Abstract
Through close examination of speeches dedicated to Robert Emmet, the Irish Nationalist, Republican, and rebel leader, on the centennial of his death, I reveal how Irish-American civic and religious leaders marshaled his memory into the ideographs of land and liberty, and in doing so mitigated diaspora and constituted Irish-Americans as not only a decent but also an exceptional part of the burgeoning American socio-political landscape. First, I examine the state of Irish-American diaspora in early twentieth century America and the role epideictic speeches celebrating the legacy of Robert Emmet played in constructing the Irish Americans as a collective. Next, I delve into the unique challenges faced by second and third-generation Irish-Americans who found themselves at a time in which claiming any identity other than full-fledged American rendered them suspect and insubordinate. Finally, I demonstrate how the ideographs of land and liberty provided a way for Irish-Americans to leverage their dedication to land and their devout fight against tyranny with the American Frontier Myth, producing a people who were not only full-fledged but actually superior Americans.
Journal Title
Iowa Journal of Communication
Volume
47
Issue
2
First Page
154
Last Page
176
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
McCue-Enser, Margret
(2015)
"Constituting the Diasporic Collective: Irish-Americans at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century,"
Iowa Journal of Communication: Vol. 47:
No.
2, Article 4.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ijc/vol47/iss2/4
Copyright
©2015 Iowa Communication Association
