Presents a study of early Irish Protestant and Catholic immigration to America. Through analysis of the migrants' letters and memoirs, this book explores how they adapted to colonial and revolutionary America, and how their experiences and attitudes shaped society, culture and politics, and created modern Irish and Irish-American identities.

"A thoughtful, often-penetrating analysis....The extraordinary scale, extensive annotation, breadth of understanding, and intimacy in accounting make this book a must-read."--Journal of American History "For scholars in American and Irish Cultural Studies, this impressive and brilliantly interpreted compilation of letters and memoirs is surely of paramount importance, as it presents both a minute and comprehensive account of the reasons of Irish emigration to the 'promised land' across the Atlantic and of the settlers' experience there; but it is lf interest also to historians and linguists who wish to examine a corpus of authentic letters and memoirs of Irish immigrants of various social classes and age groups from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century. Finally, for the common (American) reader, the texts can help to do away with the widespread mistaken belief that the immigrants were almost exclusively Catholic papers of Celtic origin, who were forced by bloodsucking Protestant landlords of English descent to leave the Emerald Isle."--Amerikastudien "A stunning scholarly accomplishment and a major contribution to historical scholarship in a variety of fields."--Journal of Social History "A stunning accomplishment and will long be an influential work in multiple fields. It is also a testament to the quality of work produced when top scholars collaborate."--Documentary Editing

Kerby A. Miller is Middlebush Professor of History at the University of Missouri, Columbia. Arnold Schrier is the Walter C. Langsam Professor Emeritus of History, University of Cincinnati. Bruce D. Boling is Senior Cataloger, University of New Mexico General Library. David Noel Doyle is Statutory Lecturer in History, University College-Dublin.