Figure 1.--

The Irish are one of the principal European ethnic groups in countries around the world. They often outnumber other European ethnic groups coming from muchn larger countries. There are perhaps 70 million people around the world that identify as being Irish. That is nearly 20 times the population of modern Ireland. The Irish have major populations in both Britain and America, but also Australia, Canada, and New Zealand as well as a host of other countries around the world. The history of the Irish is one of discrimination and struggle, but in all the countries where they arrived in numbers, the Irish played a major role in both the building of the countries and in the development of religious freedom. Descendants of Irish immigrants over the past four centuries, crossed the Atlantic in successive waves of emigrations. The most important folowed the potato famine of the 1840s.

The Potato Famine

Then between 1845 and 1847, a terrible disease struck Ireland's potato crop, upon which many people depended for food. Potato crops died, causing a terrible famine and about 750,000 starved to death. The famine was in fact not because food was not availalable, but because England landlords, many absentee, continued exporting food to England even through the worse of the famine. Irish Catholics had been disposed by the English. Peasant farmers were tenants and in some areas of Ireland as many as 90 percent of the tenants depended virtually solely on the potato. In some cases starving Irish died by roads over which crops were being carted to ports for shipment to England. The failure of the crop was a humanitarian disaster. The full impact can be seen in that Ireland is virtually the only country in the world that has a smaller population now than in the early 19th century.

Emmigration

Descendants of Irish immigrants over the past four centuries, crossed the Atlantic in successive waves of emigrations. The most important folowed the potato famine of the 1840s. America was the major, but not the only destination of the starving peasantry that poored out of Ireland. That migration is one of the great human migrations in history. This lack of food caused huge numbers of people to leave Ireland. As a result, about one-and-a-half million Irish came to America during the 1840s and 1850s.

Countries

The Irish are one of the principal European ethnic groups in countries around the world. They often outnumber other European ethnic groups coming from muchn larger countries. There are perhaps 70 million people around the world that identify as being Irish. That is nearly 20 times the population of modern Ireland. The Irish have major populations in both Britain and America, but also Australia, Canada, and New Zealand as well as a host of other countries around the world. The history of the Irish is one of discrimination and struggle, but in all the countries where they arrived in numbers, the Irish played a major role in both the building of the countries. [Coogan] One contribution of the Irish was the development of religious freedom. The Catholic Irish arrived in such numbers that the Protestant establishment in America and other countries had to move, if slowly, to graeter religious toleration.

America

The Irish are one of the most important ethnic groups that have made modern in America. More than 40 million Americans identify as being Irish Americans, more than one out of every 10 Americans. The immigrants, like each successive immigrant group, did not have an easy time of it. But the Irish have succeded, reaching the Presidency and the Supreme Court. Irish Americans from the beginning looked back at their misty, green island. Ethnic frstivals, music and dance are emensly popular. Like Scotland, the kilt is seen as ethnic folk dress and is worn by Irish pipe bands and step dancers.

America was not the heaven on earth that many of the new immigrants expecrted. Life in America was rarely easy and many of the new immigrants fell by the wayside. The Irish fanned out across America, building lives. Some turned to terrorism like the Molly Maguires in the Pennsylvania coal fields. [Coogan] Most turned to hard work and the the political process to change America. Many remained in areas where they disembarked from the boats, such as New York and Boston. Later, a sizable Irish-American population developed in Chicago. The Irish played a major role in the building of modern America itself. The Irish made their indelible mark in theater, sports, music, labor, on Wall Street, and even politics. The once starving immigrants eventually achieved a standard of living unimaginable in the world they had left behind. Over the generations they rose to the highest positions in politics, the labour movement, the professions, industry, commerce and the arts, and their very numbers made them a powerful political force in America.

Yet more than any other ethnic group, the Irish nurture a great nostalgia for the 'Emerald Isle', their ancestral homeland. The Irish Americans offers an introduction to the world of their ancestors and, perhaps, their own roots. Many ethnic groups have been thoroughly assisilated in the Anmerican mixing bowl. The attraction for the homeland among the Irish may be strongest of all the major immigrant groups.

One Irish-American historian, however, writes "I think the story of the Irish in America is still, despite this documentary and some writing that has been done recently, virgin territory. When you look at the stories of other ethnic groups -- the Jews and the Italians and so on -- they've covered their story very well. But the Irish have only begun to reflect...on their past...And I think Irish-Americans are just beginning to find themselves. I think they're a bit confused over the hyphen. They're straddling that hyphen, which confuses us all. Are you Irish, or are you American? How can you be both? They're still looking across the ocean at Ireland...But until they know who they are, they'll never have any kind of identity. It should be enough to be an American, but it isn't apparently. As long as that hyphen is there, they have to learn about the achievements of their forefathers." [Frank McCourt]

Australia

Canada

The Caribbean

New Zealand

Sources

Coogan, Tim Pat. Wherever Green is Worn: The Story of the Irish Diaspora (St. Martin's/Palgrave, 2001), 784p.

Mc Court, Frank.

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Created: August 8, 2003
Last updated: August 8, 2003