Irish in America
Many Americans who mark their national
independence on July 4 are not aware of a third stanza of the American National
Anthem which was diplomatically removed during World War II. This stanza,
paying tribute to those who valiantly fought for freedom from the British,
included the words:
“…foul
footsteps’ pollution of the British
O’er the
land of the free and the home of the brave”
The American Revolution of 1775 to
1783 involved many patriots of Celtic heritage. The historic figures who signed
the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 included three men who were
born in Ireland, two who were born in Scotland, and two born in Wales. Ten
other signers were of Irish, Scottish or Welsh descent, including John Hancock,
whose family came from Ireland. Thomas Jefferson, of Welsh ancestry, drafted
the document itself. Irish born Charles Thomson made the first finished copy of
the document, and John Dunlap, also born in Ireland, first printed it. An
Irishman, architect James Hoban, born in Kilkenny Ireland, designed and built
the White House-and rebuilt it after it was burned by the British in 1814.
Eventually thirteen United States Presidents could claim Irish ancestry,
including William McKinley and Ronald Reagan. Three presidents were born from
parents who came directly from Ireland, including James Buchanan, Andrew
Jackson and Ulysses S. Grant.
During the American Revolution, the
ill-fated commander-in-chief of the British forces, Sir Henry Clinton said that
the best soldiers among the American rebels were the Irish (and hopefully
proposed augmenting his own demoralized army with some of them). In 1784, after
the successful Revolution, a speaker in the “Irish” parliament of then
British-occupied Ireland lamented that “America was lost by Irish Emigrants.” A
hundred years later, with so many Irishmen in America, a British home secretary
petulantly complained that the rebellious Irish were now out of reach of the
British government.
During the Revolution, Irish-American
John Sullivan was a lawyer who served as one of George Washington’s most able
generals. Promoted to major general for his military successes against the
British, he was later elected as New Hampshire’s first governor and was
influential in getting the Constitution ratified. As many as fifteen of
Washington’s top officers were born in Ireland. Not all the Celts who fought
against the British in America were Irish. Scottish born Alexander McDougall, a
fiery opponent to British trade restrictions in America, was a founder of the Sons of Liberty organization in New
York. He served in the army against the British throughout the Revolution and
was later in charge of West Point.
An Irish American won honors for the
Revolution at sea. John Barry was born in Wexford, Ireland. In 1776, while
commanding the American brig, Lexington, he captured the British tender Edward,
the first British ship taken by a commissioned American ship. In 1782 he took
two other British vessels after a fight. Barry has been called the father of
the American Navy.
The “modern” Celtic migration was not
confined to America. By 1851 in Australia, for example, 30% or more of the
Europeans who settled that land were from Ireland, albeit involuntarily for
some of them. (The 1990’s Prime Minister Keating was of Irish descent.) Yet
even allowing
for the thousands of Celts who went to Australia and New Zealand, the
journeying to North America from Europe was to be the last great Celtic
migration in the world. While Scotland and Wales contributed significantly to
the European settlement of America, the largest number of Celts who emigrated
to America, however, was from Ireland--about 5 million in 150 years (more than
the average annual population of Ireland itself).
The early immigrant vessels to America
were called “coffin ships” because four passengers, men and women together,
slept in a space six by eight feet. The ships could also have been given this
name for their ever-recurring outbreaks of cholera and typhoid. A further
danger lay in the unseaworthiness of the ships themselves. Some of them sailed
in the stormy Atlantic with their desperate but hopeful passengers and were
never seen again. The approximate location of at least one doomed ship, the
Ocean Monarch, is known. It burned and sank with a loss of 186 lives when still
within sight of Liverpool, its port of embarkation.
Once at sea, exploitive captains and
crews sold spoiled food to the passengers at extortion prices. Fresh drinking
water sometimes ran out before reaching New York. A thousand steerage
passengers were crowded onto the bigger ships, but only the privileged few in
cabin class were allowed to enjoy the fresh air on the open decks.
|
Gaelic Saying
Pronunciation Meaning |
Ní neart go cur le
chéile.
Nee nyart guh cur le ch(k)aye-leh . There's strength in unity |
Your Correspondence Secretary President
Frank Darcy Ken
Egan
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