To the four corners of the world
On Every Tide: The Making and Remaking of the Irish World
by Sean Connolly
Little, Brown, 496 pages, £25
Like the Irish diaspora itself, the literature on the topic is enormous. Of what is written, some is straight history; some is quantitative; while some dwells on particular sources, such as emigrant letters or banking records. Sean Connolly’s ambitious (2000), but Connolly is more scholarly and fair-minded (if less humorous), and whereas Coogan’s focus is mainly on the “Green” (or Catholic) Irish, Connolly gives their Orange (ie, Protestant) brethren their due share. Indeed, more of the cameos in On seem to refer to emigrants from Antrim or Derry/London-derry than, say, Kerry or Tipperary.
