A Culture of Anti-Irishness

Abstract

Wherever in the world they settled, Irish migrants were often the victims of antipathy and violence. Big American cities, such as Philadelphia and New York, witnessed regular and often extreme outbursts of violence against such migrants, and the situation was little different in Liverpool and Glasgow, where sectarian riots remained a feature of communal life until World War II. Even smaller industrial towns in the Midwest of America or the north of England were prone to acute communal disorder, with savage fighting quite common and occasional fatalities. Even in the predominantly pastoral Canada, moreover, militant Orangeism was one of the defining features of national identity. While the social problems of industrialism partly help us to understand this culture of violence in Britain and the eastern United States, no amount of urban decay, workplace competition or poverty and hardship could explain the extraordinary passions that were inflamed by Irish migration. A more potent explanation is the fact that in both Britain and North America the dominant Protestant religion was vehemently anti-Catholic, and this acutely affected the reception that awaited the much-despised ‘Paddy’. This Victorian image of ‘Paddy’ was of deeply historical formulation, attributable to what M. A. G. Ó Tuathaigh neatly describes as ‘an odd compound of religious, social and political elements, of the rational and irrational’.¹ Whatever the admixture of factors, there can be little doubt that Irish migrants suffered considerable abuse at the hands of the native population.