Irish Americans

Significance: Irish Americans have been in the United States since the early colonial period and have played an active role in the development of industry, in labor and social reform, and in politics at all levels. They also profoundly influenced the development of many large cities and have had a lasting influence on educational practices.

The Irish have been a vital component of American life since the days of colonialism. The early Irish immigrants were mainly Presbyterian Protestants from Ulster. Although some belonged to the Church of Ireland, most came in search of financial gains. The majority of the Ulster-born Irish were tenant farmers or skilled artisans of modest means. The Irish who would follow in the famine years would be vastly different in their beliefs, their financial status, and their social standing. Each new wave of Irish immigrants would add something to the fabric of American life.

The “Famine Irish”

Whereas the earliest Irish immigrants had come to the United States to better themselves, the “famine Irish” sought simple survival in an often hostile land. The Penal Laws in Ireland had long put native Irish Catholics at a serious disadvantage in their homeland. Irish farmers were uneducated, poor, and dependent upon their rocky plots of land for subsistence. Families were large. The lifestyle was one of intense social interaction. They had little, but they shared what they had and celebrated their beliefs with tradition, song, dance, and religious ritual. They were dependent upon the potato crop as their sole food source.

When blight struck the potato crop between the years 1845 and 1854, the poor had nowhere to turn. Some had compassionate landlords. However, when Parliament passed the Poor Law Extension Act of 1847, landlords became responsible for the cost of care of their tenantry. Even well-meaning landowners could not cover such expense. Evictions became the rule. The poor then had the option of going to disease-infested workhouses or starving on the road in search of food and shelter. They fled their native land strictly for survival.

Between 1840 and 1860, more than 1.5 million Irish came to the shores of the United States. They settled in cities, concentrating in certain neighborhoods. A large contingent settled in New Orleans. Most of those who fled the famine stayed in eastern cities such as New York or Boston simply because they had no money and no marketable skills to move on. Some would move toward Chicago or join the movement westward in search of employment. Most of the famine Irish were poor and Catholic. They represented the first large wave of non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants in the history of the nation.

Milestones in Irish American History

The Irish immigrants were uneducated, Catholic, and considered uncultured by the social elite in the United States. Many were unaccompanied women, a fact that set the Irish apart from previous immigrant groups. The young Irish girls took positions as domestic servants in the homes of the wealthy. They worked to save enough to rescue more relations in Ireland from starvation. These women and the unskilled Irish men who sought to make a living digging ditches or building canals or bridges were scorned by the nativists. However, from the lowest levels of society, these Irish American began to build their version of the American Dream.

Religion

The Irish Catholic poor, social by nature and custom and isolated by their religious beliefs, built their own comfortable enclaves within the cities where they settled. Irish neighborhoods in New York, Boston, Chicago, and elsewhere developed into parishes. The Catholic parishes evolved into social and educational centers within the communities. As the Irish developed a reputation for hard drinking and fighting, it was the parish priest who often served as counselor and role model. The Church cared for the immigrants’ spiritual, social, educational, medical, and emotional needs. As the number of immigrants increased, parishes and religious orders built schools, hospitals, and orphanages to meet the needs of the communities.

Politics and Social Reforms

As the growing numbers of Irish immigrants began to frighten the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants already established in the cities and to threaten the status quo, the children of the famine generation began to see the possibilities that existed for them by virtue of their numbers and their ambition. Politics was a natural extension of the parish culture. Precinct by precinct, the Irish began to embrace the US political system as a tool for personal advancement and a mechanism for social change.

One individual who came up from the streets of New York was young Alfred E. “Al” Smith. Raised on the streets of Brooklyn as the Brooklyn Bridge was being built, he took advantage of the political patronage in Tammany Hall to gain a foothold in politics. Under the tutelage of Charles Murphy and Jimmy Walker, Smith rose up through the political ranks in New York and eventually became the governor of New York State. Similar political machines evolved in Kansas City and Chicago, as politicians sought to serve their constituencies. Smith initiated social reforms, including child labor laws, and improved safety requirements to protect workers. Elsewhere in the nation, labor unions were gaining support.

With many successes to his credit in New York, Smith ran unsuccessfully for president in 1928. Many people still distrusted the Irish, and the nativists and many non-Catholics feared papal interference in US politics should Smith be elected. The first Irish Catholic to claim the office of the president of the United States would be another descendant from Irish peasant stock, John F. Kennedy, in 1960. Kennedy would stand as a symbol of the Irish American dream brought to fruition.

Appreciation of Traditions

In the 1980s and 1990s, Irish Americans no longer bore the stigma of most negative stereotypes. The Irish generally assimilated into US society, often intermarrying with other ethnic groups, yet there continued to be a lingering appreciation of Irish history and traditions, with a renewed interested in traditional Irish music and dance that became a part of American popular culture, transcending ethnic origins and religious beliefs.

Bibliography

Coffey, Michael, and Terry Golway. The Irish in America. Hyperion, 1997.

Fallows, Marjorie. Irish Americans: Identity and Assimilation. Prentice-Hall, 1979.

Greeley, Andrew M. The Irish Americans: The Rise to Money and Power. Harper & Row, 1981.

McCaffrey, Lawrence J. The Irish Diaspora in America. Catholic U of America P, 1984.

Meagher, Timothy J. The Columbia Guide to Irish American History. Columbia UP, 2005.

Watson, William E., and Eugene J. Halus, Jr. Irish Americans: The History and Culture of a People. ABC-CLIO, 2014.