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David Sim points out the peculiar and difficult relations that existed among the Americans, Irish nationalists and the British. It briefly discusses the US transatlantic trade and American interest in untapped natural resources in Ireland at the time when Irish citizens were coming to the United states due to the Irish famine in 1948. The problem for the Irish was that the Americans were interested in stability not involvement in another war, and especially not another war with the British with whom it was building diplomatic, economic, and business relations.
American citizens were against British rule in Ireland because they thought it went against the British constitution. This was ironic considering that the U.S condoned slavery within the republic, while the British were abolitionists also caused tension (p.5). However, there was also the religious difference of the Irish Catholics not supporting the annexation of Texas that may have been connected to the lackluster support for Irish independence by the United States politicians, compounded by O’Connell’s desire for a Catholicism to be recognized by the British, while Irish nationalists wanted a non-sectarian style government similar to that of the U.S. Irish Separatists were also being banished to the United States by British, which made it easy for Americans to relate to the Irish plight and sympathize with them based on English past treatment of American colonists. The Americans saw in the Irish the common desire for freedom, and a common enemy, the British. This was all taking place at the time when British American statesmen were building strong ties with Britain.
In the opening of the book the author does not mentioned that this was all taking place approximately 15 years before the Civil War and 25 years after the war. At that time in history the United States was enmeshed in its own internal battle between the northern and southern state, which were in conflict over the question of slavery. This conflict eventually erupted in to the Civil War. Ireland eventually became an independent state in the1920s after WW1, the Great War, with no help outside help from the United States.
Sources for the book – archive manuscripts collections, consular records, governments files, official diplomatic documents, public records, national archives in the United States, and the national library of Ireland, foreign office archives in London, newspaper archives, personal writings.
Sim uses a synthesis transnational methodology, “bottom-up approach to Irish American nationalism with attention to the worlds, intentions, and actions of elite statement,” (p.3) with attention to the complexities of American statecraft, diplomatic history, and non-state actors.