My daughter is doing a paper on Irish Immigration to America, can anyone help with information ? She's 10.

Answer 1

Green cookies, beer, and paper shamrocks in store windows may be the extent of homage paid to St. Patrick's Day locally nowadays. However, a century ago the "wearin’ of the green" meant a lot more than trying to imitate a brogue once a year. In fact, an important part of Mechanicville's history is tied to the vast wave of Irish immigration to America which took place in the mid-nineteenth century. While Irish-Americans long since have established themselves in every career, profession, and craft, it is not that long ago historically speaking when a reasonable observer would have doubted their ability to even get their foot onto the lowest rung of the American social ladder. Anti-immigrant sentiment against them was so strong that, for the only time in American history, a political party (the Know Nothings) nominated a presidential candidate in 1856 who ran on the platform of keeping Irish Catholics out of politics particularly, and out of the country if possible. The Know-Nothing candidate was no lightweight either. In fact, he was ex-President Millard Fillmore who occupied the White House between 1850 and 1853. In view of the later importance played by such immigrants locally, it is ironic to note that Fillmore was married to Abigail Powers, a Stillwater native, who was born on St. Patrick's Day.

The Irish were just one of many immigrant groups who shaped the history of our community over the last 200 years. In fact, from about the time of the Revolution until 1880, the most predominant elements in Mechanicville's population were the offspring of New England farm families who moved west from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the "frontier" of Saratoga County. These folks established the first permanent religious congregations (Methodist and Episcopal) in the community in the 1820's while their children and grandchildren created the sash and blind factories and textile mills which were the backbone of the local economy throughout most of the 1800's. But Yankee farmers weren't the only ones looking for better opportunities as they uprooted themselves and moved on.

Most of, us remember that the "famine Irish" were driven out of their homeland by the terrible potato blight which destroyed the basic food supply of the Irish peasants in the late 1840's. Less well know is the fact that prior to this, English landlords were driving Irish peasants off the land beginning in the 1820's, finding it more profitable to graze sheep to produce wool than to collect meager rents from the peasants. In fact, to speed the process, the landlords would buy one-way ship passages for those they evicted to get them out of Ireland quickly and cheaply. At this time, many large ships carried grain and lumber from the United States to Europe and needed ballast to weigh down their empty holds when returning to America. For almost nothing, landlords could pay to ship their human cargo abroad as ballast, in many cases to the Northeastern United States and Canada, Here is where our local story actually begins.

Simultaneous with the aforementioned westward migration of New England settlers, Irish immigrants were literally digging their way to Mechanicville. The Chaplain Canal reached the community in the 1820's, built primarily on the backs of Irish laborers. Actually, many of them came by way of Quebec rather than migrating from Ireland directly, and because of this, they were sometimes misclassified by census enumerators as French Canadians. Many of the Irish females worked as live-in servants, a common practice for immigrants of low socioeconomic status during the second half of the nineteenth century. Because of their poverty, the Irish married later in life than other groups and their young women were hired out as domestics at early ages because of the difficulty their parents had in supporting their large families.

Another group of the Irish worked at the American Linen Thread Company mills located on the "Devil's Half Acre" near the present site of City Hall. The thread company was a one-of-its-kind operation, the only such mill to display its wares at the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876 where American industry celebrated its progress during the first century of nationhood. Linen thread had limited but important uses, both as fishing line and as the binding that connected upper and lower portions of shoes. The shoe industry was centered in New England and not surprisingly, the local company (on the scene for over thirty years) was purchased by a Massachusetts firm and relocated in the 1880's. While in operation here, the mill hired entire Irish immigrant families, including children as young as six years of age. Their wages were pathetically low, even by the standards of the time, and it is a wonder that families could survive on such meager subsistence. The plight of the Irish was commented upon often, and unsympathetically, by local lawyer, J. Frank Terry, who doubled as an editor of a weekly newspaper in the 1870's. He seemed to take special delight in recounting the foibles of the residents of what he referred to pejoratively as "Dublin Row," but it is a safe bet that he did not exaggerate the precarious hold these immigrants had on life in general while finding themselves on the bottom of the economic totem pole.

In an era when editors worried less about libel suits than they do now, the local paper commented sarcastically about the breeding habits of the Irish. Nothing seemed to delight editor Terry more than to announce in the pages of The Mechanicville Times the arrival of a "new Irisher" born to a "lonesome Brigid" who had no husband. Some members of the local ethnic community, however, were making their mark long before the tart-tongued newspaperman spouted his venom.

One Irish immigrant who did establish himself early on was John Short, a tavern-keeper who slaked the thirst of canal boat travelers at the current site of the B & D Tavern on William Street. Until the Barge Canal system was expanded in the early 1900's, the man-made waterway coursed through town in what is now Central Avenue, so Short was ideally situated to benefit from travelers who often found food and lodging at villages along their route. The degree of success achieved by Short may be implied by his efforts to establish a permanent Catholic Church in Mechanicville.

As early as 1839, the Augustinians had made Mechanicville a "station," designating it as a place frequently visited by traveling priests but lacking a permanent church and official congregation status. By 1852, the size of the Irish immigrant community justified making the area the home of a regular parish and Short took a leading role in seeing that this event took place. He raised the $5000 building fund himself, purchased the bricks, and hired three masons to build St. Paul's Church, still in use on William Street. Almost literally as well as figuratively, Short had become a "pillar of the church," and this monument to his generosity has been in almost continuous use for nearly 150 years.

By the end of the Civil War, St. Paul's boasted the largest religious congregation locally, while Irish immigrants and their children made up about 45% of the total population of around I 100 residents. As the century progressed, census records indicate rising social mobility for the Irish as they and their offspring were listed in virtually every trade and profession practiced in the community, while the number of Irish servant girls declined to a trickle by 1900. By this time, papermaking and railroading had become well-established and a large number of Irish families had relocated here from Holyoke and other Massachusetts towns. Ethnic group identity was solidified by the formation of local Ancient Order of Hibernian chapter in 1884, and by the establishment of the Knights of Columbus in the 1890's. The weekly Saturday Mercury regularly recorded annual St. Patrick's Day parades and festivals and the best indication of the political coming of age of the Irish might be found in the 1923 boast by St. Paul's pastor, Father Valiquette, that "our city" (government) is made up of Catholic men from the mayor down." Waspish Mercury editor Farrington L. Mead was less enamored of Irish dominance of his own Democratic Party and more than once he decried immigrant control of patronage as a poor example of "the Hog in local politics." The greatest visible sign of the maturation of this ethnic group was represented by the erection of the expansive new St. Paul's Church on North Main Street, completed in 1916, and the opening of a parochial school in the following decade. At this time, the number of first and second generation Irish appeared to decline as a proportion of the local population, but what this actually represented was the coming of age of the third generation of this ethnic group.

From that point onward, many of us know the story of the Irish immigrants first-hand or from oral traditions handed down by parents and grandparents, Our society has come a long way from the time when there was a stigma attached to being Irish and Catholic. We are far removed from the heyday of the Know Nothings or when job notices regularly included the phrase "NINA - No Irish Need Apply. " Indeed, many historians have commented that the Irish have grown so comfortable in assimilating into American society that they have ceased being Irish. Whether that is the case or not, we should not develop amnesia about the sacrifices, struggles, and indignities our ancestors confronted in gaining a foothold in our community which allows us to enjoy the freedom and blessings we have. Not to worry, though, if you are like me and have enough Irish blood coursing through your veins, because at least once this St. Paddy's Day, my celebration will be tempered by recalling the sentiments first uttered on November 22, 1963 by now-Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. "I don't think there's any point in being Irish if you don't know that the world is going to break your heart eventually.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

You might want to check out http://www.census.gov/ to see what raw data on numbers of immigrants from Ireland were living in the United States during different times.

Answer 4

I have an idea but probably a lot of people already use it, but anyways your daughter should use any websites that talks about the history of some all sorts of religions. Like www.google.com on their web page. Or ask.com! hope you find a answer!

Answer 5

Why not you?

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAEireland.htm
http://library.thinkquest.org/20619/Irish.html
http://www.assumption.edu/ahc/Irish/overview.html

And the best:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish-American

Answer 6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_American

http://www.ailf.org/ipc/policy_reports_2001_Irish2.asp

Answer 7

I'll make a deal with you- I will come from N.Y. (USA), to come and live in Ireland anytime! Someday I want to live there....