Frederick Douglass once said: “The Irish, who, at home, readily sympathize with the oppressed everywhere, are instantly taught when they step upon our soil to hate and despise the Negro…Sir, the Irish-American will one day find out his mistake.” With these words, Douglass touched on the historical tension between Ireland and the diaspora in the United States. In this investigation, this tension is explored in the context of the move of Irish American politics to the political right. More specifically, I analyze the political power of the Irish American voting bloc over the last thirty years. A once-persecuted immigrant community became a formidable ethnic community finding its way to positions of power through a deepening of “white identity” and an association with consumerism. I analyze how the adoption of “white identity” and its position in an American racial hierarchy, as defined by American racial and social politics, shifted the political affiliations of the Irish American voting bloc. And currently, the trend of Irish Americans seeking to reclaim Irish identity in a consumer manner, while also maintaining white and American identities, has shifted this community’s politics still further. In other words, there is an emerging fracturing of the community. With more conservative politics present today that did not exist in the past, I note the growing trend of Irish Americans shifting their votes based on this advancement in privilege.
Presentation deriving from senior honors thesis and Global FLEX trip (Overcoming Divided Histories in Ireland) with Gregory White, Mary Huggins Gamble professor of government.