When American poet Emma Lazarus wrote the iconic words that would be inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty—“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses”—she certainly had the Irish in mind. The Irish immigrants that arrived on America’s shores in the mid-19th century came with nothing more than the shirts on their backs, having fled their home country to escape starvation. They crowded into American cities where the living conditions were wretched—filthy, teeming slums that were breeding grounds for disease and death. But the story of the Irish in America wouldn’t be one of misery and despair. No, it would be one of hope and triumph, as the Irish would become one of the country’s greatest immigrant success stories.
The Irish came to America under the most horrific of circumstances. The potato was the lifeblood of the Irish people. They depended on it for their daily existence, and when a mysterious fungus appeared on the potato after a wet summer in 1845, it spelled their doom. The crop failed repeatedly and disastrously over the next six years. Over 1 million Irish would starve to death, while another million would flee the country and head to America—their last and only hope. The Great Famine was perhaps the worst human catastrophe of the 19th century. Ireland, which had 8.1 million people in 1840, would have only 6.5 million by the end of the decade. By 1860, another million would leave for America.
Doing the Dirty Work at First
At first, life in America would not be much better. The Irish lived in cellars in New York, shantytowns along the banks of the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, and tenements in Boston, sometimes with as many as five families living in a single room. Cholera killed thousands, and infant mortality approached 80 percent among Irish immigrants in New York.To make matters worse, they were not greeted warmly here. Nativists and Know Nothings despised them. They saw them as unkempt, uncouth, and uncivilized. Newspaper cartoonists portrayed the Irish as monkeys and baboons, the men as drunkards and the women as prostitutes. They met some resistance from employers, too. “No Irish Need Apply,” the signs at the factory gates would say. But those prejudices would soon fade as the Irish, along with immigrants from all over the world, would fuel the industrial revolution.
The Irish were the factory workers, the laborers, and the horseshoers. They heaved coal, hauled carts, and dug ditches. They dug out New York’s subway and sewer systems and built the railroads. They did the backbreaking work, the dangerous work, the dirty work. More than half of the workers who built the Brooklyn Bridge were Irish. They toiled for long hours at little pay but held on to their hopes that things would get better.
And they did get better. The Irish would soon make their mark in popular culture and sports. Irish songs could be heard in dance halls and saloons throughout the country. Irish actors and tenors became fixtures on the stage. The first great professional boxers were Irish, including bare-knuckler John L. Sullivan, who held the heavyweight title from 1882 to 1892, and the man who dethroned him, James “Gentleman Jim” Corbett. Professional baseball was dominated by the sons of Irish immigrants. It was estimated that over 40 percent of major league ballplayers were Irish at the end of the 19th century, including Hall of Fame managers John McGraw and Connie Mack, as well as one of the greatest hitters of all time: “Wee Willie” Keeler.
Catholic Parishes and Schools
But it was Catholic parishes and Catholic schools that may have played the most important role in the rise of the Irish up the economic ladder.In 1840, there were very few Catholics in America—only about 600,000. But that number increased to 1.6 million by 1850, thanks mainly to the Irish Famine. Between 1850 and 1870, the number of Catholic parishes in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York doubled. The parish became central to urban life. It was where Irish immigrants turned for recreation, counseling, guidance, and financial help. And it seemed that nearly all of these parishes had their own schools. Irish American church leaders believed that “Catholic children should attend Catholic schools,” and the Irish did in huge numbers. The nuns and priests that educated the children of immigrants were strict disciplinarians that kept their students on the straight path but also helped preserve their sense of Irishness. The Irish priest seemed to define American Catholicism. Between the country’s founding and the Great Depression, more than 58 percent of American bishops were Irish.
Catholic institutions of higher learning also played a key role in the success of the Irish in America. Around the middle of the 19th century, Catholic colleges and universities began sprouting up throughout the country—Manhattan College in New York, LaSalle College in Philadelphia, Loyola in Chicago, and St. Mary’s in California, to name a few. The Jesuits founded Boston College in 1863 to educate Boston’s predominantly Irish immigrant community.
Irish Politicians
Politics would also provide an avenue for the Irish to enter the middle class and beyond. In the late 1800s, the Irish would become a powerful political force. Their sheer numbers made it possible. They built political machines that got out the vote. Gregarious and social by nature, the Irish were natural pols. They built their power block by block, precinct by precinct. Political gatherings were held in local bars, fire stations, and church basements. It was politics from the ground up, and it was successful. In 1880, William R. Grace became New York’s first Irish American mayor. Five years later, Boston elected Irishman Hugh O’Brien, and in 1893, Chicagoans chose John Hopkins to lead their city. Al Smith, the son of Irish immigrants, became governor of New York in 1923.The Democratic political machines that the Irish dominated, such as Tammany Hall in New York, were often corrupt but provided valuable services to immigrants. The Irish ward leaders and political bosses helped new arrivals find jobs and places to live. They paid the rent of poor families facing eviction and gave them money for food. They helped them with naturalization issues and legal problems. They gave a voice at City Hall to the powerless and humblest members of their community.
The Irish continued to rise and prosper into the 20th century. The children and grandchildren of the factory workers and ditch diggers would become teachers and nurses, policemen and firemen, engineers and accountants, doctors and lawyers, and even presidents of the United States. On November 8, 1960, John F. Kennedy, the great-grandson of Famine immigrants, was elected the nation’s first Catholic president. The Irish had arrived.
Today, more than 31.5 million people in the United States, or approximately 10 percent of the population, can claim Irish ancestry.
We Irish like to think our American story is unique, but it really isn’t. People from countries across the world have come to America with the same hopes, the same dreams, and have faced the same obstacles and prejudices, but have persevered.
Today’s immigrants, whether they come to flee communism or come for religious freedom, economic opportunity, or just a new start, still come. Their American dream still lives. Some who come may not attain that dream, but their children and their children’s children just might. And that’s the hope and promise of America.
