Irish and American Identities and the Built Environment

Drawing together examples from Ireland and the diaspora, this paper considers the ways that Irish migrants built a sense of belonging into their new lives abroad. For some, this was through the funding objects which embedded their names and family connections into buildings, or donating their treasured possessions to make everyday community items. For others, the emphasis was on replicating what they saw (or ‘remembered’) in Ireland and bringing it to their new home. In turn, those who had left the island of Ireland for the United States impacted the built environment here - particularly through public memorialisations for those who died abroad. In this way, this research brings transatlantic familial priorities of remembrance together with the buildings that we still use.

This talk expands the spaces and ways in which ‘Irishness’ was articulated in both local and global contexts, bringing together examples from across North America and Ireland. It seeks, in particular, to draw out the contributions of women (lay and religious) in shaping how migrant communities connected to, and sustained, a sense of ‘Irishness’ across multiple generations – and how those articulations can still be found embedded in spaces that are no longer typically seen as ‘Irish’. It therefore considers the ways that the priorities of nineteenth-century Irish migrants continue to physically frame today’s community spaces.