Irish Immigration To America

The Story of Irish Immigrants Leaving the home you have always known is not easy. But coming into a completely new culture and lifestyle is even harder. That is exactly what the Irish immigrants experienced when they came to America. Imagine the only life you knew was farming potatoes and paying your landlord, then you decide to go to America for a better life. However, once you get there you are ridiculed and scorned for being Irish and don’t have any friends or relatives to help you make a fresh start. It is is in this country that you must make your dreams of prosperity come to life.
The Irish left their beloved country in order to escape a terrible potato blight that occurred from 1845-1852. (Constitutional) The blight later known
Many of the immigrants who arrived in America did not have many skills other than farming, cleaning and cooking. The town with the biggest concentration of Irish immigrants was Boston. The Massachusetts town was known for its great influence in the Revolutionary War and housed many of the oldest, most distinguished families in America. So when the scraggly, half starved Irish came ashore many of the elite Bostonians went to the North part of Boston known as Beacon Hill, thereby segregating themselves from the hated Irish. (Irish in America)
Consequently for the Irish, this segregation and general abandonment lead to a stereotype that was published in the newspaper cartoons everyday. The Irish were designated by many in America as a stupid servant race that was angry and alcoholic, bred like rabbits, greedy, and entirely too clannish. Another reason the Irish were ostracized from most of America was for being Catholic. Most Americans at that time viewed Catholics not fit for citizenship because they feared that the Irish would be loyal to the Pope and not their adopted country. (Irish in
They were always accused of divided loyalties for the Catholic church. It wasn’t until 1960 that Catholicism (and the Irish as a whole) was truly accepted when John F. Kennedy became president. The Irish, for many years, had directed the politics of major American cities towards voting for the Democratic party. But it wasn’t until John F. Kennedy’s speech that laid the groundwork to ending America’s anti-Catholicism. (Keany) “I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for