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Reviews
The Story We Carry in Our Bones: Irish History for Americans - Hardback by Juilene Osborne-McKnight
aaryn83's review
informative
medium-paced
2.0
A truly weird book, in that the author wants you to know she’s a professor but that it isn’t an academic work. All anecdotes are stories she attributes to herself (if it’s your book and you don’t credit anyone else, I would assume so.) She also seems to have some wild assertions that I can’t find evidence for like that the kkk were against the Irish. What I could confirm is that they hated Catholics but Irish people are not a monolith and aren’t all catholic. There needs to be citations to back up some of this information or honestly it just sounds racist.
texreader's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.5
An Irish teacher wrote this book about Ireland’s history and it’s obvious. It’s well-researched and written, and most importantly it’s very interesting. I learned so much from the basic—who were the Celts? to the more recent—Ireland was neutral in WWII. I knew the English hadn’t treated Ireland well but I didn’t know the extent, and that the infamous potato famine was the result of onerous laws passed by the British government, which refused to undo the harm and instead the English people stepped up to volunteer and donate food and money during the crisis and tried to mitigate all the harm. I was dumbfounded at the centuries of abuse heaped on Ireland. I struggled with the narration by the author. The words were enunciated so much I struggled to listen to it. So I just kept speeding it up. But very glad I finished it; it’s an excellent book.
emmaphf's review
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
4.0
Loved learning about the history of Ireland and am overall so grateful for this accessible history. The section about Irish assimilating into America rubbed me the wrong way (as an Irish-American myself), as it did not grapple with the nuance of oppressed people also becoming oppressors, as Irish-Americans become some of the worst offenders of white supremacy and racism. It treated Irish-Americans in an overly simplistic, can-do-no-wrong way, which felt disingenuous and flattened the otherwise very compelling history. This piece is important for Irish-Americans to understand — as a key, however flawed, survival tactic that was chosen, and still plagues society today.
mdzreynolds's review
5.0
An easy, eye-opening read. A wonderful “10,000 foot view” of our Irish ancestry.
crystalweaver's review against another edition
informative
fast-paced
4.0
Exactly the sort of introductory book I was looking for. It's fast-paced, engaging, and gives a "big picture" look at all the key events in Irish and Irish-American history--and, helpfully, contains suggestions for further reading if one wants to go more in-depth on any of the topics it touches on. My only disappointment was that it doesn't cover much modern Irish history (though this is understandable, since its focus is really on Irish-American history). I also could have done with the short story interludes, personally.