As one of the country's oldest ethnic groups, the Irish have played a vital part in its history. New York has been both port of entry and home to the Irish for three centuries. This joint project of the Irish Institute and the New York Irish History Roundtable offers a fresh perspective on an immigrant people's encounter with the famed metropolis. 37 illustrations.

Follows the Irish from their first arrival in the American colonies through the bleak days of the potato famine, the decades of ethnic prejudice and nativist discrimination, the rise of Irish political power, and on to the historic moment when John F. Kennedy was elected to the highest office in the land.

'...from time to time a study comes along that truly can be called ‘path breaking,’ ‘seminal,’ ‘essential,’ a ‘must read.’ How the Irish Became White is such a study.' John Bracey, W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Massachussetts, Amherst The Irish came to America in the eighteenth century, fleeing a homeland under foreign occupation and a caste system that regarded them as the lowest form of humanity. In the new country – a land of opportunity – they found a very different form of social hierarchy, one that was based on the color of a person’s skin. Noel Ignatiev’s 1995 book – the first published work of one of America’s leading and most controversial historians – tells the story of how the oppressed became the oppressors; how the new Irish immigrants achieved acceptance among an initially hostile population only by proving that they could be more brutal in their oppression of African Americans than the nativists. This is the story of How the Irish Became White.

They came from the poorest parts of Ireland and Italy, and met as rivals on the sidewalks of New York. In the nineteenth century and for long after, the Irish and Italians fought in the Catholic Church, on the waterfront, at construction sites, and in the streets. Then they made peace through romance, marrying each other on a large scale in the years after World War II. An Unlikely Union unfolds the dramatic story of how two of America's largest ethnic groups learned to love and laugh with each other in the wake of decades of animosity. The vibrant cast of characters features saints such as

Memoir of an Irish American youth

23 of today's top Irish-American authors provide personal accounts of how they found their voices in the Big Apple, and editor Colin Broderick provides background essays on Brendan Behan, Maeve Brennan, Frank McCourt, and other Irish-American writers of the past.

Explores the history of the Irish in America, offering an overview of Irish history, immigration to the United States, and the transition of the Irish from the working class to all levels of society.