Irish Immigrants Coming To America Essay

In the 1800’s many Irish Immigrants were in search of jobs in America. In Ireland jobs were becoming very scarce because there were many problems in their economy. It was important for individuals to support their families because of this occurrence. In Ireland there was an outbreak of the “Potato Blight” a disease caused by eating contaminated potatoes. Because of this many individual lost jobs this cause the “Great Potato Famine.” It was important for these Irishmen to seek jobs elsewhere because of the lack of opportunity. It was necessary to support their families back at home so were supplied with the money needed for survival. Many of these emigrants worked in America in factories, as farmers, and built many forms of transportation,

The history and development of Catholicism in Ireland have been complex due to the various invasions that the island experienced throughout the centuries and to the imposition of Protestantism of behalf of the English in the sixteenth century and later. This complexity partly accounts for the close relationship between Catholicism, Irish nationalism and Irishness. In fact, Catholicism played an important role in “confirming the sense of national identity” (Brown). For this reason and for some peculiarities it had, the Catholicism practiced in Ireland has been defined by some scholars as “Irish Catholicism” (cf. Brown; Dowling; Jordan; McCaffrey)

Throughout all of the presentations, different themes shined through from the struggles and tribulations of the eighteen hundreds. Within three topics: Nat Turner, Irish Immigration, and Women 's rights, one main theme stood out above them all, independence. Independence which can be defined as “freedom from the control”, is the main basis of these presentations. As proven by all in the time period, all these people wanted and needed to survive was freedom from the controlling and dream crushing dictators around them. This independence was desired whether, they were starving irishmen, jaded black men, abused women.

They were concerned about Ireland’s perpetual revolutionary behaviour and troubled over-population. They deplored the potato dependency regarding it as being the result of the Irish’s own imprudence and laziness. The Irish Poor Law Act that had been passed in 1838 would not offer the Irish many benefits. It was more concerned with preventing them from going to England, than alleviating their sufferings.

Many Irish immigrants came from a peasant and labouring class which were generally poor. Just like many German Immigrants, The Irish immigrants came from poor backgrounds with not much from their home. The Irish immigrants would receive better wages in America working than the jobs they would work back home. “Therefore, to them, the poor or the plundered Irish emigrants, the first and pressing necessity was employment; and so splendid seemed in the result of that employment, even the rudest and most laborious kind, as compared with what they were able to earn in the old country,” (Documents 219 and 220) The Irish just like the German much rather preferred the wages they were payed in America than the amount they would earn at their old countries.

In the mid-1800s, Ireland was a nation which depended on agriculture. The Irish were among the poorest people in the world, relying on crops to feed their families. The Great Famine, or An Gorta Mór, commenced with the potato failure in 1845. It lasted for six years and caused the deaths of over one million men, women and children. It also led to a huge increase in emigration with two million people fleeing the country in the search of both food and a life free from corruption.

During this era, Irish immigrants were known as drunk and violent, which put McTeague at a

The economy and government also had a part. Cormac O’ Grada’s Black ’47 and Beyond: The Great Irish Famine in History, Economy and Memory, C.H. Oldham’s Industrial Ireland under Free Trade, Thomas A. Boylan and Timothy P. Foley’s Political Economy and Colonial Ireland, and Chris Williams’s A Companion to the 19th Century

A local Historian, and member of The Skibbereen and District Historical Society, Gerald O Brien speaks about why Ireland suffered so badly because of political conflict and how the English Rule and the “Poor Law” dramatically effected the statistics of unnecessary mortality in the country at the time. He speaks about how rural Ireland relied solely on farming produce and although the potatoes crop had failed, there was food available in the area, the only problem was that it wasn’t for the

In 1998, a peace treaty was signed with Ireland giving up its claims to Northern Ireland. Most people in Ireland belong to the Roman Catholic Church and the extended family is a very important concept. Ireland’s major exports include machinery and equipment, computers, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and live

The combined effects of economic migration, missionaries and deportation meant that the Irish are a well-travelled nation and well respected worldwide. This has helped significantly in forging political and economic ties that have benefited our economy. Our experience and political culture also means that we tend to be strong advocates of oppressed nations and peoples. The charitable nature of Irish people must have its roots in the poverty of our previous generations and the strong ethos of charity within the church.

The North Irish Government was a bigoted one, similar to the American south in the 1950s, and the Apartheid government in South Africa they the government let public policy be to condemn a certain group of people, in this case Catholic. As stated in the Book Making Sense of the Troubles the story of the conflict in Northern Ireland by David McKittrick and David Mcvea, “the Unionist establishment, which was to run the state on the basis of Protestant majority rule for the following half-century, actively discriminated against Catholics in the allocations of jobs and housing, over political rights and in other areas” (Mckittirck 4). Again this was similar to other nations at the time making the Irish minority another discriminated group in their own country. This all lead up to the 1960s where there was a civil rights campaign to combat the institutionalized decriminalized by the Protestant government, it was in fact influenced by Martin Luther King and the black civil rights movement in the United States (Mckittrick 39). Unlike the United States where for the most part helped the Black cause and civil rights, in Ireland it gave birth to the violence that would come, the peaceful protests would fail.

After having spent nearly two months in Cork, Ireland, this semester, I have noticed striking similarities between the Irish and the Irish-American communities in my hometown. Having no Irish heritage myself, I had previously assumed the identity was mostly concerned with the consumption of Guinness and lively laughter in pubs. In part, I have come to find that it most certainly does (with the exception of Guinness being replaced with Murphy’s in Cork). However, I have also come to recognize that Irish heritage, especially in America, instead encapsulates love and acceptance largely beyond that of American culture alone. To be Irish is to welcome others, regardless of origin, and to love greatly despite setbacks. This to me is exemplified

The Irish in America: Alienation and Assimilation Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the greatest wave of Irish immigrants made a transatlantic journey to America in the hopes of starting a successful life abroad. The post-famine era brought not only physical change as mass exodus occurred, but also social, economic, and political change that had never before been observed. Colonial, Pre-famine, famine, and post-famine immigrants all made the same journey with comparable intents of improving their socio-economic standings. However, the attitude and demographic of post-famine individuals differed in that they were all self-determined and self-sufficient individuals, whereas the majority of pre-famine and

In Ireland, the Irish were treated the same way blacks were treated in America, and they at one point “decided to sign a petition to treat colored people equal” (Takaki 142). But, in American unity did not exist because Irish and blacks had to compete for the same jobs and they had to gain social status in a society that disregarded them. The contentions between these two groups created hatred and division. But, the skin color of Irish Immigrants resembles that of most Americans. This eventually gives the Irish immigrants opportunities and voice in America, why Africans- Americans were constantly rejected.