Category Archives: Irish America

On printing, and reproducing, the 1916 Easter Proclamation

Scituate, Massachusetts, USA, part of the South Shore Irish Heritage Trail. (October 2022)

The three men inside Dublin’s Libery Hall surely heard the church bells tolling on Easter Sunday, even over the cacophany of their printing press. Perhaps the trio reflectively straightened to bless themselves. But they quickly returned to their ink-stained work, laboring from midday Sunday until early Monday morning. Hours later, in front the General Post Office on O’Connell Street, Pádraig Pearse read aloud from a copy of their finished work: the 1916 Easter Proclamation:

“IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom. …”

Before that signal moment, the three workers–printer Christopher Brady, and compositors Michael Malloy and Liam O’Brien–produced the Proclamation in two stages, top and bottom, due to lack of type. The two sections are identifiable by different line spacing. The tempramental rollers of their old Wharfdale Double-Crown printing press meant uneven pressure smudged some letters, while others appeared too faint. See images and videio at this online exhibition from University College Cork.

Copies of the Easter Proclamation proliferated quickly. Fascimiles and newly typeset versions appeared in the American press within days of the British military supressing the uprising. More copies appeared after the execution of the rebel leaders.

From the front page of Fall River (Massachusetts) Daily Globe, May 19, 1916. Press reports as early as May 1, 1916, quoted the Proclamation in full.  

About 60 origional copies of the Declaration are know to have survived from a press run estaimated at no more than 1,000.  That’s 6 percent, 110 years later. As context, there are 26 origional copies of the 1776 Declaration of Independence, known as the Dunlap Broadside, from a press run of 200. That’s 13 percent, 250 years later.

About half the surving origional copies of the Procalamation are held at public institutions in Ireland, including UCC and Trinity College Dublin. But the document has been widely reproduced, including public monuments on both sides of the Atlantic. See top and below.

Dungarvan, County Waterford, Ireland. (June 2026)

An American journalist’s connection to Ireland and Egypt

HIATIUS: I am traveling and working on other projects. New posts will be infrequent through the spring and summer. I can be reached via contact form on the “About Me” page. Thanks, MH

What does a 3,500-year-old Egyptian red granite obelisk in New York City’s Central Park have to do with Ireland or Irish America? Nothing. But there are indirect connections.

Hurlbert

William Henry Hurlbert, a late-nineteenth century editor of the New York World, determined the city should match London’s acquisition of a similar object. His campaign resulted in the June 1880 arrival of the seven-story (69 feet) obelisk, seen below. It was raised in February 1881 on a small hill behind the Metrololitian Museum of Art, which opened about the same time. The MET holds one of the world’s largest Egyptian collections under its roof, in addition to the so-called “Cleopatra’s Needle” in the park.

The link to Ireland comes through Hurlbert, who traveled throughout the island in early 1888. Later that year he published the book, Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American. The conservative Hurlbert was pro-landlord and anti-home rule. Read about his work in my 2018 blog series: “Ireland Under Coercion, Revisited.”

I have visited numerous places in Ireland that Hurlbert described in his book. I was pleased to remember his connection to the obelisk as I walked through Central Park on my way to the American Irish Historical Society. Founded in Boston in 1897 (Hurlbert died two years earlier), the Society since 1940 has been located at 991 Fifth Avenue, directly across from the MET, barely a five-minute walk from the granite tower.

American journalist William Henry Hurlbert led an 1880 campaign to bring this Egyptian obelisk to Central Park in New York City. Eight years later he wrote a book about Ireland.

Elegy for an Irish American Catholic Family

I wrote the piece linked below for Pittsburgh Quarterly. It’s personal and poignant.

HIATIUS: I am traveling and working on other projects. New content will be posted infrequently through the spring and summer months. Contact form on the “About Me” page. Thanks, MH

 

From the archives: ‘Mrs. Brophy’s late husband’

James Brophy. Of Dublin? Or New York?

James Brophy died in Dublin on Feb. 12, 1921, the civilian casualty of a stray bullet in Ireland’s War of Independence. About the same time, an Irish immigrant of the same name disappeared from his family in New York City.

When newspapers America reported the death of Mr. Brophy in Dublin, Mrs. Brophy of New York urged U.S. diplomats and Irish police to investigate the case of her missing husband. The coincidence offers a glimpse of early 20th century Irish lives on both sides of the Atlantic, when handwritten letters crossed each other at sea and personal identification was more vague than today.

I wrote “Mrs. Brophy’s Late Husband” for The Irish Story in December 2016. It offers a unique view of Ireland’s revolutionary period and Irish America from the perspective of people at the edges of history. Such stories “humanize and enrich history by reminding us that the study of the past should include the study of the lives of ordinary people, their attitudes, beliefs, motives, experiences and actions,” Bill McDowell wrote in Historical Research: A Guide for Writers of Dissertations, Theses, Articles and Books.

This story has been a reader favorite in the past. I hope new audiences might enjoy it, too. MH

McEntee comments on House ‘censorship’ allegations

This post has been revised from our live blog of the Feb. 4 “Bridging the Atlantic VII” conference at Georgetown University. MH

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Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Helen McEntee, TD, has addressed the House Judiciary Report ​report allegations of “harassment” and “censorship” by the EU and Coimisiún na Meán against tech groups to undermine conservative and populist parties.​

McEntee would not take my question about the matter after her keynote speech at Georgetown’s seventh annual “Bridging the Atlantic” conference. Her press counselor did not return an emailed follow up.

McEntee confirmed to the Irish Times that she discussed the issue with US trade ambassador Jamieson Grier. She stressed Ireland’s position that the regulations are designed to protect young people, according to the Times, which quoted her saying:

“I think there are certain elements of this that we don’t agree on. And for me it’s important that we engage on the areas we disagree on. I think what we all agree on is that, irrespective of whether someone is online or offline, they are protected. It’s about engaging and looking at how we can resolve those differences and I certainly think there is a view from the US that perhaps, you know, we could not deregulate. There is an element of red tape that could be removed and Ireland has been very clear that that’s something we want to see happen.”

During her Georgetown speech, McEntee said US challenges to Greenland’s sovereignty are “unacceptable.” Say said that any framing of Ireland having to decide between the US and EU is “rubbish.”

Ireland will hold the presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of this year. McEntee says Ireland has a strong committment to international law and believes in the United Nations.

“There is a risk of looking back with rose-tinted glasses to a past that never reallys existed,” McEntee said, echoing earlier conference panelists.

McEntee is a Fine Gael politician from Meath East. She was first elected in 2013, replacing her father in the constituency. She is also Ireland’s Minister of Defense, the first woman to hold the two ministerial roles.

McEntee said she met earlier today with members of Congress from both US parties on a variety of issues. Despite challenges to the US-Irish relationship, “more unites us than divides us,” she said.

New staff being added to Irish embassies in DC and throughout the US. “The St. Patrick’s Day program this year will be the most ambitious ever,” McEntee said.

“What once felt settled is being fundamentally tested,” she said. “I don’t take lightly the scale of what is going on around us. But our relationship will get us through any challenges.”

(An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Ireland would chair the UN Security Council later this year. That has been corrected to presidency of the Council of the European Union.)

Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Helen McEntee, TD.

***

Here is some of my live coverage from the conference panels.

Carolyn Gallagher and Kimberly Cowell-Meyers, both of American University, discuss Building a Green Wall: Irish America’s Resurgence Post-Brexit. Their 2025 book explores how Irish American interested lobbied to stop a hard border on the island of Ireland resulting from Brexit. Mary Murphy of Boston College says Sinn Fein’s efforts for united Ireland face strong headwinds in the US. Things are much different today compared to the Northern Ireland peace process of the 1990s or the post-Brexit border issue. … Ireland as a small state is also loosing agency on other issues in the disrupted international order, she said.

“The New Worlds of 21st Century Irish-America’ panel, left to right: moderator Liam Kennedy (University College Dublin); Carolyn Gallagher (American University); Kimberly Cowell-Meyers (American University); and Mary Murphy (Boston College).

***

Discussing United Irishmen and Young Ireland impacts in Ireland and the USA. … Many Irish in America was said to be members of radical and revolutionary groups in Ireland … but they really weren’t, Anbinder says.

The 1912 US election resulted in 43 Irish American congressmen, four Irish American US senators, four Irish American governors, and one Irish American president (Woodrow Wilson), according to Meagher. Only two of the congressmen were native born Irishmen, the rest were second generation Irish Americans. All were generally wary of getting involved in Irish politics. “Tammy Hall doesn’t pay a lot of attention to Irish nationalism,” Meagher said. That changed after the 1916 Rising.

Revolutionary Routes Across the Atlantic: 1776 and Beyond panel: left to right: Moderator Tyler Anbinder (George Washington University); Tim Meagher (Catholic University); Hannah Nolan (University of Maryland); and Chris Morash (Embassy of Ireland).

***

Cian T. McMahon, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, historian noted that most scholarship of the Irish in America is focused on the 19th and 20th century, not the 18th century. New York University historian Marion Casey said Ulster Scots were not the only Irish in colonial America, as typically portrayed. Members of British Army in the colonies included Irish from across the island. The US also was a convict dumping ground for the empire. “The 18th century cannot be pigeon holed as one thing,” Casey said.

McMahon said historians should focus on “stories,” plural, not a single “story” of the Irish in America. “I don’t think that’s what happening on the America 250 website,” he said, which is focused on “our American story,” singular. He said the US commemoration should not be about one national ideal, but a set of debates about multiple ideals.

“America250: American Lives, Irish Legacies” panel, left to right: Cian T. McMahon (University of Nevada, Las Vegas); Marion Casey (New York University); Darragh Gannon (Georgetown University); and moderator Caitríona Perry (BBC News).

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In opening remarks, Cóilín Parsons, director of Georgetown’s Global Irish Studies program, noted this year’s conference will focus on the past more than contemporary issues. He acknowledged the US-Irish (and EU) relationship is currently “under duress.” That’s all the more reason for an honest exploration of the foundations of the relationship beyond “some gauzy dream of friendship.”

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I’m at Georgetown University’s “Bridging the Atlantic VII” conference in Washinton, DC. This year’s event will explore 250 years of US-Irish relations. I am live blogging the event throughout the day. Email subscribers should check the website to see the updates. Here’s our coverage of last year’s event.

‘America and Ireland at 250’ focus of Feb. 4 Georgetown conference

Georgetown University’s Global Irish Studies program and other partners will explore 250 years of US-Irish relations during the 7th annual “Bridging the Atlantic” conference. I will live blog the Feb. 4 event from the university’s Capitol Campus in Washington, D.C.

Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Helen McEntee, TD, is scheduled to deliver the keynote address. Panel discussions include “America 250: American Lives, Irish Legacies”, “Revolutionary Routes Across the Atlantic: 1776 and Beyond”, “The New Worlds of 21st Century Irish-America”, and “Re-imagining the ‘Green Wave’: Cultural Visions of Ireland in America.”

Panel participant rosters and registration found here.

Georgetown’s conference partners include the BMW Center for German and European Studies, in association with the Embassy of Ireland, the Clinton Institute at University College Dublin, Queen’s University Belfast, and the Northern Ireland Bureau.

One of the panels at last year’s Bridging the Atlantic VI conference.

The ‘worst year that was ever remembered’

This post is reprised from January 2021 with minor revisions. The referenced letter is from the Joan Diggin Collection, part of the University of Galway’s ‘Imirce’ project of Irish emigrant letters and life stories from North America. Joan was my aunt. MH

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On Jan. 24, 1921, widowed farmer John Ware wrote a hand-written letter from Killelton townland, Ballylongford, a rural community in County Kerry where the River Shannon empties into the sea. The letter was addressed to his same-name, bachelor son, a streetcar motorman in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a noisy, smokey industrial city of more than a half million people; a hub of Irish immigrants, including two of his sisters, with a brother on the way. The sender was the father of my maternal grandmother, the recipient her older brother.

The 87-year-old father began the letter by thanking his 35-year-old son for an earlier postal order for £3, equivalent to about $175 today.[1]Bank of England Inflation Calculator through November 2025, and XE Corp. GBP to USD conversion on Jan. 20, 2026. Such remittances from immigrants were vital to the Irish economy and perpetuated still more departures.

Your prosperity in America is a great consolation to me. Your generosity and kindness since you left home.

John Ware in US Army uniform, World War 1.

John Ware the younger left home in 1910. Sisters Nora (my grandmother) and Bridget followed him to Pittsburgh in 1912 and 1916, respectively. He was naturalized in 1917, entered the U.S. Army as as private in April 1918, and shipped to France two months later. John survived the Great War and returned to Pittsburgh in February 1919.[2]See: An Irish-American’s most perilous summer, 1918.

The father reported that another son in Ireland had just welcomed a baby girl to his family three weeks earlier. A third son had sailed from Queenstown four days before he wrote the letter, also destined for Pittsburgh.

We all felt so happy he [was] able to get away giving to the present state of the country. That state of the case in Ireland at present is very bad.

War in Ireland

Ireland was in turmoil in January 1921. Two years had passed since Irish separatists established Dáil Éireann in Dublin. The Irish Republican Army’s guerrilla war against the British adminstration in Ireland had escalated steadily since summer 1920. IRA attacks were typically followed by military and police reprisals.

There was a policeman shot in Listowel a week ago. There is a fear there will be great damage done the town of Listowel through envy.

District Inspector Tobias O’Sullivan

District Inspector Tobias O’Sullivan was shot multiple times at close range mid-afternoon Jan. 20, 1921. He was only a few yards from the Listowel barracks. The victim was accompanied by his 5-year-old son.[3]”Listowel D.I. Shot Dead In Sight of Barracks”, The Kerryman, Jan. 29, 1921.

In Pittsburgh, John Ware may have read the next-day, front-page newspaper coverage of the O’Sullivan killing,[4]”Irish Official, 5 Constables Slain in Trap … Second Inspector Slain”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jan. 21, 1921. which occurred about eight miles from his father in Killelton, Ballylongford. Pittsburgh papers reported several of the shootings and fires deliberately set to houses, creameries, and other businesses that occurred in North Kerry since fall 1920,[5]Dwyer, T. Ryle, Tans, Terror and Troubles: Kerry’s Real Fighting Story 1913-23, Mercer Press, Cork, 2001. See Chronology, pps. 21-29. one episode only a few weeks earlier:

At Listowel, in the marshal law area, crown forces  were fired on by civilians while arresting men wanted. They returned the fire, killing one and wounding two who were captured and sent to a hospital. Five arrests were made.[6]”Three Die In Fighting”, Pittsburgh Daily Post, Jan. 3, 1921.

These and other episodes of violence against civilians, but not IRA attacks on military and police, were cataloged by the Dáil in “The Struggle of the Irish People,” presented in May 1921 to the U.S. Senate.[7]“The Struggle of the Irish People”, Address to Congress of the United States, Adopted January 1921 Session of Dáil Eireann. Attacks on people and property in Listowel and Ballybunion, pps. … Continue reading The burning of Ballylongford “has still not been forgotten locally” a Kerry author wrote nearly a century later.[8]O’Callaghan, Tony, The Kerry Coast, Tony O’Callaghan, Blennerville, Co. Kerry, 2016, p. 31.

Agricultural distress

War violence was not the only trouble John Ware mentioned in his letter from Kerry:

The past year in the country is the worst that was ever remembered. The most of the year was all raining, the farm produce was never before so bad.

Farming in Kerry in the early 1920s.

His assessment is confirmed in Kerry newspapers of autumn 1920, which reported the impacts of a “late spring” and “continuous wet weather” that created a “black outlook not only for the farmers but for the people in the towns as well.”[9]”Kerryisms”, The Liberator (Tralee), Oct. 7, 1920. Government reports also recognized the decline in agricultural activity that year, though quantifying it was complicated by the war and relied on estimates and summaries. “In 1920 it was not found practicable to obtain particulars of either crops or livestock on all farms.”[10]Farming Since the Famine: Irish Farm Statistics 1847-1996, Central Statistics Office, Ireland, 1997, p. 31

John Ware in Kerry did not mention his two daughters in Pittsburgh, who worked as household servants and perhaps also sent remittances. He concluded the letter to his son with wishes for a Happy New Year, a year that would soon bring a truce to the fighting and end with the treaty that created the Irish Free State.

References

References
↑1 Bank of England Inflation Calculator through November 2025, and XE Corp. GBP to USD conversion on Jan. 20, 2026.
↑2 See: An Irish-American’s most perilous summer, 1918.
↑3 ”Listowel D.I. Shot Dead In Sight of Barracks”, The Kerryman, Jan. 29, 1921.
↑4 ”Irish Official, 5 Constables Slain in Trap … Second Inspector Slain”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jan. 21, 1921.
↑5 Dwyer, T. Ryle, Tans, Terror and Troubles: Kerry’s Real Fighting Story 1913-23, Mercer Press, Cork, 2001. See Chronology, pps. 21-29.
↑6 ”Three Die In Fighting”, Pittsburgh Daily Post, Jan. 3, 1921.
↑7 “The Struggle of the Irish People”, Address to Congress of the United States, Adopted January 1921 Session of Dáil Eireann. Attacks on people and property in Listowel and Ballybunion, pps. 15-17, 20, and 28-30. Presented in the U.S. Senate on May 2, 1921, and recorded in Senate Documents, Vol. 9, 67th Congress, First Session, April 11-Nov. 23, 1921, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1921.
↑8 O’Callaghan, Tony, The Kerry Coast, Tony O’Callaghan, Blennerville, Co. Kerry, 2016, p. 31.
↑9 ”Kerryisms”, The Liberator (Tralee), Oct. 7, 1920.
↑10 Farming Since the Famine: Irish Farm Statistics 1847-1996, Central Statistics Office, Ireland, 1997, p. 31

More Americans move to Ireland to flee Trump

Rosie O’Donnell isn’t the only American who has emigrated to Ireland to escape the realm of Mad King Don the Con.

Nearly 100 US citizens (94) sought formal political asylum in Ireland last year, up from 22 in 2024. The figure was 18 in 2023 and 13 in 2022, according to Irish Department of Justice data cited by the Irish Times.

Citizensinformation.ie, an Irish government website, provides this information about applying for asylum.

Another 9,600 US citizens moved to Ireland without seeking asylum protection in the 12 months to April 2025. That’s nearly double the 4,900 who immigrated to Ireland in the previous 12 months, the Times reported, citing data from the Central Statistics Office.

Numerous media outlets have reported surges in the number of US citizens who have applied for Irish passports since President Trump returned to the White House last January. RTÉ appears to have been one of the first to use the term “Trumpugees.”

Of course, it’s difficult to fully escape from Trump. His tariffs and other policy decisions have economic and political consequences in Ireland and the rest of the world. In September the Irish Open will be at held at Trump International Golf Links Ireland, in Doonbeg, County Clare.

The Trump golf and hotel operation has sought planning permission to build-wait for it–a new ballroom. That’s right, why just erect such a gathering place adjacent to the White House in Washington when you could also add one to the Clare coastline. A permit decision from Clare authorities is expected by late February.

The entrance of Trump’s Doonbeg golf course in County Clare during my July 2016 visit, while he was campaigning for his first term as US president.

Best of the Blog, 2025

My thirteenth year of producing this blog was productive and rewarding. Highlights included the publication of several freelance pieces in scholarly journals or the popular press. The University of Galway accepted my family’s letters between the U.S. and Ireland from the 1920s through the 1980s for their digital immigrant archives. I was interviewed for a St. Patrick’s Day television program and gave a presentation about Michael J. O’Brien, my 2024 entry in the Dictionary of Irish Biography. I made my thirteenth visit to Ireland in 25 years.

This website was on pace for record all-time traffic, then rocketed over the top by a mid-November surge of AI content-scraping bots. Or maybe thousands of readers in China have suddenly become interested in Irish news and history. I object to the unauthorized grab of my intellectual property, but I’m happy if it eventually contributes to global knowledge, especially my work about American journalists in Ireland.

More details and links to some of this year’s best content follow below each of the photos:

The gate between the Museum of Literature Ireland courtyard and the Iveagh Gardens. “MoLI replaced the former Dublin Writer’s Museum.

Freelance pieces

The former London and North Western Hotel seen in April 2025. A group of American journalists watched from the top floor as Irish rebels and British forces fired on each other during the 1916 Rising. The dark glass building at right is part of the Salesforce Tower, which renovated the former hotel as office and meeting space. The red brick structure at left is the former railway and steam packet terminal operated by the L&NW hotel company. It was vacant during my visit. The building faces the River Liffey.

Two blog series:

Revisiting William Brayden’s 1925 ‘survey’ of Ireland

The Irish-born journalist wrote a summer 1925 series for the Chicago Daily News about the state of Ireland on both sides of the partition. His series, later compiled as a book, and follow up reporting about the end of the Irish Boundary Commission served as the conclusion to American newspaper coverage of Ireland’s decade-long revolutionary period.

Leon and Jill Uris in Ireland

The American husband and wife team, author and photographer, respectively, made several visits during the 1970s. They produced photobooks and a bestselling novel that perpetuated notions of “romantic Ireland” before the Republic’s economic modernization and the Good Friday Agreement at the end of the 20th century.

Family letters

Nearly 60 of my family’s letters to and from Ireland were accessioned and digitized in the Imirce (Irish for migration, emigration) project at the University of Galway. The searchable Joan Diggin Collection is named after my aunt, who either authored or was the recipient of most of the letters. The collection also includes a digitized copy of my 2013 book, His Last Trip, about Joan’s father, my grandfather. The letter manuscripts and a print copy of the book may be consulted in the Archives and Special Collections Reading Room.

This February 25, 1953, note from Ireland before St. Patrick’s Day is part of the Imirce collection. I kept the shamrocks, which also were included in several other letters.

Television interview

Watch my St. Patrick’s Day interview with FOX 8’s “News Now” in Johnstown, Pa. The conversation covers my Irish ancestry and historical research. Each segment is 5 minutes:

My remote St. Patrick’s Day television appearance for FOX 8 in Johnstown, Pa., included the obligatory bookcase in the background. But they are real books that I’ve actually read and use.

Thanks archivists, librarians, and others

This year’s research included multiple visits to the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, and Catholic University of America here in Washington, D.C. I also spent time at the National Library of Ireland, Dublin, New York Public Library, and the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh Archives and Records Center. I received remote help from the Newberry Library in Chicago, the Catholic Diocese of Gaylord, Mich., and the Paulist Archives in New York City. As always, I am grateful to the professionals at these institutions who assisted my work. … I was delighted to contribute some research and materials to “The Irish Revolution in the African American Press” exhibition at University College Cork. It focused on how the US black press covered De Valera’s tour of America (1919–20), MacSwiney’s hunger strike death (1920), and the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921-22). Dr. Jemima Hodgkinson, a Research Ireland postdoctoral fellow, curated the exhibit. … I enjoyed watching excellent presentations by Irish historians (and friends) Daniel Carey and John Dorney at the “Navigating War and Violence in Twentieth-Century Ireland” conference at Dublin City University in April. … On the same trip I was welcomed to Dungloe, County Donegal, by Patrick J. Dunleavy, chairman of the The Cope’s board of directors, who gave me a detailed driving tour of the Rosses region, and by Mark Sharkey and Emma McGarvey, Cope CEO and business support manager, respectively.

I hope to return to Ireland in 2026, and to visit two new domestic archives I’ve eyed for some time. Meanwhile, happy holidays to the site’s human readers, especially my loyal email subscribers. Sláinte!

Low tide twilight at Dungloe, County Donegal. The pier at left replaced the one constructed during the revolutionary period and detailed in 1922 by American journalist Redfern Mason.

More on Jill and Leon Uris in Ireland

I’m keeping my promise to follow up an earlier post, When Jill and Leon Uris went to Ireland. The couple first visited both sides of the partitioned island from May 1972 to January 1973, then published Ireland: A Terrible Beauty in November 1975. The book featured nearly 400 photographs by Jill and text by Leon, an established author.

Leon released his Irish novel, Trinity, in 1976. It became a best-seller. The couple returned to Ireland at least five more times over the next few years. Jill photographed places that represented the fictional locations in Trinity. She did a piece for the Ladies’ Home Journal magazine headlined “Connor and Shelly,” which illustrated the novel’s main characters. Jill and Leon traveled the River Shannon on a houseboat, “a lovely second honeymoon,” she recalled in a second book of photos, Ireland Revisited, published in 1982.[1]Jill Uris, Ireland Revisited. [Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1982], 1-2.

Of her half dozen trips to Ireland, Jill enthused:

I always arrive with anticipation, wanting to be haunted by her mysteries and teased by her fantasies. I travel through her tortured landscape wondering what it is about this place that entices me so. Is it ancient ruins, wild seascapes, the hundred shades of green? Or is it the verbal jousting and continual singsong of stories in a language that is something beyond English …yet not quite foreign? It is all of these and more; it is a people whose goal is only to be themselves, whose spirit retains a dignity which is rare in today’s world. It is the Irish refusal to be servants to anyone but their own minds.[2]Ibid.

The Irish Independent published this advert on Dec. 8, 1982. The image appeared on the book jacket and on an inside page. Titled “Man of Aran,” the figure was Dara Beag Ó Fátharta, the “Bard of Inishmaan,” who died in 2012 at the age of 92.

Revisited received mostly tepid reviews. John M. McGown of Gannett News Service noted the Uris’s first photo book had become “a staple on the shelves of Irish Americans” and the second was “likely to become a companion piece.”[3]”Two authors write varying views of Irish”, St. Cloud (Minn.) Times, Dec. 2, 1982, and other papers. But Doug Wells of the Des Moines (Iowa) Register compared paging through Revisited to sitting through a neighbor’s vacation slides as he rhapsodized about how much he “just loved Ireland.”  Wells continued:

To be sure Jill Uris is a much better photographer than the man next door. Most of her photographs are well done. … She has concentrated on the rural, older Ireland, the romantic image most Americans have of the country. … But just as your neighbor babbles on and on about how beautiful it all was, so Uris carries on about Ireland. Her dullish prose, combined with snips and scraps from Irish writers and poets, upset what flow and balance the pictures provide.[4]”Too much, too little”, Des Moines (Iowa) Register, Oct. 17, 1982.

In Ireland, Frank Miller of the Sunday Press described Revisited as “a headless horse of a book, a book of photographs based on an unreality, lost and wandering somewhere between the myths and mists of romantic Ireland.” He also complained that Dara Beag Ó Fátharta (image above) appeared “no less than four times through the book.”[5]”Lost between myths and mists of romantic Ireland”, Sunday Press, (Dublin), Dec. 5, 1982.

Historical context

Ireland Revisited appeared a decade after Bloody Sunday in Derry, Northern Ireland. As copies reached American bookshops in autumn 1982, the Troubles’ death toll climbed to 1,794 by year’s end. This turned out to be roughly half the total of number of people killed in the conflict.[6]”Year of the death” in Malcolm Sutton’s Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland, found at cain.ulster.ac.uk. Sutton’s index ranges from 1969 to 2001, three years after … Continue reading

Jill Uris wrote that after each of her trips to Ireland “the headlines from the North became more piercing. The people in the Republic wish the ‘troubles’ would just drift away. After all, they are finally building their own country and who needs the continuing hostility and fanaticism of Ulster?”

In fact, the Republic in the mid-1980s was “crippled by political violence, mass emigration, mass unemployment, political paralysis and a sense of hopelessness,” Michael McDowell, an independent member of Seanad Éireann, wrote at the start of 2025. It would take another decade or so before the Republic began the economic modernization known as the “Celtic Tiger” and citizens confronted abuses by the Catholic Church that resulted in today’s militant secularism. More then 40 years after Ireland Revisited, Ireland faces “very real” new challenges, McDowell concluded, “but very different from the dark past we left behind.”

So, too, “Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone. It’s with O’Leary in the grave.”[7]”September 1913” by William Butler Yeats.

References

References
↑1 Jill Uris, Ireland Revisited. [Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1982], 1-2.
↑2 Ibid.
↑3 ”Two authors write varying views of Irish”, St. Cloud (Minn.) Times, Dec. 2, 1982, and other papers.
↑4 ”Too much, too little”, Des Moines (Iowa) Register, Oct. 17, 1982.
↑5 ”Lost between myths and mists of romantic Ireland”, Sunday Press, (Dublin), Dec. 5, 1982.
↑6 ”Year of the death” in Malcolm Sutton’s Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland, found at cain.ulster.ac.uk. Sutton’s index ranges from 1969 to 2001, three years after the Good Friday Agreement.
↑7 ”September 1913” by William Butler Yeats.