I found Joyce\u2019s essay on Irish-Americans in the South very interesting, mostly because I haven\u2019t given the subject much thought before.\u00a0 People tend to associate Irish immigrants with urban working class in the North, but I hadn\u2019t considered their presence here before.\u00a0 It reads fairly smoothly, and I appreciated how clearly the author laid out the points in the beginning.<\/p>\n

It also struck me how the Irish felt the need to gain sure footing in the social world because of prior experiences in the North and previously in Ireland. Joyce said that they \u201ctook constrained actions to place themselves in positions of best advantage within existing social networks\u201d (193). Additionally, as wirobertson<\/i> said, \u201cIrish-Americans desperately longed for inclusion and a sense of superiority,\u201d and they found this inclustion through their support of slavery.\u00a0 To me, this seems like a classic part of the melting pot idea.\u00a0 They retained much of their Irish culture, but made a conscious, directed effort to fit smoothly into the \u201cexisting social network\u201d\u00a0 of Charleston (Joyce 193).<\/p>\n

Additionally, the role of the Catholic church was fascinating.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t previously thought of the Catholic church as a particularly influential force in the South, but it certainly had an impact on the attitude of the Irish with regard to slavery.\u00a0 Joyce said, \u201cSouthern Church leaders validated and gave divine sanction to the slave system and provided their constituents with an explanation of Southern social relations\u201d (190).\u00a0 To this group of people, the church was a way to connect with people like them, and it also helped ease the transition into a new culture.\u00a0 If the church had taken a less accepting stance with regard to slavery, I doubt that the Irish-Americans would have been received as easily in the South.\u00a0 However, they were able to relate to other white Southerners on this cause and create a sense of cultural identification across different cultural backgrounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I found Joyce\u2019s essay on Irish-Americans in the South very interesting, mostly because I haven\u2019t given the subject much thought before.\u00a0 People tend to associate Irish immigrants with urban working class in the North, but I hadn\u2019t considered their presence here before.\u00a0 It reads fairly smoothly, and I appreciated how clearly the author laid out … <\/p>\n

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