Kathy Ireland - American, yet Irish...

To fully appreciate St. Patrick’s Day we must first examine our nation’s rich Irish heritage. This book from nearly a century ago investigates the similarities between the U.S. and Ireland that led to the (generally good-natured) Irish fervor of the late-nineteenth century. He goes on to look at the Irish question before and after the Great War, now known as World War I. An excerpt from the first chapter:

If America has a ghost, it is Ireland. But if Ireland haunts America, it is with a haunting based on love and not on hate. Like the Janus of the Atlantic, Ireland is two-faced. Towards England she ever looks with anguish and bitterness, toweards the United States with tearful hope and wistful affection. For in the nine-teenth century America was to Ireland what France as in the eighteenth, la grande nation! The strongest and choices went into their service, military in the case of France, industrial in that of America. The canals and then the railways of America were created by Irish labour. The industrial connection found apotheosis in the names of McCormick and Ford.

And some retrospective humor:

During the eighties [1880's] the Irish-Americans reached their zenith…It became almost necessary for an American President to claim Irish blood to be a successful candidate.

{Leslie, Shane. The Irish Issue in its American Aspect. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1917.}

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!