IRISH
136
IRISH
And the same census (1900) shows that in that year
there were 4,968,182 persons resident in the United
States of whose parents at least one was born in
Ireland, including the 1,615,459 residents above
specified, who were themselves of Irish birth. Of
these 67 per cent were located in the states of the
North Atlantic division and 22 per cent in the North
Central division. About three-fourths of the above
foreign-born population shown by the census of 1900
were comprised within the following eight states in
the respective numbers set opposite: —
New York.. 425,55.3 New Jersey ... . 94,844
Massachusetts 249,916 Connecticut . . . 70,994
Pennsylvania. 205,909 Ohio 55,018
Illinois 114,.563 California 44,476
While the twelve cities having the largest population of Irish nativity were as follows: —
New York 275,102 Philadelphia. . 98,427
Chicago, 111 7.3,912 Boston, Mass.. 70,147
St. Louis, Mo. . . 19,421 Jersey City,N.J. 19,314
Providence, R. I.. 18,686 PittsJaurg, Pa. . 18,620
SanFrancisco,Cal.l5,963 Cleveland, O... 13,120
Newark, N.J... . 12,792 Lowell, Mass.. . 12,147
Beyond the immediate ancestry of persons com- prising the population, no classification according to race origin has been made in any census, and there is consequently no official record showing what part of the native-born population (excluding descendants in the first degree) is of Irish origin. But various unofficial estimates have been made. In 1851 Hon. W. E. Robinson, M.C., in a carefully prepared dis- course (reported in the " New York Tribune", 30 July, 1851) refuting the claim then urged by various public writers and speakers that the population of the United States was chiefly Anglo-Saxon in character, presented statistics of emigration showing that not more than one-eighth of the population could be con- sidered as of Anglo-Saxon origin and that out of a population then (1850) numbering 23,191,876, there were :—
Irish born 3,000.000
Irish by blood 4,500,000
making a total Irish element of 7,500,000
Rev. Stephen Byrne, O.S.D., author of "Irish Emi- gration to the LTnited States", puts the Celtic element at one-half of the present (1S73) population, the Anglo-Saxon at one-fourth. The official census of 1870 gives the total population of the United States as 38,696,984. And the New York "Irish World" (25 July, 1874), speaking of the census, claims that two-thirds of the people are Celts by birth or descent and only about one-ninth are Anglo-Saxon, and in a tabulated statement of the component elements of the population, that journal estimates the "joint product in 1870 of Irish Colonial element and subse- quent Irish immigration (including that from Canada) at 14,325,000" (cited from O' Kane Murray's "History of the Catholic Church in the United States", p. 611). In 1882 Philip H. Bagenal, an English writer, in his work "The American Irish", p. 33, states: "the American Irish themselves lay claim to a population of between ten and fifteen millions. There can be no doubt that the amount of Celtic blood in the American people is very much greater than they themselves wouhl like to allow." Since 1870, 1,749,- 460 immigrants from Ireland have arrived, accord- ing to the above-quot(^d official statistics, apart from those arriving through Canada, and if the esti- mated Irish element of that year has doubled itself and no more, during the forty years which have now elapsed, the number of persons of Irish birth or origin in continental United States would appear now to be not less than thirty millions. We have referred to the Irish immigration for 1851 as the
largest in history. The steady and extraordinary in-
crease from 44,821 in 1845 to 257,372 in 1851 (figures
of Thorn's Almanac for 1853, cited in O'Rourke,
" History etc.", p. 496) compels attention chiefly on
account of the tragical causes from which it arose
and the distressing conditions under which the im-
migrants of that period established themselves in the
United States.
As is well known the potato blight appeared in Ire- land in 1845, as it had appeared before, namely in 1740, 1821, and in several later years. By 1846 it had extended over the whole country, so that nowhere in the land were there any potatoes fit eitlier for food for human beings or for seed. But side by side with the blackened potato fields there were abundant crops of grain which were in no way affected by the potato blight. These, however, were disposed of frequently by distraint, as the sole means of providing the rent for the landlord, while the unfortunate tenants by whose labour they had been produced were left with- out food. Famine which brought fever and other miseries in its train set in, so that tens of thousands of the people sank into their graves, many of them dying within the shelter of the poorhouses. There were evictions without limit, many of them under heart- rending circumstances. Dr. Nulty, Bishop of Meath, tells of 700 human beings evicted in one day in 1847 from one estate (Parnell Movement, p. 114), and other appalHng instances might be cited. In 1847 there were in the Irish workhouses 104,455 persons, of whom 9000 were fever patients (O'Rourke, "History of the Great Irish Famine", p. 478). Nearly three- quarters of a million were employed on public works which had been devised as a means of relieving the distress, and 3,020,712 persons were receiving daily rations of food from the Government (ibid., 471).
Of the horrors of that time it is almost impossible to speak with moderation. "While myriads starved to death in Ireland", says O'Neill Daunt (Ireland and her Agitators, p. 231), "ships bursting with grain and laden with cattle were leaving every port for England. There would have been no need for the people to emi- grate if their food did not emigrate. But the exliaust- ing results of the Union had lirought matters to a point that compelled Ireland to sell her food to supply the enormous money drain. The food is first taken away and then its price is taken away also." "The Union has stripped them" (the Irish people) "of their means and the oidy alternatives left to the perishing multitude were the work-house, emigration, or the grave." The condition to which the Irish people were thus reduced \\-as extremely pitiable and excited the sympathy of the whole world. "The peoples of Eu- rope sent alms, the Turks opened their hearts and hands, while ship after ship freighted generously from the American shores passed fleets of English vessels carrying away from a dying people the fruits of their own labor" (see Lester, "Glory and Shame of Eng- land", I, 161). 114 ships carrying provisions, the re- sult of charitable contributions for the relief of a starving nation, landed their cargoes in Ireland in 1S47 (O'Rourke, "History etc.", p. 512), and the Ignited States, responding to the univer.^ial sentiment of the nation, sent its two .ships of war, the" Jamestown" and "Macedonian", on the.se errands of mercy. From the.se causes the population of Ireland was diminished during the famine period by two and a half million souls: they disappeared by death and emigration. It was to America that by far the greatest number of the emigrants went.
The transportation of emigrants in those early days was attended with such cruel conditions that review- ing them now after a lapse of fifty years, it seems al- most incrp<lible that they should have been tolerated by any civilized nation. The ships employed in this service were only too often broken-down freight ships, in which merchants were unwilling to entrust valuable
