...Paddys; they evolved into more civilized charming, still a bit rowdy Pats; then swaggering, clever, quick-tongued Jimmys, and, finally, more American than Irish, largely middle-class suburbanites. Screen actor Jimmy Cagney and New York Mayor Jimmy Walker personified Quinn's Jimmy. While his Irish America fits a number of cities, New York, which Quinn knows intimately, receives most attention.

Quinn laments that the Great Famine of the 1840s, which profoundly affected Ireland's, Britain's, and America's histories, has escaped Irish memories on both sides of the Atlantic. He understand why people would want to forget such a degrading, depressing happening, but in doing so they tail to understand troubling and lasting insecurities, anxieties, and fatalism.

Although it took a million lives and spawned two-million refugees, Quinn doesn't equate the Great Hunger with the Holocaust. However, he refuses to accept historical revisionist positions that it was just an unfortunate accident. Instead, Quinn agrees with scholars who interpret most of the casualties to anti-Catholic religious prejudice with "racial" dimensions, laissez faire economics,...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



More articles from Irish Literary Supplement
Tracking the heritage.(Private Histories: The Writing of Irish America..., September 22, 2007
The uncharted deep.(The Light of Evening)(Book review), September 22, 2007
Ireland in the 21st century: evaluating the 'Celtic Tiger' phenomenon...., September 22, 2007
Michael Yeats: in fond remembrance.(Obituary), September 22, 2007
Tyrone power! Ben Kiely 1919-2007., September 22, 2007

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