11 things to knowabout why the Irish are in America

Before taking that first sip of noxious green beer on St. Patrick’s Day, take a minute to look at why the Irish ended up in North America in the first place.

1. Many Irish

Today, about 33 million Americans identify wholly or in part as Irish Americans. (The population of Ireland itself is 6.4 million.) By far the largest number of Irish cameto the U.S. between 1840 and 1860 as a consequence of a mass starvation — the worst in Europe in the whole 19th century.

2. The Lumper

By the 1840s, the population of Ireland — Catholic, poor and ruled by the British — worked on tiny tenant farms growing crops for export abroad. They subsisted on a diet almost entirely composed of potatoes, which were cheap and easy to grow. They largely grew only one variety, the Irish Lumper.

3. Blight

But in the early 1840s, algae called Phytophthora infestans, possibly brought over from North America, attacked the potato crop, destroying it.

4. Relief?

At first, the British government under Robert Peel made some efforts to get food to the Irish, largely North American corn and cornmeal. But two things went wrong: The corn did not provide enough nourishment, and the British government soon changed its tune.

5. Worsening

The potato crop failure worsened. Starvation and disease took hold. Absentee landlords threw starving farmers off their land. Some British politicians saw this as a good way to thin out the Irish population.

6. Dissenters

A few dissented. John Mitchel said “The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine.” Hewas exiled to Bermuda.

7. Exports

Throughout the decade of misery, Ireland continued to export money crops and livestock in huge quantities. Though there was in theory plenty of food being produced, the Irish themselves could not afford to buy their own crops.

8. Not a famine

As a result, the playwright George Bernard Shaw later said it was “not properly a famine, but a starvation.” The population of Ireland dropped from 8.4 million in 1844 to 6.6 million.

9. Charity

Charitable gifts did come from all over, including $170 from the Choctaw people, who had suffered their Trail of Tears just 16 years earlier.

10. Gone

Those who could go, left. Estimates are also difficult to make, but 2 million emigrants to North America is an accepted figure.

11. Rite of passage

Not families, but young men and women left in equal proportions. They settled in cities, where discrimination was rampant. Some found work building canals and railroads and others as servants.