The Irish American community is the second-largest self-reported ancestral group in America second only to the German Americans. An American community survey conducted in 2006 showed that 12 percent (36,495,800) of the entire population were Irish migrants. The Irish had been migrating to the USA even before the Revolution; these were mostly males and in small numbers; they had some skill and ended up working in the fledgling industries of the time. They formed small communities in Philadelphia, Boston, New York City, and Providence.
Mass migration was to follow later where the Irish immigrated to the United States of en masse America by way of ships. These were usually known as coffin ships due to the high mortality rates during the voyage. The passengers were provided with little food and water. The ships were crowded and disease-ridden leading to many deaths. It was said that sharks could be seen following the ship to eat the large numbers of bodies thrown overboard.
Although Irish immigration to the United States of America began as early as the 1820s, The Great Famine (An Gorta Mór) of 1845-1850 triggered mass migration. This was caused by potato blight, a fungus, Phytophthora infested which decimated potato crops resulting in a devastating famine in a country where a third of the population depended on the crop for food. In this period (1845-1852), approximately one million of the population in Ireland died and another one million emigrated from Ireland. However, immigration was also caused by historical injustice in Ireland with social, economic, and political reasons causing migration. The protestant landowners in Ireland who could no longer get rent from the poor catholic farmers and who had to pay the same to the British government resulted in evicting the starving peasants from the land; approximately 500,000 of them got evicted from their cottages and ended up living in government poor houses.
The government lacked the willingness to support the famished peasants and for that reason the government jointly with the landlords supported immigration; out of pity a group of landlords together with the government sacrificed to clear the UDS3.45 fare for passage; roughly 180 landlords and philanthropists extended some form of ‘generosity’ to the over 80,000 emigrants, a thing they viewed as economical (paying for their passages to America) as compared with supporting the poor fellows at home – this assisted emigration operation was carried out by landlords who more than 30,000 inhabitants. It is projected that over 4.5 million people of Irish origin arrived in America from 1820 to 1930. Coffin ships were the cheapest way to cross the Atlantic and were usually advertised on the quayside as being the fastest or with great amenities while in the real sense the convict ships had better conditions than them. For example, old ships like the ‘Elizabeth & Sarah’ built-in 1763 were still being used in 1846, 83 years later.
The immigrants, usually after eviction from their cottages migrated as a family; however, it was not unusual for part of the family to travel first and then facilitate the migration of the rest of the family. My paternal grandfather came to America on one of these boats from Ireland; he met and married my grandmother in America who also had come from Poland on a similar boat. Consequently, my father grew up in a polish speaking home. I obtained all the information regarding my grandparents from my father since I never met them since my father and his parents were estranged when he married my mother of German descent and who they claimed was sickly as she was very skinny at the time. This fallout was further fueled when after getting married stopped giving his paychecks to his mother.
The immigrant favored the United States and Canada due to a campaign launched through the newspaper with an advertisement offering a better life and cheap land to the immigrants; in a real sense, America saw an opportunity in the immigration to acquire laborers and settlers with she needed.
Most of the immigrants landed in New York and either settled thereof or relocated to other areas; therefore the city became a conduit for many immigrants and up to today hold the largest population of Irish in Diaspora in the world. Many of these immigrants went to the largest cities, especially Boston and New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Missouri, and San Francisco.
Even today, many of these cities still retain a substantial Irish American population. Some of these cities were also favored due to existing Irish communities formed by earlier immigrants. Immigration continued to the 1900s mainly due to family reunification where the presence of a member of the family allowed the rest of the family to migrate and settle in established Irish – American neighborhoods. The Irish Emigrant Society (which some Irishmen claimed to be a sham and an extortion ring) tried to persuade people to move to the interior but most were very poor and had no money to buy land or for transport; therefore they tended to settle close to the port where they disembarked resulting in the growth of squalid new city slums especially in New York. Diarrhea diseases outbreaks in the slums were common an Archbishop Hughes, in speaking of these diseases, said “it was the natural death of the Irish emigrant in this county.”
The masses migrating to America mostly consisted of unskilled and uneducated people whose only occupation had been farming. Consequently, the only jobs they could get were those of menial labor; one journalist commented: “There are several kinds of power working at the fabric of the republic – water-power, steam-power, and Irish-power, the last works hardest of all.” The immigrants no doubt dominated the hardest jobs with the worst working conditions. Many went into the cities and mill towns; some ended up in canal or railroad construction sites on the east coast as labor gangs. Work on the railroad was very hard and dangerous and many Irish were killed while working on it; there was a common saying that “there was an Irishman buried under every tie.”
Some of the newly arrived immigrants were enlisted in the army as field soldiers during the Mexican-American war and later for the American civil war; conscription, ordered by President Lincoln in 1863 resulted in the New York draft riots. Eventually, some of them were able to save enough money to buy land along the way especially in Illinois which had 87,000 Irish living in the state in 1860. Other immigrants became coal miners in Pennsylvania whose working conditions were very poor. The women also worked and a large number of them were employed as maids in the middle-class households and hotels and were stereotyped as “Biddies” short form for Bridge; others were employed as unskilled laborers in New England textile mills. It was not until after the Civil war that the prospects of the Irish started to improve.
They were recruited in both police and fire departments particularly around the Great Lakes and in the North East. This translated to an increase in their standards of living. A strange phenomenon was seen where in the 1860s more than half of those arrested in New York City were Irish born or of Irish descent but nearly half of the City’s law enforcement officers were also Irish thus raising eyebrows on the true nature of the Irishman, troublesome villain or valiant worker.
By the turn of the century, five in every six NYPD officers were Irish descendants. In areas such as New England, Irish Americans still enjoy unequal membership in the law enforcement community as compared to other communities. The Irish also later attained white-collar jobs mostly as shopkeepers and as businessmen; the women, albeit with more difficulty, were also climbing the ladder as teachers, nurses, and secretaries; most of these were in catholic institutions. My grandparents until their death worked on their farm that was subsequently inherited by my fathers’ sister. On the other hand, my father worked at a cement plant as a teenager and later became a truck driver.
Conflicting reports can be found regarding discrimination against immigrants in the job sector. The Irish community insists that there were signs announcing “Help wanted- No Irish Need Apply (NINA)”, existed; these signs had been common in London where open discrimination was rife; there is however very little evidence to show that the signs were put up in America. On the other hand, the Irish laborers were highly sought after due to their perceived character of being hard working. Socially, however, there was discrimination in the form of Protestant versus Catholics. Intermarriage between the two was frowned upon by both priests and ministers and was strongly opposed by both sides. In public schools, The King James version bible with passages considered derogatory by Catholics was in use; this resulted in the creation of Catholic parochial schools as a response; the main aim of the curriculum in addition to general learning was to protect the Irish children from being seduced by the Protestant ideas.
Racism against the Irish in Britain was rife with the Irish being depicted as sub-human or “The missing link”; there were depictions of the Irish as chimpanzees or monkeys. Some writers urge that the immigrant already had a deep-rooted sense of being discriminated against from their experiences under the British rule and brought these sentiments to America in cases where there was even none. However, the new arrivals did elicit a deep sense of suspicion in some quarters in the US also leading to racial discrimination and slur against them with anti-Irish stereotypes depicting them as drunkards, belligerent, gambling, and prostitutes being rife. The term “White-niggers” was commonly used. The media was also not spared of the prejudice this the publication racially stereotyped cartoons and articles; for example, the Chicago Post wrote that Irish filled their prisons, their poor houses…Scratched a pauper or a convict, and that chances were that they(those complaining) would tickle the skin of an Irish who were mostly Catholic.
They suggested returning them to their origin as the only remedy to crime reduction. Racial prejudice against the Irish reached its peak with the formation of The Know-Nothing movement that propagated the popular belief that the country was being overwhelmed by Irish Catholics who were hostile to American values and were controlled by the pope; the movement aimed at stopping immigration and naturalization of Irishmen; Worcester, Massachusetts’ Know-Nothing newspaper claimed in an editorial on the eve of that city’s mayoral contest in 1854 that rum shops were emerging in almost every section of the streets, harlots established brothels at every corner of the streets while organizing festivals in nearly every part of the sprawling city and that drunkards could be seen staggering in every hour of the day. Youths were lured into the shackles of infamy in broad daylight, individuals openly confronted on the streets by common prostitutes while murderers made bargains on their supposed compensation after accomplishment of their duties. The place was described as hell on earth with the entire blames directed to the Irish immigrants. The immigrants often responded violently to oppression, insult, or intimidation resulting in the “belligerent” stereotype of the Irishman.
The New York draft riots were triggered by the publication of a list of draftees On Sunday, June 12 1863 by the Provost Marshall in newspapers; the move was seen as targeting the Irish community that was against the sending of its young men to the war to support the union cause especially after reports of the carnage at the battle of Gettysburg. The poor community living in the slums of the city could not afford the commutation fee that allowed the wealthier (non-Irish) people to buy their way out of the service. The army was brought in to quell the riots resulting in a score of deaths in the city. When the coal miners in Pennsylvania1860s and 1870s were persecuted for trade union activities, they formed a secret society called the “Molly-Maguires”, named after an anti-landlord organization in Ireland. The group attempted to intimidate the mostly English, Scottish, and Welsh mine-owners and their supporters to improve the working conditions of the miners. They raided the mine bosses, beating, and even killing them in their dwelling places. Fortunately, the dreaded group activities were brought to an end in 1875 when James McParland, a detective Pinkerton brought by both the road and rail an Irish immigrant, cornered the infamous organization and produced tangible evidence that led to the 1876’s putting to death of twenty of its members after proven of nine of the many murders committed.
Generally, as a response to the dangerous and poor working conditions characteristic of the sectors they were working in, the workers formed unions to champion their rights; the unions were so effective that they became victims of their own success. Soon they began being gradually replaced with immigrant American Asians who offered cheaper labor and were less likely to demand union representation. The union activities also led to the railroads lobbying President Lincoln for the emancipation of slaves who created an influx of cheap labor to hasten the work in the railroad. This caused much concern to the Irish as the railroad construction was a very dangerous job with many fatalities reported.
There are over a 40million Americans of Irish descent (about 18%of the population) and the Irish culture has made major contributions to the US culture and society. Among the most notable events in the American calendar is the annual Saint Patrick’s day which seeks to celebrate all things Irish; the largest celebration takes place in New York where is draws an average of two million people; the first St. Patrick’s Day Parade took place in New York in 1762; the Irish are fiercely loyal to their heritage as displayed on this day but which is also used to display their affection to their Americanism. No other single ethic group in the USA has such influence on the country as a whole while staying unique to their origin. Other aspects that have an Irish influence in them include the successful NBA basketball team, The Boston Celtics. Additionally people of Irish decent continue to dominate the police and firefighting departments in large cities; additionally they went ahead to form Emerald societies in this departments that aim to unite the Irish people in the law enforcement field.
When they arrived in the United States, the Irish were already galvanized against oppression after having suffered under British rule in Ireland. Naturally the immigrant resisted any form of oppression as laborers in the US and formed their labor unions to protect their workers from oppression and to lobby for better working conditions; Peter James McGuire (1852-1906) was a founder member of the American Federation of Labor, he was its secretary and first vice-president. He is perhaps best known today as the “Father of Labor Day”. These activities laid foundation and were the precursors to the future success of Americans of Irish descent politically who ascended up to the oval office like President John F. Kennedy. My father was a member of the teamsters union representing truck drivers.
To date the US presidents who have a definite Irish descent are Andrew Jackson,7thPresident 1829-37 , James Knox Polk, 11th President 1845-49 ,James Buchanan, 15th President 1857-61 ,Ulysses S Grant, 18th President 1869-77 , Chester Alan Arthur, 21st President 1881-85 ,Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President 1885-89, 1893-97 , William McKinley, 25th President 1897-1901 , Woodrow Wilson, 28th President 1913-21 , John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President 1961-63 , Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th President 1963-69 , Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th President 1969-74 ,James Earl Carter, 39th President 1977-81 , Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President 1981-89 , George Herbert Walker Bush, 41st President 1989-93 , William Jefferson Clinton, 42nd President 1993-2001,George W Bush, 43rd President 2001-09, and Barack Hussein Obama, 44th President 2009.
To date, the American union movements founded then play a key role in the welfare of the American worker. The Irish culture has also contributed to American performing arts, film, literature, politics, sports, and religion. Irish -American bands were on the rise as a result of Celtic music popularity which drew from the traditional Irish music and themes. They have established a vibrant catholic community in the States they continues to be very vocal in regard to various aspects of the American society including politics, science and social life. Although it is undergoing some changes, the America Catholic Church has a distinctive Irish influence. Americans of Irish decent have also flourished in areas of sport including basketball and baseball. The migrant also supported the growth of the Catholic parochial school system and catholic colleges that accommodated the discriminated Irish students; Boston College and University of Notre Dame are among the most renowned catholic colleges that have an Irish history of influence; many Irish Americans continue to attend these institutions today. Irish men fought in the Revolutionary war mostly siding with and composing an estimated 38% of Washington army even though they consisted only 10% of the population. The Irish sided with the Union in the Civil war and large numbers fought in the Yankee army that went ahead to win the war; these events, that the Irish contributed to, pretty much shaped the history of the United States. Today Americans of Irish descent occupy and are vibrant in all sectors of American life from the highest office to the blue-collar jobs of the economy.
My father, a truck driver and his sister who inherited the farm from my grand parents are good examples of this and have all come from humble beginnings to where they are now. The Irish story is a typical rags-to-riches, poverty-to-power and was clearly demonstrated by the Harvard-educated millionaire John Fitzgerald Kennedy winning the United States presidency in 1960, barely 110 years after the arrival in American of his famine-fleeing great-grandfather; Patrick Kennedy. This has always inspired Americans in this nation of fresh starts and second chances. It has also been encouraging other immigrants that are not necessarily Irish and giving them hope in the land of opportunities where everything is possible. It sets for them an example of not only to love their new country, but also to be loyal to their countries of origin and to maintain their culture and values.
References
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Helen Litton, (2006), The Irish Famine: An Illustrated History, Wolfhound Press, pp. 9–10.
Information on Irish-Catholic Immigration to America. Web.
Information on the New York City Draft Riots (1863). Web.
Information on The tide of emigration to the United States, and to The British colonies. Web.
Information on American Presidents with Irish Ancestors by Sean Murphy MA. Web.
Information on Why Americans love the Irish; St. Patrick’s Day is about more than just green beer. It’s about scrappy underdogs who embrace their heritage while bleeding red, white and blue, by Michael Medved, USA TODAY. Web.
Information on Selected Social Characteristics in the United States: 2006.
Data Set: 2006 American Community Survey by American Community Survey. Web.
Michael Hout and Joshua R. Goldstein (1994),
How 4.5 Million Irish Immigrants Became 40 Million Irish Americans: Demographic and Subjective Aspects of the Ethnic Composition of White Americans, American Sociological Review, Vol. 59, No. 1 (1994), pp. 64-82
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Robert Whyte (1847), The Journey of an Irish Coffin Ship. Web.