graphic areas, this book can be regarded as a basic reference source for anyone doing research on the Irish diaspora. Still, there are some problems. Mainly, there’s a conceptual slipperiness… Click to show full abstract
graphic areas, this book can be regarded as a basic reference source for anyone doing research on the Irish diaspora. Still, there are some problems. Mainly, there’s a conceptual slipperiness about just whose “vision of Greater Ireland” is being addressed these essays. Too often the voices that come through are the voices of priests, bishops, ministers, and the like, with little or no attention paid to the visions that might have been circulating in the minds of the “rank and file” of the migrant community. This slant may derive from what has survived in the documentary records on which the contributors rely, to be sure, but it is an issue that qualifies the “visions of Greater Ireland” focus that Barr and Carey tell us is central to their enterprise. A second, and related, problem has already beenmentioned: the general inattention to gender. With a few exceptions, the voices that come through these accounts are male voices, and it is their vision of Greater Ireland that is really being discussed. Did female Irish migrants share that vision? Possibly, but possibly not. Here and there, in any event, are some tantalizing clues to possible gendered patterns that might merit further investigation. One example will have to suffice. In his essay on the Irish Catholic books imported into Australia, Kevin Molloy notes first that most of the books involved were religious, and he calls attention to the fact that many of these were small, compact volumes probably intended for private reflection or for use during Mass (80–81). He then also notes, however, that rosary beads and similar sacramentals do not make an appearance in bookseller ads until the 1860s. So, who were the consumers of the objects being described? Did men and women buy religious texts equally? Or was there a gendered tie to literacy? If the use of sacramentals was mainly associated with women (which I suspect), did something happen in the 1860s with regard to the gendered composition of the Irish migrant population? Or was there an increase in the involvement of women in religious matters? Such questions are simply not raised.
               
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