The Ernie O’Malley Lecture: Creating a Catholic Popular Culture

In this eighteenth annual Ernie O’Malley lecture, Dr. Eileen P. Sullivan discusses the nineteenth-century popular novels that defined Irish American identity and transformed American Catholic culture. The more than thirty novels, spanning the period from the 1830s to the 1870s, were published by Catholic houses in New York, Boston, and Baltimore, all owned by Irish immigrants. The novelists — six men and one woman, immigrants and the sons of Immigrants — included priests, journalists, editors, and professional writers.

Fearing that the Irish would abandon their heritage in the competitive religious environment of America, the novelists sought to make an Irish Catholic identity attractive to them. Through character and plot, they constructed a memory of Ireland to engender pride, portrayed the Church and priests as deserving of love and loyalty, and depicted exemplary working class immigrant women who challenged the reigning domestic ideal.

From Glucksman Ireland House NYU. RSVP here free.