Death in the Diaspora: British and Irish Gravestones - Paperback

by Nicholas Evans (Editor), Angela McCarthy (Editor)

As British and Irish migrants sought new lives in the Caribbean, Asia, North America and Australasia, they left a trail of physical remains where settlement occurred. Between the 17th and 20th centuries, gravestones and elaborate epitaphs documented identity and attachment to their old and new worlds. This book expands upon earlier examination of cultural imperialism to reveal how individuals, kinship groups and occupational connections identified with place and space over time.
With analyses based on gravestones and memorial markers in the UK and Ireland, Australasia, Asia, Africa and the Americas, the contributors explore how this evidence can inform 21st-century ideas about the attachments that British and Irish migrants had to 'home' - in both life and death.

Back Jacket

Pioneering comparative study of migrant death markers across the British and Irish worlds and what they can tell us about notions of 'home' As British and Irish migrants sought new lives in the Caribbean, Asia, North America and Australasia, they left a trail of physical remains where settlement occurred. Between the 17th and 20th centuries, gravestones and elaborate epitaphs documented identity and attachment to their old and new worlds. This book expands upon earlier examination of cultural imperialism to reveal how individuals, kinship groups and occupational connections identified with place and space over time. With analyses based on gravestones and memorial markers in the UK and Ireland, Australasia, Asia, Africa and the Americas, the contributors explore how this evidence can inform 21st-century ideas about the attachments that British and Irish migrants had to 'home' - in both life and death. Nicholas J. Evans is Lecturer in Diaspora History at the University of Hull. Angela McCarthy is Professor of Scottish and Irish History and Director of the Centre for Global Migrations at the University of Otago.

Author Biography

Nicholas J. Evans is Lecturer in Diaspora History at the University of Hull.

Angela McCarthy is Professor of Scottish and Irish History at the University of Otago, New Zealand. She is the editor of A Global Clan (2006) and author of Personal Narratives of Irish and Scottish Migration, 1921-65 (2007) and Scottishness and Irishness in New Zealand since 1840 (2011).