Redefining Irishness in a Coastal Maine City, 1770-1870: Bridget’s Belfast

Redefining Irishness in a Coastal Maine City, 1770-1870: Bridget’s Belfast examines how Irish immigrants shaped and reshaped their identity in a rural New England community. Forty percent of Irish immigrants to the United States settled in rural areas. Achieving success beyond large urban centers required distinctive ways of performing Irishness. Class, status, and gender were more significant than ethnicity. Close reading of diaries, newspapers, local histories, and public papers allows for nuanced understanding of immigrant lives amid stereotype and the nineteenth century evolution of a Scotch-Irish identity.