The American Presence in Ulster: A Diplomatic History, 1796–1996 (review)

Over the past decade, a number of publications have appeared analyzing the American impact on affairs in Northern Ireland, chief among them books by Andrew J. Wilson (1995), Conor O'Clery (1997), and Timothy J. Lynch (2004). Not surprisingly—given the topicality of the subject—these treatments have focused on the American response, official and otherwise, to the sectarian violence that broke out in the late 1960s, with emphasis on the role played by President Bill Clinton's administration in the peace process of the 1990s. Now comes a broader study of Ulster-American relations by the veteran historian Francis M. Carroll, who centers his account of those relations around the history of the United States Consulate in Belfast. While the last two chapters of Carroll's book provide a synthesis of work done on the "Troubles" and the peace process, the greatest value of the volume lies in the longer-term perspective provided by the earlier chapters—a perspective that sets more recent events into historical context.

This book had its origins in the desire of several organizations in Belfast to commemorate the 1996 bicentennial of the city's United States Consulate General. To that end, the consulate itself, along with the British Council, the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, and the Northern Ireland Department of Education established a Bicentennial Fellowship to fund the research and writing of the narrative. Having written, co-written, or edited seven previous books, three of which concentrate on Irish diplomatic history, Carroll draws on his experience to create both a highly readable history of the Belfast consulate and an illuminating treatment of the Ulster-American relationship more generally.

The book is organized chronologically, beginning with a chapter on the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century origins of the American connection to Ulster. This chapter outlines the central role of Ulster Scots immigrants in the settlement of British North America and the active part that people of Ulster descent played in the American Revolution. It then chronicles the impact of American republican principles on Ulster politics following the creation of the United States, especially during the heyday of the United Irishmen in the 1790s. The second chapter focuses on the creation of the United States Consulate in 1796. Carroll notes that the Belfast Consulate was, in fact, one of the earliest consular offices opened by the young United States government, owing to the fruitful commercial relationship between American flaxseed providers and Ulster linen merchants. The operations of the consulate then become the central backdrop against which other elements in Ulster-American relations are portrayed throughout the remainder of the book. Carroll keeps his study tightly focused, thus deftly negotiating one of the central dilemmas of the narrative historian, namely the question of what to include and what to exclude from his or her "story."

Subsequent chapters focus on such episodes in Ulster-American affairs as the Great Famine and its aftermath; the American Civil War; the late nineteenth-century professionalization of the consular officers serving in Belfast; the Irish Home Rule and Partition crises; the American presence in Ulster during World War II; and the impact of the American Civil Rights movement on both nationalist and Unionist mentalities in postwar Northern Ireland. The book concludes with analyses of the American response to the "Troubles" and the United States' role in the peace process. Many of these topics are, of course, fraught with controversy, but Carroll treats them evenhandedly, and with a commendable attempt at objectivity. In keeping with the project that brought the book to life, the Belfast consulate is a constant presence throughout the narrative, having steadily served as what Carroll calls a "bridge"—diplomatic, economic, cultural, and intellectual—between American and Ulster society during the entire period covered.

Given the work's focus on consular operations, the emphasis throughout much of the book is necessarily commercial and bureaucratic, but Carroll's skill as an historian ensures...