as legitimate Irish citizens.
How else do you define yourself? There's language, of course, and Ireland has taken heroic steps to retain the Irish language, despite centuries of suppression. But Irish is not the first language for more people in Ireland, and, although it is taught in schools, is still very much a second language to a lot of residents. There's shared history and mythology, and, in fact, at the start of the 20th century, there was a very active antiquarian and folklore movement that sought to record and popularize Ireland's mythology. And there is also culture, such as the music or the theater or the literature that has developed in a country, and that's one that the Irish took very seriously when it was developing its national identity, and that's why you'll still find serious practitioners of folk dances or various styles of folk music.
The most obvious question of nationality is "where do you come from?", but even that question is a tricky one for the Irish, as the country has had generations of successive settlers, including Hibernio-Normans, who settled in te 1100s and became mostly integrated in Irish society, and the Anglo-Irish, who started getting defined as a separate group in the 17th century, and mostly weren't integrated into the broader Irish population, in part because they were given an increasingly favored status by law. Do these people count as Irish? That was a recurring question in the development of the Irish national identity, and still surfaces from time to time.
The question that Irish-Americans ask in identifying themselves it a bit different, although a lot of the answers are the same. The question people in the Irish diaspora must as is "What stays with us when we leave Ireland that marks us as different from the rest of the population in our new homes?" And another question is "Do we want to distinguish ourselves." There are ethnic groups in the United States that have pretty much wholly integrated themselves into the larger population -- the English settlers in America, for instance, managed to forge the American identity to such an extent that they have never really maintained a distinct ethnic identity in this country. But the Irish had it different. They could easily have assimilated -- after all, they already spoke English, and the Irish quickly became seen as being part of the white majority in America. But the Irish banded together, for a few reasons. There was anti-Irish discrimination, and there was anti-Catholic discrimination; additionally, Irish immigrants frequently all went into the same sorts of employment and lived in the same areas, which helped them maintain a sense of community as an ethnic group. And they quickly found that by banding together as a group, and maintaining that group identity, they could claim a fair amount of social power that would otherwise have been denied them.
It's worth noting that the Irish in America were never disconnected from the Irish in Ireland, and the two indenties developed alongside each other, rather than independently. The Irish Republican Army, as an example, was originally the name of an American branch of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and Irish-Americans actively supported the cause of Irish independence. Irish performers frequently traveled to America, bringing developing Irish cultural expressions to the United States, and some people even settled here and sent their work back to Ireland -- playwright Dion Boucicault as an example. The Irish-American experience is, in large part, defined by this constant contact with Ireland, and I would argue that a large amount of what we now think of as Irish culture was actually created by Irish expatriates abroad and then brought back to Ireland; if I can turn to the example of Irish theater again, it's worth noting how many Irish playwrights worked in London and elsewhere, because Ireland simply did not have a large enough professional theater community to support them. Irish playwrights who have written their work abroad include Congreve, Sheridan, Goldsmith, Wilde, Shaw, Beckett; Enda Walsh, a contemporary playwright, lives in London, as does Martin McDonagh.
This isn't just true of playwrights. James Joyce wrote most of his work abroad, even though he set his work in Dublin. The Pogues, who, for many, are one of the defining modern Irish bands and the creators of what we now call Celtic Punk, were based out of London and their primary singer and songwriter, Shane MacGowan, was born in Kent, England, although his parents were Irish and he spent much of his childhood in Tipperary (he long claimed to have been born in Ireland; he may still claim it.)
So an important element of the Irish-American ethnicity is this looking back to, and constant identification, with both the historic and the modern Ireland. As a result, Irish-Americans tend to identify themselves as Irish by the same things the Irish do: music, language, dance (there are quite a number of Irish dance schools in the Twin Cities), food (and drink, obviously), folk takes and mythology, etc.
But there is something else Irish Americans look to in addressing their ethnic identity, and that's the specific history of the Irish in America. Celtic Punk in the United States, as an example, has great interest in the stories of Irish-American enclaves in big cities, especially Chicago, New York, and Boston; a lot of songs are set here. This is true of films that detail the Irish-American experience as well, which are frequently set in slums and tell the stories of Irish brawlers and criminals. There are cultural forms that are fairly unique to Irish-Americans, or have been adapted by Irish-Americans into something unique -- the big example being St. Patrick's Day, which was a fairly sober religious holiday in Ireland and has become a boisterous (and frequently drunken) celebration that often has more to do with a cliched and invented Ireland than the actual Ireland.
The interesting thing about exploring this project is seeing just how plastic National and ethnic identities are -- how they are constantly reinvented, both by the group and by individuals, as they attempt to fashion an identity that fits them and serves their purpose. All of it is authentic, in its own way -- there's very little in a cultural identity that doesn't have actual precursors in history, which makes sense, as culture is created by looking backward. There are some things that seem to be made up wholecloth, such as the Irish runes that some places sell for fortune telling, but these are pretty rare. Instead, you see this constant process of taking what is old and making it new again, by reinterpreting (or, sometimes, misinterpreting) it for contemporary purposes.
This is especially interesting in modern America, where, after all, Irish-Americans have no pressing need to band together as a group, and could easily just be absorbed into the larger population (and many are; there are quite a few Irish-Americans who don't really care much about their ethnic identity). The Irish who are maintaining an ethnic identity now aren't doing it so much because it's socially useful or necessary. I suspect there are a few reasons people do maintain this identity, though. Some grew up with it, and it's what they know. But there are others, like me, who do it because they like it. And having an identity out of choice is very different than having an identity out of need, and that is something that really does distinguish the Irish in America from the Irish in Ireland, and I suspect my be some of the basis for some Irish being dismissive or hostile to the Irish-American identity. The Irish in Ireland have to be Irish; we Americans can choose not to be especially Irish-American, and nobody will think twice about it.
I'll explore this further as this project continues, but it's what's been knocking around in my head, and so I wanted to get it down in the blog, as a jumping off point for further posts that will address this question of cultural identity.
More Plastic Paddy
The subject of national and ethnic identities is an awesomely complicated one, and there are different schools of thought about these things, but, in general, sociologists agree that these identities are, in part, manufactured. That doesn't mean that there is something illegitimate about them, or that there is an element of deception to them. Instead it means that there have been times in history where codifying an identity was desirably or necessary. The Irish national identity, like every other national identity, developed in order to distinguish the Irish from other developing nations, which coincided with the development of the nation-state, which is actually a relatively new development. National identities didn't really start getting codified until 1800; before then, people defined themselves by tribal, or familial, or religious, or regional affiliations.
This was certainly true of the Irish. The Irish mythology doesn't see the Irish as natives to Ireland -- instead, it tells of successive groups of Irish occupiers, some of them Gods, who displaced each other until the ancestors of modern Irish finally showed up. These early Irish basically engaged in turf warfare for a while, which is a bit odd to think about. I mean, Ireland is only about the size of Maine, and it's sort of hard to imagine there being a king of Bangor (Stephen King, presumably) and a king of Millinocket (maybe Andrew St. John from television's General Hospital), and that these two cities war with each other. But that's how it was in early Ireland, and it wasn't until a success wave of invaders -- the Vikings in 800AD, the Normans in 1169, and the English, starting in the 1500s -- that the Irish started seeing themselves as a unified group, in opposition to the invading outsiders.
So the Irish really developed a group identity in order to distinguish themselves as a national group, and they did this by asking "What are the things that make us different from everybody else." This is a very hard question. There's religion, of course, but not all Irish are Catholic, and some of the people who contributed most to Irish culture were Protestants (most of the founders of the Abbey Theatre, for example). The country also has a small number of Jews who have generally been treated as legitimate Irish citizens.
How else do you define yourself? There's language, of course, and Ireland has taken heroic steps to retain the Irish language, despite centuries of suppression. But Irish is not the first language for more people in Ireland, and, although it is taught in schools, is still very much a second language to a lot of residents. There's shared history and mythology, and, in fact, at the start of the 20th century, there was a very active antiquarian and folklore movement that sought to record and popularize Ireland's mythology. And there is also culture, such as the music or the theater or the literature that has developed in a country, and that's one that the Irish took very seriously when it was developing its national identity, and that's why you'll still find serious practitioners of folk dances or various styles of folk music.
The most obvious question of nationality is "where do you come from?", but even that question is a tricky one for the Irish, as the country has had generations of successive settlers, including Hibernio-Normans, who settled in te 1100s and became mostly integrated in Irish society, and the Anglo-Irish, who started getting defined as a separate group in the 17th century, and mostly weren't integrated into the broader Irish population, in part because they were given an increasingly favored status by law. Do these people count as Irish? That was a recurring question in the development of the Irish national identity, and still surfaces from time to time.
The question that Irish-Americans ask in identifying themselves it a bit different, although a lot of the answers are the same. The question people in the Irish diaspora must as is "What stays with us when we leave Ireland that marks us as different from the rest of the population in our new homes?" And another question is "Do we want to distinguish ourselves." There are ethnic groups in the United States that have pretty much wholly integrated themselves into the larger population -- the English settlers in America, for instance, managed to forge the American identity to such an extent that they have never really maintained a distinct ethnic identity in this country. But the Irish had it different. They could easily have assimilated -- after all, they already spoke English, and the Irish quickly became seen as being part of the white majority in America. But the Irish banded together, for a few reasons. There was anti-Irish discrimination, and there was anti-Catholic discrimination; additionally, Irish immigrants frequently all went into the same sorts of employment and lived in the same areas, which helped them maintain a sense of community as an ethnic group. And they quickly found that by banding together as a group, and maintaining that group identity, they could claim a fair amount of social power that would otherwise have been denied them.
It's worth noting that the Irish in America were never disconnected from the Irish in Ireland, and the two indenties developed alongside each other, rather than independently. The Irish Republican Army, as an example, was originally the name of an American branch of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and Irish-Americans actively supported the cause of Irish independence. Irish performers frequently traveled to America, bringing developing Irish cultural expressions to the United States, and some people even settled here and sent their work back to Ireland -- playwright Dion Boucicault as an example. The Irish-American experience is, in large part, defined by this constant contact with Ireland, and I would argue that a large amount of what we now think of as Irish culture was actually created by Irish expatriates abroad and then brought back to Ireland; if I can turn to the example of Irish theater again, it's worth noting how many Irish playwrights worked in London and elsewhere, because Ireland simply did not have a large enough professional theater community to support them. Irish playwrights who have written their work abroad include Congreve, Sheridan, Goldsmith, Wilde, Shaw, Beckett; Enda Walsh, a contemporary playwright, lives in London, as does Martin McDonagh.
This isn't just true of playwrights. James Joyce wrote most of his work abroad, even though he set his work in Dublin. The Pogues, who, for many, are one of the defining modern Irish bands and the creators of what we now call Celtic Punk, were based out of London and their primary singer and songwriter, Shane MacGowan, was born in Kent, England, although his parents were Irish and he spent much of his childhood in Tipperary (he long claimed to have been born in Ireland; he may still claim it.)
So an important element of the Irish-American ethnicity is this looking back to, and constant identification, with both the historic and the modern Ireland. As a result, Irish-Americans tend to identify themselves as Irish by the same things the Irish do: music, language, dance (there are quite a number of Irish dance schools in the Twin Cities), food (and drink, obviously), folk takes and mythology, etc.
But there is something else Irish Americans look to in addressing their ethnic identity, and that's the specific history of the Irish in America. Celtic Punk in the United States, as an example, has great interest in the stories of Irish-American enclaves in big cities, especially Chicago, New York, and Boston; a lot of songs are set here. This is true of films that detail the Irish-American experience as well, which are frequently set in slums and tell the stories of Irish brawlers and criminals. There are cultural forms that are fairly unique to Irish-Americans, or have been adapted by Irish-Americans into something unique -- the big example being St. Patrick's Day, which was a fairly sober religious holiday in Ireland and has become a boisterous (and frequently drunken) celebration that often has more to do with a cliched and invented Ireland than the actual Ireland.
The interesting thing about exploring this project is seeing just how plastic National and ethnic identities are -- how they are constantly reinvented, both by the group and by individuals, as they attempt to fashion an identity that fits them and serves their purpose. All of it is authentic, in its own way -- there's very little in a cultural identity that doesn't have actual precursors in history, which makes sense, as culture is created by looking backward. There are some things that seem to be made up wholecloth, such as the Irish runes that some places sell for fortune telling, but these are pretty rare. Instead, you see this constant process of taking what is old and making it new again, by reinterpreting (or, sometimes, misinterpreting) it for contemporary purposes.
This is especially interesting in modern America, where, after all, Irish-Americans have no pressing need to band together as a group, and could easily just be absorbed into the larger population (and many are; there are quite a few Irish-Americans who don't really care much about their ethnic identity). The Irish who are maintaining an ethnic identity now aren't doing it so much because it's socially useful or necessary. I suspect there are a few reasons people do maintain this identity, though. Some grew up with it, and it's what they know. But there are others, like me, who do it because they like it. And having an identity out of choice is very different than having an identity out of need, and that is something that really does distinguish the Irish in America from the Irish in Ireland, and I suspect my be some of the basis for some Irish being dismissive or hostile to the Irish-American identity. The Irish in Ireland have to be Irish; we Americans can choose not to be especially Irish-American, and nobody will think twice about it.
I'll explore this further as this project continues, but it's what's been knocking around in my head, and so I wanted to get it down in the blog, as a jumping off point for further posts that will address this question of cultural identity.
More Plastic Paddy
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