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While the experiences of eighteenth-century Irish and Scottish North American immigrants are in many ways vastly different from our own, some of the challenges they faced are surprisingly comparable to those we might encounter today – even during the current global pandemic.
In this week’s guest blog post, Natasha Sumner and Aidan Doyle reflect on the experiences of North American Irish and Scottish Gaelic-speaking immigrants, looking back to their stories in a way that helps illuminate and contextualize our own. Through their exploration of the North-American Scottish and Irish experience, Natasha Sumner and Aiden Doyle remind us of the aspects of culture that keep communities, histories, and identities alive and thriving.
Representing the first tandem exploration of these related migrant ethnic groups, North American Gaels: Speech, Story, and Song in the Diaspora edited by Natasha Sumner and Aidan Doyle examines the myriad ways Gaelic-speaking immigrants from marginalized societies have negotiated cultural spaces for themselves in their new homeland. Staking a claim for Gaelic studies on this continent, North American Gaels shines new light on the ways Irish and Scottish Gaels have left an enduring mark through speech, story, and song.
As we write this, the movement of people around the globe has more or less stopped. It is somewhat ironic that the publication of our book comes at this moment in history, dealing as it does with the large-scale emigration of two ethnic groups, from Ireland and Scotland respectively, to North America.
Some of the restrictions of present-day life would have been familiar to the nineteenth-century trans-Atlantic emigrants. The name for Ellis Island in Irish is Oileán an Choraintín ‘Quarantine Island,’ reflecting the fact that new arrivals in New York were seen as carriers of infections. Diseases such as typhus and dysentery were rampant in Ireland during the Famine of 1845–1849, and were as much a cause of emigration as lack of food. Illness was also a concern for the Scottish, many of whom were victims of the Highland Clearances of 1815–1840, which saw tens of thousands evicted from properties slated for agricultural ‘improvement.’ In the new land, moreover, there were other dangers to contend with that some of us know all too well today, as wildlife begins to overtake our silent streets. Like the Ottawa couple who awoke this summer to find a moose enjoying their swimming pool, nineteenth-century Irish and Scottish immigrant poets expressed concern about wolves, bears, and other unaccustomed visitors.
The new arrivals brought few material belongings with them, but they carried distinct languages and cultures to their new homeland. The Highlanders assembled in large numbers in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Glengarry County, Ontario, the Eastern Townships of Quebec, and Manitoba’s Red River valley, forming sizable Gaelic-speaking communities in which intergenerational transmission of the language was not uncommon. Scottish Gaelic books and periodicals were published and circulated widely, and the language continues to be spoken today among a small number of descendants of the original Scottish immigrants to Nova Scotia. Many of the Irish, on the other hand, settled in the new cities of the eastern and midwestern regions of the United States. This urban environment did not favour the formation of communities like those of the Scottish Gaels in Canada, with the result that the Irish language became virtually invisible in North America, apart from some half-forgotten columns in late nineteenth-century newspapers from cities like Boston and New York. However, recent research has shown that many of the Irish-speaking emigrants continued to cultivate their native language and traditions in their new habitat. Thanks to the work of language scholars and folklorists in the 20th century, much of that heritage has been preserved.
Some North Americans today feel threatened by the influx of immigrants from outside Europe. This fear arises partly from the fact that the newcomers speak foreign languages and that their cultural practises are at times perceived as exotic. The millions of North Americans who claim Irish or Scottish ancestry might be interested to know that their ancestors were often viewed in the same negative light when they arrived in Canada or the United States in the nineteenth century. Despite the formidable obstacles they faced, the majority managed to settle and make a significant contribution to their new homelands.
Language, literature, folktales, and songs sustain emigrants when they are uprooted. They enable communities to integrate into their new surroundings without losing their sense of continuity with the past. The stories of the Scottish and Irish Gaels in North America offer a positive model for emigrants today as they embark on their own journey in a world that has once again become filled with uncertainty.
Natasha Sumner is associate professor of Celtic languages and literatures at Harvard University. Aidan Doyle lectures on Irish language at the National University of Ireland, Cork. They are the editors of North American Gaels: Speech, Story, and Song in the Diaspora.
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