>> westfield state university history professor emerita catherine shannon discusses large-scale irish immigration to america in the 19th century and the relations immigrants maintained with their home country. the nantucket historical association hosted this program and provided the vehicle. catherine: it is great to be back in nantucket. i first came here when i was five with my mother and my aunt. they decided i should learn to ride a bike. and we crossed the street to young's bike shop and they rented a bike for me. and i was happy. and i learned how to ride the bike. and i was happy to see that young's bike shop is still in operation. i am not sure i will take a spin on this visit. but it really is great to be back into -- back and to see the

extent to which nantucket and its people are prospering. in my talk tonight, irish immigration and the creation of a greater ireland, i'm going to focus on two interrelated themes. first, i will consider the patterns of irish immigration to the united states, the push and pull factors that impelled it and the major focus of that influx that began as a result of the great irish famine and continued steadily until the early 20th century. there will be a boston, massachusetts slant to all aspects of my commentary tonight. secondly, i will describe the reception that irish immigrants received upon their arrival on these shores and how their experiences of immigration and much nativist hostility helped to shape strong bonds and communal solidarity, creating an irish-american identity.

this was a consciousness that professed loyalty to the united states as well as a continuing devotion to the motherland. and this was succintly expressed by boston's second irish-born mayor, patrick collins, when he said "to the irishman, american citizenship is a political marriage. he clings to, cleaves to and loves the land of his adoption with the honor of his race. but he also loves the tender parent upon whose bosom he first nestled and at whose feet he learned to pray and who guided his uncertain feet when first his life began. we are irish-americans, true to the old and true to the new." now, the third thing i will address this evening is on the

way these sentiments of irish-americans involved many of them in search for economic justice and political independence from the 19th century to very recent decades, right up to the recent belfast good friday agreement of 1998. now, it is important to recognize that the first significant influx of irish immigrants to north america consisted primarily of 200,000 ulster presbyterians. and that began in the early 18th century. about 10%, or 20,000, arrived in boston between 1750 and 1850. internal factors as well as external factors explain this ulster migration.

many were escaping the discrimination that the penal laws had imposed on protestant dissenters as well as roman catholics. protestant dissenters were people who were not subscribers to the anglican church, the state church. they would have been mostly people with scotch background who had emigrated to northern ireland. they had kind of a two-stage immigration, scotland and northern ireland, and eventually to america. these presbyterians were fleeing the effects of poor harvests, droughts, and escalating rents in the second decade of the 18th century. presbyterian clergymen were prominent in leading immigrant groups owing to their own poor economic situation as well as their lack of legal standing to officiate at weddings, funerals, or to hold any civil office as a consequence of the test acts of

1704. external forces, or pull factors, kicked in around 1750, when -- around 1715, when ulster sea captains in the new england area, traveled to the new england area, reported that massachusetts officials were willing to provide free land grants to settlers near their borders in hopes of strengthening the defenses against attacks by native americans. by 1720, approximately 2000 ulster immigrants arrived in boston and hundreds more would come over the next two and a half decades. yet they did not receive a very cordial welcome. as the local puritan populace believed all irish were "unclean, unwholesome, and disgusting papists." thus most of these ulster arrivals left boston to settle

and northern, -- settle in northern, central and western new england, where place names such as bangor, belfast, and limerick, maine and dublin and londonderry, new hampshire reflect the ulster origins of their founders. one who remained with his congregants in boston was the reverend john moorehead, who built a church on long lane , which later was the site where the massachusetts constitutional convention was debated in 1788 , which explains that street name change to federal street. i am sure many of you know where federal street is in boston. now, another development that came at this time, in 1737, was the foundation of the charitable

irish society of boston by a group of 26 of these ulster immigrants who wanted to make sure that there -- their friends and family who were arriving would be taken care of when they got to boston. they engaged in philanthropic work to help them get settled if -- settled and, if they fell on hard times, to help them out. that society is still in existence and continues to do work to help arriving immigrants right down to this very day. and here we have an artistic representation of the front piece of the constitution when the society was incorporated in the early part of the 19th century. now, in the 1730's, small but regulation from leicester and

munster, eastern and southern prom -- provinces, violent began. this included middle rank individuals rather than the family oriented exodus from ulster. one of the notable immigrants from this time and this area was patrick tracy, who became a famous sea captain and a very successful privateer captain in the course of his maritime life. he fathered nine children who had the wisdom to marry into wealthy families, the lowells, the lodges, the cabots, and the lees, creating thereby a yankee-irish hybrid clan in essex county in boston. it picked up again in 1873 with most going further south to philadelphia and the carolinas.

the napoleonic wars from 1800 to 1815 reduced the incentive for immigration among the agricultural classes of those provinces. even though the demand for irish -grown grain dropped with the end of the war in 1815 and agricultural wages steadily declined, the spreading cultivation of the potato as the principal food source for the irish country laborer postponed massive outflows of immigrants until the 1840's. the potato was the principal food source for one third of the irish population, about 3 million people. 10 to 14 pounds of potato per day plus a cup or two of buttermilk supplied all of the nutritional needs for an average laborer.

it was noted by many europeans that irish laboring men were the tallest and the most fit of any of their brothers in europe. however, the precarious nature of the potato monoculture in ireland became apparent when a blight fungus, for which there was no known antidote, struck ireland in september of 1845 and returned again with varying degrees of severity right on to 1851. these successive failures produced a demographic calamity of immense scale, reducing the population from 8.5 million to 6.5 million in just one decade. by february of 1847, a

panic-driven exodus began to the united states and canada. and it consisted mostly of small tenant farmers who had lost everything as a result of these successive crop failures. at least a million and a quarter of this to send il -- of this decennial population loss came from immigration. the remainder was a result of starvation and diseases like cholera and dysentery, which spread throughout the country because of malnutrition and the crowding of people into the work, soup kitchen distribution centers, as well as some of the sites where public works programs were taking place. in this slide, you can see the huge increase in the numbers of immigrants coming to the united states there in the middle of

the 1840's and lasting down through the first part of the 1850's. and then, of course, later, spiking, going up again, but never to the extent of the late 1840's and 1850's. there had been a gradual rise of immigration to america from about 2000 a year in 1800 to about 50,000 in 1844. on the eve of the famine, boston was receiving about 2000 to 4000 annually. and there were about 8000 irish-born residents in the city by 1845. this was a male-dominated group. and many of them were semi-skilled or lower-middle-class tradespeople,

rather than simple laborers. among those who came in this pre-famine period of the 1820's and 1830's and became successful were andrew carney, later the founder of carney hospital, one of the first hospitals set up in boston, and the founding factor of boston college high school, and later, boston college, now, boston college university. also in this group was bernard fitzpatrick, who was the father of the future for bishop john fitzpatrick, who became an important person in raising leaf -- raising relief funds for ireland in 1847. and in this group of pre-famine immigrants was patrick donahue, the editor of the boston pilot and a very successful banker in boston. it is noteworthy that these early immigrants responded rapidly and generously by

organizing fundraising campaigns to help feed the starving irish in their homeland. when news of the severity of the second failure of the potato crop in late 1846 arrived in boston. here we have a slide that shows you the degrees of poverty in ireland, with the most severe cases in the western and southern sections of the country. these would be the areas that would be very, very vulnerable to the loss of the potato since this is where the people were most dependent upon it for their food. bishop fitzpatrick -- here you see a graph indicating the scale of the loss of the potato crop

in the 1845-46, 1847, and you see it never went back to the levels of the pre-famine period. and the dietary practices of the irish had to change a little bit after this, although potatoes, as any of you have visited ireland, are still very popular. now, bishop fitzpatrick, andrew carney, and patrick donahue were prominent in these boston efforts, while in new york, bishop john "dagger" ewes, nicknamed dagger, spearheaded fundraising to help send relief to ireland. american quakers were very prominent in these relief efforts and citizens of

nantucket contributed $2000 to the new england relief committee in early 1847 despite the fact that nantucket had suffered a horrendous loss in a fire six months previously. but they still had enough empathy and sympathy to raise that money and send it to ireland. over the course of 1847, between the two major fundraising campaigns that went on, one by bishop fitzpatrick and the other lead by a group of yankee businessmen, they coordinated the shipment -- businessmen, thick shipment -- the shipment of supplies coordinated by captain forbes, the total amount of their food resources was somewhere in the neighborhood of $181,000. you have to multiply that by about eight to get what the

equivalent would be today, so a substantial amount of money for people to give at that time. and this slide shows you, again, how important the food crisis was in ireland because the exports of grain from ireland kind of come into balance with the imports, with the imports rising so much in 1846, 1847, 1848, and much of this would have been relief food that was sent not just from the united states but actually throughout the world. this is another thing that was important. the sending of news about what was happening in ireland. this was one of the british

royal mail ships that would bring the newspapers from england and from ireland over to boston, and it was a result of the britannia -- or the hibernia arriving in boston that people began to appreciate the severity in early january of 1847 of what was happening in that iron -- happening in ireland. also in that year, the illustrated london news took on the role that 60 minutes and frontline reporters do today, and they sent journalists and graphic artists to ireland to investigate the veracity of reports of massive, massive loss of life in county cork in the southern part of the country from starvation and diseases. the reporters found the

conditions there were worse than anticipated. james manny, who was the lead graphic artist of the iln, and also a reporter, over the course of 1847 and the next few years, published in that magazine a number of illustrations that give us a partial insight into the horror that engulfed ireland during these years and fueled the massive immigration from 1846 to 1852. and i will show you some of those images. these images were going to be extremely important in terms of creating the worldwide efforts to send relief to ireland that involved people in india, involved the sultan of turkey, involved the choctaw indians in

oklahoma, who heard about the starving as a matter of fact, christine who appears in weeks wrote a very fine book where she traces the worldwide campaign to send relief to ireland in 1847, which was the very first of the many global relief and philanthropic campaigns that have happened in the last couple of centuries. and you see here two children scratching in a field, looking for perhaps a few potatoes that weren't diseased, or the stubbed heads of cabbage is to try to -- cabbages to try to get something to eat. here is a mother in january of 1847, she is not begging for

money to feed her child, she is begging for money to give her child a proper burial. this, of course, is a very powerful, and emotive image. here we have a picture of scampering -- here we have a picture where there is the beginning of a funeral procession and it is sparsely attended, which is very different from the usual irish rituals of a funeral. they are very important in their life. many of you might have an appreciation of that. you have to have a grand funeral when you are going out and if you don't have it, it is a real disappointment. and this says something about the terrible devastation to the spirit and the morale of the irish people that so few people would go to these funerals, partly because they didn't have the strength to go. by this time, many would have pawned their clothing so they would not have felt respectably

attired to go to a funeral. and here is another illustration of dead people being carted off to a common grave. and you can see that the three men on the left don't look particularly concerned about the death that surrounds them. and you see that the horse is even emaciated because with the loss of the potato and the fact that people had to use whatever grain that they had to feed themselves as opposed to the horses, the animals suffered greatly during famine, as well. this particular image was published in a new york newspaper in later in february of 1847 and was very important

in stimulating a good deal of interest in the new york community to get involved in relief for ireland. and since the illustrated news went globally, it also helped to recruit sympathy and active support from other places, london, as well. the british set up a relief organization and sent a good deal of money to ireland with queen victoria contributing i think about $2000 -- or 2000 pounds to that. it wasn't very much, in consideration of her great wealth, and that is why in irish folk history, she is known as "the famine queen." some of you may have seen the episode in the life of her on television recently where it looks like she is very upset, but that is a bit of an exaggeration.

another thing that happened in these years, of course, was widespread eviction of the poorest of the tenants, the laborers and partiers. -- the laborers. the landlords wanted to evict them because they were responsible for paying the poor law rates that would provide space in the workhouses and some food for those who had no other resources. and also the landlords wanted to rationalize the agricultural organization of their estates and make them more profitable. so they engaged in wholesale eviction of the most vulnerable tenants, those who have fallen behind in rent. this was a sketch that was done by james mahoney when he returned to ireland to county

clare in 1849, where the entire village of moline was cleared. in the process of clearing them, they would de-roof the houses so that people could not go back to them and in some cases would fold them down altogether. -- pool -- pull them down entirely. these evictions were important in terms of keeping that flow of people going to the united states. the actual police records at the time indicate that 250,000 people were permanently evicted from their dwellings between 1849 and 1854, owing to land -- land consolidation schemes. there isn't time for me to comment extensively -- one more of these illustrations.

again, this was 1849 in county clare, the widow o'donnell -- she was really the first person sketched about whom the news published biographical information. she had had a husband and three other children. her three older children died. she lost her baby just after birth. her husband died, and she was still evicted by the landlord. and when she was interviewed, she was living on the side of the road with her surviving children. so, this is the kind of scale of human misery and devastation that was taking place in ireland during these times. as i mentioned, there is no time for me to comment extensively on the role and culpability of the british government for the massive famine mortality.

now, i don't agree with the genocide interpretations that people like tim pat coogan have put out there. but it is indisputable that anti-irish, anti-catholic bias and prejudice among the british political elite, as well as their commitment to laissez-faire economic and -- economic theory and demographic theory, certainly exacerbated the mortality that took place in ireland during these decades. and again, when christine comes, she will give you the full view, i am sure, of the british government's responsibility and culpability. it was inadequate, and it was heartless. little wonder that immigration surged in these years with 1851 being the highest exodus when 200,000 irish entered the

american ports. well, all those who arrived in boston did not remain. those who remained profoundly altered the ethnic demography of the city and the region, so that by 1855, irish-born people comprised 27% of the population and 85% of the foreign-born. with the arrival of 37,000 to boston in the summer of 1847, the sympathy extended early in the year with campaigns to raise money for food were soon transformed into overt hostility, because thousands of impoverished, malnourished, and often elderly immigrants crammed into the tenements and the

cellars adjacent to the city wharfs in the north end and the hill area. i have to catch up with the slides here. this fellow up here who was basically the intellectual architect of the laissez-faire policy of the british government and didn't want any english taxpayer's money spent to relieve the irish, who they thought were lazy and needed to learn a lesson. the next tier, we -- the next tier, -- the next here, we see a map that shows the areas of the worst population loss during the years of heaviest mortality. -- the darkest colors being the areas of heaviest mortality.

and here, i think this is important to see. you see the changes in the irish population over the decades to to the censuses and the precipitous decline between 1841 and 1851. it kept continuing to decline right down until 1951. being an outlier in relation to european countries that all experienced increases in population over that time. and even when it began to increase again and go up to almost 6.5 million in 2012, that was still less than the population in 1845 and 1951. and that shows you the continuing impact of the famine as we move on in irish history.

the boston daily transcript warned on the 26th of june of 1847 what all of this meant for the city of boston and i quote, "the tide of immigration which is increasing daily to a most alarming extent, bringing with it poverty, sickness, and crime, has excited the attention of the whole community and people in all parts of the country at last have become aroused and are turning about to devise a check to an evil that has reached a height that the very vitality of our country has been endangered by it." and here we see ads in the irish newspapers of the time advertising a passage to america. you see a typical immigrant in

his patched and ragged clothing checking those out as he considers going to america. and here, the scene at the docks in cork where immigrants were leaving from. and i think you can make out from the slide there that one of the destinations is boston and the other is quebec. if you can see that from the distance. now, the anxieties about the influx of these huge numbers of immigrants led to stricter entrance requirements and even deportation of some sick and poor famine refugees who were sent back to irish ports and often to liverpool from whence they had come. these fears were also a factor -- a major factor in the political triumph of the

anti-catholic, anti-irish, know-nothing party in massachusetts and throughout the country, particularly in massachusetts, the state elections in 1853. i think they captured all but six seats in the massachusetts legislature at that time. despite such hostility, the tide of irish immigration could not be reversed. as the famine had turned immigration into a national phenomenon which affected every class and region in ireland, so that virtually every family there, as the saying went, one "leg across the atlantic." the famine exodus created a patent of chain migration that lasted into the early 20th century, never as high as in the late 1840's and early 1850's,

but spiking when serious conditions happened in ireland again, in 1860's and at the end of the 1870's. and even government officials realized that chain migration was something that was started as a result of the famine. as early as 1849, the immigration commissioner in ireland made the following observations. he observed, "immigration begets immigration, almost the whole of irish immigration last year, certainly more than three quarters of it, was paid for by the money sent home from america." in 1850, remittances from america to fund passes for relatives or to help sustain those who remain back at home amounted to one million pounds annually. and again, multiply that by about eight to get the contemporary value. for the rest of the century, the

american letter became an integral part of household budgeting for families throughout ireland. in the latter half of the century, as the graph shows, the numbers of irish immigrants in the united states fluctuated in relation to prevailing economic conditions in ireland's and prospects for employment in the rapidly industrializing united states. decisions to immigrate were increasingly based on very careful calculation of the economic benefits rather than the panic-driven exodus of the late 1840's. irish immigrant numbers fell to about 50,000 per year in the early 1860's, but then rose again to almost 100,000 in the middle of the last couple of years of the 1860's when there was another minor potato crop failure and a recession. the return of near famine

conditions in the west of ireland in 1879 through 1881 sparked another rise, and that is the other big hump there in the graph that you see on the screen. in 1880, approximately 75,000 crossed the atlantic, with 9000 arriving in the port of boston. also by the 1880's, the chain migration factor, coupled with cheaper and faster passages and steam powered ships made the journey more palatable to prospective immigrants. instead of the month-long journey that was the usual in the famine era. additionally, the reconfiguration of irish landholding patents after the famine limited land inheritance to one son, so that america provided the best option for non-inheriting young irish men and women with ambitions for steady employment and suitable marriage prospects. economic considerations also

meant that now only one daughter would be given a dowry and her sisters would have to leave and fend for themselves. one significant development at this time in the last quarter of the century was that single women now represented over half of the irish immigrants arriving in the country. the educational curriculum of domestic skills that were taught to these young girls in the national schools prepared them to enter domestic service directly upon their arrival in american cities. in 1850, the boston pilot reported that 2277 irish girls were working as domestics in boston. by 1880, that had grown to 7172. although these positions

required long hours and very, very hard work, it gave the young women the basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter. in many instances, these women were the primary funders of chain migration in the american letters sent back to families in ireland. and they were also very important supporters of the various political campaigns that i will talk about in a few minutes. meanwhile, irish male immigrants who managed to obtain employment in boston and the nearby industrial cities were relegated to low wage, dangerous, unskilled jobs of cleaning stables, hauling cargo, digging ditches for canals and draining marshes that eventually created the back bay of boston. as a result, the average irish male immigrant lived only 14 years after arrival in boston, causing one whig to observe that he never saw a gray-haired irishman.

professor joe lee from nyu university has calculated that between 1847 and 1853, 200,000 immigrants had died within three years of their arrival. that is a very, very high mortality rate. after 1852, here is bishop fitzpatrick. i have this a little bit out of sequence, who helped to raise so much money and that is the cathedral of the holy cross, the first one in boston built in the early 19th century. fitzpatrick was very important in helping famine relief. here you see the areas of boston where the irish settled, down in the wharf areas, here down in the south end.

up here along what would be atlantic avenue. and over here. and they lived in cellars, sometimes very crowded, sometimes 20 people in one room. as a consequence of this, disease spread very quickly. and a massive outbreak of cholera happened after this huge influx. this isn't terribly clear, but -- wait a minute, let me go back. if you see these kind of little black marks along here, these all represent the areas where the public health authorities had determined that cholera outbreaks had happened. and it corresponds pretty much with that previous map, as you can see.

after 1882, the number of irish immigrants was generally well below about 50,000 per year, owing to improved economic conditions in ireland brought by british land reforms that enabled irish tenants to buy their holdings, coupled with the fact that most who wanted to go had already left. moreover, irish nationalist politicians and clergy leaders were ambivalent about encouraging further immigration, because they believed it was robbing the country of their best and brightest, and they wanted those people to be staying in ireland to forward the church's mission but also the political mission of ireland's struggle to obtain self-government. and even in boston, some of the leaders of the irish-american community became very, very vocal in their opposition to government-sponsored immigration

and cut down on some government-assisted plans, british government-assisted plans, to help some of the poorest of the tenants in the west of ireland. but that's another story. we don't have time to go into that. let's get to the political aspects of this. how did all of this express itself politically and lead to the creation of a greater island? the continual arrival of irish immigrants to the country helped to create living links to the homeland and the fact that most settled in these closely knit neighborhoods meant that communal solidarity was very quick to develop. the roman catholic church with its rituals and support programs for the immigrants added further to a sense of cohesion and group identity. technological developments, a faster transatlantic travel, instant telegraph connections and the rise of irish ethnic newspapers like "the pilot" or

"the irish world," which published the latest news from ireland, one day, maybe two days after it happened, were very important factors in creating links and identity across the atlantic. most importantly, for at least three decades after 1850, memories of the famine, disease, and evictions and forced exile were memories of those who survived, their parents, grandchildren, and there was support for the irish national movements in the late 1860's and early 1870's to the land war of 1879 and 1881. in the 1880's, the home rule campaigns, which went down to 1914 and eventually to the irish war of independence 1920 to 1921. and their leaders were conscious

of what it would do to the irish politics. in 1880, patrick, the radical editor of "the irish world" taunted the british prime minister, william gladstone, with this observation, "you are now unlike the past, dealing with two irelands, the greater ireland is on the side of the -- this side of the atlantic. this is the base of operations. we in america furnish the sinews of war. we in america render moral aid." meanwhile, prime minister gladstone's colleague proved prophetic when he observed, "in former rebellions, the irish were in ireland. we could reach their forces, cut off their reserves and men and money and then to subjugate was comparatively easy. now, there is an irish nation in the united states, equally hostile with plenty of money and

absolutely beyond our reach, yet within 10 days of our shores." and here is an illustration from harper's magazine, which shows people in ireland being desperate again in 1879, and this is an american ship coming to render aid at that time. the american invasions conducted by irish veterans of the civil war in 1867 and 1871 were premature and certainly badly organized. the republican ideology in the belief that military force was essential to drive britain from ireland persisted for many decades among a small number of the irish-american population. for instance, jeremiah o'donovan whose father died of exposure, on public works, and who saw his

mother and siblings forced into exile in america, was determined to exact revenge on the british and was involved in bombing plots in london in the 1880's. it is significant that at his burial in dublin, this is where patrick pierce made his famous oration in which he said that ireland would not be free until the memory of the dead was respected and honored. and this was a kickoff really for what would happen a year later in the easter rising of 1916. john was another person who ended up in the united states doing fundraising for the physical force tradition and was very instrumental in getting

the guns and ammunition to the easter rebels in 1916. yet, there was another political tradition among irish americans that ultimately proved more lasting, more constructive and effective than the force tradition, and that was the tradition of constitutional nationalism as espoused by daniel o'connell in the 1820's through the 1840's in the pre-famine era. it was revived in the 1870's and then in the 1880's. this tradition found irish-american supporters in the late 1870's, partly as a result of the fiascoes in canada and because michael and parnell were using politics effectively in the british parliament to extract concessions. and they were people whose work

and activity was totally at odds with what the american conception of irish were. here, we have another contemporary cartoon that kind of suggests that all these immigrants are poor and again are going to threaten the stability of our workforce and country here in the united states. this was a sketch that came from the late 1870's and was published in a new york newspaper, basically saying that ireland was sending all of its poor from the poorhouses over to the united states. so, the hostility against the immigrants lasted a long time. here is another famous one room -- famous one from that time. irish immigrants would bring rum, romanism, and rebellion. and notice the facial features

of this immigrant here. that was very common at the time, apelike features, which is very common in the anti-irish representations. now, the constitutional methods espoused by the leaders in ireland soon began to eclipse support in the united states and basically remained consistent down to the eve of the first world war. among the boston people, who were -- here we have michael davitt, first leader of the land war. parnell, both of whom who came

to boston and received great help in their fundraising and campaign to get people behind a constitutional approach to changes in their capacity with meetings at faneuil hall in boston. parnell spoke there in january of 1880. and of course, donna who over here -- donahue over here was the editor of the boston pilot and his successor, john boiler riley who organized the rescue -- he is an incredible man. o'reilly. whose memory should be resurrected and spread. other bostonians who help to raise relief money for the land war were hugh o'brien, first

irish born mayor of boston and a very successful one. he was the person who had the idea of building a public library in boston. it has its origins in his campaign and policy. and also patrick collins who became o'reilly's best friend. collins was active in raising money for tenant relief between 1879 and 1880. and he later was very important in raising money for the irish parliamentary party in the 18 months he served as president of the american branch of the irish national league. he became the second born irish american in office and died in office in 1906 which opened up

the door, i think, for james michael curley to enter city hall. but again, this rise of irish politicians was not very popular. and here's another cartoon from 1894 that indicated a lot of , i suppose, local yankee concern about the irish coming into politics and you have the standard stereotypes, of somebody with the irish flag, the bishop up here was a policeman here somewhere. and here of course, the state house. top in the background. collins and o'reilly started their political activities as fenians but they decided to

give that up and as i said, were very important in sponsoring the constitutional approach. i know time is leading on here. i will skip a little bit of this. everybody is probably getting hungry and were talking about famine tonight. i don't want to cause another one. [laughter] for parnell's campaign, o'reilly devised a good tactic in which they asked for only $5 for people to join the irish national league. they got a tremendous amount of money as a result of that. it was like bernie sanders's idea. get everybody involved and feeling part of the process by taking very, very small prescriptions. the importance of this financial

-- subscriptions. the importance of this financial aid was really something that people in irish america became aware of and new they could have -- knew they could have an impact on helping ireland gain its self-government and force the british government to do something. johnny fitzgerald of the boston fire commissioner and irish activist said the following during the home rule campaign. "the ireland in america is the treasury of the entire movement. as of every movement in the direction of national independence, ireland is independent and prosperous. and while mr. parnell and his followers while they need assistance, it would be forthcoming in the irish parliamentary party will never be empty while there are 10,000 irishmen here to send aid over the water." that was december 14, 1885.

now, as many of you probably know, home rule never did materialize, even though the third bill passed the house of commons. it was suspended because of the outbreak of ulcer and the start of the first world war. it was a major disappointment for those in the constitutional tradition. it created an opening in the force tradition to reassert themselves. it is the result of that that the physical force tradition was able to pull off the 1916 easter rising, which in the end was not very successful. the summary executions of 1916 shocked americans and brought them back to supporting revolution and violent methods. british attempts to apply conscription to ireland also

tended to alienate irish americans. and there were a number of protest rallies in boston where some of the most important political leaders attended. james curley, the governor, o'connell, held these in the boston common. many irish americans also financially supported the revolutionary government by buying bonds for the doyle government which supported colden -- collins's efforts. he visited boston on a couple of occasions and actually held a rally at fenway park in which something like 22,000 people showed up to indicate their support for the irish republican

approach and some of you may know that fenway park was built by an irishman. if you didn't know, you know now. [laughter] most irish americans were relieved to see the end of this -- violence in july of 1921 when they accepted the treaty of this year despite the continuing partition which kept them within the u.k. irish american involvement in irish politics diminished just -- diminished considerably in the 1920's owing to disappointment discussed over the outbreak of civil war. petitioner was a secondary -- petition was a secondary issue at that time. it was only in the 1960's that the petition became a crucial issue for most irish americans.

and that was because of the birth of the northern irish civil rights campaign. it was able to disclose the gross discrimination in housing and public unemployment and in politics that the norse catholic minority had faced. and this led to a kind of temporary resurgence of the -- this was expressed in america with support from a group called the northern ireland aid group or nor aid. some of you may have heard of that group. eventually, what happened in about 1971-19 72, a lot of irish americans who were concerned about the grievances of the catholic community were not ready to support ira violence because of the loss-of-life and

the economic devastation that had brought to northern ireland in these years. and they began to rethink their views about what the nature and the cause of that conflict was. and that it was more complex. one person who helped them, particularly in making that reassessment and showing them that the constitutional tactics should be used was the dairy politician and member of the social democratic party. -- democratic and labour party, john hume who provided the intellectual analysis and framework that enabled negotiations to take place in northern ireland from 1996-1998 that produced the good friday agreement. and of course, he received the nobel prize for his efforts,

along with the unionist leader. david. george mitchell of course was very important in the success of those negotiations. now, american involvement in these years in relation to northern ireland really can be attributed at the political level to the efforts of this -- of john hume who as early as 1970's, he came to america as often as he could to lobby ted kennedy and o'neill to get them to use their influence so that irish americans would not give money to power military groups and would back up the use of dialogue and negotiations as a way forward. and as i have indicated, it was this approach that finally brought an end to the devastation in northern ireland

that had taken the lives of 3000 people and created severe injuries for about 36,000 others. thomas o'neill got his other colleagues to help them. senator kennedy, senator moynahan, and the governor of new york. they were known as the four horsemen. they put a lot of pressure on the white house over the years, particularly on ronald reagan, to have them pressure margaret thatcher to give up her very hostile approach to northern ireland. it was one that just said they are all rebels and troublemakers. let the police and army deal with it. eventually, she had to change that. and they were also successful in getting president carter to promise significant american aid to northern ireland if peace

could be developed. and eventually, after the irish anglo-irish agreement, the national fund was established which was crucially important in providing economic development in northern ireland. it still is part of the federal budget today. and what was also important is that it led to other countries contributing to an international fund. canada, australia, new zealand. there are many resources that have helped with economic development and helping deprived areas of northern ireland. bill clinton's involvement was very important in the 1990's. he began it as a kind of election tactic and strategy. smart one.

he got emotionally invested in it within a year or so, and it was eventually his government that allowed gerry adams to come to the united states with a visa. adams was told that they have got to come through a constitutional process because they won't have anything to do with you otherwise. that was an important visit. they were able to bring them to the idea that a cease-fire was necessary. and very important. so, i think that the involvement of the american political establishment in bringing negotiations to northern ireland, eventually leading to the agreement of 1998 is one aspect of foreign policy can be -- that we can be proud of.

in addition to that, in conclusion, it is important to recognize other people who contributed to the peace process in northern ireland. many, many individuals who took their effort and time and resources and did what they could to support people like hume, discussions with people in the ira way -- prr -- the ira wing to tell them hey, you are damaging the country. this is the wrong tactic and got them to think about negotiations. he was very important and some -- in some of these efforts. also, you had universities taking important roles in educating their students about the nature and causes. also being engaged in training irish politicians north and south as to how they should take up negotiations. and boston college was a very important leader in that.

and then you have groups, groups like the ireland fund, those of you in nantucket know about the ireland fund, you thought they just had a big fundraiser this week, they have been very important in underpinning peace and development with their work as well. irish american partnership does similar work but on a smaller scale. at present, the peace process is in kind of a frozen state because the administration is in suspension. but irish america still has a role to play. american investors can still contribute very, very positively by continuing investment and encouraging the development of negotiations to get the government in the north back up and running. and it is especially important

in the shadow of brexit looming overhead because that turns out to be a hard brexit, that will be very bad for the peace process in northern ireland and destabilize a lot of the progress that has been made. i think i have gone on too long. if cooperation continues, i think the time will come that hume's of a green ireland with catholics and protestants and they can all live in common and engage in mutual respect. i think that will be realized. thank you very much. [applause] ♪

>> american history tv on c-span3 exploring the people and events that tell the american story. every weekend, today at 5:00 p.m. eastern, a at controversies over his free-speech through political cartoons with authors jonathan zimmerman and cindy ash and -- signe. a discussion with chris, the author of "grant's last battle." tonight at 8:00 eastern on lectures in history, john hopkins university professor nathan connolly on the promise

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