Profs & Pints DC: The Irish and the America's Revolution

Profs and Pints DC presents: "The Irish and America's Revolution," with Sam Fisher, an associate professor of history at Catholic University of America, scholar of colonial America and early modern Britain and Ireland, and author of The Gaelic and Indian Origins of the American Revolution.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/dc-irish-american-revolution .]

What impact did the American Revolution have on Ireland? What role did Ireland and Irish people play in the American Revolution?

Hear these questions tackled—and keep your St. Patrick's Day celebration going yet another day—by coming to Washington D.C.’s Hill Center for a fascinating discussion of the many connections between Ireland and America in the Revolutionary War era.

Dr. Sam Fisher, an expert on eighteenth-century Ireland, Scotland and America, will examine the influence that earlier Irish patriots had on the constitutional thought of the American patriots.

He’ll also talk about the shared commitment of the American revolutionaries and Irish patriots to resisting British control. You’ll learn why those Irish patriots were Protestant colonists and not—as you might suspect—Irish Catholics, who were more likely to support the monarchy.

Speaking of Irish Catholics, we’ll look at poems (and maybe even sing a song) in Irish to get their take on the Revolution, and we’ll look at why the failure to fully include them in the Irish patriot cause led to its failure. Professor Fisher will shine light on the dark side of this American-Irish patriot network, which was held together not only by ideas about liberty but also by both groups’ fears that the British empire had begun to favor Irish Catholics (along with other “internal enemies” like enslaved people, Indians, and Scottish Highlanders) even more than loyal Protestant colonists.

Long before the potato famine, Ireland and America were already building a shared history. Join us for an evening of pints, poems, and patriots when we'll reflect on the origins of the special connection between Ireland and the United States. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image: From an 1870 Francis Wheatley painting Irish Patriot Party leader Henry Gratten addressing the Irish House of Commons.