ABSTRACT
History, in some fundamental sense, is about change over time. The best way to introduce a general subject to new readers is to write a narrative history that incorporates rigorous analysis into a clear chronological frame-work. In its initial conception, this book was arranged thematically, with each chapter examining a central topic in Irish-American history (migration, settlement, labour, religion, politics and nationalism) for the full period, 1700 to 2000. This approach was useful in providing an analytical framework to guide my research, but it quickly became clear that it would yield a book more suitable for experts and specialists than for students and general readers. The history of the great Irish migration to North America falls naturally into six sequential periods — colonial, pre-famine, famine, post-famine, early twentieth-century and late twentieth-century — and these six periods provide the chronological structure of this book.
