Memory Ireland: Volume 2: Diaspora and Memory Practices

Introduction

3 Introduction OON A F R AW L E Y A striking aspect of Irish studies has been its success beyond Ireland’s geographical boundaries. Indeed, much of the initial impetus for Irish studies as a field seemed to come from outside of Ireland, and it is now usual to hear of Irish studies not only at an array of Irish and American universities, not only in English-speaking countries such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, but also in places where it might seem more unexpected: in Japan, Brazil, France. Part of the attraction of Irish studies is undoubtedly the list of world-class Irish writers on whom thousands of theses and dissertations depend. Part of the attraction might also lie in the media successes of the likes of U2, who—even before Bono’s presence on global conference circuits —for the past thirty years have functioned as cultural ambassadors for a nation and its evolving identities. There are many other factors contributing to the position of Irish studies within the academy, but more than any other sole factor, the success of an academic field focused on a country smaller than many American states, Canadian provinces, or European regions speaks volumes of the role of the memory community. If Ireland’s global cultural presence outstrips its relative political and social power so that Ireland might sometimes seem to be the “state of mind” that the Irish Tourist Board evocatively describes in advertising campaigns, it is largely the result of a memory community of vast proportions. Benedict Anderson’s seminal work on the idea of “imagined communities ” demonstrated just how forcefully collective senses of belonging influence the development of powerful nationalisms. That the imagination explicitly participates in this process is significant; the projections managed 4 Memory and the Irish Diaspora by imagination can bridge generations and all manner of differences. This aspect of Anderson’s work is particularly interesting in relation to the diaspora , which constructs its sense of community through imagination, but also through memory. Settlement abroad necessitates the production of a new kind of memory of “home,” one that involves the reconstruction of a place—Ireland, in this case—through an alchemy of memory and imagination , one that no longer relies upon daily physical interaction with a landscape and a people. Memory becomes a conduit to a particular past, but, simultaneously, because it distorts and stretches, invents and alters, it constructs a new Ireland, one that never was, and passes it on to descendants for whom Ireland never was. When we discuss diasporic memory, we do indeed travel to Memory Ireland. As countless studies of individual locations have shown, Ireland’s status as an island nation with a history of emigration means that Irish communities have sprung up in countries all around the world and continue to draw on a body of Irish memory. The need to establish a cultural identity in a new space that accounted for the one left behind meant the evolution of traditions and celebrations, and the commitment to a type of cultural memory that selected what it might have needed as much as what it desired. Migration away from home obviously heightens and throws into acute relief the idea of one’s homeland: departure develops a consciousness of what has been lost, what is pined for, what has been gained, what will never again be the same. The memory place that results from that initial emigrant experience is unstable and subject to change because as life in the new country is established, memory of home will adapt and be put to different uses. Traditions will not be imported wholesale but will develop their own curious hybridity, reflecting the nature of emigrant memory that absorbs new ways of thinking about home. This process becomes more complex in subsequent generations and as the diaspora develops. What is distinctive about a diasporic memory community is that its loyalty is not narrowly directed toward a nation; diasporic memory necessarily draws on multiple traditions and historiographies—of both “home” and “away,” with those terms frequently swapping places and even becoming interchangeable over time. In its first half, this volume considers diasporic memory in an Irish context , asking how it functions in different places and times, and what shapes Introduction 5 it dons. The essays in this section do not purport to be representative or to encompass the Irish diaspora even in portion, and there is no...