On Every Tide: The making and remaking of the Irish world

ON EVERY TIDE is a wide-ranging and challenging reassessment of the Irish diaspora. Drawing on the latest ground-breaking research, and his own career-long engagement with the complexities of Irish identity, Sean Connolly reveals the forces that compelled millions of Irish men and women to abandon their homeland, and explores their new lives in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. What emerges is an Irish story, but also a chapter in world history. Irish emigrants fled a society blighted by poverty and lack of opportunity. But they also became part of a massive population movement, driven by the requirements of an ever more interconnected world economy, that transported the adventurous and the desperate to new parts of the globe. What distinguishes the Irish from tens of millions of other European immigrants is the position they established in their new homes. Initially treated as a despised and exploited underclass, they created a commanding position, in politics, in the labour movement, and, by the twentieth century, as cultural icons. From his starting point in the grim realities of Famine and social crisis, Sean Connolly takes the reader forward into the twentieth century, when Ireland itself has become a receiver rather than an exporter of emigrants, and when a reimagined Irishness has become a commodity to be marketed to a global audience. On Every Tide plays directly into wider, contemporary debates about migration, as well as offering a unique and distinctive view of two hundred years of Irish history.

About the Author :
Sean Connolly is professor of Irish history (emeritus) and visiting research fellow at the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen's University Belfast. He is the author of five books, including Contested Island and Divided Kingdom, and was general editor of The Oxford Companion to Irish History. Born in Dublin, he lives in Belfast.

Review :
A richly detailed, scholarly and challenging history of the Irish diaspora.... challenges conventional wisdom - and captures the emigrant struggle for power and prosperity A brilliant and thorough account of a formative part of the Irish experience... [Connolly] brings to this, his first work of popular history, the same ability to describe his subjects in their own terms An absorbing, lucid and sometimes harrowing account A masterwork of Irish diaspora history and immigration studies Rich in detail and well researched, this is essential reading for understanding how the people of Ireland shaped the world 'An impressive [...] feat of scholarship and research One of the great migrations in history... Sean Connolly, an expert in the field, offers an accessible and impressively lucid overview Impressive, provocative and perception-tilting... This is an exhaustive, yet never exhausting, historical account of the multi-faceted story of the Irish diaspora... For Irish history buffs, it's indispensable Stylish and lucid, this intrepid and provocative book traces in a manner at once bold and nuanced the movements of Irish migrants across space and time over the past two centuries. Sean Connolly is alert to the complex fate of victims, exploiters, soldiers of fortune or the merely footloose, who used the wide world to explore themselves. In his analysis, imaginative audacity is tempered only by sound scholarly scruple. A work of unprecedented synthesis which is magisterial and informed, yet whose challenge to conventional wisdom will generate animated debate for years to come. On Every Tide, is the first comprehensive history of the Irish diaspora from pre-famine times to the present. This remarkable book, which is both readable and scholarly, ranging from North America and Britain to South America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, highlights the diversity of the Irish diaspora: Protestant and Catholic, unionist and nationalist, and their different experiences in the places where they settled. Connolly draws on an impressive array of primary evidence, including census records, personal testimonies, and popular fiction, without getting bogged down in statistics and minutiae... a seamless and well-rounded study Wide-ranging... based on Sean Connolly's long-standing research and takes us from the grim realities of the famine years through to the present day... bringing the story full circle A provocative and at times audacious challenge to this [narrative], Connolly examines the complexity of Irish identity and reassesses the lived experience of Irish immigrants... He doesn't pull his punches Connolly employs extensive research to weave an engaging account of emigration from Ireland... an authoritative but accessible and illuminating read