Irish

…was colonized in 1632 by Irish Catholics from nearby Saint Kitts (Saint Christopher), who were sent there by Sir Thomas Warner, the first British governor of Saint Kitts. More Irish immigrants subsequently arrived from Virginia. Plantations were set up to grow tobacco and indigo, followed eventually by cotton and sugar.…

…beef is strongly associated with Irish cuisine and is widely eaten on St. Patrick’s Day, served alongside cabbage and potatoes or the mixed cabbage-potato dish called colcannon. However, the history is somewhat circuitous, for although corned beef was well known in Ireland and the rest of the British Isles in…

…Jamaica, the numbers of enslaved Irish and Indigenous laborers had also declined, and planters turned increasingly to Africans. Southern planters, who were in regular communication with these island communities, brought in large numbers of Africans during the 18th century and systematically developed their slave practices and laws. Christianity provided an…

…Scots, there are no corresponding ethnic distinctions. Ireland has always been known as a welcoming place, and diversity is not a phenomenon new to the country.

…by waves of Roman Catholic Irish escaping the ravages of the Irish Potato Famine. Similarly, in the 1860s agricultural poverty in Canada sent French Canadians in large numbers to Massachusetts as workers in the new factory system pioneered by Yankee entrepreneurs. While severe conflict and hostility arose between Yankee and…

Irish formed the second largest group beginning in the mid-19th century. Large influxes of Poles and Italians occurred toward the end of the century. In 1910 immigrants or their children constituted some three-fourths of the city’s population. Although Europeans continued to arrive after 1900, the…

…the rising prominence of the Irish. By 1844, 15 parishes served more than 80,000 Irish Roman Catholics, and it was clear even before the Great Famine immigration of 1845–49 that New York was becoming predominantly Irish. More than 24,000 Germans also lived in Manhattan, a number that vastly increased following…

Irish Roman Catholics began to come in large numbers in the 1820s, and their numbers swelled even more after the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s. By the time of the state census in 1865, the foreign-born Irish constituted approximately one-tenth of the state’s population.…

…revelry and celebration of things Irish. Cities with large numbers of Irish immigrants, who often wielded political power, staged the most extensive celebrations, which included elaborate parades. Boston held its first St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1737, followed by New York City in 1762. Since 1962 Chicago has colored its…