They Change Their Sky: The Irish in Maine

Edited by Dr. Michael C. Connolly, with a preface by former Senator George Mitchell, and published by the University of Maine Press, represents the research and collaboration of ten scholars of Irish and Maine history. In ten essays with geographical diversity throughout the state these historians have presented a compelling story of the Irish experience in Maine starting with the earliest arrivals from Ulster in the early eighteenth century, through the heyday of Irish immigration between the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and concluding with the continuance of Irish culture up to the late twentieth century. The essays include the following:

1. R. Stuart Wallace - The Scotch-Irish of Maine
2. Ed McCarron - The Irish Merchant Community of Lincoln County, 1780-1820
3. Fidelma McCarron - Ireland Along the Passamaquoddy: Rathlin Islanders in Washington County, Maine 
4. Ed McCarron - The Irish Agrarian Colony of Benedicta, Maine
5. Matt Barker - Irish Fraternal Associations in Nineteenth Century Portland
6. Margaret Buker Jay - The Irish Experience in Lewiston, Maine 1850-1880
7. Gary Libby - Maine and the Fenian Invasion of Canada
8. Eileen Eagan and Pat Finn - Mutually Single: Irish Women in Portland, Maine
9. Mike Connolly - Nationalism Among Early Twentieth Century Irish Longshoremen in Portland, Maine
10. Ken Nilsen - The Galway Gaeltacht (Irish-Speaking Area) of Portland, Maine 

The proceeds of the sale of this book help support the Maine Irish Heritage Center.  The Center is located in the former Saint Dominic's Church on the corner of Gray and State Streets in Portland, Maine. 

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