“No Irish Need Apply”

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Author Jay P. Dolan, is a Vero Beach resident and professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame.

Jay P. Dolan, Vero Beach resident and professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, gives us the sweeping history of the Irish who lived, worked and worshiped in the United States since the 1700s in his compact and entertaining book, The Irish Americans. It’s the story of the brave souls who emigrated from Ireland for what they hoped and prayed would be decent jobs, social justice and religious freedom. It’s a story that continued through the lives of their children and subsequent generations, weaving a distinctive texture into the fabric of America.

Many of the experiences of Irish immigrants reflect the same experiences of other immigrants in America, such as the Germans, Italians and Polish. However, Dolan points to four areas where the Irish distinguished themselves: politics, religion, labor, and nationalism. He focuses on these themes throughout the book as they dominated each phase of Irish American history.

Read the entire article in the March 2011 issue

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