This book reconstructs American consular activity in Ireland from 1790 to 1913 and elucidates the interconnectedness of America’s foreign interests, Irish nationalism and British imperialism. Its originality lies in that it is based on an interrogation of American, British and Irish archives, and covers over one hundred years of American, Irish and British relations through the post of the American consular official while also uncovering the consul’s role in seminal events such as the War of 1812, the 1845-51 Irish famine, the American Civil War, Fenianism and mass Irish emigration. It is a history of the men who filled posts as consuls, vice consuls, deputy consuls and consular agents. It reveals their identities, how they interpreted and implemented US foreign policy, their outsider perspective on events in both Ireland and America and their contribution to the expanding transatlantic relationship. The work intersects diaspora studies, emigration history and diplomatic relations as well as illuminating the respective Irish-American, Anglo-Irish and Anglo-American relationships.

In its early years the United States Consular Service was a relatively amateurish organization, often staffed by unsuitable characters whose appointments had been obtained as political favours from victorious presidential candidates—a practice known as the Spoils System. Most personnel changed every four years when new administrations came in. This compared unfavourably with the consular services of the European nations, but gradually by the turn of the twentieth century things had improved considerably—appointment procedures were tightened up, inspections of consuls and how they managed their consulates were introduced, and the separate Consular Service and Diplomatic Service were merged to form the Foreign Service. The first appointments to Britain were made in 1790, with James Maury becoming the first operational consul in the country, at Liverpool. At one point, there was a network of up to ninety US consular offices throughout the UK, stretching from the Orkney Islands to the Channel Islands. Nowadays, there is only the consular section in the embassy and the consulates general in Edinburgh and Belfast.

Ireland’s Great Famine in Irish-American History: Enshrining a Fateful Memory offers a new, concise interpretation of the history of the Irish in America. Author and distinguished professor Mary Kelly’s book is the first synthesized volume to track Ireland’s Great Famine within America’s immigrant history, and to consider the impact of the Famine on Irish ethnic identity between the mid-1800s and the end of the twentieth century. Moving beyond traditional emphases on Irish-American cornerstones such as church, party, and education, the book maps the Famine’s legacy over a century and a half of settlement and assimilation. This is the first attempt to contextualize a painful memory that has endured fitfully, and unquestionably, throughout Irish-American historical experience.

Uncovers the transnational movement by Ireland's unionists as they worked to maintain the Union during the Home Rule era. The book explores the political, social, religious, and Scotch-Irish ethnic connections between Irish unionists and the United States as unionists appealed to Americans for support and reacted to Irish nationalism.

Offers the first comprehensive study of the diplomatic relationship between America and Ireland in the 1930s.

The Great Irish Famine remains one of the most lethal famines in modern world history and a watershed moment in the development of modern Ireland – socially, politically, demographically and culturally. In the space of only four years, Ireland lost twenty-five per cent of its population as a consequence of starvation, disease and large-scale emigration. Certain aspects of the Famine remain contested and controversial, for example the issue of the British government’s culpability, proselytism, and the reception of emigrants. However, recent historiographical focus on this famine has overshadowed the impact of other periods of subsistence crisis, both before 1845 and after 1852. This volume breaks new ground in bringing together foundational narratives of one of Europe and North America’s first refugee crises — making visible their impact in shaping perceptions, public opinion, and patterns of memorialization of Irish forced migration. It documents eyewitness impressions of suffering Irish emigrants, and especially orphaned infants, which became iconic images of the Famine migration.

A sweeping history of Irish emigration, arguing that the Irish exodus helped make the modern world When people think of Irish emigration, they often think of the Great Famine of the 1840s, which caused many to flee Ireland for the United States. But the real history of the Irish diaspora is much longer, more complicated, and more global. In On Every Tide, Sean Connolly tells the epic story of Irish migration, showing how emigrants became a force in world politics and religion. Starting in the eighteenth century, the Irish fled limited opportunity at home and fanned out across America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. These emigrants helped settle new frontiers, industrialize the West, and spread Catholicism globally. As the Irish built vibrant communities abroad, they leveraged their newfound power—sometimes becoming oppressors themselves. Deeply researched and vividly told, On Every Tide is essential reading for understanding how the people of Ireland shaped the world.