On Every Tide: The Making And Remaking Of The Irish World, Connolly - B +

                      Between 1821 and 1901, six million people left Ireland. Most went to America, and many to Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. "They were migrants in an age of mass migration." Invariably, they entered the economic ladder on the bottom as unskilled laborers. "The story of the migrant Irish is of disadvantage and exploitation." In America, they became defenders of white supremacy. "In a world of racial hierarchies and ruthless territorial expansion, the migrant Irish must be recognized as both victims, and inescapably oppressors." The Irish immigration to America, particularly after 1850, uniquely included almost as many women as men. 

                      Almost all of the 17th and early 18th century immigrants to the US were Protestants from the north. They easily assimilated into America. Emigration from the south picked up after 1815, as the economy contracted, the population grew and news of the freedoms in the US became common knowledge. By 1840, there were 700,000 Irish in America, 160,000 in Canada, 48,000 in Australia and 400,000 in Britain. The 1845-51 potato famine took one million lives and sent another million overseas. Generally, 98% survived the 6 week voyage across the Atlantic. However, in the peak famine year of 1847, when immigrants were often sick and typhus was pervasive, approximately one in six died trying to reach North America. After the famine, emigration was once again was driven by economics. All in all, between 1860 and 1910, another three million left. The Irish came from a rural agrarian society, but nonetheless mostly chose to stay in America's major cities. This was likely a consequence of their not having the financial wherewithal to travel to the interior, or the fact that managing an American farm was much more complex than working as a tenant in Ireland. "By opting to stay in the industrializing eastern states Irish immigrants exposed themselves to the worst aspects of urban living, as runaway population growth outstripped the the development of basic facilities such as water supply and drainage." They were housed in jerry-built slums. They worked hard and lived in difficult circumstances, but there was one thing that was immeasurably superior to home. For even the poor, there were abundant amounts of quality food. Although they were not all unskilled laborers, they were still on the bottom of the socio-economic ladder working as waiters, sailors, miners etc. The young women were often housemaids, who learned the ways of America and were able to save their wages. They spread out throughout the country. There were many, many Irish in San Francisco,  Butte, Montana, Chicago and elsewhere, but it was the East where most remained.

                      As they poured into a Protestant country in the 1850's, they attracted the antipathy of the American Party (Know-Nothings) because of their Papist religion and preference for drink. Anti-Catholic laws were passed, immigrants lost civil service jobs, and Irish-American citizens were prohibited from voting. The absorption of the Know-Nothings into the new Republican Party partially led to the urban Irish ambivalence about the Civil War. Nonetheless, when the war came for many "service to the nation in its hour of need would be the ultimate answer to nativist slurs on the Irish population." It didn't quite work out the way many had hoped. There was resentment in the Irish community that the Irish Brigade was often the first in the line of attack. They were slaughtered at Antietam and Fredericksburg, and suffered massive casualties. Their regimental commander even resigned over the way they were used. The war ended without a material change in American society for the Irish. In the post-war years, the Irish "were able to make both the union local and the parish central pillars of their Irish-American identity." They"created their own network of institutions and associations." Working with the church, they established hospitals, schools, colleges and universities, and orphanages. "They formed clubs and associations to supplement the bonds of family and neighborhood." They did not, however, separate themselves from the mainstream. They created a place for themselves without giving up their identity. Simultaneously, the Protestants from Ireland began to feel uncomfortable about being connected to the newcomers and staked out a distinction for themselves as Scotch-Irish.

                      The Irish excelled at big city politics, were involved in the nascent labor movement and supported the push for independence at home. The Irish registered to vote at a much higher percentage than any other immigrant group. Political machines then rewarded them with patronage jobs. They constituted a disproportionately high percentage of municipal workers, particularly in NY, Boston and Chicago. Soon, they were electing mayors in those cities. The skills that helped in politics, especially their facility with English, propelled them to the top of the labor movement as well. More so than most groups, the Irish remained focused on what happened at home, taught their children and grandchildren to despise the English, and provided moral and financial support for those seeking freedom in Ireland.

                     In the 20th century, the Irish were able to assert a slight blue collar supremacy over all of the new arrivals by virtue of their positions in the labor hierarchy. Similarly, Italian and other ethnic Catholics were ruled by Irish monsignors and bishops. Irish-Americans generously supported the efforts after the First World War to free their homeland from Britain. In theory, the achievement of independence in 1921 should have halted outward emigration, but the economics of the new, but still poor, country contributed to an ongoing migration to the US. Additionally, more and more young people were opting to go to the UK. After WWII, Ireland did not participate in the general increase in European prosperity leading once again to a ratcheting up of migration to America. As time progressed the Irish made modest socio-economic advances in America. "By the mid twentieth century, the Irish had clearly improved their position. In the twenty-five years or so that followed the end of the Second World War, Irish Americans completed the last stage of their long journey from an immigrant underclass to equal participants in prosperity and status." The capstone of their success was the election of Jack Kennedy in 1960. In the last decades of the 20th century and in the new century, attendance and support for the church has precipitously declined. The labor movement has been diminished and is barely Irish at all. And since 1980, the Irish have voted Republican. The passage of a century-and-a-half has whittled away the recollections of the immigrant experience. This is a superb, but not an easy, read. Erin Go Bragh.