The Irish In America Part 2

in his better moments patty was like a rebellious child his worst moments patty was a murderous monster patty was also building the nation in the age of Jackson no cast of Americans worked harder than the Irish 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 Erie Canal was built by Irish labor the Santa Fe Trail was blazed by Irish pioneers the first wagon train to California was led by an Irish Scout and the docks and wharves of virtually every port on the continent were filled with hard-working Irish laborers what struck many of them was how hard they had for many Irish immigrants what they hoped was the land of promise turned out to be the land of sweat indeed it was often necessary to work infinitely harder just to feed oneself and one's family in the United States than had been necessary to do in Ireland itself it's only natural I should feel awesome in this country ninety-nine out of every hundred who come to attend are at first disappointed still it's a fine country and a much better place for a poor man than Ireland one thing I think is certain that if emigrants knew beforehand what they have to suffer for about the first six months after leaving home they would never come here from a letter by John diam an Irish immigrant in New York to his wife in Ireland during the 1830s nearly a hundred and fifty thousand Irish immigrants came to America many of them settled in the major cities of the east in Boston Philadelphia and especially in New York this included an Irish Widow and her two boys who came from County Cork to New York in 1832 during the ocean voyage a huge wave swamped his ship and not one of her boys overboard miraculously he was rescued from the chilling water of the Atlantic it was the boys first brush with death but not his last young Thomas Sweeney was destined for glory in in history by 1833 the number of Irish born residents living in New York reached 40,000 making it the largest Irish inhabited city in the world larger than Dublin or Belfast initially they settled in slums but were quick to find a way out the railroad in particular was a vehicle of Irish mobility so many Irish worked on the railroad that it became a cliche by 1845 Irish labor was in Nashville Tennessee but there was plenty of work on the railroad on the river docks and on a new State Capitol building in some ways this Capitol built by Irish labor was a fitting tribute to Tennessee's most famous resident General Andrew Jackson who died that year at the age of 78 on this occasion an Irish journalist John L O'Sullivan coined the phrase manifest destiny to describe the Jacksonian vision of expansion he was writing about the American need to expand from sea to shining sea and he said that we'd been making such progress in spreading democracy so fast and rapidly that there must be a divine hand guiding all of this he said it was God's providence and he said it was our destiny our manifest destiny but no one predicted our manifest destiny would include two million new Irish immigrants in less than 10 years 1845 brought a fungus to the Emerald Isle probably aboard a sailing ship returning from America this fungus a parasitic species called fighteth or infest UNS caused a failure in the potato crop and that changed the course of Irish and American history from 1845 to 1854 famine of epic proportions struck Ireland leading to the greatest wave of emigration the world has ever known it was a question of leave or die for many of these people not only to the potato crop failed as a result of a fungus thus depriving them of the basic food staple in which most of the peasantry lived but epidemic diseases broke out in many parts of our Diaries and newspapers at the time report you know dead bodies being found by the side of the road with green foam coming out of their mouths where they had died eating grass which had had no nutrition it people used to resort to eating wild animals Badgers hedges hedgehogs foxes anything they could find and that whole you know humiliating aspect of the famine caused a lot of problems for the generations to follow the famine struck all Ireland but worst hit were counties in the South and West Galway Clare Carey Cork Limerick Tipperary kill Ken in kilkenny a widow known only as mrs. Nolan broke desperately to her eldest son in America begging him to get the family out of Ireland dear Pat we're all without a place to lay our head I would be dead long ago only for two neighbors that often give me a bite for God's sake but little never I thought would come to my turn to beg no more no dear Pat what you promised to take me in little Dicky out for the honor of our Lord Jesus Christ and his Blessed Mother hurry and take us out never I thought it would come my turn to beg no more and not only is that phrase unusually eloquent but it exemplifies I think how far she felt she had fallen as a result of the calamitous events of the late 1840s 18:47 was the landmark year of Irish immigration to America famine and disease caused so much misery in poverty that poor Irish peasants were willing to risk survival on the high seas rather than face certain death at home the results were ominous almost 15 percent of the immigrants died enroute this terrible year became known as black 47 while these people were sailing on ships most of which were built between the French Revolution and the end of slavery so many of them are slave ships designed to carry human beings but as slaves and given so many inches per body carry the maximum number make the most profit that's the way that's the coffin ship the term coffin ship comes from black 47 from the high mortality rates which the Irish experienced on the ships that transported them to America so many died during some of those voyages that it was said that you could trace their passage across the ocean by the schools of sharks that would follow the vessels waiting for the bodies to be thrown overboard as they died one by one typhus of dysentery and cholera and other diseases if crosses and tombs could be created on the water the whole route of the immigrant vessels from Ireland to America would have looked like a crowded cemetery between 1839 and 1845 close to 200,000 Irish people came to America more immigrants in six years than the preceding 60 but this was nothing compared to what happened during the Great Famine when two million desperately poor starving Irish descended upon the American continent in the same short span of years two million people in 1850 represented nearly 1/10 of the total u.s. population one-tenth suddenly Irish the 2 million let's say I had left our language in 1845 in 1850 3 or 4 while yes 1 million nine hundred and ninety thousand at least had nothing but misery their entire lives hard work slightly better diet possibly a slightly better housing but loss of community loss of the assurance of that loss of tradition most of their experience was very very hard the first experience was the journey aboard a coffin ship an experienced nun forgot boarding these ships for these people was like burning a spaceship that had no concept of how long is how difficult it was going to be dangerous it was going to be and where it would end them up and in what environment they have almost no idea most of them had never seen a map event of any part of the world and what America meant geographically to them is still mystery and so they didn't know the difference between New Orleans in New York those who arrived in New York were immediately inspected and processed on Governors Island for some this was also where they got their first jobs during the famine years the US Army operated a recruiting station on the island and mustered many poor Irishmen into service right off the boat they received an immediate paycheck a new uniform a weapon and a ticket to the war in Mexico these Irish soldiers quickly heard about fighting Tom swinging a feisty army officer who had a penchant for dodging death washed overboard and rescued as a twelve-year-old immigrant sweeney enhanced this reputation in Mexico by leading every charge first at Cerro Gordo the natural busca where he was shot in the groin and right arm at age 26 they amputated his arm without anesthesia for bravery he was promoted to lieutenant in 1848 and sent to the New York recruiting station where he extolled the virtues of the US Army - every boatload of poor strapping Irish immigrants join the army preached fighting Tom the most visible symptom of the Irish Famine was the blight that hit the potato but the massive immigration that followed was caused by an endemic political disease cultivated in London was a huge misconception that the famine was a reason for the mass emigration to America and while there was a famine number one reason was oppression an opportunity Ireland was making enough food to feed themselves four times over but it was all going to England in truth the potato was just part of the cause Irish peasants were starved out of Ireland by the economic policies of the British government throughout the famine English and Irish landlords exported healthy Irish livestock and grain to Britain while half the population starved the suffering presents were left with a simple choice leave or die every Irishman who leaves Ireland for America seems to be really driven as if he made a stand and fight at the beach at Galway and had been ridden by charged bayonets into the sea edward everett hailed in fact there was a fight it happened in July 1848 at Palin Geary County Wexford there a group of angry Irish citizens took up arms and mounted a freedom fight but it wasn't much of a fight it was like the fall of a damp mop on the floor said one historian it was stopped in a day the leaders arrested and sentenced to hang only a few escaped the rope and they were forced to emigrate we're going to another country to get that subsistence which we could not get in our own or graves maybe in a foreign land but our children may yet return to Ireland and when they do we hope it will be with rifles on their shoulders an Irish exile of 1848 when many of these exiles of 48 arrived in America who should they meet in the docks of New York but a one-armed US Army lieutenant fighting Tom Sweeney in America he rallied their cause during the worst years of the famine Irish immigration was like a mighty river spilling over its banks onto every corner of the American continent the Irish were everywhere and everywhere scorned because they were poor because they were desperate and because they were Catholic they were often treated like vermin they were saucier with rags infectious disease oversexed because of the number of children that the worse that they were thought to have a profligate as soon as they collected their wages they spent it on drink they were violent potentially in criminal the women were slatterns associated with prostitutes the men associated with crime over sex violent and dangerous that's where the new Irish worked upon these new poor Catholic Irish didn't get much sympathy from the old Irish inhabitants of America the predominantly Protestant ulster irish by this time they were well-established middle-class people they didn't want to be identified with the new Catholic Irish who were coming in to the east and settling in the various ghettos which were which was set up for them so they began identifying themselves as Scotch Irish scots-irish immigrants in America had to find a way to distinguish themselves from the new immigrants the peasants the Shoeless peasants they were regarded with a great deal of scorn and fear by other Americans so the scots-irish emigrant had to kind of excessively identify with a being American and Anglo the scotch-irish of colonial and revolutionary America didn't just turn their backs on the poor famine Irish they perpetuated much of the prejudice the great majority of the American people are in heart and soul anti-catholic but more especially anti-irish everything Irish is repugnant to them still Irishmen are doing well in the country and a few of them realizing independent fortunes progress cents and dollars for the watchwords of the day Americans appreciate labor and ability and will patronize bought Joseph Fitzgerald an Irish immigrant in Cincinnati Ohio it was a very very common refrain amongst the leaders of the Irish American community you must work hard you must be successful you must be respectable you must not drink you must not live up to any of the negative stereotypes which the British have created and which Yankees are perpetuating you must prove that an Irishman or an Irish woman in America can be all the things that he or she could be if only Ireland were free famine immigrants who wanted equality and respect in America had to gain knowledge this was the message you are coming into a land where knowledge is absolutely power you're making a change which will test severely of moral principles cut adrift from all your early associations we are about to fling yourself into a society where conscience for a time will be your sole observer prepare for hard labor and no patronage no man here can make another man society throws the stranger almost on his own resources but if he shows pluck and wit everyone wishes him well and nobody stands in his way such is America when Thomas Darcy McGee wrote his advice to Irish immigrants in February of 18-49 he didn't know about the discovery of gold in California nor did he fathom the national tragedy of the next two decades in coming years in the glorious West and in our own bloody civil war the Irish emerged as America come for the hills my body I racialize to your darling you choose the word love and I makes a bow your tree in the wake of the great potato famine two million people came over the hills of Ireland over the hills of a treacherous ocean over the hills of a wondrous new continent choosing their roads and making their vows the Irish fell in love with America see beyond the garden where is the lily of the clearly is the water that falls from the boy but my love is fairer than when so many Irish arrived in the 1850s America struggled to meet their basic needs cities were overburdened far beyond anyone's ability to cope put down neglected the Irish took care of themselves they created entirely new neighborhoods in the oldest cities these were America's first slums generically called shanty town the Irish were the pioneers of the American ghetto they were forced to live in the worst sort of substandard housing they dwelt in horrendous slum areas in which health sanitation or at the minimum these were desperately poor places lacking modern convenience and human dignity but they were filled with hope America shanty towns were devoted to the next boatload of survivors from Ireland getting them accustomed to America getting them on the wrong and thus the Irish helped themselves more than half were women many middle-aged Bridget Murphy of County Wexford was 28 considered an Irish spinster when she arrived in Boston on the boat she met a man from Duncan's town whom she married in Boston shanty town she found work doing laundry while he made beer barrels near the wharf Brigid and her husband Patrick Joseph Kennedy had four children theirs was a humble existence for telling none of the fame that enveloped their great-grandchildren it was a very tough life for them and he died quite young and so she had to raise these children by herself she's a very marvelous woman full of courage and initiative and she became she became domestic help and then bought a store her money she had saved in an ocean store and which gradually expanded and then she helped her oldest son who was PJ Patrick Joseph my father's father he bought a liquor store with ended she helped to finance she he was the only one that she could afford to send to university that was where it all started three generations later the Kennedys of Boston were America's royal family history is filled with coincidence but none perhaps is more striking than the coincidence of the great potato famine in Ireland and the discovery of gold in California for the Irish it was more than coincidence it was the hand of Providence it embellished the image of America as the land of promise as the land where immigrants could go and literally pick gold up off the streets it suited some Irish idea of the gold at the end of the rainbow I think more perfectly than they suited any other culture of those seizures between 18-49 and the beginning of the Civil War in 1861 the California Gold Rush was at full bore bringing a flood of Irish men and women to the west they've got out to the west coast and placed like San Francisco you find Irish immigrants within a remarkably short period of time doing quite well for themselves like most of the 49ers the Irish enjoyed random success in the gold mines of California but they prospered greatly as merchants and land speculators all through the West in San Francisco they quickly dominated city politics in the Jacksonian tradition carving of golden niche where none existed before the Irish were probably the most prominent group in the American West everywhere in the West Irish were disproportionately represented being an American Calvary bed mining being transportation the Union Pacific construction crew was almost entirely Irish and in fact an Irishman became mayor of San Francisco ironically the greatest Irish fortune mind in the West was not a pot of gold it was a pane of cylinder in 1859 a great strike occurred at a place that later became known as Virginia City the great strike was made by two Irish immigrants Peter O'Reilly and Patrick McLoughlin their strike would become known would go down in history as the Comstock Lode a number of men made it big on the Comstock but those who made it biggest were four Irishmen known as the Silver kings John Mackay William O'Brien James flood and James Fair they bought a mine that was thought to be worthless well not only did they hit a vein but they hit the very heart of the Comstock Lode and they hit it dead center it was called the big bonanza and these four Irishmen became the richest men on the Comstock many of those who rushed to the gold and silver mines of the West did so in the city of New Orleans this was the second largest port of entry for Irish immigrants in the u.s. here folks like Patrick Faber and got their welcome to America but Claiborne did not heed Horace Greeley's advice and go west instead he fell in love with the south Patrick Ronan Kleber born in County Cork Ireland on March 17 1828 yes on st. Patrick's Day on November 5th 18-49 from the aport of Cove Harbor Court he and his three brothers and sisters left and after 50 days on the sea with sharks circling the boat there arrived in New Orleans on Christmas Day 18-49 America was a fine Christmas present for 21 year old Patrick flavoring in New Orleans he boarded one of America's modern marvels a shallow draught paddlewheel Mississippi steamboat up the mighty river paper and went within three months he found promising work in Helena Arkansas in America Patrick Clements dreams quickly came true client is the epitome of American dream come true virtually nothing a few dollars in his pockets and then in ten years he's a he's a success and that's the greatness of America that they guarantee you nothing except the chance to be successful on the right to be free ten years after his arrival Claiborne was worth a small fortune but he gave it all up to fight for his adopted country in the Civil War in 1859 and Ohio born Irishmen wrote a song which he comically performed in blackface on Broadway Daniel Emmett was a northerner but the song he wrote was Dixie Irish sentiment did little to cause civil war but the cause itself whether for union or Confederacy was embraced by the Irish as their own when war broke out in April 1861 the Irish marched to the front

Channel: Diolún Ó hUigínn

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Keywords: The Irish In America, Andrew Jackson, Mother Jones, Fighting Tom Sweeny, Patrick Cleburne, Bridget Murphy Kennedy, John L. Sullivan, The Silver Kings, Diamond Jim Brady, The great famine, 1847, immigration, New York, Chicago, Boston, California, Irish, Ireland, Coffin ship, American civil war, American Revolution, Mexican war, fighting Irish, culture, dublin, documentary, history

Id: ptO5oeuQmfQ

Length: 29min 52sec (1792 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 31 2011