The following is an informative summary of chapter 9 from Nell Irvin Painter’s The History of White People:
The 19th century was was a period filled with religious tension between the Irish Catholics and Protestant Americans. Despite their “whiteness,” the Irish Catholics who migrated in large numbers after 1830, faced social and political antagonism from Americans, largely due to their religion. In fact, anti-Catholic legislation was prevalent — forcing Catholics to renounce allegiance to the pope and pay taxes to support Protestant churches.
The large influx of Irish immigrants into the United States during the potato famine created social hostility. The prevailing assumption was that the Irish were racially inferior and had unmatched degradation. At the time, influential and educated people like Thomas Carlyle, Charles Kingsley and Robert Knox all termed the Irish as animals — bred to be controlled and lacking historical agency.
The large Irish Catholic presence in the United States even sparked anti-Catholic literature, journals, newspapers and organizations. The circulating idea in these journals and organizations was that the Irish Catholics were a threat to Protestantism. Among the many anti-Catholic works was Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk which was intended to taint Irish Catholic disposition and portray the Catholic Church as inherently sexually immoral.
Most Americans thought that the objective of the Irish Catholics was to subvert the Protestant virtues of American democracy. Therefore, people like Lyman Beecher, Yale-educated Presbyterian minister, thought that the poor Irish Catholics should not have a political role in either the form of holding office or voting. The Irish were seen as unfit for such roles.
In fact, the Catholic Irish were stereotyped to be brawling, lazy, crime-ridden drunks and were eventually termed “Paddies.” This resulted in the condemnation of the Irish Catholics by people like renowned author Ralph Waldo Emerson, who “excluded” the Irish from the Caucasian race and viewed the Irish population as miserable and poor. Emerson was not alone. Authors and cartoonists at the time used the Irish as a laughing stock for demeaning jokes and exaggerated cartoons which reinforced the Paddy stereotype.
Although some abolitionists explored and recognized the oppression of the Irish and the similarity in the oppression of Negroes, the Irish immigrants in the United States refuted this comparison due to the differences in the skin colors between them and the Negroes. In an effort to distinguish themselves from the Negroes and seek “white” fortune, Irish voters supported the pro-slavery Democratic Party and lashed out against Negroes in the form of riots.
The Irish even seeked further distinction through Celtic Irish culture and literature. In the mid-nineteenth century, works and poetry of Celtic history, literature and race appeared. Although these works were not necessarily purely objective and in favor of the Celtic Irish, they received acceptance among the Irish because they were less patronizing than earlier works, like those of Thomas Carlyle. Through these works, the Irish Celts sought to find qualities for greatness.
Despite their efforts, the opposition of Irish Catholics was still common due to rising nativism in the United States. Soon, antagonism toward the Irish Catholic turned violent. Irish Catholic churches and residents were attacked. In addition, the violent anti-Catholic political party known as the Know-Nothings began to rise. In a series of violent acts, the Know-Nothings raged a religious war on the Irish Catholics.
Eventually the collapse of the Know-Nothings and the 1884 election of Grover Cleveland lessened the violent anti-Catholic movements in the United States. However, the white, Irish Catholics were still recognized as a different and inferior race.
