Green Atlantic: the Irish in the Atlantic World
- LAST REVIEWED: 18 November 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 February 2020
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0331
- LAST REVIEWED: 18 November 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 February 2020
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0331
Introduction
Does an Irish Atlantic exist? Indeed, forgetting Ireland when studying the Atlantic world was frequent as the island was easily integrated into English or British history. However, late studies have put forward not only the unavoidable presence of the Irish in the Atlantic world but also their agency, through commercial and ideological exchanges. Green being the color of the Irish, tinting the Atlantic Ocean green was self-evident, and it gave birth to the Green Atlantic. Among academic works, no one has defined this idiom. It is understood as the transatlantic circulation of Irish people, ideologies, and goods. We believe that the Green Atlantic stems from a comparison with the Black Atlantic. This idiom has become trendy these days, however, with publications and conferences using it. The least we can say is that the Green Atlantic was an unwanted Atlantic: whether it was the Irish indentured servants sent to the colonies or the Irish migrants flowing into America as a result of the Great Famine, the Irish were unwanted “others.” They were deemed unreliable and lazy, and they often were compared to the African slaves or the Native Americans as a savage people hard to civilize. Despite the discrimination they suffered as a result of both their religion and their origin, Irish people have left their mark on many aspects of Atlantic societies. Think of the Carrolls, the Kennedys, and most American families that can claim Irish ancestry with pride now.
General Overviews
David Gleeson has remarked that no general overview of the Green Atlantic exists. Rather, glimpses of different aspects of the Irish in the Atlantic are available. Even if Gleeson 2010 questions the notion of an Irish Atlantic, most works on the Irish diaspora essentially focus on America, since it was the destination of most Irish migrants, Nevertheless, conclusive studies of the Irish in other parts of the Atlantic, such as some chapters in Fanning 2000, study the Irish in other parts of the Atlantic world. Jackson 2014 provides an insight into both the history of Ireland itself and its links with the Atlantic world as part of the British Empire. Coogan 2000 treats within the Atlantic world such as Canada, Argentina, and Africa in examining why the Irish left and how they fared in far-flung places in the Green Atlantic. Both Canny 1988 and Ohlmeyer 1999 focus on Ireland not only as part of the British Empire as a mere extension of England, but also as England’s first colony, an important laboratory for imperial strategies as well as a reservoir for labor. Finally, Trew and Pierse 2018 studies the results of “The Gathering” operation. Even though it gives a modern insight on Irish immigration and settlement abroad (and not only in the Atlantic world), the editors ask questions that are problematic today but also relevant with regard to the past.
Canny, Nicholas. Kingdom and Colony: Ireland in the Atlantic World, 1560–1800. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.
Nicholas Canny argues that Ireland in the 17th century should be considered as England’s first colony within the Atlantic world, and that its role as a laboratory was essential to the expansion of the English and later British Empire.
Coogan, Tim Pat. Wherever Green Is Worn: The Story of the Irish Diaspora. London: Hutchinson, 2000.
This survey is organized according to geographical areas, which can lack coherence at times but helps to identify the different groups of Irish immigrants in parts of the world such as Asia or Australia and, what is of interest to us, the Caribbean, Argentina, Africa, and Canada, among others. His argument is that two main forces have driven the Irish abroad, namely “Mother England” and “Mother Church” (p. 9).
Fanning, Charles. New Perspectives on the Irish Diaspora. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000.
This collective volume focuses on the Irish in America, putting forward the diversity of experiences leading to forging an Irish identity abroad. See especially Part 2, “New Perspectives on Pre-famine Immigration,” and Part 3, “New Sources for Diaspora Studies.”
Gleeson, David T., ed. The Irish in the Atlantic World. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2010.
In this edited volume, David Gleeson questions the relevance of an Irish Atlantic, along with other scholars who focus mainly on the 18th to 20th centuries. Themes include Irish copper mining, the “idea of America,” and the links between slavery and Irish nationalism.
Jackson, Alvin. The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199549344.001.0001
Several chapters are interesting in providing a general overview. While Part 3 deals with the chronology of events, Part 1 focuses on central themes, including the impacts made by the Irish had on the Atlantic world.
Ohlmeyer, Jane. “Seventeenth-Century Ireland and the New British and Atlantic Histories.” The American Historical Review 104.2 (April 1999): 446–462.
DOI: 10.2307/2650374
For Jane Ohlmeyer, the “New British History” should definitely include Ireland in the history of the early modern Atlantic world.
Trew, Johanne Devlin, and Michael Pierse. Rethinking the Irish Diaspora: After the Gathering. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-40784-5
This work questions the notions of identity, Irishness, diaspora, and exchanges, among others, in a contemporary context but with links made with the past.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Abolition of Slavery
- Abolitionism and Africa
- Africa and the Atlantic World
- African American Religions
- African Religion and Culture
- African Retailers and Small Artisans in the Atlantic World
- Age of Atlantic Revolutions, The
- Alexander von Humboldt and Transatlantic Studies
- America, Pre-Contact
- American Revolution, The
- Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Popery
- Argentina
- Army, British
- Arsenals
- Art and Artists
- Atlantic Biographies
- Atlantic Creoles
- Atlantic History and Hemispheric History
- Atlantic Migration
- Atlantic New Orleans: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Atlantic Trade and the British Economy
- Atlantic Trade and the European Economy
- Bacon's Rebellion
- Baltic Sea
- Baptists
- Barbados in the Atlantic World
- Barbary States
- Benguela
- Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Bolívar, Simón
- Borderlands
- Brazil
- Britain and Empire, 1685-1730
- British Atlantic Architectures
- British Atlantic World
- Buenos Aires in the Atlantic World
- Cabato, Giovanni (John Cabot)
- Cannibalism
- Capitalism
- Captain John Smith
- Captivity
- Captivity in Africa
- Captivity in North America
- Caribbean, The
- Cartier, Jacques
- Castas
- Catholicism
- Cattle in the Atlantic World
- Central Europe and the Atlantic World
- Charleston
- Chartered Companies, British and Dutch
- Cherokee
- Childhood
- Chinese Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World
- Chocolate
- Church and Slavery
- Cities and Urbanization in Portuguese America
- Citizenship in the Atlantic World
- Class and Social Structure
- Climate
- Clothing
- Coastal/Coastwide Trade
- Cod in the Atlantic World
- Coffee
- Colonial Governance in Spanish America
- Colonial Governance in the Atlantic World
- Colonialism and Postcolonialism
- Colonization, Ideologies of
- Colonization of English America
- Communications in the Atlantic World
- Comparative Indigenous History of the Americas
- Confraternities
- Constitutions
- Continental America
- Cook, Captain James
- Cotton
- Credit and Debt
- Creek Indians in the Atlantic World, The
- Creolization
- Criminal Transportation in the Atlantic World
- Crowds in the Atlantic World
- Cuba
- Currency
- Death in the Atlantic World
- Demography of the Atlantic World
- Diaspora, Jewish
- Diaspora, The Acadian
- Disease in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Production and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Slave Trades in the Americas
- Dreams and Dreaming
- Dutch Atlantic World
- Dutch Brazil
- Dutch Caribbean and Guianas, The
- Early Modern France
- Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Economy of British America, The
- Edwards, Jonathan
- Elites
- Emancipation
- Emotions
- Empire and State Formation
- Enlightenment, The
- Environment and the Natural World
- Ethnicity
- Europe and Africa
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Northern
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Western
- European, Javanese and African and Indentured Servitude in...
- Evangelicalism and Conversion
- Female Slave Owners
- Feminism
- First Contact and Early Colonization of Brazil
- Fiscality
- Fiscal-Military State
- Food
- Forts, Fortresses, and Fortifications
- France and Empire
- France and its Empire in the Indian Ocean
- France and the British Isles from 1640 to 1789
- Free People of Color
- Free Ports in the Atlantic World
- French Army and the Atlantic World, The
- French Atlantic World
- French Emancipation
- French Revolution, The
- Gardens
- Gender in Iberian America
- Gender in North America
- Gender in the Atlantic World
- Gender in the Caribbean
- George Montagu Dunk, Second Earl of Halifax
- Georgia in the Atlantic World
- Germans in the Atlantic World
- Giovanni da Verrazzano, Explorer
- Glasgow
- Glorious Revolution
- Godparents and Godparenting
- Great Awakening
- Green Atlantic: the Irish in the Atlantic World
- Guianas, The
- Haitian Revolution, The
- Hanoverian Britain
- Havana in the Atlantic World
- Hinterlands of the Atlantic World
- Histories and Historiographies of the Atlantic World
- Honor
- Huguenots
- Hunger and Food Shortages
- Iberian Atlantic World, 1600-1800
- Iberian Empires, 1600-1800
- Iberian Inquisitions
- Idea of Atlantic History, The
- Impact of the French Revolution on the Caribbean, The
- Indentured Servitude
- Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World, Indian
- India, The Atlantic Ocean and
- Indigenous Knowledge
- Insurance
- Internal Slave Migrations in the Americas
- Interracial Marriage in the Atlantic World
- Ireland and the Atlantic World
- Iroquois (Haudenosaunee)
- Islam and the Atlantic World
- Itinerant Traders, Peddlers, and Hawkers
- Jamaica in the Atlantic World
- Jefferson, Thomas
- Jesuits
- Jews and Blacks
- Labor Systems
- Land and Propert in the Atlantic World
- Language, State, and Empire
- Languages, Caribbean Creole
- Latin American Independence
- Law and Slavery
- Legal Culture
- Leisure in the British Atlantic World
- Letters and Letter Writing
- Lima
- Literature and Culture
- Literature of the British Caribbean
- Literature, Slavery and Colonization
- Liverpool in The Atlantic World 1500-1833
- Louverture, Toussaint
- Loyalism
- Lutherans
- Mahogany
- Manumission
- Maps in the Atlantic World
- Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Markets in the Atlantic World
- Maroons and Marronage
- Marriage and Family in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture of Slavery in the British Atlantic
- Medicine in the Atlantic World
- Mennonites
- Mental Disorder in the Atlantic World
- Mercantilism
- Merchants in the Atlantic World
- Merchants' Networks
- Mestizos
- Mexico
- Migrations and Diasporas
- Minas Gerais
- Miners
- Mining, Gold, and Silver
- Missionaries
- Missionaries, Native American
- Money and Banking in the Atlantic Economy
- Monroe, James
- Moravians
- Morris, Gouverneur
- Music and Music Making
- Napoléon Bonaparte and the Atlantic World
- Nation and Empire in Northern Atlantic History
- Nation, Nationhood, and Nationalism
- Native American Histories in North America
- Native American Networks
- Native American Religions
- Native Americans and Africans
- Native Americans and the American Revolution
- Native Americans and the Atlantic World
- Native Americans in Cities
- Native Americans in Europe
- Native North American Women
- Native Peoples of Brazil
- Natural History
- Networks for Migrations and Mobility
- Networks of Science and Scientists
- New England in the Atlantic World
- New France and Louisiana
- New York City
- News
- Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World
- Nineteenth-Century France
- North Africa and the Atlantic World
- Northern New Spain
- Novel in the Age of Revolution, The
- Oceanic History
- Oceans
- Pacific, The
- Paine, Thomas
- Papacy and the Atlantic World
- Paris
- People of African Descent in Early Modern Europe
- Peru
- Pets and Domesticated Animals in the Atlantic World
- Philadelphia
- Philanthropy
- Piracy
- Plantations in the Atlantic World
- Plants
- Political Participation in the Nineteenth Century Atlantic...
- Polygamy and Bigamy
- Port Cities, British
- Port Cities, British American
- Port Cities, French
- Port Cities, French American
- Port Cities, Iberian
- Ports, African
- Portugal and Brazile in the Age of Revolutions
- Portugal, Early Modern
- Portuguese Atlantic World
- Poverty in the Early Modern English Atlantic
- Pre-Columbian Transatlantic Voyages
- Pregnancy and Reproduction
- Print Culture in the British Atlantic
- Proprietary Colonies
- Protestantism
- Puritanism
- Quakers
- Quebec and the Atlantic World, 1760–1867
- Quilombos
- Race and Racism
- Race, The Idea of
- Reconstruction, Democracy, and United States Imperialism
- Red Atlantic
- Refugees, Saint-Domingue
- Religion
- Religion and Colonization
- Religion in the British Civil Wars
- Religious Border-Crossing
- Religious Networks
- Representations of Slavery
- Republicanism
- Rice in the Atlantic World
- Rio de Janeiro
- Rum
- Rumor
- Russia and North America
- Sailors
- Saint Domingue
- Saint-Louis, Senegal
- Salvador da Bahia
- Scandinavian Chartered Companies
- Science, History of
- Scotland and the Atlantic World
- Second-Hand Trade
- Settlement and Region in British America, 1607-1763
- Seven Years' War, The
- Seville
- Sex and Sexuality in the Atlantic World
- Shakers
- Shakespeare and the Atlantic World
- Ships and Shipping
- Signares
- Silk
- Slave Codes
- Slave Names and Naming in the Anglophone Atlantic
- Slave Owners In The British Atlantic
- Slave Rebellions
- Slave Resistance in the Atlantic World
- Slave Trade and Natural Science, The
- Slave Trade, The Atlantic
- Slavery and Empire
- Slavery and Fear
- Slavery and Gender
- Slavery and the Family
- Slavery, Atlantic
- Slavery, Health, and Medicine
- Slavery in Africa
- Slavery in Brazil
- Slavery in British America
- Slavery in British and American Literature
- Slavery in Danish America
- Slavery in Dutch America and the West Indies
- Slavery in New England
- Slavery in North America, The Growth and Decline of
- Slavery in the Cape Colony, South Africa
- Slavery in the French Atlantic World
- Slavery, Native American
- Slavery, Public Memory and Heritage of
- Slavery, The Origins of
- Slavery, Urban
- Smuggling
- São Paulo
- Sociability in the British Atlantic
- Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts...
- Soldiers
- South Atlantic
- South Atlantic Creole Archipelagos South Atlantic Creole A...
- South Carolina
- Sovereignty and the Law
- Spain, Early Modern
- Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900
- Spanish American Port Cities
- Spanish Colonization to 1650
- Subjecthood in the Atlantic World
- Sugar in the Atlantic World
- Technology, Inventing, and Patenting
- Textiles in the Atlantic World
- Texts, Printing, and the Book
- The American West
- The French Lesser Antilles
- The Fur Trade
- Theater
- Time(scapes) in the Atlantic World
- Tobacco
- Toleration in the Atlantic World
- Transatlantic Political Economy
- Tudor and Stuart Britain in the Wider World, 1485-1685
- Universities
- USA and Empire in the 19th Century
- Venezuela and the Atlantic World
- Violence
- Visual Art and Representation
- War and Trade
- War of 1812
- War of the Spanish Succession
- Warfare
- Warfare in Spanish America
- Warfare in 17th-Century North America
- Warfare, Medicine, and Disease in the Atlantic World
- Weavers
- West Indian Economic Decline
- Whitefield, George
- Whiteness in the Atlantic World
- Wine
- Witchcraft in the Atlantic World
- Women and the Law
- Women Prophets