Unwanted words that reflect the ignorant

J.D. Vance’s recent statements that Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine are responsible for higher crime rates fit into a centuries-long tradition of American nationalists promoting anti-Irish stereotypes that called for the exclusion of the Irish from American shores.

As Niall O’Dowd notes in his book George Washington And The Irish, Irish soldiers were the backbone of the American Revolution and were recognized as such by General, and later President, Washington.

However, subsequent generations of nativist historians have managed to minimize the role of the Irish while mythologizing the role of American farmers, thus perpetuating the myth that American freedom depended solely on the actions of the first English settlers.

Of course, the nativist lies intensified after the waves of immigration caused by the Great Famine of 1845 and in the years that followed, when millions of Irish, given the choice of emigration or starvation, chose the former and fled to New York, Boston and other cities on the Eastern Seaboard. The sad truth is that those who could not emigrate died by the millions.

In response, Nativist Americans, like Vance, organized against the wave of immigration, claiming among other things that the Irish were responsible for the rise in crime in major urban areas on the Eastern Seaboard. A Nativist party was formed, nicknamed the “Know Nothings” because they were a secret society that told those who asked that they “knew nothing” about their activities.

The Irish faced the most discrimination, and signs reading “No Irish Allowed” were common across the United States.

Anti-Irish violence was so bad that the newly formed Ancient Order of Hibernians was sent to protect Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City from a nativist attack, and later the Fighting 69th was sent to protect the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City.

The nativist tradition continued into the 1920s and 1930s, when the Ku Klux Klan reemerged as a force protesting Catholics, Jews, and immigrants, including the Irish, against their place in American life. Vance’s statement, in keeping with a long history of nativist bigotry, includes a citation to the film “The Gangs of New York.” But even based on that film, his claims are demonstratively false.

Numerous academic studies have found that there is no evidence that Irish immigrants committed crimes at a disproportionate rate relative to the population, and that they were arrested proportionally less often than their native-born compatriots.

Professor Tyler Anbinder, in his excellent book Plentiful Country – based on recently discovered Emigrant Savings Bank documents – shows that, contrary to earlier scholarly reports, the Irish experienced during the Great Famine were able to climb the economic ladder with astonishing speed.

Subsequent waves of Irish immigrants were similarly quickly assimilated into American life and prospered. And there were no more criminals among them than in previous generations. They were not criminals or bandits, but hard-working immigrants who soon achieved the American dream.

Ray O’Hanlon, in his book “Unintended Consequences,” presents a similarly compressed picture of the extraordinary achievements of Irish immigrants in the twentieth century. We, as Irish Americans, can look back on our immigrant ancestors with justifiable pride for their extraordinary contributions to our adopted land.

They were neither bandits nor criminals, but hard-working, faithful men who contributed immeasurably to their adopted land from the first day they landed on American shores. No amount of homegrown propaganda, started by the Know Nothings, continued by the Ku Klux Klan, and perpetuated today by Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance, can take that away from us.

Brian O’Dwyer is a lawyer, immigration activist and co-chair of the Irish American Democrats.