Ireland\u2019s struggle with England has been long documented (trust me I\u2019m Irish). However, few historians have examined America\u2019s sympathy for Ireland as a matter of state-to-state politics. In A Union Forever: The Irish Question and U.S. Foreign Relations in the Victorian Age<\/em>, David Sim seeks to address this gap in the historiography by looking at the effects Irish-Americans had on United States foreign policy during the 19^{th<\/sup> century. Sim argues that widespread sympathy for Irish freedom and the presence of Irish-Americans shaped the decisions of American policymakers, often with unintended results. These Irish nationalists often tried to create complications between British and American governments, hoping that war would result in Irish independence. Nationalist agitation ultimately brought the two governments closer as they wanted to avoid conflict. Sim does a magnificent job at addressing the diplomatic issues while also raising questions about the relationship public opinion and formal politics.<\/p>\n}

A particular issue I have with this book is that Sim points out that American interest in Ireland dated back to the American Revolution. An interest that stemmed from shared experiences as \u201cprovinces subject to the dictates of the London metropole\u201d (page 3). However, he starts of his analysis with O\u2019Connell and the 1840\u2019s. I feel that he should have dedicated more time, possibly a chapter, to explaining this concept. This would place the Irish question in the middle of a transnational \u201cAge of Revolution.\u201d One can wonder to what extent should the Irish question be considered part of a wider movement for republican government that began in 1776.<\/p>\n

A diplomatic history of a subject can often be viewed as a story of elites. Non-state actors often get cast aside in these histories. However, Sim nicely emphasizes the role of non-state actors \u2013 Irish Nationalists \u2013 and how they were able to influenced diplomacy, even though some of the consequences were unintended by the Nationalists.<\/p>\n

I really like the connections people are making to Gould and the idea the Ireland is seeking the same recognition after gaining independence from the British and the belief that their American brothers can help them achieve that (David). The book only helps continue Gould\u2019s argument. America struggled with the Irish Question because they did not want to upset the British.<\/p>\n

I just want to say I really enjoyed this book. The Irish are often removed from foreign politics, especially before they gained independence in 1921. It seems like a running theme in this class that we take certain nations or states and put them in their proper global\/regional perspective (Early America, the Comanches, and the Irish).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ireland\u2019s struggle with England has been long documented (trust me I\u2019m Irish). However, few historians have examined America\u2019s sympathy for Ireland as a matter of state-to-state politics. In A Union Forever: The Irish Question and U.S. Foreign Relations in the Victorian Age, David Sim seeks to address this gap in the historiography by looking at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":285,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions\/285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}