Book Review: Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice by Claire McGettrick, Katherine O’Donnell, Maeve O’Rourke, James M. Smith and Mari Steed

Abstract

mobilizing the racist right through the formation of a multiracial coalition of racial liberals and moderates. Election results in 2020 and 2021 demonstrated both the strengths and limitations of this approach. The book’s major contributions are its placement of the Trump phenomenon in the broader canvas of American political and social history and its effective use of empirical data to validate or disprove a number of core assumptions about Trump’s rise and the sources of his support. The book’s limitations are partly the results of the timing of its publication. Not only have others already written much of what the authors assert, subsequent events – particularly the 6 January 2021 insurrection and the spread of disinformation by Republicans about election fraud and Covid vaccine mandates – have intensified the threat they describe and called into question their cautious optimism about the future.