University of Kentucky UKnowledge Irish American Studies Race, Ethnicity, and Post-Colonial Studies 1991 Erin's Heirs: Irish Bonds of Community Dennis Clark Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Clark, Dennis, "Erin's Heirs: Irish Bonds of Community" (1991). Irish American Studies. 1. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_irish_american_studies/1 ERIN'S HEIRS This page intentionally left blank ERIN'S HEIRS Irish Bonds of Community DENNIS CLARK THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Copyright © 1991 by The University Press of Kentucky Paperback edition 2009 The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-0-8131-9294-9 (pbk: acid-free paper) This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials. Manufactured in the United States of America. Member of the Association of American University Presses In memory of my sister, Geraldine Clark Mulligan, who could laugh at misfortune and was courage itself. This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1 Identity: Mind Yourself 7 2 Association: Show Me Your Friends 50 3 Communication: Passing the Word 98 4 Leadership: More Power to Them 142 Conclusion 187 Research Note 196 Notes 202 Bibliography 221 Index 233 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments It is the most pleasant of obligations to thank those who have helped me with this study. Foremost would be Dr. Randall Miller of st. Joseph's University, whose comments on the text were of great assistance. Others whose research was richly suggestive of in­ terpretations were Dr. Michael Durkan, Dr. Harry Silcox, Dr. John Alviti of the Atwater Kent Museum, Dr. Mari Fielder Green, and Dr. Stephanie Morris. Dr. Mark Stolarik, director of the Balch Insti­ tute for Ethnic Studies, and Joseph Anderson, director of the Li­ brary of the Balch Institute, were consistently helpful. The staffs of the excellent archives in Philadelphia provided admirable profes­ sional services at the Philadelphia Maritime Museum, the Histori­ cal Society of Pennsylvania, the Van Pelt Library of the University of Pennsylvania, and the Urban Archives at Temple University. I am grateful to the many local sources of information, especially the Irish Edition newspaper, the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, and the Donegal Association of Philadelphia. To my wife, who has encouraged my preoccupations with research over the years, I can only testify to the depth of a gratitude that has grown apace with those years. Philadelphia's Irish Neighborhoods ----,7"--No,rthern Liberties \ Figure 1. Since the Irish were a large population in Philadelphia, they were both widely distributed and concentrated. The heavily Irish neighborhoods shown formed, expanded, and declined between 1830 and 1930 as social mobility and transportation patterns altered. Introduction This study tells how the Irish tradition thrived in a setting three thousand miles from Ireland. It is about how an ethnic group main­ tained its identity through periods of repeated community change. The preservation of that identity was achieved by sustaining family memory and by fostering communication, association, and leader­ ship. The process fashioned and enhanced the bonds of commu­ nity and helped the Irish continually adapt to the conditions of a complex urban center. This book traces this development in Phila­ delphia but relates it to Irish communities in other cities. The Irish are a people whose troubled history has provided them with a deep sense of life's tragedies, ironies, and contradic­ tions. In this century, as in earlier times their experiences as a peo­ ple have been marked by repression, emigration, and cultural dislocation. Their dispersion outside of Ireland required them to overcome the effects of emigration and discordant modern influ­ ences, and in response to these conditions, they have been able to find within themselves resources for social invention and adapta­ tion. This has been amply demonstrated in the United States over a period of two hundred years. In urban centers such as Philadel­ phia, the image and prominence of the group has ascended and declined over the long course of their presence in the city depend­ ing upon immigration trends, the flexibility of local codes of accep­ tance, and the group's own capacity to assert itself. Through their consciousness of the broader Irish tradition, and through the culti­ vation of localized versions of that tradition, the Irish have been able to sustain their own history, morale, and cultural affinity. Study of this long record of adaptability should show us something about how various groups in modern society respond to change and opportunity. The study of Irish-American social development has signifi­ cance far beyond the interest that the Irish themselves might have in it. This significance arises out of the length of Irish immigration, the extent of the group's interaction with American life at various levels and in various periods, and the insights that this history af­ fords about American life. Analysis of the Irish-American record has been slow to emerge, not only because of its considerable ex­ tent over time, but also because Americans have not been prepared 2 Erin's Heirs to deal competently with the social history of ethnic groups in the United States until the last few decades. For most of the nation's existence, historians remained focused in their work on elite groups, major national events, and studies of prestigious political figures and institutions. To fill the vacuum left by mainstream historians, the Irish­ Americans developed a history of their group that was acceptable to them for their own purposes. This was especially true in the 1890s when their organizations became intent upon presenting a more positive picture of their past to counter derogatory stereo­ types common in newspapers and in the theater of the time. Irish-American scholars gathered primary materials, compiled or­ ganizational histories, and popularized an Irish-American record that was compatible with the patriotic American temper of those days. The result was a series of books, usually bound in green and gold, that extolled both American and Irish patriotic achievements in enthusiastic and uncritical fashion. There is much important in­ formation in these books, but it is embedded in ethnocentric, super-patriotic declamations of Irish-American self-promotion. The same is true for most of what passed at this time for the history of the American Catholic church with which the Irish were so closely associated. 1 Thus, the true history of this group was masked by mainstream neglect and the apologetic needs of the Irish-Americans themselves. It was not until the mid-twentieth century that a number of works addressing Irish-American history in a new scholarly and more objective spirit appeared, followed by a number of localized studies of Irish-American life that provided a fresh and much more authentic view of the group's background and development. 2 These studies confirmed the sweeping extent of Irish-American participation in the life of the country throughout its development. Studies of the Revolutionary War, the formative years of the repub­ lic, the mid-nineteenth century's industrialization and conflict, the later years of continued mass immigration, and the twentieth cen­ tury's decades of social diversification showed that the Irish main­ tained a presence and a distinctive influence throughout these periods. By the late nineteenth century, the group had attained a status that showed a mature adjustment to American life, represen­ tation in complex echelons of power, and skillful use of organiza­ tional networks.3 John Higham, long one of our most respected historians of eth­ nic life, has explained one factor that helped produce this extraor- Introduction 3 dinary panorama in American life. The decentralized nature of American society prior to the twentieth century allowed innumer­ able enclaves and networks to flourish within a national political unity. The sheer expanse of America both isolated ethnic groups and stimulated ethnic diversity. When integration of these ethnic enclaves and networks did begin to occur, the groups themselves were integrated into regional and national affiliations as well as into further association with the general society.4 Thus, amid the tremendous complexity of American society Irish communities and organizations could maintain distinct cultural identities and mu­ tual relationships even as their populations interacted with the broader mainstream of American life. But just what was it that ethnic groups like the Irish main­ tained and transmitted concomitantly with their identity? It was their "tradition"-that is, information about themselves, a social heritage, a set of views, and a process to fulfill their own values, all of which resulted in an awareness of group affinity. Tradition, as Clyde Kluckhohn wrote, is custom given a "backbone of time.,,5 Ethnic traditions are composed of a distinctive fund of historical experience and a particular array of symbols, usages, and attach­ ments assumed to be part of the relevant heritage.