Editors: Carl L. Bankston III and Danielle Hidalgo,     both of Tulane University ISBN: 978-1-58765-266-0 List Price: $120 February 2006 · 2 volumes · 784 pages · 6"x9" Young Irish immigrant who was working as a sweeper in a Massachusetts iron works in 1917. (Library of Congress)

Identification: Immigrants to North America from Ireland
Immigration Issues: Demographics; European immigrants;
    Irish immigrants; Religion; Stereotypes

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.

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 City, 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

Kathleen Schongar