Irish Americans

“ Irish Americans have made an indelible mark on the United States. From Dublin, California, to Limerick, Maine, from Emerald Isle, North Carolina, to Shamrock, Texas, we are reminded of the more than 35 million Americans of Irish descent who contribute every day to all facets of life in the United States. Over generations, millions of Irish have crossed the ocean in search of the American Dream, and their contributions continue to enrich our country today. ”

“ You may call us Irish-Americans or American-Irish, but we are, nevertheless, Americans of the American. We were among the earliest settlers upon the Continent; we kept on coming steadily from those early times in large numbers, and under existing conditions upon the other side of the Atlantic, it is fair to predict that the flow of Irish emigration to the United States is liable to continue in the future. The expressions, “Irish-American” or “American-Irish,” in their real significance, mean intense, true Americans. We love the Union, we are devoted to the principles of the Constitution ”

“ Most Americans have read something of the political misfortunes of Ireland, but very many among us have not made her history even a partial study, and have often taken their views of it, at second hand, from sources that could not fail to be partial and, therefore, prejudicial. We do not need to apologize for seeking to throw more light, in a simple yet comprehensive manner, on the history of that beautiful island the blood of whose exiled children flows in the veins of not less than 20,000,000 of the American people. The Irish race owes much to America, and America, in turn, owes much to it. ”

“ I, too, would like to see the Irish in possession of Ireland, but for other reasons. First and chiefly, because they are good patriots, and, though in a foreign land, even naturalized Americans, they do not forget their beloved country. Americans though they be in their new home, they yet remain Irish. They give their allegiance to America; but their hearts remain true to Ireland.
What a contrast to the Germans whom you find in the United States! These forget their mother-tongue, and their children do not speak it. They abuse their country. ”

“ When Abraham Lincoln struggled to preserve our young union, more than one hundred thousand Irish and Irish Americans joined the cause, with units like the Irish Brigade charging into battle, green flags with gold harp waving alongside our star-spangled banner. When depression gripped America, Ireland sent tens of thousands of packages of shamrocks to cheer up its countrymen, saying, "May the message of Erin shamrocks bring joy to those away." ”

“ For centuries, the tenacious Irish spirit, paired with American self-reliance, has helped Irish immigrants and their descendants realize incredible dreams. With religious devotion, strength rooted in the love of family, and confidence in the promise of America, Irish Americans have engaged in the American experience in robust and meaningful ways. Their neighborhoods, schools, churches, and workplaces have affirmed the importance of faith, industry, and learning. It is, therefore, no wonder that American art, business, and public life are marked by Irish names and symbols. ”

“ The industry, talent, and imagination of Irish Americans have enriched our commerce and our culture. Their strong record of public service has fortified our democracy. Their strong ties to family, faith, and community have strengthened our Nation's character. The Irish are a significant reason why Americans will always be proud to call ourselves a Nation of immigrants. ”

“ Friends and foes alike have been enabled to closely follow their movements, to study their mode of life under altered conditions, to ascertain the opinion held respecting them by people of other nationalities, and to determine whether or not the virtues characteristic of the old land flourish on the soil of the new. And splendidly have the Irish-Americans as a body borne this crucial test. Not on the authority of friendly critics alone, but many foes of his faith and fatherland have been forced to acknowledge the genuine worth of the typical Irish-American. ”

“ During Irish-American Heritage Month, we recognize the vital contributions of Irish Americans to our Nation.
Since our founding, Irish immigrants have come to America's shores in search of better lives. Today, millions of American citizens are of Irish descent, and they and their forbearers have helped shape our way of life, strengthened our economy, and contributed to the arts, and protected our Nation. Irish Americans have shown their devotion to our country by serving in our Armed Forces. ”

“ The sooner Ireland in America speaks on this point the better. Many earnest Irishmen, among the leaders in Ireland, firmly believe that Irish -Americans are all blood-and-thunder radicals. One of the ablest of the leaders now in prison, recently wrote the writer that the belief is widespread in Ireland that the Irish-Americans will have nothing less than absolute "no rent" and ultimate revolution. ”

“ During the month of March each year, as millions of Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day, we remember with special pride our Irish heritage. We remember our ancestors who stood on Ireland's western shores, yearning for the promise of America. Fleeing famine and injustice, they longed for a new world of opportunities. Millions of these courageous men and women set sail from Ireland, leaving behind all that they had ever known to seek the promise of America. ”

“ This is the shape which the Irish problem has assumed in America. Here at home the question is, is England to govern Irishmen? It has obviously failed to make Englishmen of us. On the other side of the Atlantic the question is: Are Irishmen to govern America? America has not succeeded in making Americans of all of us so far. ”

“ America became extremely popular in Ireland after the Revolution of 1776, partly because the English were defeated, partly because of Irish democratic aspirations, but particularly because it was a land of generous economic and political possibilities. ”

“ Now, to me, one of the most curious things in the English state of mind about the Irish problem is the apparent expectation that this Irish-American interference is transient, and will probably soon die out. It is quite true, as Englishmen are constantly told, that "the best Americans," that is, the literary people and the commercial magnates, whom travelling Englishmen see on the Atlantic coast, dislike the Irish anti-English agitation. ”

“ The fact that emigrants come from Europe is accepted as a proof that the countries which they leave are ill-governed; and Americans, in dealing with the emigration question, are apt to forget the existence and nature of the forces which induced their own ancestors to seek homes in the New World.
The New York Times declared in an article last June, that there is no essential difference between the two divisions of the Irish in America and of the Irish in Ireland. ”

“ The children of the immigrant Irish receive the education of Americans, and enter, more rapidly and completely than would have been possible in the country of their descent, into the benefits of a higher state of civilization. In twenty or thirty years they are not mentally distinguishable from other Americans. The loss, and the disgrace, are England's: and it is the English people and government whom it chiefly concerns to ask themselves, how far it will be to their honour and advantage to retain the mere soil of Ireland, but to lose its inhabitants. ”

“ The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; ”

“ These millions have carried the traditions of their country’s wrongs, and the dismal tales of the misgovernment of Ireland, to the uttermost ends of the earth, exaggerating, perhaps, the oppression of their persecutors, and depicting in touching sympathy the glowing virtues of the victims. The largest contingent of this Irish emigration has enriched the United States of America, where partiality has culminated in alternate praise and censure of the Irish race. ”

“ Driven forth by poverty, Irishmen emigrate in great numbers, and in whatever quarter of the world an Irishman sets his foot, there stands a bitter, an implacable enemy of England. That is one of the results of the wide- spread disaffection that exists in Ireland. There are hundreds of thousands—I suppose there are millions—of the population of the United States of America who are Irish by birth, or by immediate descent; and be it remembered, Irishmen settled in the United States have a large influence in public affairs. ”

“ Not only so, but the same wretchedness has sent millions of emigrants to form an Irish nation in the United States, where the Irish are a great political power, swaying by their votes the councils of the American Republic, and in immediate contact with those Transatlantic possessions of England, the retention of which it is now patriotic to applaud, and will one day be patriotic to have dissuaded. ”

“ Men who love Ireland ignobly brawl about her in their cups, quarrel about her with their neighbor, allow no freedom of thought of her or service of her other than their own, take to the cudgel and the rifle, and join sectarian orders or lodges to ensure that Ireland will be made in their own ignoble image. Those who love Ireland nobly desire for her the highest of human destinies. They would ransack the ages and accumulate wisdom to make Irish life seem as noble in men's eyes as any the world has known. ”

“ It is impossible not to recognise the fact that the head, perhaps the heart, and certainly the purse of this development of Irish discontent are in the United States. The arms, the body, and the legs are in Ireland. During the whole time of our visit, although we visited towns where eminent orators were lecturing upon Irish subjects, and where representatives of the League were in session, there was not a trace brought home to us of the strong sympathy which undoubtedly exists in many American cities with the 147 movement in Ireland. ”

“ Wherever it has been liberated from the English yoke, has not, on the contrary, the Irish race displayed abundant energy, activity, genius? Do not the Irish hold the first rank in the United States, in Canada, in Southern America, in Australia, wherever emigration has carried them. In England even are they not at the head of all liberal professions, letters, the daily press, the bar, science? Those who have seen and closely studied that nation, crushed under its secular burden, ground under the heel of the conqueror, cannot but feel surprised at the bare fact that it survives ”

“ With characteristic zeal and industry begotten of their love of justice and fair play, “that the world may know” a Murray, a Linehan, a Roache, a Gargan and hosts of others of beloved memory have shed lustre on Ireland not only as men of Irish blood but as disseminators of historical truths as to the priceless part taken by men of Irish blood from the earliest days of the country’s history until the present time for the permanency of American institutions and government. In no man’s heart do the Stars and Stripes awake a more sincere and ardent patriotism than the Irish-American. ”

“ There were only four million Irish altogether, and they were nearly all in Ireland, friendless, voiceless, voteless, landless, powerless, disarmed, disorganized, ignorant, forgotten by the world, misreported and misrepresented by their rich and powerful enemy, and held up in English books, newspapers, schools, at home and abroad, as a race of wild, weak, witty, brave, quarrelsome, purposeless incapables. ”

“ The labor involved in this from its very nature is such as can only be performed by an organization such as the American-Irish Historical Society.
The true status of the Irish in America, notwithstanding the fact that their brain and brawn have been interwoven in the woof and web of our nation’s fabric, has never been fully appreciated by reason of the prejudices which have been associated with anything that bore an Irish name. ”

“ Everything can be made of him in every country but his own. When he has passed through the American school—I speak of him as a child, or in the second generation of the Irish emigrant in that country—he is as industrious, as frugal, as independent, as loyal, as good a citizen of the American Republic, as any man born within the dominions of that Power. Why is it not so in Ireland? ”

“ Their American citizenship becomes a great and dear thing to them, but they are still in some sense citizens of Ireland. If a question ever arose in which American interests clashed with Irish interests there might well be a solid Irish vote in favor of sacrificing America to Ireland. The Irish are a partial exception to the rule that America absorbs its immigrants. ”

“ I am gratified beyond expression that this Society insists on seeing justice done to the race from which we have sprung. The work must be logical and correct. One of the most remarkable things is the intellectuality of the Irish race.
Wherever freedom’s flag is hoisted you will find an Irishman at or near that emblem. O’Higgins in South America is synonymous with liberty. On every battlefield in North America the Irishman is found, as he also is in poetry, history, arts and sciences. I would not adulate the race. The Irishman forms only a part of the American citizenship. ”