Childbirth, Cash and Culture
An illuminating comparison of two surprisingly similar diasporas November 2011
Donald Akenson has produced many fine works on the Irish diaspora. His arguments are complex, but generally Akenson asks us to respect the Irish by avoiding stereotypes of them as an especially blighted, impoverished or sectarian people. Instead, Akenson has argued, there were only minor differences between the experiences of the Irish and of the other peoples who fanned out from Europe in the 18th and 19th…