Research Catalog

Title

North American Gaels : speech, story, and song in the diaspora / edited by Natasha Sumner and Aidan Doyle.

Publication

• Montreal ; Kingston ; London ; Chicago : McGill-Queen's University Press, [2020]
• ©2020

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Sumner, Natasha
• Doyle, Aidan (Lecturer in Irish)
• Nilsen, Kenneth E., 1947-2012

Description

x, 511 pages : illustrations; 23 cm.

Summary

• "A mere 150 years ago Scottish Gaelic was the third most widely spoken language in Canada, and Irish was spoken by hundreds of thousands of people in the United States. A new awareness of the large North American Gaelic diaspora, long overlooked by historians, folklorists, and literary scholars, has emerged in recent decades. North American Gaels, representing the first tandem exploration of these related migrant ethnic groups, examines the myriad ways Gaelic-speaking immigrants from marginalized societies have negotiated cultural spaces for themselves in their new homeland. In the macaronic verses of a Newfoundland fisherman, the pointed addresses of an Ontario essayist, the compositions of a Montana miner, and lively exchanges in newspapers from Cape Breton to Boston to New York, they proclaim their presence in vibrant traditional modes fluently adapted to suit North American climes. Through careful investigations of this diasporic Gaelic narrative and its context, from the mid-eighteenth century to the twenty-first, the book treats such overarching themes as the sociolinguistics of minority languages, connection with one's former home, and the tension between the desire for modernity and the enduring influence of tradition. Staking a claim for Gaelic studies on this continent, North American Gaels shines new light on the ways Irish and Scottish Gaels have left an enduring mark through speech, story, and song. "--
• "A groundbreaking exploration of the literature and folklore of North America's Irish and Scottish Gaelic-speaking diaspora since the eighteenth century."--From publisher's website.

Series Statement

McGill-Queen's studies in ethnic history. Series two ; 49

Uniform Title

McGill-Queen's studies in ethnic history. Series two ; 49.

Subject

• Irish literature > History and criticism
• Scottish Gaelic literature > History and criticism
• Folk literature, Irish > History and criticism
• Folk literature, Scottish Gaelic > History and criticism
• Irish > Canada > History
• Scots > Canada > History
• Irish > United States > History
• Scots > United States > History
• Folk literature, Irish
• Folk literature, Scottish Gaelic
• Irish
• Irish literature
• Scots
• Scottish Gaelic literature
• Canada
• United States

Genre/Form

• Criticism, interpretation, etc.
• Festschriften.
• History.

Note

• This book is dedicated to the memory of Professor Kenneth E. Nilsen, who held the Sister Saint Veronica Chair in Gaelic Studies at St Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, for twenty eight years before his death in 2012.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Additional Formats (note)

• Issued also in electronic format.

Contents

Kenneth E. Nilsen (1947-2012): Gaisgeach nan Gàidheal (Champion of the Gaels) / Natasha Sumner -- "An tan do bhidh Donchadh Ruadh a tTalamh an Éisg" (The time that Donncha Rua was in Newfoundland]: An Eighteenth-Century Irish Poet in the New World / Pádraig Ó Liatháin -- Vernacular Irish Orthographies in the United States / Nancy Stenson -- Pádraig Phiarais Cúndún in America: Poet without a Public? / Tony Ó Floinn -- Irish-Language Folklore in An Gaodhal / Tomás Ó hÍde -- Forming and Training an Army of Vindication: The Irish Echo, 1886-1894 / Matthew Knight -- Early Use of Phonograph Recordings for Instruction in the Irish Language / William Mahon -- Seán "Irish" Ó Súilleabháin: Butte's Irish Bard / Ciara Ryan -- "Agus cé'n chaoi ar thaithnigh na Canadas leat?" (And how did you like Canada?): Irish-Language Canadian Novels from the 1920s and 1930s / Pádraig Ó Siadhail -- John MacLean's "New World" Secular Songs: A Poet, His Print Editors, and Oral Tradition / Robert Dunbar -- Two Satires, Three Men, and a Gaelic Newspaper: A Nineteenth-Century Tale / Michael Linkletter -- "Rachainn Fhathast air m'Eòlas" (I'd Go Yet by My Experience):(Re)collecting Nineteenth-Century Scottish Gaelic Songs and Singing from Prince Edward Island / Tiber F.M. Falzett -- Gaelic Heroes of the True North: Alexander Fraser's Literary Interventions in Canadian Gaeldom / Michael Newton -- Betraying Beetles and Guarding Geese: Animal Apocrypha in Scottish and Nova Scotian Gaelic Folklore / Kathleen Reddy -- Annie Johnston and Nova Scotia / Lorrie MacKinnon -- "Togaidh an Obair an Fhianais" (The Work Bears Witness): Kenneth Nilsen's Gaelic Columns in the Casket, 1987-1996 / Catrìona NicÌomhair Parsons.

ISBN

• 9780228003793
• 0228003792
• 9780228003786
• 0228003784

OCLC

• on1142506186
• SCSB-9730220

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library