St. Patrick's Day is much more than an excuse for millions of Americans to wear green, watch parades and party hard. It also prompts us to remember the tremendous influence of Irish immigrants and Irish culture on American history and life.
During the 19th century, millions of Irish folk fled their homeland, which was then the most densely populated country in Europe. The Irish had long resented British rule, British landlords, British Protestantism and British taxes. But it was the onset of a prolonged depression and an epidemic of potato rot that unleashed a flood of Irish immigrants to the United States during the 1830s and 1840s.

Buoyed by the promise of a better life in America, the immigrants endured terrible hardships in crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Thousands died of dysentery, typhus and malnutrition during the six-week trip. In 1847 alone, 40,000 Irish migrants perished aboard the overcrowded ships.

"If crosses and tombs could be erected on water," lamented the United States commissioner for immigration, "the whole route of the emigrant vessels from Europe to America would long since have assumed the appearance of a crowded cemetery."

By 1850 the Irish constituted 43 percent of the foreign-born population in the United States. Many of the men hired on with construction gangs building the canals and railways that initiated the industrial revolution.

Others worked in iron foundries, steel mills, warehouses and shipyards. Many Irish women found jobs as domestic servants, laundresses or textile mill workers in New England. Although there were substantial Irish communities in New Orleans, Vicksburg, Savannah and Memphis, relatively few immigrants found their way into the South, where land was expensive and industries scarce. The widespread use of slaves left few opportunities for new wage laborers.

By the 1850s the Irish made up over half the populations of Boston and New York City. They clustered in murky slums and around Catholic churches.

Life in America beat starvation at home, but their new situation was anything but comfortable. Irish newcomers crowded into filthy, poorly ventilated tenements, plagued by high rates of crime, infectious disease, prostitution, alcoholism and infant mortality. The archbishop of New York City at mid-century described the Irish as "the poorest and most wretched population that can be found in the world."

Irish immigrants confronted demeaning stereotypes and intense anti-Catholic prejudices. It was commonly assumed that the Irish were ignorant, clannish people incapable of assimilation. George Templeton Strong, a prominent New York civic leader, expressed the contempt felt by many toward the Irish when he said: "Our Celtic fellow citizens are almost as remote from us in temperament and constitution as the Chinese."

Many employers felt the same way. "No Irish Need Apply" signs sprouted in every city. The Chicago Post expressed prevailing prejudices when it wrote, "The Irish fill our prisons, our poor houses. ... Scratch a convict or a pauper, and the chances are that you tickle the skin of an Irish Catholic. Putting them on a boat and sending them home would end crime in this country."

In the face of such criticism, however, enterprising Irish immigrants seized opportunities in their new environment to forge remarkable success stories. Twenty years after arriving in New York City, Alexander T. Stewart became the owner of America's largest department store and thereafter accumulated vast real-estate holdings in Manhattan. Michael Cudahy, who began work in a Milwaukee meatpacking business at age 14, became head of the Cudahy Packing Co. and developed the process for the summer curing of meats under refrigeration. Dublin-born Victor Herbert emerged as one of America's most revered composers, and Irish dancers and playwrights came to dominate the American stage.

Irishmen were equally successful in the boxing arena and on the baseball diamond. In part because of the hostility they faced, the Irish communities found strength in their solidarity. Neighborhood newspapers, churches, political groups, saloons, volunteer fire companies and fraternal associations such as the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick bolstered a sense of community and sustained Irish rituals and traditions.

Perhaps the greatest collective achievement of the Irish immigrants was stimulating the growth of the Catholic Church in the United States. Years of persecution had instilled in Irish Catholics a fierce loyalty to the church. Such passionate attachment to Catholicism generated both community cohesion among Irish Americans and fears of Romanism among American Protestants. By 1860 Catholics had become the largest denomination in the United States.

The days of "No Irish Need Apply" have thankfully passed into history. Some 44 million Americans are descendants of Irish immigrants. And today, of course, we all claim to be Irish. Whatever your heritage, I bid you the top o' the mornin'!