Kevin Kenny

Irish emigration, U.S. immigration, nineteenth-century U.S., global migration

Kevin Kenny is Professor of History and Glucksman Professor in Irish Studies at New York University. He received his Ph.D. in American History from Columbia University in 1994, where his dissertation won the Bancroft Award. He taught at the University of Texas from 1994 to 1999 and at Boston College from 1999 to 2018. His first book, Making Sense of the Molly Maguires (Oxford University Press, 1998) examines how traditions of Irish rural protest were transplanted into industrial America. His second book, The American Irish: A History (Longman, 2000), offers a general survey of the field. A third book, Peaceable Kingdom Lost (Oxford University Press, 2009) analyzes the unraveling of William Penn’s utopian vision of harmonious co-existence between Native Americans and European colonists. Professor Kenny’s latest book, Diaspora: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press 2013), examines the origins, meaning, and utility of a central concept in the study of migration, with particular reference to Jewish, African, Irish, and Asian history. He is also editor of Ireland and the British Empire (Oxford University Press, 2004) and New Directions in Irish-American History (University of Wisconsin Press, 2003) and he has published articles on immigration in the Journal of American History and the Journal of American Ethnic History among other venues. He is currently working on a book about the problem of immigration in a slaveholding republic, covering the United States in the period from the American Revolution through Reconstruction.

Organization of American Historians, American Historical Association, American Conference on Irish Studies, American Immigration and Ethnic History Society (Vice President/President Elect)

“Irish emigration, ca. 1845–1900,” in James Kelly, ed., The Cambridge History of Ireland, Thomas Bartlett, gen. ed., 4 vols (Cambridge University Press, 2018), vol. 3, 666–87.

“Irish Emigrations in a Comparative Perspective,” in Eugenio F. Biagini and Mary Daly, eds, The Cambridge Social History of Modern Ireland (Cambridge University Press, 2017), 405–22.

“Abraham Lincoln and the American Irish,” American Journal of Irish Studies 10 (2013): 37–62.

“ ‘Freedom and Unity’: Abraham Lincoln in Irish Political Discourse,” in Richard Carwardine and Jay Sexton, eds, The Global Lincoln (Oxford University Press, 2011), 157–71.

“Twenty Years of Irish-American Historiography,” Journal of American Ethnic History 28 (Summer 2009): 67–75.

“Diaspora and Irish Migration History,” Irish Economic and Social History 33 (2006): 43–48.

“Diaspora and Comparison: The Global Irish as a Case Study,” Journal of American History 90 (June 2003): 134–62.