Of Irish Descent: Origin Stories, Genealogy, and the Politics of Belonging (Irish Studies)

What does it mean to be of Irish descent? What does Irish descent stand for in Ireland, Northern Ireland? In the United States? How are categories of “native” and “settler” descent and accounts of ethnic origin being refigured through popular genealogy and population genetics?Of Irish Descent addresses these questions by exploring the contemporary significance of ideas of ethnicity and place and of the increasingly popular search for rootedness. Moving from the intimacy of family stories and reunions to disputed state policies on noble titles and new scientific accounts and applications of genetic descent, Nash traces the place of ancestry in these interconnected geographies of identity―familial, ethnic, national and diasporic. Underlying these different practices and accounts of ancestral connection are potent and profoundly political questions: “Who counts as Irish?,” ”who belongs in Ireland?”and “to whom does Ireland belong?” in terms of citizenship and sovereignty as well as imaginative possession.Addressing tensions between ideas of plurality and commonality, difference and connection that run through the culture and science of ancestral origins, Of Irish Descent is an original and timely exploration of new configurations of nation and diaspora as communities of shared descent.