Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan ─ Letters and Memoirs from Colonial and Revolutionary America, 1675-1815

Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan is a monumental and pathbreaking study of early Irish Protestant and Catholic migration to America. Through exhaustive research and sensitive analyses of the letters, memoirs, and other writings, the authors describe the variety and vitality of early Irish immigrant experiences, ranging from those of frontier farmers and seaport workers to revolutionaries and loyalists. Largely through the migrants own words, it brings to life the networks, work, and experiences of these immigrants who shaped the formative stages of American society and its Irish communities. The authors explore why Irishmen and women left home and how they adapted to colonial and revolutionary America, in the process creating modern Irish and Irish-American identities on the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan was the winner of the James S. Donnelly, Sr., Prize for Books on History and Social Sciences, American Council on Irish Studies.

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.