Research Guides: Irish-American Heritage Month: Irish American Heritage Month, 2023

Irish-American Heritage Month, 2023

In honor of Irish American Heritage Month, I have gathered together some digital resources within and outside of the library. In this guide, I have tried to include resources concerning both Ireland and Irish-Americans.

2023 is the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, so the guide will also include some materials about this important historical event.

Here are a few resources having to do with Irish American Heritage Month more broadly:

A Proclamation on Irish-American Heritage Month, 2023
A proclamation from the White House on Irish-American Heritage Month, March 2023. Similar proclamations have been issued each year since 1991.
Irish-American Heritage Month and St. Patrick’s Day: March 2023
Some statistics about Irish-Americans from the US Census

Additionally, New York Public Library has a guide for those doing genealogical research on their Irish-American ancestry.

The Irish In Us: A Quick Primer on Irish-American Genealogy Research

For help with finding more resources like these contact Prof. Foasberg through her profile below.

Ask any research librarian available for help through our Ask Us research service!

Ireland & Irish-American Heritage: Films

Ireland’s Refugee Hotel
Two worlds meet when a small town in the Ireland becomes the new home for hundreds of Syrian asylum seekers, brought over from refugee camps in Greece. We follow the story of Ghassan, 20, newly arrived in Ireland after a two-year long journey from Syria.
Living the tradition : an enchanting journey into old Irish airs
Behind every Irish tune is an ancient tale of love and loss, of history and heroes. Living the Tradition is the journey cello player and composer Ilse de Ziah takes around Ireland in a search for undiscovered secrets of ten Irish airs. Along the way she meets with renowned Irish musicians, scholars and local characters who share the history and stories behind the music with her.
His & Hers
From kitchens, living rooms, and hallways across the Irish midlands, His & Hers delightfully combines observation and charm to tell a 90-year-old love story through the voices of 70 women. This intimate gender and cultural snapshot explores a woman's relationships with the men in her life - father, boyfriend, husband, son. Following sequentially from little girl to old woman, each character portrait is woven with the others into one perfectly crafted cinematic quilt.
Wonderland. Season 3, Episode 6, The Men Who Won't Stop Marching
Part of the BBC's "Wonderland" series of hour-long documentaries. More than 10 years after the end of the 'troubles', filmmaker Alison Millar explores Shankill Road - the capital of hard core Belfast loyalism - to find out how well the scars have healed.

Irish & Irish-American History: E-Books

Northern Ireland after the Good Friday Agreement by Mike Morrissey; Marie Smyth
ISBN: 9781849640961
This book gives a uniquely up-to-date insight into one of the issues at stake for the people of Northern Ireland - the long-term impact of political violence on the civil population.The result of extensive research among local communities, and drawing on survey and interview evidence, Northern Ireland After the Good Friday Agreement sets this issue within the context of past conflict and the continuing sectarian violence of the present. In particular it presents the views of ordinary people about their personal experiences of political violence and the impact it has had upon their lives.
Making the Peace in Ireland by Jeremy Smith
ISBN: 1317873831
Publication Date: 2014-06-11
For nearly thirty years Northern Ireland has been a by-word for terrorism, bloodshed, military coercion and intense communal conflict. However, Ireland is now experiencing a transition from a society in conflict to one at peace. Where did the violence come from and why could it not be pacified? Why has it taken thirty years to solve the Northern Irish conflict, and why did early attempts at settlement fail? Jeremy Smith explores these questions by placing the events in context with wider British and European patterns, giving the first in-depth study of the history of the peace process in Northern Ireland.
Northern Irish Writing after the Troubles by Caroline Magennis; Bryan Cheyette (Series edited by); Martin Paul Eve (Series edited by)
ISBN: 9781350074729
Publication Date: 2021-08-12
The period since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 has seen a sustained decrease in violence and, at the same time, Northern Ireland has undergone a literary renaissance, with a fresh generation of writers exploring innovative literary forms. This open access book explores contemporary Northern Irish fiction and how the 'post'-conflict period has led writers to a renewed engagement with intimacy and intimate life. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.
Lessons from the Northern Ireland Peace Process by Timothy J. White (Editor); Martin Mansergh (Foreword by)
ISBN: 9780299297039
Publication Date: 2014-02-04
From the early 1970s through the mid-1990s, Northern Ireland was the site of bitter conflict between those struggling for reunification with the rest of Ireland and those wanting the region to remain a part of the United Kingdom. After years of strenuous negotiations, nationalists and unionists came together in 1998 to sign the Good Friday Agreement. Northern Ireland's peace process has been deemed largely successful. Yet remarkably little has been done to assess in a comprehensive fashion what can be learned from it.

Irish and Irish-American Literature, Music and Art: E-Books

Too Smart to Be Sentimental by Sally B. Ebest
ISBN: 0268078629
Publication Date: 2008-01-01
Offers a feminist literary history of twentieth-century Irish America. This collection introduces the reader to the works of twelve contemporary Irish American women writers, some of whom are well known, such as Joyce Carol Oates, Alice McDermott, and Tess Gallagher, and some of whom are equally deserving of recognition.
Contemporary Irish Writers by Jody Allen Randolph
ISBN: 1611485371
Publication Date: 2013-01-01
In this powerful and authoritative study Jody Allen Randolph providesthe fullest account yet of the work of a major figure in twentieth-century Irish literature as well as in contemporary women's writing. Eavan Boland's achievement in changing the map of Irish poetry is tracked and analyzed from her first poems to the present.
Music and the Irish Literary Imagination by Harry White
ISBN: 0191563161
Publication Date: 2008-01-01
Harry White examines the influence of music in the development of the Irish literary imagination from 1800 to the present day.
Empire's Wake: Postcolonial Irish Writing and the Politics of Modern Literary Form
ISBN: 0823245470
Shedding new light on the rich intellectual and political milieux shaping the divergent legacies of Joyce and Yeats, Empire’s Wake traces how a distinct postcolonial modernism emerged within Irish literature in the late 1920's to contest and extend key aspects of modernist thought and aesthetic innovation at the very moment that the high modernist literary canon was consolidating its influence and prestige.
Irelands of the Mind by Richard C. Allen (Editor); Stephen Regan (Editor)
ISBN: 1443804428
Publication Date: 2008-01-01
Irelands of the Mind: Memory and Identity in Modern Irish Culture offers a compelling series of essays on changing images of Ireland from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. It seeks to understand the various ways in which Ireland has been thought about, not only in fiction, poetry and drama, but in travel writing and tourist brochures, nineteenth-century newspapers, radio talk shows, film adaptations of fictional works, and the music and songs of Van Morrison and Sinead O'Connor.