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Irish
Contents
Irish Immigration to New York City >The
Irish at 97 Orchard Street > 19th
Century Dublin > Irish Immigrants
in the Workplace > Irish Immigrants
and the Catholic Church in America > Tammany
Hall and Irish Political Participation > Irish
Nationalism > Irish Fraternal
and County Organizations > 19th
Century Health Care and the Immigrant Irish > The
Irish Wake
Irish Immigration to New York City
While the mass emigration that began from Ireland with the Great
Famine of the 1840s holds sway over the popular imagination, Irish
migration to the United States dates at least to the 18th century
when thousands of mostly Protestant Irish from Ulster County in
the north of Ireland made their way across the Atlantic. Fleeing
a homeland troubled by colonial persecution and the destruction
of its once flourishing linen and woolen trades, many landed in
New York as a result of the city's extensive commerce with Ireland.
By the late 18th century, thousands of Irish immigrants were arriving
in New York every year. Some of these Irish went on to become prominent
and influential in the life of the city. But while the Duanes and
the Clintons became important political leaders, the majority worked
as laborers, tradesmen, and farmers.1
In contrast to the Irish emigrants of the 18th century, those who
arrived in New York during the first decades of the 19th century
were overwhelmingly Catholic. The Ireland these emigrants left behind
was characterized by a rapidly expanding population, land scarcity,
economic crisis, and widespread poverty. Between 1815 and 1845,
well over 1 million Irish men, women, and children left Ireland,
with a considerable number landing in New York. Inducements to emigrate
also originated on the other side of the Atlantic, as letters sent
home by emigrants and the money they contained were crucial to financing
the passage of others. In some cases, remittances came in the form
of prepaid passage. Often termed chain migration, one family member
journeyed to New York and, once settled, worked to bring the rest
of the family over. In addition, brokers and agents of shipping
companies, as well as emigrant assistance societies circulated promotional
materials to stimulate emigration. As Irish immigrants to New York
became increasingly Catholic in character during the pre-famine
era (1800-44), Irish Americans of Protestant descent sought to distance
themselves from the newcomers by proclaiming themselves Scotch-Irish
and assimilating into the mainstream of the Protestant community.2
In 1845, a catastrophe of epic proportions was visited on the people
of Ireland. The result of a fungal infestation, potato blight devastated
the crop throughout the country and robbed the rural poor of their
main source of food. Striking Ireland repeatedly between 1846 and
1855, the Great Famine resulted in the deaths of between 1.1-1.5
million Irish from starvation and famine-related diseases. Another
2.1 million fled the country, with 1.5 million settling in the United
States, many of whom disembarked and settled in New York City.3
The cramped and claustrophobic steerage quarters in which Famine-era
emigrants crossed the Atlantic swarmed with disease and "fever."
Over 9 percent of those who sailed on these "coffin ships"
perished on board or shortly before their arrival. Nonetheless,
the Irish who emigrated to the United States between 1846 and 1855
represented the largest such mass migration during the 19th century.
Once settled in America, they tended to view themselves as exiles
rather than voluntary emigrants, the victims of a forced exodus
perpetrated not by the potato blight but by their English imperial
masters.4
In the decades after the Famine, more Irish women than men emigrated
to the United States, and Irish-American communities contained a
greater number of men than women. By comparison, the Irish were
the only significant group of foreign-born in which women outnumbered
men and in which women emigrated primarily in groups.5
The largest wave of Irish immigration to North America transpired
after the decade of the Great Famine had ended. Between 1855 and
1921, almost half of all Irish immigrants to America since 1700
left their homes in Ireland. Poor harvests, evictions, and collapsing
farm prices combined to drive almost 3 million Irish to leave for
the United States. From the 1870s onward, more than half of these
emigrants came from the most impoverished regions of Ireland that
were concentrated along its Atlantic seaboard. While the total number
of Irish who emigrated between 1855 and 1921 represented a remarkably
high proportion of the population of Ireland, they witnessed a dramatic
decline in the Irish percentage of immigrant arrivals to the United
States. In the post-famine years, the number of German arrivals
outpaced that of the Irish and, by the 1880s, newer immigrants from
southern and Eastern Europe arrived en masse.6
Those that left Ireland in the late 19th and twentieth centuries
enjoyed a more comfortable journey to and a more amiable reception
in New York. Since the 1850s, steamships had reduced the time of
the trip from five to two weeks or less and were more comfortable
and sanitary than sailing vessels. Arriving in New York, Irish immigrants
no longer had to navigate a barrage of runners who met them on the
dock with the intention of cheating them out of their meager savings.
Opened in 1855, Castle Garden at the southern tip of Manhattan was
created by the State of New York to process new immigrants and help
them make the transition to the United States. There, Irish immigrants
could purchase railroad and riverboat tickets, obtain advice from
representatives of religious and benevolent societies, and consult
employment agencies staffed with translators. After 1892, responsibility
for processing arriving immigrants fell to the Federal Government
and Ellis Island in Upper New York Bay became the main point of
entry for new Irish.7
1 Paul A Gilje, "The Development
of the Irish American Community in New York City before the Great
Migration," in Ronald H Bayor and Timothy J Meagher, eds.,
The New York Irish (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1996); Kevin Kenny, The American Irish: A History (New York:
Pearson Education Inc., 2000); Kerby Miller, Emigrants and Exiles:
Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1985).
2 Hasia R. Diner, "'The Most Irish
City in the Union': The Era Migration, 1844-1877," in Ronald
H. Bayor and Timothy J. Meagher, eds., The New York Irish
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Kevin Kenny,
The American Irish: A History (New York: Pearson Education
Inc., 2000); Kerby Miller, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and
the Irish Exodus to North America (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1985).
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Lawrence J. McCaffrey, "Forging
Forward and Looking Back," in Ronald H. Bayor and Timothy J.
Meagher, eds., The New York Irish (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1996); Kevin Kenny, The American Irish: A History
(New York: Pearson Education Inc., 2000); Kerby Miller, Emigrants
and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1985).
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