5 - The Literary Americanisation of Ireland, 1841–1925

Summary

This chapter argues that the Americanisation of theme or content in Irish literature became more pervasive from about the 1890s onwards. Prior to that the reluctant Americanisation of Irish authors had been well underway, facilitated by cash-rich tours of the continent and a certain transatlantic reciprocity of intellectual influence. Representations of ‘American wakes’, and the ‘returned Yank’ are common in Irish popular culture, and the chapter probes these for significance. There are tantalising glimpses of Irish authors at the ‘frontier’, and perhaps the most enduring influence of the Irish was their influence on one of the most famous product of America itself – the very mythology of the western frontier, which was produced by Irish authors in some cases. This helps to show how the mythos of the West converges in both Irish and American culture, and the ways in which they may have been dialogically produced.