POLITICAL EXILES AND MINISTERIAL MIGRANTS: RETHINKING THE ORIGINS OF IRISH AMERICA

[...]of mass migration and myriad technological changes, "Irish republicanism [became] a more fully integrated transatlantic movement" (p. 100). Improbably, given the racism of many Irish immigrants at the time, African American longshoremen joined Irish Americans on the New York docks in a boycott of British goods. Irish America embraced the movement for civil rights that demanded equal treatment for the Catholic minority, often willfully oblivious to the activists' acknowledged indebtedness to African Americans and their freedom struggle. The end of the Cold War, the election of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, and the IRA's exploration of nonmilitary solutions all contributed to the painful process of peace negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.