In 1795 Theobald Wolfe Tone spent five months in the United States. The experience left him distinctly unimpressed. Indeed, such was his disgust with the politics and society he encountered that he found himself dreading the possibility his beloved daughter might one day marry an American. As he put it bluntly, ‘I could better bear to see her dead’. It was an inauspicious start to a transnational relationship that would prove so vital to Irish nationalism.

Tone's unhappy sojourn in America opens the first chapter of David Brundage's study, which seeks to tackle the ebb and flow of more than two centuries of Irish nationalism in America. Tone's example demonstrates in microcosm a number of the key themes brought to the fore in this book. The father of Irish nationalism may have a had deep personal loathing for the country but just as it did for so many who followed him, America had a profound impact on both his life and his legacy. In life, his time there engendered a sense of dislocation that served to intensify his commitment to an Irish national identity, just as it did for many later exiles, both real and conceptual. In death — thanks to the efforts of his widow, Matilda — America provided the setting for the publication of his carefully curated papers, which were to prove so influential for Irish nationalism. They stand as but one example among many of what Brundage terms the ‘ongoing work of political imagination and discursive invention’ that was central to advancing Irish nationalist ideas (p. 5).

Arranged chronologically, the book journeys from the Tones and the exiles of 1798 through to the Good Friday Agreement at the close of the twentieth century. Each chapter succinctly contextualises events in America by providing a backdrop of the political developments in Ireland. The adoption of such a broad timeframe allows Brundage to demonstrate the changing nature of Irish American nationalism, which was in a regular state of flux. Physical force and constitutional nationalists both enjoyed their moments in the sun, just as both experienced stretches in the doldrums. Throughout they had to contend with the constant evolution of Irish America itself. The religious, social and political diasporic world encountered by the United Irish exiles of the early 1800s was a very different place to the one found by the Young Irelanders of the 1850s, or the anti-treaty republicans of the 1920s.

The author also finds variance and complexity in the nationalist ideals espoused throughout his study period. While some embraced a radical republican vision, others were more conservative, aspiring towards more moderate change. Equally there were those who advocated for a secular nationalism, just as there were those who desired to see Catholicism at the heart of any independent Ireland. And while some confined themselves solely to the cause of Ireland, there were others for whom nationalism was but one component of a wider struggle for transnational social and political change.

A particularly refreshing aspect of Brundage's work is his effort to explore the track record of Irish nationalists on the inclusion (and exclusion) of women, and their position on issues such as women's suffrage. Again, here he encounters much contrast. Writing in 1915, Mary J. O'Donovan Rossa — who supported the right to vote — opined that within Clan na Gael women ‘must be absolutely under obedience to the authorised men and take willing guidance from them’ (p.139). Meanwhile, others, such as the nationalists of the United Irish League of America, were welcoming women to leading positions within their organisation at a time when only one Irish United Irish League branch was admitting them to membership.

Brundage provides similar insights into nationalist interactions with labour activism and racial inequality, issues which (along with political engagement) serve to illustrate how life in America could influence Irish nationalists and how they, in turn, influenced America. Among the former were men like Denis Driscol, the anti-slavery United Irishman who in the United States published offers of reward for runaways and defended the often-extreme punishments inflicted upon the enslaved. Among the latter were those like anti-treaty I.R.A. veteran Mike Quill, who in 1934 was elected president of the 30,000 strong Transport Workers’ Union and later became a member of the New York City Council.

This book is ambitious in scope and engaging in approach. Brundage even finds room for the occasional foray into global Irish nationalism, such as in the section on Fenianism in the wider world (pp 108–10). The volume succeeds in marshalling a dauntingly broad topic into a cohesive, well-written and insightful whole, in what is sure to become a standard text. It stands as an important and highly useful contribution to the ever-expanding body of scholarly work examining Irish nationalism in a transnational perspective.