For the past couple of weeks, we’ve looked at the disenfranchised, and de-humanized workers of African and Asian descent who were a part of the workforce that in fact built and expanded our nation. They have historically been demeaned and labeled because they were different and because they were thought to be a threat to the white work force. It wasn’t just ethnically different persons who faced discrimination and hatred. The second half of the 1800’s saw massive discrimination and even hatred and violence toward newly immigrated Irish men and women.
Driven to leave Ireland by the Great Hunger or Potato Famine
from 1845-52 and by evictions by unscrupulous landlords, younger Irish came to
America. Like many other immigrants, the conditions on the boats was deplorable
and hundreds died in the crossing. Crammed into ships, already weak and ill, it
is no wonder that many died on the 3,000-mile four week voyage.
When they arrived, these men and women wanted to find food
and a way to earn a living. They were faced with discrimination based on their
Catholic religion and on the stereotype of being lazy and drunkards. By 1850 a
quarter of the population of port cities like New York and Boston was Irish.
Many of the new arrivals were illiterate, sons of farmers who had been driven
from their land by the famine and by the “Clearances.” This is the process that
English landowners used to evict and consolidate smaller farms into larger ones
so they would not have to pay rent themselves.
Unlike some immigrants, the Irish became active politically
and by the 1890’s had begun winning elections. There was still suspicion of the
Irish-Catholic population for decades, and even when John F. Kennedy was
elected president in 1960, there were those who refused to vote for him because
he was Catholic.
Today an Irish grandmother remembers her arrival as she
celebrates her great-grandson’s birth.
Saints and St. Brigid be blessed. Tis right glad I am to
be a great-grand mam. There was a time when I didn’t think I’d live to see
another sun rise.
I was 12 when me mam sent me off to America, “the land of
promise,” she called it. It was 1850. So many died in our village. We buried me
wee brothers, and me grand-da. Me da left after me mam took to her bed.
“I’ll find work somewhere,” he vowed. We never saw him
again. Sometimes I wonder if he died, or just found work somewhere far away.
Mam grew sadder and thinner. There was no food. The
potatoes rotted in the field and weren’t any good to eat. We were a scarce
better off than the pigs rooting in the ground. Sometimes the dirt was really
all we had to eat. The landlord refused any help. He didn’t drive us from our
cottage like some of the English did. They called it “Clearances.” He turned a
blind eye to our suffering. May God and the Saints reward him as he deserves.
I was glad enough to leave behind the death and sorrow.
Only there was more death on the boat. We were all so weak, and being always
below deck, we sickened. The girl on my right died one night and the one down
the way the next. Sailors hoisted them up to the deck and over the side. Nary a
priest for a last rite either. I prayed as best I could, but me heart was
breaking.
When I finally staggered down the plank into America, it
was raining. Seemed a fittin’ way to be welcomed into what became an endless
cycle of tryin’ to find work. Lucky it ‘tis indeed that I knew English. Those
coming off the boat knowin’ only the Gaelic had a worse time.
Men and boys didn’t have it much easier. They found work
diggin’ and doin’ work others wouldn’t do. My Paddy was one who worked on the
canals. All my friends said he was a handsome lad, and so he was. Our weddin’ day was a joyful party after we
said our vows before the priest. We had dancin’ and jiggin’ and music! Twas a
grand time! I turned 15 the day after my wedding. Some girls wed even younger.
It was a way to find safety and the support of a man.
We had a baby a year ‘til there were ten around the
table. There would have been a dozen but for my Casey, the boy who died after
barely drawing a breath and Rowan, the sweetest tempered girl, who fell ill at
five. I was all of 30 when she died. The others, six lasses and four lads, grew
strong on the good food provided by my Paddy’s hard work, and the bits of fancy
sewing I was known for.
I learned to ignore the haughty sneers of the rich women
who hired my work. I know some of them paid me well to ease their conscience.
Some claimed to be a better class Irish just because they had the fortune to
immigrate a couple generations before the Great Hunger.
Me Paddy was a hard worker and I never begrudged him the
evenin’s at the pub. The time our lads spent enjoying their beer and laughter
made some people claim the Irish are drunkards. Tis not so, the pub’s the place
where business is done. It’s where our men began to learn how to use the voting
rights they gained as citizens. It’s where we Irish gained power to begin to be
elected and accepted as equals.
When our Mary was wed, she was sixteen. It was two years
after we buried her sister. Jack is a good man and father to their eight lads
and lasses. When her own sweet Bridget found love with Cassidy I praised the
Blessed Mother and her own name saint of Brigid. Now, me great grand lad, born
today has a future wide open to him. They’ve named him Patrick after me own Paddy,
dead now these five years.
I’m not yet 50, but I’ve lived a lifetime and half. Those
who come after have hope because we Irish are strong. We survive. We adapt. We
grow deep into our adopted soil, even as we remember our own Green Isle.
My own ancestry is mostly Scots-Irish who arrived in the 1700's, well before the Great Hunger. Writing this story made me wonder how my ancestors did treat the later arrivals from the same island, and how we continue to treat those who arrive at our borders seeking food, work, and most of all hope.
Great Famine (Ireland) - Wikipedia
When America Despised the Irish: The 19th Century’s Refugee Crisis - HISTORY
1854: No Irish Need Apply - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
