Irish Migration To America

Wakin stressed that the horrific conditions of British rule in Ireland caused the massive waves of Irish emigrations to America in the mid-1800s (4). The Irish suffered from “poverty, illiteracy, low wages, high rents, unemployment, failed rebellions, and recurring famines.” (7) The British exacerbated all of these issues with discriminatory laws and land seizures (9). The terrible situation, especially the famine, sparked a massive wave of migration to America. Migrant’s families who were already in the U.S. encouraged them to come, and provided funding through “American tickets” which was U.S. money to pay for transportation to America (18). The emigration of Irish men and unwed-women represented a departure from predominantly male waves

Bagenal decried the relegation of the Irish to “bondage” by their landlord’s extortion of virtually all their income, entrapping them in inescapable toil (43). Americans associated the Irish with laziness, poverty criminality and disease. However, it was not any inclination towards laziness or immorality that drove the Irish to poverty, but poverty that drove the Irish into the squalor that “bread sickness” and other social ills. These social ills, then reinforced old prejudices; which Goodrich pointed out originated with anti-Irish propaganda from England (45, 39).The consequences of discrimination were far reaching with much of the poverty associated with the Irish being driven by prejudice, as Rev, Buckley said the Americans “hate the Irish” and “will not employ an Irishmen if they can help it” in expressing the difficulties the Irish faced in finding work (52). When they did find work it was mostly restricted to low wage labor and servitude due to prejudices about their aptitudes (48). The Irish's perceived “otherness” lead to comparisons to blacks and the Chinese demonstrating the far reaching nature of discrimination (41, 49, 52). What is quite clear from the experiences of Irish is that as America became more pluralistic reactionary forces will demonize and degrade those newcomers, but that those newcomers will eventually become fully integrated and