American Conference for Irish Studies

Prizes for Works Published in 2001

Adele Dalsimer Prize for Distinguished Dissertation

Robert Dogett, "'Deep-Rooted Things': Empire and Nation in the Poetry and Drama of William Butler Yeats" (University of Maryland)."This is a theoretically sophisticated and substantial new look at Yeats that is also beautifully written -- elegant, cogent, supple, and sure."

Committee Chair: Timothy Meagher, Catholic University of America

James S. Donnelly, Sr., Prize for Books on History and Social Sciences

Timothy J. Meagher, Inventing Irish America: Generation, Class, and Ethnic Identity in a New England City, 1880-1928 (University of Notre Dame Press). "An impressive command of diverse primary sources produces a readable but theoretically sophisticated 
exploration of three generations of Irish America in Worcester Massachusetts.
This is an important contribution to the field of Irish Studies and American 
social and political history."

Runner-up:

James H. Murphy Abject Loyalty: Nationalism and Monarchy in Ireland 
During the reign of Queen Victoria (Catholic University of America Press).

Committee Chair: Robert Savage, Boston College

Michael J. Durkan Prize for Books on Language or Culture

Sebastian D. G. Knowles, TheDublin Helix (University of Florida Press)."Thegleeful zest with which Sebastian Knowles tackles his subject, the puzzles, puns, and jokes of James Joyce, crackles off the pages of The Dublin Helix.he succeeds in making a coherent analysis of a challenging subject.

Maureen Waters, CrossingHighbridge (Syracuse University Press)."CrossingHighbridge is beautifully written, deeply moving, and insightfully accurate.Waters strikes just the right balance between the personal and the universal.Her obligation to fidelity, the facts, never impedes her accessibility."

Committee Chair: Charlotte Headrick, Oregon State University

Robert Rhodes Prize for Books on Literature

Elizabeth Butler Cullingford, Ireland's Others: Gender and Ethnicity in Irish Literature and Popular Culture (University of Notre Dame Press)."Professor Cullingford's study represents a significant step forward in Irish Studies.The collection of interrelated essays is written in witty,lucid prose that deftly elucidates and array of surprising patterns in modern representations of Irish identity."

Runner-up: Gregory Castle, Modernism and the Celtic Revival(Cambridge University Press).

Committee Chair: Margot Gayle Backus, University of Houston

Donald Murphy Prize for Distinguished First Book

David Gleeson, The Irish in the South (University of North Carolina Press)."David Gleeson's The Irish in the South breaks new ground in the study of Irish immigration by examining the role of the Irish in the nineteenth-century American South.Those interestedin Irish-American history, Southern history, or the role of ethnic groups in the Civil War and Reconstruction will find this book a valuable resource."

Committee Chair: Philip Freeman, Washington University

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ACIS sponsors five prizes annually for books on Irish subjects published worldwide.The Chair of the Prize committees for works published in 2001 and for works published in 2002 is John P. Harrington, Humanities, Rensselaer, Troy, NY 12180-3590; 518-276-6575; harrij2@rpi.edu.