Of Memory and the Misplaced Irish Immigrant Life Writing in the United States

"Solidly rooted in recent theoretical frameworks from memory studies, Of Memory and the Displaced provides a valuable combination of academic analyses and lengthy extracts from hitherto unexplored Irish-American migrants' memoirs. This pioneering publication challenges the predominant notion of a Catholic transatlantic diaspora in significant ways, by integrating the memories of women as well as non-Catholic immigrants, and by stressing the regional and linguistic variations among them. The included memoirs show how watershed events in both Ireland and the United States-such as the Great Famine and the American Civil War-were remembered by intercultural communities well into the twentieth century."-Marguérite Corporaal, Radboud University
"O'Brien has produced an exceptionally rich and beautifully written study of Irish diasporic life narratives informed by the arguments of contemporary memory studies and autobiographical theory. Micro-analyses of four texts ranging from the Famine era to the late 20th century are balanced by a sophisticated and wide-ranging synthesis of eighteen other works which establishes patterns of experience and narrative recollection among Irish immigrants to the United States. Historically precise and theoretically erudite, this book will be an essential text for scholars of autobiography, immigration, memory studies, and Irish literature and culture."-Elizabeth Grubgeld, author of Disability and Life Writing in Post Independence Ireland