by Andrew J. Morris

Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America by Kerby A. Miller is, to put it simply, an excellent book. Ostensibly, this work examines the question as to why so many immigrants from Ireland feel like they have been exiled from their homeland, driven out by English oppression, when in fact most left voluntarily (excepting a few political exiles and the brief but large influx of famine immigrants). But this book does more than that. The first three chapters provide a brief but thorough introduction to Irish history as it looks at the social and economic factors that lead to emigration. Subsequent chapters look at various time periods from 1607 to 1921, and detail the causes, nature and extent of Irish emigration. It dispels such myths as the common notion that pre-famine immigration to the U.S. was almost exclusively "Scotch Irish."

Miller finds numerous factors that contribute to the feeling of exile among Irish emigrants. The English oppression was of course real, but emigrants from other lands suffered even greater oppression and still looked at emigration as an opportunity for betterment rather than exile. The Irish view of the world, their mythology and social norms, all contributed to the exile theme. Miller himself summarizes it thus:

The central thesis of this book has been that Irish-American homesickness, alienation, and nationalism were rooted ultimately in a traditional Irish Catholic worldview which predisposed Irish emigrants to perceive or at least justify themselves not as voluntary, ambitious emigrants but as involuntary, nonresponsible "exiles," compelled to leave home by forces beyond individual control, particularly by British and landlord oppression. In premodern times Gaelic culture's secular, religious, and linguistic aspects expressed or reinforced a worldview which deemphasized and even condemned individualistic and innovative actions such as emigration. Although Gaelic Ireland withered from the blasts of conquest and change, not only did certain real continuities remain to justify the retention of archaic attitudes and behavior patterns but in fact those institutions -- family, church, and nationalism -- which dominated modern Catholic Ireland strove to perpetuate old outlooks which both minimized the demoralizing impacts of change and cemented communal loyalties in the face of internal conflicts and external enemies. Thus, tradition and expediency merged, and emigration remained forced banishment -- demanding political redress and the emigrants' continued fealty to sorrowing Mother Ireland.

He then goes on to examine in detail that uniquely Irish phenomenon, the "American Wake" where friends and family gather to sorrowfully bid farewell to departing emigrants.