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1830's St. Patrick's Day Celebration
Sunday March 9 • 12 noon - 3 p.m. • Admission Free • Program at 1 p.m. & 2 p.m.
Most Americans assume the mass migration of the Irish peoples to our shores was a direct result of the infamous Potato Famine which began in 1845. This is, however, a misconception. The Blight of 1845 was merely the straw that broke the camels back. Ireland, like most of feudal Europe, consisted of many peasants under the rule of a minority of affluent landowners. However, when Oliver Cromwell invaded Ireland, and nearly one-third of the population of Ireland was decimated between 1649 and 1652, all this changed. The Irish landowners who had not been disenfranchised during the reign of Elizabeth I nearly one hundred years earlier were either forced to renounce their Roman Catholic faith or see their lands confiscated and then redistributed to the English. By 1661 approximately 40 percent of all Irish land was owned by English Proprietors.
Notwithstanding, many of the Irish peasantry stayed on and worked the lands they had once owned, as tenant farmers paying rent for small plots where they grew their own food and enough to subsidize a meager existence. Despite their industry and concerted efforts, however, as crops became less profitable and the need for meat in England increased, many landowners began taking back the lands from the Irish peasants in order to graze sheep and cattle for the British markets. This began one of the worst periods in Irish history when the tenant farmers were evicted from the lands that sustained them, often with no warning, by the English Proprietors. By the time of the Potato Famine these evictions had become commonplace. One of the most infamous, known as the Ballinglass Incident, occurred on March 13, 1846. At that time a wealthy landowner named Mrs. Gerrard feared nonpayment of rent form her tenant farmers and, in response to her fears and with the help of the British Army and Irish Constabulary, leveled 61 homes occupied by 76 families. Fortunately, an eyewitness account of the incident still exists.
"The inhabitants were not in arrear of their rent, and had, by their industry, reclaimed an area of about four hundred acres from a neighboring bog. On the morning of the eviction a 'large detachment of the 49th Infantry commanded by Captain Brown' and numerous police appeared with the Sheriff and his men...the people were officially called on to give up possession, and the houses were then demolished --roofs torn off, walls thrown down. The scene was frightful; women running, wailing with pieces of their property and clinging to door-posts from which they had to be forcibly torn; men cursing, children screaming with fright. That night the people slept in the ruins; next day they were driven out, the foundations of the house were torn up and razed, and no neighbor was allowed to take them in."
As a result the Irish; disenfranchised by the British Government, driven from their lands and persecuted for their faith; sought refuge on the North American shores in the fledgling United States. Upon their arrival in America, aboard what were dubbed coffin ships, the Irish, however, found themselves living in conditions which rivaled or were, in many cases, worse than the conditions they had left. The Irish brought with them a new culture and a new religion, of which many Americans of the time were skeptical. Until that point the Roman Catholic population which existed in the Untied States was comprised primarily of aristocratic planters and landowners of British and French descent who settled the mid-Atlantic States and portions of the agrarian South. Although many of these Catholics were devout in their faith, as with any affluent and patrician society, the majority practiced a more moderate version of their faith. Enter the very devout Irish who, most likely because of the injustices suffered by them, sought solace in their religion and the Church.
Along with this, the lack of education on the part of the Irish immigrants, their inexperience with modern technological advances and the abject poverty in which they lived seeded deep rooted prejudices among the American people against the Irish population; a prejudice which would last well into the latter part of the 19th Century. Settling in many of the big cities of the East Coast, especially Philadelphia, New York and Boston, the Irish found themselves living in ghettos or slums. Many Americans saw the Irish as subhuman, drunks and criminals. With the men having a difficult time finding employment, largely due to their lack of industrial skills and the prejudices they experienced, they were forced to turn to alternate and quite often unscrupulous means to feed their families, thus fostering their reputation. In a struggle to survive and maintain their culture while assimilating themselves into the American culture the Irish banded together in solidarity, which caused many to view them as gangs, thugs and street toughs as well.
However, with the onset of the Industrial Revolution in American and the growth of the Transportation Industry, America's Capitalists soon began to realize the Irish were a strong, hard working lot and began hiring them for work on the shipping docks, in machine shops and factories and in the burgeoning railroad business. The women too were able to find a place in the work force, taking in sewing and washing, working in factories and, if very fortunate, working as a domestic servant for a wealthy household. In many cases, the young Irish women were born into the large families mandated by the procreation edicts of their faith, and were, from childhood, trained in the care of children and infants. These skills proved quite useful in the increasingly industrial United States, where American women found themselves to have more and more leisure time as a result of technological advances. Although still distrusted of the Irish, the Industrial North, despite all her cries for emancipation, distrusted the African American more and would prefer to see the care of their households and children assigned to a person of their own race. Despite all this, however, the Irish were still largely discriminated against in the United States, especially in the early to mid 19th Century.
The 19th Century St. Patrick's Day Event at the Historic Village at Allaire examines the plight of the Irish Immigrant in the early 1800's. If you are expecting corned beef and cabbage, pipers playing Danny Boy and Irish Step Dancers performing, this event may shock you. It is the objective of Allaire Village, Inc. to present an historically accurate portrayal of the social climate of the period through this event. While we know that James P. Allaire was intolerant of social prejudices, most likely as a result of the discrimination and persecution suffered by his Huguenot ancestors at the hands of the French Crown, we do know such discrimination and prejudice did exist at the Howell Works Company with the classic case being that of John Roach.
Roach, who would go on to become a prosperous industrialist, and known as the Father of American Shipbuilding, first came to the United States from Ireland at the age of about 16 and entered into the employ of James Allaire at the Howell Works. Being hard working and temperate, Roach soon had saved a portion of the apprentice ship fees he would need to learn the trade of casting and molding and approached Allaire with the proposition of working off the remaining balance. Allaire, seeing great potential in the industrious young man, decided to wave the fees altogether and instructed the workers at the Casting Shed to take Roach on. This infuriated the workers, especially because of Roach's national origins, and, were it not for James Allaire's subsequent intervention into the matter, mankind may have lost one of the greatest ship builders and maritime engineers the world has ever known.