Product Description

Far more Irishmen live outside Ireland than within it. This fascinating study, by Ireland's best known and most controversial contemporary historian, reveals why this is, how it has come about and what the realities are today - political, economic, religious and cultural - for the populations of the 'Irish Diaspora' and the countries they now inhabit. Based on first-hand research in America, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and throughout Europe (including, of course, the UK), this book reveals the workings of Irish communities throughout the world, some with great political and economic power (such as in the US, where the Irish political tradition has dominated politics from the 19th century Tammany Hall to presidents Kennedy and Clinton), some with enormous moral authority (including Irish religious communities in Africa) and others living in poverty on the fringes of society.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #465067 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 768 pages

Frank McCourt
‘A journey into our own psyche... Tim Pat Coogan has dug, Heaney-like, into the past while opening doors to faraway places.’

Books Ireland
'...long-awaited account of the Irish Diaspora is the most far-reaching and comprehensive study of that phenomenon ever written.’

The Irish Times
'... a challenging and controversial work on the Irish diaspora… It is a big book on a big topic. Don't just read it. Buy it and reread it.’

Customer Reviews

It's English, but sure don't be lettin that bother ya
One of the most amusing moments in this book is where the author is asked for some of his books by someone wanting to find out about Irish history, only to reject them as "propaganda" when he finds out they are published in Britain.

It's a worry he needn't have had, as this is a wonderfully fair-minded and even-handed account of the Irish diaspora, filled with charming anecdotes like the one above.

The author sets himself a monumental task; like a coffin-ship captain during the famine, he has to decide who to leave in and who to leave out, sometimes this results in biblical lists of people who are household names only in their own communities, which is the books biggest weakness.

This is an optimistic books with a positive outlook on the future of the Irish diaspora and of Irish relations with Britain. Though the author's colours are nailed firmly to the nationalist mast and he reminds us more often than is necessacary what a bogus, vapid ideology "loyalism" is, he recognises the complexities of Anglo-Irish relations and their long, tangled history.

Ranging in scope from Patagonia to Japan and from the era of medieval monks to that of the World Wide Web, this is a major, impressive, necessacary work.

5 for effort, 1 for execution
TPC has obviously spent a lot of time researching for this project, and in this respect it is a valuable source for scholars. However, I have some major caveats. His prose is cliched, turgid and over-floral - he constantly refers to himself and how he was wined and dined by the great and the good around the world. No stereotype is left unturned with endless reminders of what a funny, jolly people the Irish are (I'm half Irish myself and I'm not funny) and ceaseless references to drinking and how much the Irish like a pint of Guinness. His reference to the victims of the Birmingham bombings as "innocent civilians" is quite galling too, as if to infer that some civilians are guilty. I fear this is designed for the Irish-American audience who want to hear how great they are and find it difficult to deal with the more difficult aspects of Irish society (ie racism, terrorism). It might have been a good book at half the length and more attention paid by the editor. Sorry if this sounds cruel, but I bought two copies of this and I wish I hadn't. Carlos Quinn, London

Badly written, standard TPC fare
Tim Pat has embarked on a circumnavigation of the globe in search of the great and not so great who have strayed far from the shores of the Auld Sod.
I thought that "Wherever Green is Worn" was a turgid and badly executed piece of popular history. The idea itself was fine, but Tim Pat is unable to give a clear and lucid description of anything, preferring instead the path of sentimentalism and ill-informed opinion, as best exemplified by his sustained attack on Ruth Dudley-Edwards (another author I'm no great fan of)... his constant references to dinners given in his honour by various eminences grises and his continuous haranguing of loyalism grate on the reader after a very short while. Too much of this book is wasted with TPC's efforts to portray himself to all and sundry as a typically Irish, garrulous, hale-fellow-well-met type.
There are two main problems with the book. Firstly, the prose itself is poorly written, in the style of a red-top op-ed piece. Secondly, and perhaps more fundamentally, TPC fails to properly analyse the motivations, beliefs, opinions and thoughts of his subject population. Where he attempts to do so, he inevitably fails, resorting instead to the kind of brash sentimantalism which makes everyone in Ireland cringe.
I suppose the effort he put into the work should be applauded, but beyond that, I'd save my pennies rather than wasting them on this unctuous tome.