The Great Famine began in the summer of 1845. Irish reliance on the potato was heavy as it was the only crop that reliably grew in the climate, and “By the 1800s…Potatoes supplied about 80 percent of the calories in their diet” (“Potato History”). This reliance turned on them during the Great Famine. As “Potatoes could not be stored for more than a year[,] [i]f the potato crop failed, there was nothing to replace it” (“The Potato Famine”), so when the Great Famine happened, it wiped out the main portion of the Irish people’s diets.
It can be contended that the Famine was made worse in the way that it was managed by the British government. Blight and failed crops were not Ireland-specific occurrences during the time as “the European continent was subjected to the same wet and cold weather and had the same poor crops” (“Potato History”), but these other countries were able to find ways to manage blights. It can be further contended that the Famine did not start as a famine—it was merely a series of crop failures that was exacerbated by the British until the crop failures became a famine as the “British [were] exporting all Irish crops…the British turned it into a famine by not helping the situation with valid relief measures or discontinuing crop export” (“Why the British”).
The British government certainly made relief efforts, although these efforts were not enough and not consistent. One such measure was distributing corn to the Irish, but the corn “was difficult to distribute to the Irish…[Robert Peel] did not take into
account that some areas were worse off than others and therefore needed more corn” (“Why the British”). An even bigger failure was that many relief committees acted in their own interests and doled out aid on a subjective rather than fair basis—“an inspector claimed that the relief committees were…’an area of interested motives and debating societies’” (“Why the British”). Summarily, the British were not as invested in the relief efforts as they needed to be; rather, they were more focused on staying out of the problem, and emigration solved that problem as it sent the people away.
The general attitude to the Irish from the English was that “Ireland was a nation in need of transformation, that its people now needed to be yanked into the modern world by tossing out the old Gaelic traditions” (“Before the Famine”). This attitude did not change come the Great Famine as “In England, religious-minded social reformers viewed the blight as a heaven-sent ‘blessing’ that would finally provide an opportunity to transform Ireland” (“The Blight Begins”). Instead of simply helping those who were starving and in desperate need of assistance, these “reformers” saw a terrible time of starvation and suffering as an advantageous moment, possibly even a good event, to further their own religious agendas.
Indeed, many Irish Protestants saw the Great Famine as “‘punishment for the prevalence of popery’” (Stitt). A recurring description of the Famine by some Protestants was that Catholics deserved to undergo a famine because “’they lacked the knowledge of God’” (Stitt). One evangelical group petitioned then-Prime Minister John Russell “for the withholding of relief which, they opined, would ‘support the existence of popery’…Rather than provide food, clothing and shelter, every cabin in Ireland should be provided with ‘the word of God’” (Stitt). Sadly, during the Famine, some people were unwilling to provide bare necessities such as food because providing starving people with what they needed would support the “wrong” religion.
One competing view of the Famine was that it was “an opportunity given by the almighty to Protestants so that they could ‘win the hearts of Catholics by kindness’” (Stitt). In reality, this still meant that Catholics were pushed to convert to Protestantism in return for food—“In many recorded cases, only those who attended Protestant church services were given food” (Stitt). Simply put, these reformers took advantage of many Irish when they were vulnerable, “heap[ing] insult and degradation onto the misery of the famine” (Stitt).
Many Protestants saw the Famine as a time of advantage for furthering their religious ideology, but the response of the Catholics took a different tack. Irish Catholic parish priests and Church leaders led their own relief efforts. One such person was Archbishop Daniel Murray, who also “advocated for non-denominational education, encouraged Catholics to attend Queens (Protestant) College…and was instrumental in establishing Dublin’s first Catholic hospital” (“The Vatican’s Meager Response”). There was also Archdeacon O’Sullivan of County Kerry “who took it upon himself to import food directly, explaining to a Parliamentary commission that someone had to do it” (“The Vatican’s Meager Response”). Archbishop Murray’s successor, Paul Cullen, even “ran interference between the Vatican and leaders of the Irish Church who felt the Pope could have and should have done more” (“The Vatican’s Meager Response”).
Not only were relief efforts made in Ireland and Great Britain, but they were also made by organizations and groups abroad. Aid from the United States constituted a large portion of the relief efforts, and this aid came “not only from the Irish Catholic community, but from a wide variety of groups, including Jews, Baptists, Methodists and Shakers” (“International Relief Efforts”). Perhaps in contrast with the Vatican and its ordeal with the Papal States, Congress allowed “two navy vessels to be used to take supplies on behalf of the Boston Relief Committee to Ireland and Scotland, where the potato crop had also failed” while America was at war with Mexico (“International Relief Efforts”). Even though the United States government was dealing with its own conflicts at the time, it was still able to find time to send a sizable amount of aid.
Regardless of relief efforts made by the Protestants and Catholics in Ireland and those abroad, many Irish were still starving and
had to immigrate. So many Irish immigrated to the United States that “In the 1840s, they comprised nearly half of all immigrants to this nation” (“Irish-Catholic”). Many of these immigrants were women. Many Irish chose to travel to Canada first because fares were cheaper and then make their way to America on Foot (“The Potato Famine”). Conditions on these ships were horrible. These ships were lumber-carrying ships that would have otherwise returned empty and were not equipped to handle so many human passengers (“The Potato Famine”).
During this time, many Irish immigrants ended up in New York because they “did not have the skills needed for large-scale farming in the American West” (“The Potato Famine”). Although America was seen as the land of opportunity to many, many immigrants did not become wildly rich and successful, and this did not exclude Irish immigrants. The Irish were able to obtain employment, something that was not widely available in their homeland, but most of this work was menial and low-paying, such as cutting canals, digging trenches for water and sewer pipes, and laying rail lines (Klein). Much hostility was generated towards the Irish because other unskilled workers feared being put out of work by the influx of Irish immigrants (“The Potato Famine”). Living conditions in New York were horrible, and “Impoverished Irish immigrants often crowded into subdivided homes that were intended for single families…Cellars, attics and make-do spaces in alleys became home” (“Adaptation and Assimilation”). Because many of these buildings lacked adequate health conditions, these buildings became breeding grounds of disease that added to their misery (“Adaptation and Assimilation”). Sometimes Irish immigrants were blamed for the unsanitary living conditions when often they were forced to accept them because of factors that were out of their control.
The Irish were not able to escape the prejudice that they faced back home. Discrimination towards the Irish was not discreet—often it was printed in “black and white, in newspaper classified advertisements that blared ‘No Irish Need Apply’” (Klein). They had to deal with many harmful and negative stereotypes in America. Native-born Americans often characterized the Irish as “lazy, unintelligent, carefree criminals and alcoholics,” and the Irish had to endure derogatory terms that reinforced these perceptions. Furthermore, illustrators gave life to the “image of the simian Irishman, imported from Victorian England” (Klein). This shows that despite being separated by an ocean, negative attitudes about the Irish still flourished in America.
Anti-Catholicism was not new to the United States and did not arrive with the Irish immigrants—it had existed there long before the Great Famine. Due to the large number of Irish immigrants arriving in cities, “Catholicism came close to being the largest single Christian denomination in the country” (“The Potato Famine”), which caused many Protestants to fear that the United States was being overrun and would be under control of the Pope. One conspiracy theory was that “the pope and his army would…overthrow the government and establish a new Vatican in Cincinnati. They believed the Irish would impose the Catholic canon as the law of the land” (Klein).
Anti-Catholicism in America resulted in multiple conflicts and organizations. One organization was the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, consisting of native-born Protestant men and based in New York. The group called for “a return to the America they once knew, a land of ‘Temperance, Liberty and Protestantism’” (Klein). Over the years, similar organizations united into the anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant “Know-Nothings.” They believed that Catholics were fundamentally incapable of becoming Americans because according to them, Catholicism was “incompatible with basic American values” (Dolan). Unfortunately, anti-Catholicism also resulted in violence. In 1844, Philadelphian mobs targeted Catholics and Catholic churches (Carroll). Bishop John Hughes of New York “posted armed guards around his churches” (Shelley) in fear of similar attacks. He was successful in preventing conflicts.
Irish Catholics were doubly targeted for being both Irish and Catholic. Both labels were widely disdained, and it was easy to discriminate against and suppress them for several years because of how beaten-down they were by the British government and the Great Famine when they arrived in America. But over time, no matter how hard some people tried to maintain the negative image of the Irish as second-class citizens, their numbers grew too large to ignore their voices. The Irish came to make up a large portion of the police force, in stark opposition to an earlier time when cities “invented their police departments as a way to control the Irish ‘problem’” (Gershon). The growing Irish influence led to a growing Irish political presence. The Irish were an important and large voting sector, and “Democratic Party leaders quickly found it was a good idea to seek their votes” (Gershon). They also came to dominate New York City’s political machine Tammany Hall, which, although was wrought with corruption and bribery, provided many people with assistance, such as food.
The Irish had become disillusioned with the “American dream” because they had experienced firsthand how reality did not live up to the legend. They had to live in poorly maintained housing and work hard labor, but the Catholic community in America tried to help. Catholic citizens “helped them find jobs and homes,” nuns taught their children, and priests tried to “shield them from a sometimes hostile Protestant environment” (Byrne). The local church was not just a church—it provided many homesick and tired immigrants with guidance and comfort (Byrne). Bishop Hughes also demanded equal funding for Catholic schools to other schools from the government. He was successful in building his own systems of schools. Although he did not want this, Hughes’ success led to the eventual secularization of public schools (Shelley).
Largely, it was time that led to the acceptance of both Irish and Catholics in American society. The road to acceptance was rocky, as shown during the Mexican-American War when many Irish Americans sided with Mexico due in large part to the shared faith of Catholicism between the Irish and Mexicans (Uenuma). However, later during the Civil War, many Irish sided with the Union, not specifically because they opposed slavery, but because they saw the United States as “a refuge for future immigrants and as a lever to someday free Ireland from British rule” (Young). Even later, John F. Kennedy became the country’s first Roman Catholic president. Despite initial hesitation because of his faith, Kennedy became one of the most beloved presidents.
Ultimately, hunger was the main motivator for the mass immigration that took place during the Great Famine. Food and desperately needed supplies were weaponized against many Irish in attempts to get them to renounce their religion, and religion drove the reactions of many who were in positions to offer aid. When the Irish immigrated to America, and mainly to cities such as New York and Boston that could offer them desperately needed employment, they found that they had not left behind the prejudice and discrimination of being Irish and Catholic. They had to deal with being treated as second-class citizens for many years, but as their numbers and influence grew to the point where they could no longer be ignored, the Irish found wider acceptance in American society.
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