Celtic Corner - March 2012

CELTIC CORNER

During the Civil War, the Irish Brigade was among the most celebrated units in Mr.Lincoln’s Army, and Irish Americans won more medals of honor than any other ancestral or ethnic group from the North. It is common to assert that the Irish-American contribution to the Union cause showed mainstream America that Irish Catholics were as American as any Anglo-Protestant. That’s true, to an extent. When the war was over and thousands of Irish Americans Fenians turned their attention to an invasion of British Canada, mainstream America looked the other way or openly encouraged them. The notion of hundreds of armed Irish-American militias drilling openly in the streets of New York would have been unthinkable in the 1850’s. By 1866 however, New Yorkers did little to discourage the Fenian movement from operating in the city and moving ahead with its war plans. In that sense, Irish Americans did achieve a level of acceptance and even admiration. The 14^th amendment’s guarantee of equal protection for naturalized citizens, passed after the war, was another sign that native born America understood the debt it owed to immigrant soldiers, particularly the Irish. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy for the Irish in America. As memories of the war faded and the nation plunged into an economic depression after 1873, nativism returned to New York and other northern cities. Civic elites in Boston and New York sought to do away with universal suffrage because they believed the immigrant poor-meaning, for the most part Irish Catholics, were incapable of making informed, educated choices in the ballot box. When the movement failed, reformers pursued another veiled anti-immigrant agenda, demanding civil service reform in order to deny immigrants access to public sector jobs. Both William R. Grace, the first Irish Catholic mayor of New York and Patrick Collins, the first Irish Catholic congressman from Massachusetts, faced substantial nativist opposition in their campaigns of 1880 and 1882, respectively. Elite newspapers portrayed Grace, an affluent Irish immigrant who built a shipping empire, as an agent of the pope who was intent on the destruction of public schools. There were whispers-if you can believe this- that he wasn’t really a citizen. The “birther” movement is not a new phenomenon. Seen from the perspective of the Gilded Age, and even into the 20^th Century, it’s clear that while the Civil War did allow Irish Americans to win a measure of acceptance, it was spotty at best. The war did not kill off the Know Nothings, as so many people assume. The Know Nothing movement simply evolved to a more genteel form of prejudice. So for Irish America, the Civil War certainly is worth remembering. But it may not be a cause for celebration.

                                  Your Corres Secretary & Parade Chairman, Frank Darcy

                                                       Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

                                                                  Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Duit