"When many think of Irish emigration, they think of potato blight and the Great Famine of the 1840s, which caused so many to flee Ireland for the U.S. But the real history of the Irish diaspora is much longer, more complicated, and more global. Starting in the 17th century, Irish clerics, mercenaries, and merchants began to fan out across America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, setting in motion a pattern of migration that would play an essential role in the development of the New World and the industrialization of the West. On Every Tide tells the epic story of this migration, showing how Irish emigrants were instrumental in shaping the world. They created powerful networks that allowed them to become a major global force in grassroots politics, the labor movement, and religion. Their movements allowed them to consolidate control of the powerful Catholic hierarchy, and Catholicism throughout the English-speaking world came to have a distinctly Irish face. The Irish also played a crucial role in the nineteenth-century land grab in the Anglophone world, often as the first settlers to colonize land out West or in the Outback.

Rather than simply being victims of an underclass, the Irish leveraged their power--sometimes becoming oppressors themselves. In On Every Tide, historian Sean Connolly weaves together individual immigrant experiences and three hundred years of history. Deeply researched and vividly told, On Every Tide is essential reading for understanding how the people of Ireland irreparably shaped the modern world"--.