On the Bookshelf

Written by Irish traditional flute player, music historian and collector Mick O’Connor, In Safe Hands features more than 600 rare photographs and 112 biographies of Dublin musicians over eight decades. Musician Louise Mulcahy calls it “a masterful and deeply inspiring tribute to the rich tradition of Irish music in Dublin….A lasting contribution to our cultural heritage, it will inspire generations to come.” The book is beautifully designed by graphic artist Martin Gaffney, also a flute player from Cavan, who notes he “uses the typeface Futura to balance clarity and authority, creating an accessible, engaging narrative.”

GREEN AND BLUE
Irish Americans in the Union Military 1861–1865
By Damian Shiels
Louisiana State University Press / 318 pages / $50 / April 2025

Using archival collections of correspondence and records of 395 Irish soldiers and sailors who fought for the Union in the American Civil War, Damian Shiels has crafted a fascinating portrayal of Irish soldiers: who they were, where they came from, why they joined the military, and their sense of ethnic identity before and after the war. Professor Kevin Kenny writes that Shiels has “transformed our understanding of the enlisted rank-and-file men, why they fought, and what they thought of race and politics.”

RITUALS OF MIGRATION
Italians and Irish on the Mov
Edited by Kevin Kenny and Maddalena Marinari
NYU Press / 264 pages / $32 / June 2025 (Glucksman Irish Diaspora Series)

Rituals of Migration offers a mix of historical essays by leading scholars who examine Italian and Irish migrants on the move from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. Ritualistic habits are closely examined, such as packing and departure, religion and faith, work habits and family life, cultural activities and forming ethnic cohesiveness in America. Fear of departure, anxiety during the journey and hope upon arrival are characteristic of both groups, albeit in varying ways, and so is the ambivalence and diffi- culties of immigrants returning back to Ireland and Italy.

FORGED IN AMERICA
How Irish-Jewish Encounters Shaped a Nation
Edited by Hasia R. Diner and Miriam Nyhan Grey
NYU Press / 288 pages / $30 / November 2023

Since her acclaimed study in 1983, Erin’s Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century, scholar Hasia Diner has written extensively about the ways Irish-Americans and Jewish-Americans “collided, cooperated and collaborated in the cities where they made their homes, all the while shaping American identity and nationhood,” particularly in urban areas. Here she and Professor Grey call upon 10 leading scholars to parse various aspects of the Irish-Jewish relationship, especially in New York. Irish scholars of note include Terry Golway, Kevin Kenny, James R. Barrett and Marion R. Casey.

For more recommended reading, visit irishboston.org/book-reviews