Irish Immigration Chapter 14

The Irish had suffered a long history of oppression from the British

Irish Potato Famine Driven away by the great famine of the 1840's the Irish filled up the port cities of America from the Northeast of Boston and Philadelphia to the Southern ports of Savannah & New Orleans. The highest concentration of Irish immigrants were in the port city of Boston.

Settling in Boston Boston was the home of the American Revolution, the Boston Tea Party, and America's “finest families”. Many of these families had come off the Mayflower in the 1600's. They had ancestors who had been the signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitution in When the Irish arrived, many of these elite fled parts of Boston to escape the influx of immigrants. The Irish immigrant experience was not easy. Many washed onto the shores of America with few skills besides cooking and cleaning. Many of them ended up working in factories. They also had to deal with bigotry and stereotypes.immigrant experience

The Irish were ostracized from American society for many things besides just being newcomers. The Irish were ostracized for being Catholic. Many Protestants were distrustful of a religion that was, as they viewed it, highly irregular. The Irish were also categorized as angry, alcoholics--( the term "don't get your Irish up", stemmed from a stereotypical belief in the volatile Irish temper) who drank all the time in saloons and had regular bar brawls and parties filled with revelry and debauchery. During the Civil War, the Irish became useful as the bodies that could outnumber the Southerners. However, the war did not change the opinion of the Irish for most Americans. By the 1870's and 1880's, many Irish, some of them new immigrants, still occupied the slums of East Boston.

Anti-Irish Sentiment Irish were poor and slums developed in cities; people blamed the Irish for crime, disease, prostitution, alcohol abuse, etc. Irish were Catholic; most Americans were Protestant and thought Catholics could not be trusted because they would be more loyal to the Pope than to the US government (to this day, the US has only had 1 Catholic president)