The Luck (or not!) of the Irish

With St. Patricks day (March 17) practically upon us, I thought this would be a good excuse to have a look at some Historical Archaeology associated with Ireland and the Irish diaspora!

A diaspora is a specific type of mass relocation of people, defined by Brighton and Orser (2006: 64) as “the forced dispersal or scattering of people from a homeland as the result of famine, war, enslavement, ethnic cleansing, conquest, and political repression.” Such movements are permanent and multi-generational.

Briefly, the beginnings of an Irish diaspora can be traced back to the beginning of the seventeenth century AD. Following the establishment of British rule in Ireland, Irish Catholics considered rebels by the Protestant ruling minority were forcibly transported as indentured servants to the West Indies (Brighton & Orser 2006). However, the watershed period for Irish dispersal occurred in the nineteenth century following a series of failures of the potato crop in Ireland, and the widespread (and often violent!) eviction of tenant farmers from crown-owned land because they were unable to pay rent as a result (Orser 2005).

In the Anglo-centric countries to which they headed, the mainly unskilled, working class Irish Catholic immigrants were often ostracized.

For example, the United States of America was the most common destination and New York City was a common port of entry. For all its rebellion and conflict with England, however, the USA remained very much English in its institutions, tastes and prejudices and also its religion, with Protestantism the dominant denomination (Brighton 2008). The influx of Irish Catholics in the early nineteenth century were viewed as a threat to the established American social and class structure, that was based on Victorian English and Protestant values (Brighton 2006). This was largely because of Catholic loyalty to the pope – a foreign power. Religious paranoia fuelled rumours of the immigrant’s roles in a papal plot to overthrow the government (Brighton 2006).

In nineteenth century American society prosperity and success was considered a sign of one’s own hard work, virtue and intelligence (Brighton 2008). Poverty, on the other hand, was considered (by those in the upper and middle social classes) to be the fault of the individual, a result of poor moral fortitude, lack of hard work and low intelligence. The Irish Catholics entered America upon the lowest rungs of the social and economic ladder. Being largely unskilled, they were forced into low paying jobs and to work long hours in order to make a living (Brighton 2006). Households were typically dependent on women and children that were old enough to work (usually by the age of seven) finding employment in order to get by (Brighton 2006).

Areas such as the Five Points in New York City, where many of the newly arrived Irish Catholics ended up, offered crowded and unsanitary living conditions to the city’s poorest and predominately immigrant population (Brighton 2008). Numerous epidemics originating from such areas with large Irish populations reinforced negative views of the Irish within mainstream America. Although today the link between unsanitary environments and disease is understood, historically illness was thought to be related to character and lifestyle (Brighton 2008). In nineteenth century America, Irish-Catholics were often viewed as uncivilized, lazy drunks who lacked the moral fortitude to succeed.

This general attitude towards the Irish Catholic immigrants that arrived in nineteenth century America is reflected in a number of the documentary sources from the time. In one example, they are described as “a cultural tumour eating away at America’s heart and soul” (Brighton 2006: 197). In order to protect their own interests, white, Protestant American politicians used the Irish Catholic immigrant communities as scapegoats for an economic downturn that created job shortages and widespread unemployment (Brighton 2008). Irish Catholics were transformed into a racial stereotype in the media, where they were typically depicted as “inherently ape-like and brutish” (Brighton 2006: 198). Some explicit Irish caricatures from the time can be found here.

The caption of this cartoon has both the ape and the Irishman proclaiming (in the same accent), that they are glad for the bars between them. Image sourced here.

Similar images of the Irish that emigrated to Australia were painted by the largely Anglo-centric Australian historical sources from the time. Archaeological investigations at Baker's Flat, in South Australia, have helped to shine a fairer light on the thriving Irish community that lived there during the nineteenth century.

As noted in the linked article, the picture of the Irish that one will often get from the written sources is "one of vagrants and bandits, of drinkers and fighters with nothing more useful to offer than a bit of work for the police officers kept busy bundling them into 'Paddy Wagons' every weekend." Archaeological finds suggest that the Irish community indeed had a lot more to offer than that - and were largely law-abiding and contributing members of the local community.

Similarly, we are reliant on archaeology to understand how the Irish Catholics who faced social prejudices upon their arrival in America confronted and challenged them, as this group tended not to have a voice in the historical sources available to us today.

Newly arrived Irish Catholics were actively encouraged by the American Catholic Church and established Irish immigrants to assimilate and adhere to American Victorian middle-class behaviours and values in order to become more accepted (Brighton 2001). The archaeology suggests that there appears to have been a ready adoption of some of the values of American society, at the very least to give the outward appearance of conformity to the mainstream American ideology.

To give one example, Brighton and Orser (2006) looked at examples of English-made earthenware vessels depicting distinctly Irish imagery that were discovered during excavations at two tenements in the Five Points neighbourhood occupied by Irish immigrants in the 1800s. Excavations at the first tenement produced a blue and white transfer printed tea cup and saucer with the image of Lady Hibernia (Lady Ireland), a personification of the Irish homeland, seated in a white flowing tunic and surrounded by Irish imagery. Excavations at the second tenement produced a brown and white transfer printed teacup with the image of an Irish Catholic priest, Father Theobald Mathew, the founder of a temperance movement in Ireland (see image below). On the interior of the cup is an image of busy worker bees flying above a beehive. A shovel, hoe and rake (tools of hard manual labour) lie on the ground. The words “Temperance and Industry” appear above the image and the words “Industry Pays Debts” appear below it. Photos of a bowl decorated with a matching transfer printed design can be seen here. 

Brighton and Orser (2006) argued that the symbolism evident in the designs on these ceramic pieces was a response to the negative stereotypes of the Irish Catholic immigrants that were prevalent in America at the time. The Irish were portrayed as uncivilized, lazy drunks who lacked the moral fortitude to succeed. They were often depicted in the mainstream American media as ape-like, childish savages. In stark contrast the image of Lady Hibernia, reminiscent of a classical Greek goddess, reflects the utmost of beauty and civility. The imagery from the Father Mathew teacup espouses the highly regarded Victorian, and American, values of temperance, hard work and diligence.

Father Theobald Mathew, the founder of the temperance movement in Ireland, espousing the highly regarded American values of temperance, hard-work and diligence to his followers. Image sourced here.

The material evidence suggests that the advice of the American Catholic Church and established Irish immigrants to assimilate was heeded to some degree. There appears to have been a ready adoption of some of the values of American society, at the very least to give the outward appearance of conformity to the American ideology. On the other hand, Irish roots were not forgotten. This is especially true with regards to politics.

Reckner (2001) traced changes in the expression of Irish identity through time by looking at assemblages of clay tobacco pipes dating from different periods in time. Smoking was an ever present component of the social environment in nineteenth century America (Brighton 2006). Symbols or slogans were commonly moulded or stamped onto smoking pipes, and could be an avenue for expressing social and political positions in a public arena. A large cesspool behind an Irish tenement at Five Points yielded 276 pipes. This assemblage came from a context dating from the 1840s to about 1870. Only one pipe had a typical Irish motif, a harp and shamrock. Reckner (2001) suggests that a reason for this was that many of the tenants during this period had only resided in America for a short period and the political climate (anti-immigrant and, especially, anti-Irish Catholic sentiment) meant that the recently arrived immigrants were hesitant to cause further tensions with overt Irish nationalist symbolism.

In comparison, a later assemblage (late 1860s through 1870s) associated with another Irish tenement in the Five Points neighbourhood, contained a greater proportion of pipes with clearly Irish nationalist symbols and slogans. This is consistent with the suggestion in historical sources that the Irish nationalist Home Rule movement gained a large body of American-Irish support in the last decades of the nineteenth century (Reckner 2001). Around this time we also see a more aggressive approach from the Irish Catholics to their on-going empowerment struggle in their new homeland, with labour boycotts (strikes) calling for better wages and working conditions (Brighton 2004). This perhaps stems from a roughly contemporary change in the political environment that gave the Irish in America a greater political voice, giving them greater hope for change (Pitts 2001).

Image sourced here.

Here, the insights provided by the archaeology are crucial to understanding the emergence of a distinctive social identity in the nineteenth century - American, but with very much an Irish flavour!

A Happy (and safe!) Saint Patrick's Day to you all!

Thanks for reading,

Nick

References

Brighton, S. A. 2001. Prices That Suit the Times: Shopping for Ceramics at the Five Points. Historical Archaeology 35(3): 16-30.

Brighton, S. A. 2004. Symbols, Myth-Making, and Identity: The Red Hand of Ulster in Late Nineteenth-Century Paterson, New Jersey. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 8(2): 149-164.

Brighton, S. A. 2006. To begin again elsewhere: archaeology and the Irish diaspora. In C. E. Orser Jr (ed.), Unearthing Hidden Ireland, pp. 193-216. Bray, Co. Wicklow: Wordwell.

Brighton, S. A. 2008. Degrees of Alienation: The Material Evidence of the Irish and Irish American Experience, 1850-1910. Historical Archaeology 42(4): 132-153.

Brighton, S. A., & Orser, Jr, C. E. 2006. Irish Images on English Goods in the American Market: The Materialization of a Modern Irish Heritage. In I. Russell (ed.), Images, Representations and Heritage: Moving Beyond Modern Approaches to Archaeology, pp. 61-88. New York: Springer.

Orser, Jr, C. E. 2005. An Archaeology of a Famine-Era Eviction. New Hibernia Review 9(1): 45-58.

Pitts, R. H. 2001. “Suckers, Soap-Locks, Irishmen and Pug-Uglies”: Block 160, Municipal Politics and Local Control. Historical Archaeology 35(3): 89-102.

Reckner, P. E. 2001. Negotiating Patriotism at the Five Points: Clay Tobacco Pipes and Patriotic Imagery among Trade Unionists and Nativists in a Nineteenth-Century New York Neighbourhood. Historical Archaeology 35(3): 103-114.