Introduction

My family celebrates St. Patrick’s Day every year with corned beef and cabbage, but I’ve never really delved any deeper into my ancestry. Through this assignment I wanted to learn what instigated the huge influx of Irish Immigrants into America, was it just the Great Potato Famine, or was there more to the story. I was also curious about what their lives were like living in America. I’d heard the phrase “Irish need not apply,” but there had to be more to it. I began my search in the Shasta College Library and then moved on to the Internet. While sifting through websites and scholarly journals I found that the Great Potato Famine caused a huge number of Irish to emigrate to avoid starvation, but the famine wasn’t the only cause. Landlords would kick their tenants out, political issues with England, and religious differences were some of the predominant factors that led the Irish to leave their homeland.

Donlan, Leni, et al. “Immigration… Irish-Catholic Immigration.” 4 April 2002. Library of Congress.
1 May 2007 <http://memory.loc.gov:80/lear/features/immig/irish2.html>

This website is run by the Library of Congress which “is the oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress.” The Library of Congress is the “largest library in the world” and features “millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps, and manuscripts in its collections.” The Library of Congress is known throughout the world and serves both students and teachers. The information on this site was very in depth. The web pages specifically discussing the history of the Irish Immigration to the United States were the most detailed of any website I found. The Library of Congress web page told the story of Irish immigrants from the beginning of the United States when wealthy Irish-Catholic Charles Carroll signed the Declaration of Independence all the way to the Political Machines of the 1880’s. The web page finishes with the contributions that the Irish have made to America. This is a very informative web page; there seem to be no biases, merely facts. No first hand accounts are present on the page but valuable quotes and links to audio recordings are present. The period pictures also allow for additional insight into the subject matter. This website is an overview of the Irish immigrant experience, but it does delve into the subject with the depth that would be required for actual research.

Gribben, Arthur. The Great Famine and the Irish Diaspora in America. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999.
Net Library. 30 April 2007 <http://library.shastacollege.edu:2110/Reader/>

Author Arthur Gribben teaches at California State University, Northridge and contributing author Ruth-Ann Harris is an adjunct professor of history and Irish studies at Boston College. The book The Great Famine and the Irish Diaspora in America is a very informative text that details the factors that led to as well as the issues during the Great Potato Famine in Ireland. Personal accountings from both Irish land tenants as well as Irish landlords are present in the book. The fine points in this book prove that it is not just an overview of the issues surrounding the Potato Famine. The authors go into detail explaining why the potato fungus that caused the famine was so much harder on Ireland than other countries. They also describe the social structure of Ireland and how Ireland being dominated by the English began the frustrations that led to the Irish uprisings. Gribben and Harris seem to be unbiased sources, the only obvious opinions were that of the first hand sources quoted in the text.

Hatton, T.J., and Jeffrey G. Williamson. The Age of Mass Migration: Causes and Economic Impact. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1998. NetLibrary. 6 May 2007 <http://library.shastacollege.edu:2110/Reader/>

Timothy J. Hatton is a Professor of Economics at the Australian National University and at the University of Essex, and a fellow of the Center for Economic Policy Research. Jeffrey G. Williamson is Laird Bell Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Their book, The Age of Mass Migration: Causes and Economic Impact is an informative look into the labor side of the immigration into America. Hatton and Williamson discuss the mass migrations from Europe to the New World and explore the causes and effects of the mass migration including why Europeans migrated, emigration cycles as well as the “melting pot” of culture in America. Specific to my topic, Irish Immigration, the book delves deeply into the Irish experience before and during the Great Famine that instigated such a huge exodus from Ireland. Though focusing mainly on labor factors, I found this book to be very informative. It showed different aspects of why over 4.5 million people left Ireland after the famine of 1840, going into detail about labor policies and economics in pre and post famine Ireland.

Meagher, Timothy J. The Columbia Guide to Irish American History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
Net Library. 30 April 2007 <http://library.shastacollege.edu:2110>

Timothy J. Meagher is Associate Professor of History and curator of the American Catholic History Collections at Catholic University. Another of his books, Inventing Irish America: Generation, Class, and Ethnic Identity in a New England City, 1880 to 1928 as well as The New York Irish were winners of the James Donnelly prize for the Best Book in Irish American History. Meagher’s book, The Columbia Guide to Irish-American History, is a general introduction to the experience of the Irish in the United States. The book begins with the history of the Irish in America, an Irishman in the 16^th century, all the way to the role of the Irish heritage in present day America. Meagher specifically states in the introduction that his book, The Columbia Guide to Irish-American History, is geared toward students just beginning to be interested in the topic of Irish-Americans as well as a tool for the more knowledgeable student. Meagher proves this with the resources he cites to assist those who are looking to delve deeper into Irish-American history. The last half of the book is a series of informational sources, an encyclopedia of people and organizations that played an important part in Irish-American history, an annotated guide to the best recent books and articles, as well as a chronological overview of Irish-American History. Meagher writes the book in a story like format, weaving in quotations as well as important facts. He does not seem biased but does mention how previous studies have been incomplete in their surveying of the Irish-American culture. The Columbia Guide to Irish-American History looks into the social aspects of the Irish Immigrants more than previous sources, which allowed for a new view on the causes of the Irish Immigration into America.

O’day, Alan. “Imagined Irish Communities: Networks of Social Communication of the Irish Diaspora in the United States
and Britain in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries.” Immigrants & Minorities Vol. 23 Issue 2/3 (2005):
399-424. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Shasta College, Redding.

Mostly an essay criticizing other Irish history authors, O’Day’s essay does point out some very useful information. He discusses the three aspects of “Irish ness” that he says aren’t usually mentioned in history books and articles. O’Day illustrates how Irish immigrants weren’t as nationalistic as they’ve been portrayed to be because the Irish immigrants were more concerned with making “ends meet” than with Irish patriotism and keeping their Irish culture alive. O’Day says that the Irish focused on religion and survival rather than concern over the politics in Ireland. O’Day’s second point, that of what being Irish meant, is just discussing the Irish culture in America. The overseas tours that O’Day discusses are merely the Irish fundraisers in the United States by Irish nationalists trying to raise money for Ireland’s independence from Britain and how a lot of the Irish seemed more concerned with surviving in America. O’Day discusses how previous authors didn’t estimate their figures correctly and then details how the Irish weren’t forgetting their homeland like a lot of previous authors had written. O’Day’s essay does seem biased, but through his sources he proves his point that the Irish hadn’t forgotten about their roots, but were more concerned with making a new life. The errors of previous authors that O’Day mentions in his essay seemed more aptly applied to older works on Irish history than those I found, but it was an interesting view on Irish Nationalism in America.