Irish Immigrants in Boston

Many Irish Catholic immigrants have faced multitudinous challenges throughout their life in Ireland, to moving to North America. Case in point: having rights forbidden and locating employment. They were forced to come to British North America because the living conditions in their home country were so poverty-stricken. Although emigrating to America might signify the start of a new life, it was not uncommon to hear immigrants talk of how their ‘old country’ was better than the new land. Many Irish immigrants were disappointed since they were facing the same issues and even more new struggles from when they lived back at the home land.

Although Irish immigrants were mixed into and not originally part of American culture, they enriched their new country with their cultural contributions, active participation in politics, and their wealth of influential individuals. The antebellum period in America was a hard time for all that lived, native born and those coming to America shared in the labors and hardships equally. Irish immigrants however, seemed to have struggled a little more. Many were regarded as inferior to the Anglo-Americans and immigrants already established in America. This problem came chiefly because of the lack of skilled labors, thus causing Irish immigrants to bear the load of working in mines, in quarries, digging canals, and building bridges and railroads.

Between the years 1845 and 1850 over one million Irish died of starvation. Another one and a half Irish immigrated to other countries. Since their main source of food was gone they became refugees of the famine. If they had not left they would have died of starvation or diseases. The journey to America was just as hard as their life in Ireland.

This created a strong social and political impact, because many Irish stayed together after the trip to America (Akenson 35). Due to this immigrant’s rural history, he became and unskilled laborer, or domestic servant. And, because of their poor state of destitution, the average American associated this average Irish immigrant with the decline of the United States (36). While the poor immigrant defined the average Irish-American, more migrants actually came from wealthier famine-affected countries in ... ... middle of paper ... ...e Irish, New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1966. Kinealy, Christine.

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. “(2) Because of their lack of funds many Irish immigrants landed in less expensive Canadian ports, and then walked down into the United States. (3) Not only was the ocean voyage difficult, but once reaching the United States, most immigrants found that they were not welcomed with open arms, but rather pushed away because of their religious affiliations. Catholics found themselves the minority and targets of discrimination. (4) Settled Americans saw the new influx of Irish immigrants as a plague, dirtying their streets and neighborhoods, filling their jails and sanitariums, creating public disruption.

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Unfortunately the Irish were not as accepted in Saint Louis as they hoped to be, but still lived their life despite the hatred. The first thing that we will look at is the Irish demographics. The Irish population had fluctuated tremendously over the years. When looking at where they came from, the highest group seems to have been coming from Dublin and Nothern Ireland, along with Kerry County, Ireland as well. Previous to the the 1840's, there were two other waves of Irish immigration in the US.

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