THE COLUMBIA GUIDE TO Irish American History The Columbia Guides to American History and Cultures THE COLUMBIA GUIDES TO AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURES Michael Kort, The Columbia Guide to the Cold War Catherine Clinton and Christine Lunardini, The Columbia Guide to American Women in the Nineteenth Century David Farber and Beth Bailey, editors, The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s David L. Anderson, The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War THE COLUMBIA GUIDE TO Irish American History Timothy Meagher columbia university press new york Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex Copyright © 2005 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Meagher, Timothy J. The Columbia guide to Irish American history / Timothy Meagher. p. cm. — (Columbia guides to American history and cultures) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–231–12070–2 (acid-free paper) 1. Irish Americans — History I. Title. II. Series. E184.I6M43 2005 973'.049162—dc22 2005043233 A Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To my brothers and sisters, Sean, Dermot, Andrew, Patrick and Mary, and my aunts and uncles, Kitty, Dee, Louise and Charlie and Peg and Myles CONTENTS Preface ix PART ONE A HISTORY OF IRISH AMERICANS FROM THE SEVENTEENTH TO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 1 INTRODUCTION The Irish as Immigrants and Ethnics 3 CHAPTER ONE Irish Immigration to Colonial America 19 CHAPTER TWO Irish America from the Revolution to the Famine 42 CHAPTER THREE The Famine Years 60 CHAPTER FOUR The Turn of the Twentieth Century 95 CHAPTER FIVE The Twentieth Century 122 CHAPTER SIX The 1960s to the Present 149 viii contents PART TWO ISSUES AND THEMES IN IRISH AMERICAN HISTORY 171 CHAPTER ONE Irish American Gender and Family 173 CHAPTER TWO Irish Americans in Politics 182 CHAPTER THREE Irish American Nationalism 198 CHAPTER FOUR Irish Americans and Race 214 PART THREE IMPORTANT PEOPLE, ORGANIZATIONS, EVENTS, AND TERMS 235 PART FOUR CHRONOLOGY OF IRISH AMERICA 313 PART FIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY 337 Index 377 PREFACE This book provides a general introduction to the experience of the Irish in America for readers coming to the study of Irish Americans for the fi rst time, as well as resources to help more experienced students in the fi eld explore it in more depth. Part 1 contains an introduction and a six-chapter chronological overview of the history of the Irish in America. The introduction suggests the importance of the Irish in American life and history, introduces some of the complex controversies that have emerged in interpreting their history, and offers a con- ceptual framework for understanding their evolution as an American ethnic group. The six chronological chapters chart the critical phases and turning points in the evolution from the fi rst Irishman to arrive in the sixteenth cen- tury to the present day. Each of the six chapters discusses the number of Irish immigrants in that period; their regional, class, and religious backgrounds in Ireland; their reasons for leaving; and their economic adjustments and settle- ment patterns in America. Later chapters provide similar information on numbers, economic status, and residential patterns for American-born Irish generations as they emerged to dominate the Irish American community. Each of the chronological chapters also addresses debates among historians over critical issues, trends, and events in that period. The fi rst chronological chapter discusses Irish migration to America in the colonial era, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—the so-called “Scotch-Irish” migration—and assesses their roles in the American Revolution and analyzes the debate over whether these early Ulster Presbyterian migrants should be properly considered Irish. The second chapter covers the period from the end of the American Revo- lution in 1783 to the beginning of the Great Irish Famine in the late 1840s. It traces the shift in Irish immigration patterns from northern Irish Protestants x preface to southern Catholics, the infl uence of United Irish exiles on Irish America, the brief emergence of a nonsectarian republican Irish American identity, and the demise of that identity amid the rise of Irish and American sectarianism, changing politics, and the shifting backgrounds of Irish migrants to America. The third chapter focuses on the great fl ood of Irish immigrants that be- gan with the Great Irish Famine in the late 1840s and continued more or less through the early 1870s. It considers the famine’s importance as a watershed in Irish and Irish American history and evaluates disputes among historians of Ireland over the U.K. government’s responsibility for prolonging or reliev- ing the effects of the famine, and historians of Irish America over the nature of the famine and its role in the Irish immigrant experience in the United States. The fourth chapter explores a second wave of Irish immigration during the turn-of-the-century period from the late 1870s to the 1920s, concentrat- ing mainly on the emergence of the American-born children of the Great Famine immigrants and their effect on Irish American identity and com- munity. The fi fth chapter discusses the decline of Irish immigration to America, measures the increasing prominence and power of Irish Americans in politics and culture, and analyzes their role in the growing American Catholic com- munity they helped build and lead, from Alfred E. Smith’s defeat in the race for president in 1928 to John F. Kennedy’s triumph in his race for the same offi ce in 1960. The sixth and fi nal chronological chapter details the revival of immigration from Ireland, the continued economic and social successes of new American- born generations, the breakup of consensus on a strictly Catholic Irish Amer- ican identity, and the emergence of multiple defi nitions of Irish American identity—“optional ethnicity”—in the period from Kennedy’s presidency to the present. Part 2 looks at the Irish American experience thematically rather than chrono- logically and addresses important topics or themes in the study of Irish Ameri- can history. The fi rst chapter focuses on gender roles and family life among Irish Americans and explores such questions as why so many more Irish women emigrated to America than women of other groups, and why so many of those same female Irish immigrants took jobs as domestic servants. The second thematic chapter discusses why Irish Americans have been so Preface xi prominent in American politics and assesses how effectively they have used that political power for themselves and other Americans. The third thematic chapter addresses Irish American nationalism—that is, Irish American participation in efforts to create an independent Ireland, and more recently, the struggles between Nationalists and Unionists in Northern Ireland. The chapter investigates who supported nationalism in the Irish com- munity, why they did so, and what effect Irish American nationalism had on Irish American integration into an American mainstream. The fourth and fi nal thematic chapter analyzes recent debates over Irish American relations with their nonwhite American neighbors, particularly Af- rican Americans. This is the so-called “whiteness” controversy. The chapter explores what those relations have been like and discusses various theories that attempt to explain them. Part 3 is an encyclopedia of people and organizations, including politicians, labor leaders, church fi gures, military men, prominent nationalists, novelists, playwrights, fraternal societies, nationalist associations, and orders of religious women, which all played important roles in Irish American life. It also in- cludes defi nitions and brief histories of signifi cant rituals (the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day), economic practices (indentured servitude), cultural cus- toms (Gaelic sports) and movements (Irish Studies), and even routes of travel for the Irish in America (the Great Wagon Road), which will help readers better understand the experience of the Irish in America. Part 4 is a chronology of events and benchmarks in Irish as well as Irish American history that are important to understanding the background, causes, and dimensions of Irish immigration to America and the evolution of Irish Americans as an American ethnic group. Part 5 is a guide to the best recent books and articles for understanding Irish America. Each entry is annotated to give a sense of the book or article’s strengths and its particular usefulness to the study of Irish America. The guide is arranged by topic. The fi rst three sections list books and articles that offer a broad perspective on the Irish American experience. The list includes fi rst, relevant books on Ireland; second, reference books and broad studies of Irish American history as well as multicentury overviews of Irish American politics, religion, nationalism, and local communities; and third, books and articles on the Irish in other “diaspora” countries, such as Australia, Britain, and Canada, which provide useful comparisons to aspects of the Irish experience in the United States. The next six sections of this guide to books and articles are arranged chronologically and match the periods set out in the narrative over- xii preface view: The seventeenth- and eighteenth-century colonial migration; the Irish in the new American Republic from the American Revolution to the Great Famine; the famine era; the emergence of a new generation in the turn-of-the- century era, from the late 1870s to the 1920s; Irish America’s rise to power from Smith’s defeat in 1928 to Kennedy’s election in 1960; and contemporary Irish America from the 1960s to the present. THE COLUMBIA GUIDE TO Irish American History part i A History of Irish Americans from the Seventeenth to the Twenty-fi rst Century INTRODUCTION The Irish as Immigrants and Ethnics The fi rst Irishman came to America in 1584 as part of Sir Walter Raleigh’s ill-fated expedition to the Outer Banks of North Carolina.