The Coming of The Irish

By James P. Walsh

In its early history Connecticut received very few immigrants. There were small numbers of blacks, Germans, French Canadians, Irish and others in the state, but Connecticut's lack of a direct trade with Europe and its limited economic opportunities combined to make Connecticut one of the most homogeneous states in the nation until about 1850.

In the mid-nineteenth century, Connecticut's trickle of immigrants became a rivulet when thousands of the Irish began to arrive. It seemed for a time that Germans would also enter the state in large numbers. In 1850, for example, about 27,000 of the state's population had been born in Ireland, and nearly 12,000 in Germany. The Germans, however, soon found greener pastures elsewhere. In 1860, more than 55,000 of the state's population were Irish-born and only about 8,000 had been born in Germany. There were, of course, other immigrant groups, but the Irish made up the vast majority.

The Irish came, for the most part, in search of jobs. They dug canals, laid railroad tracks, filled factory benches, or tended machines. By the 1870's Irish immigrants formed the bulk of the labor force in the textile mills and even dominated some of the trades such as bootmaking. Because they had come for factory jobs, the Irish clustered in the urban areas. By 1860 about 21% of the Hartford population was Irish; by 1870 New Haven had a similar Irish minority.

The coming of the Irish aroused deep-seated fears of Catholicism. Even intelligent and educated persons in America believed that only Protestantism was compatible with a democratic, progressive, and prosperous society. The sudden intrusion of Irish Catholics into a conservative stable society was bound to set off a reaction. The Irish themselves refused to make things easier by disappearing into the woodwork. They organized self-help organizations, like the Hibernians; organized their own schools where children were taught by nuns; and, above all, they enlisted en masse into the Democratic party, which provided them with a rapid means of social and economic advance. But this political move frightened many Yankees who worried about a coalition between radicals and Catholics that would seize political control of Connecticut. The Irish were therefore encouraged to leave Connecticut in various sorts of ways, including the burning of their churches, such as St. Mary's in Norwalk and Holy Trinity in Hartford.

By 1855, anti-Irish Catholic feeling was so intense that the Know-Nothing party, running on an openly anti-Irish platform, was able to elect a governor and a majority of the General Assembly. The governor, who referred to the Irish as "blind followers of an ecclesiastical despotism," had six Irish companies in the State Militia disbanded. Anti-Irish prejudice abated during the Civil War, but did not entirely disappear. When another surge of Irish immigration hit Connecticut in the 1890s, nativist feelings again ran high. Inexorably, however, the Irish continued to arrive, and they became so powerful a voting bloc that few politicians were willing to offend them openly.

The Irish experience in Connecticut was painful, but the Irish at home had endured poverty, famine, and English rule; they were not easily discouraged by the prejudice they encountered in Connecticut. They kept on coming, and in doing so, blazed a trail for the Italians, Poles, Jews, Greeks, and others, who make modern Connecticut one of the most ethnically diverse of all the states.

For Further Reading

Frank A. Stone, The Irish in Their Homeland, in America, in Connecticut (Storrs, Connecticut, 1975), is a good introduction.

* Entry under revision.