An immensely impressive, authoritative history of the Irish diaspora

'A richly detailed, scholarly and challenging history' Sunday Times
'For Irish history buffs, it's indispensable' Irish Independent
'An absorbing, lucid and sometimes harrowing account' Daily Telegraph
'Essential reading for understanding how the people of Ireland shaped the world' Belfast Telegraph

Drawing on the latest ground-breaking research, and his own career-long engagement with the complexities of Irish identity, Sean Connolly reveals the forces that compelled millions of Irish men and women to abandon their homeland, and explores their new lives in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere.

What emerges is an Irish story, but also a chapter in world history. Irish emigrants fled a society blighted by poverty and lack of opportunity. But they also became part of a massive population movement, driven by the requirements of an ever more interconnected world economy, that transported the adventurous and the desperate to new parts of the globe. What distinguishes the Irish from tens of millions of other European immigrants is the position they established in their new homes. Initially treated as a despised and exploited underclass, they created a commanding position, in politics, in the labour movement, and, by the twentieth century, as cultural icons.

From his starting point in the grim realities of Famine and social crisis, Sean Connolly takes the reader forward into the twentieth century, when Ireland itself has become a receiver rather than an exporter of emigrants, and when a reimagined Irishness has become a commodity to be marketed to a global audience. On Every Tide plays directly into wider, contemporary debates about migration, as well as offering a unique and distinctive view of two hundred years of Irish history.

"A richly detailed, scholarly and challenging history of the Irish diaspora.... challenges conventional wisdom - and captures the emigrant struggle for power and prosperity" - Sunday Times

"A brilliant and thorough account of a formative part of the Irish experience... [Connolly] brings to this, his first work of popular history, the same ability to describe his subjects in their own terms" - Tablet

"An absorbing, lucid and sometimes harrowing account" - Daily Telegraph

"A masterwork of Irish diaspora history and immigration studies" - Kirkus

"Rich in detail and well researched, this is essential reading for understanding how the people of Ireland shaped the world" - Belfast Telegraph

"'An impressive [...] feat of scholarship and research" - Business Post

"One of the great migrations in history... Sean Connolly, an expert in the field, offers an accessible and impressively lucid overview" - Literary Review

"Impressive, provocative and perception-tilting... This is an exhaustive, yet never exhausting, historical account of the multi-faceted story of the Irish diaspora... For Irish history buffs, it's indispensable" - Irish Independent

"Connolly draws on an impressive array of primary evidence, including census records, personal testimonies, and popular fiction, without getting bogged down in statistics and minutiae... a seamless and well-rounded study" - Publishers Weekly

"Wide-ranging... based on Sean Connolly's long-standing research and takes us from the grim realities of the famine years through to the present day... bringing the story full circle" - Family Tree Magazine

"A provocative and at times audacious challenge to this [narrative], Connolly examines the complexity of Irish identity and reassesses the lived experience of Irish immigrants... He doesn't pull his punches" - Irish Examiner

"Connolly employs extensive research to weave an engaging account of emigration from Ireland... an authoritative but accessible and illuminating read" - Who Do You Think You Are Magazine