Irish ‘Ingleses’: The Irish Immigrant Experience in Argentina, 1840-1920

Description

This is the first book-length analysis of the Irish in Argentina. The experience of the Irish in Argentina was qualitatively different from that of Australia, Britain or the United States, and this study employs a comparative methodology both in relation to the more established Irish immigrant destinations as well as to European immigration as a whole. Against established destinations of nineteenth-century Irish settlement, Argentina was unique. Separated immediately from the native populace by language and culture, Irish immigrants were quickly identified by the governing Argentine hosts into the broader English-speaking community with ambivalent consequences for the Irish migrants. The distinct socio-economic advantages experienced by ‘Ingleses’ within a particularly Euro-centric Argentina facilitated and encouraged the diminution of ethnic distinctions. But the conflicting identities which emerged contributed to the distinct development of the Irish community within this unique nineteenth-century Latin environment.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Points of departure: demography, regionalism and the opening of Argentina

2. European immigration and the development of Argentina, 1820-1920

3. Getting on: the Irish in Argentine rural society

4. Irish Catholicism and Latin religiosity

5. Falling from grace? Integration and the myth of Irish social deviancy

6. Immigrant newspapers and the emergence of an Irish-Argentine identity

Conclusion

About the Author

Helen Kelly is a graduate of the University of North London where she studied Latin
American Studies and Irish Studies. Her doctoral research was undertaken in the
history department of Trinity College Dublin. She is currently teaching history on the
Trinity Access Programmes, Trinity College Dublin.