Irish In The Amer Revolution

When the Continental Congress decided to declare independence from the British empire in 1776, ten percent of the population of their fledgling country were from Ireland. By 1790, close to 500,000 Irish citizens had immigrated to America. They were was very active in the American Revolution, both on the battlefields and off, and yet their stories are not well known. The important contributions of the Irish on military, political, and economic levels have been long overlooked and ignored by generations of historians. However, new evidence has revealed that Washington’s Continental Army consisted of a far larger percentage of Irish soldiers than previously thought—between 40 and 50 percent—who fought during some of the most important battles of the American Revolution. Romanticized versions of this historical period tend to focus on the upper class figures that had the biggest roles in America’s struggle for liberty. But these adaptations neglect the impact of European and Irish ideals as well as citizens on the formation of the revolution. Irish contributors such as John Barry, the colonies’ foremost naval officer; Henry Knox, an artillery officer and future Secretary of War; Richard Montgomery, America’s first war hero and martyr; and Charles Thomson, a radical organizer and Secretary to the Continental Congress were all instrumental in carrying out the vision for a free country. Without their timely and disproportionate assistance, America almost certainly would have lost the desperate fight for its existence. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

In the midst of great expansion and economic growth in the eighteenth century, Ireland was deeply divided along racial, religious, and economic lines. More than two thirds of the population were Catholic, but nearly all the landowners were Anglican. The minority also comprised practically the entire body of lawyers, officers in the army and navy, and holders of political positions. At the same time, a growing middle class of merchants and manufacturers sought to reform Parliament to gain a real share in the political power monopolized by the aristocracy and landed gentry. Irish Politics and Social Conflict in the Age of the American Revolution remains one of the few in-depth studies of the effects of the Revolution on Ireland. Focusing on nine important years of Irish history, 1775 to 1783, from the outbreak of war in colonial America to the year following its conclusion, the book details the social and political conditions of a period crucial to the development of Irish nationalism. Drawing extensively on the Dublin press of the time, Maurice R. O'Connell chronicles such important developments as the economic depression in Britain and the Irish movement for free trade, the Catholic Relief Act of 1778, the rise of the Volunteers, the formation of the Patriot group in the Irish Parliament, and the Revolution of 1782.

Looking at America through the Irish prism and employing a comparative approach, leading and emerging scholars of early American and Atlantic history interrogate anew the relationship between imperial reform and revolution in Ireland and America, offering fascinating insights into the imperial whole of which both places were a part. Revolution would eventually stem from the ways the Irish and Americans looked to each other to make sense of imperial crisis wrought by reform, only to ultimately create two expanding empires in the nineteenth century in which the Irish would play critical roles. Contributors Rachel Banke, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy * T. H. Breen, University of Vermont * Trevor Burnard, University of Hull * Nicholas Canny, National University of Ireland, Galway * Christa Dierksheide, University of Virginia * Matthew P. Dziennik, United States Naval Academy * S. Max Edelson, University of Virginia * Annette Gordon-Reed, Harvard University * Eliga Gould, University of New Hampshire * Robert G. Ingram, Ohio University * Peter S. Onuf, University of Virginia * Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy, International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello * Jessica Choppin Roney, Temple University * Gordon S. Wood, Brown University

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The important roles and contributions of the Irish in the struggle for American Independence has been minimized and overlooked by historians, both American and Irish, for generations. Quite simply, American Independence could not have been won without the vital, widespread, and timely contributions-military, political, and economic-of the Irish from 1775 to 1783. To demonstrate the widespread extent of the Irish contribution and its importance in winning final victory, this work has focused on the long-overlooked achievements of the Irish in such important battles as Trenton, Kings Mountain, and Cowpens, which were key turning points of the American Revolution. However, because of long pervasive anti-Irish sentiment in America and because the Irish of the colonial period became thoroughly Americanized after the war, the key role played by the Irish throughout the war years has become one of the most forgotten and overlooked stories of the American Revolution. Indeed, ample new evidence has revealed that nearly half of George Washington's Continental Army consisted of Irish soldiers at key moments of the American Revolution, including at Valley Forge. Year after year, the Irish served not only as the nucleus, but also as the very foundation of Washington's Army, helping to ensure its survival during a lengthy war of attrition. Ironically, the disproportionately high percentage of Irish who served in the ranks of Washington's Continental Army was a fact well-known to both sides during the war years, but was quickly forgotten once the conflict ended, ensuring that the vital contributions of the Irish would be left out of the pages of American history. The latest scholarly research and much primary source material, especially from colonial period newspaper accounts, have been incorporated into this work to reveal the forgotten contributions and achievements of the Irish on all levels during the course of the American Revolution. For the first time, this book places the role of the Irish soldier in a proper historical perspective: a detailed look that is representative of the overall Irish contribution in all phases of the Revolutionary War effort.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Canon John O'Hanlon was principally a religious writer who compiled volumes of the lives of Irish saints, folklore and mythology. His Irish-American History of the United States offers an unusual perspective on American history and contains plentiful maps with portraits of founders, generals and presidents of the United States. -- Amazon.com.

America gained her freedom in a nine-year-war by fighting three-dozen battles from Georgia to Canada, and hundreds of engagements on the high seas, occurring along the coastlines of North America, the Caribbean, the British Isles, and Western Europe. We owe France for significant financial and military aid and for providing a safe haven for the ships of John Paul Jones and Luke Ryan. Let us not overlook the financial support supplied by Holland, and the involvement of Spain. But most importantly, the manpower provided by Irish-born, Irish-Americans, and Scot-Irish without which we might still be vassals of England's king.Comments from fellow Author: George Washington, Thomas Paine, John Paul Jones may be familiar names, but it turns out there's a lot more to the story. With James Francis Smith's chaff-free Irish in the American Revolution, whether one's a layman or an ardent student, one has a must-read account from start-to-finish of that great nation-birthing conflict, and at a pace that whizzes by at the speed of a musket ball. A thoroughly enjoyable and educational experience-even for the non-Irish!Rob M. Miller, author of I am a Victim, HWA member.

This study traces the impact of the American Revolution and of the international war it precipitated on the political outlook of each section of Irish society. Morley uses a dazzling array of sources - newspapers, pamphlets, sermons and political songs, including Irish-language documents unknown to other scholars and previously unpublished - to trace the evolving attitudes of the Anglican, Catholic and Presbyterian communities from the beginning of colonial unrest in the early 1760s until the end of hostilities in 1783. He also reassesses the influence of the American revolutionary war on such developments as Catholic relief, the removal of restrictions on Irish trade, and Britain's recognition of Irish legislative independence. Morley sheds light on the nature of Anglo-Irish patriotism and Catholic political consciousness, and reveals the extent to which the polarities of the 1790s had already emerged by the end of the American war.