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Irish Americans in New York City

{{Short description|Ethnic group}}

{{Ethnic New York City (sidebar)}}

File:St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City.jpg]]

The Irish community is one of New York City's major and important ethnic groups, and has been a significant proportion of the city's population since the waves of immigration in the late 19th century.

As a result of the Great Famine in Ireland, many Irish families were forced to emigrate from the country. By 1854, between 1.5 and 2 million Irish had left their country. In the United States, most Irish became city-dwellers. With little money, many had to settle in the cities that the ships landed in. By 1850, the Irish made up a quarter of the population in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Buffalo, and Baltimore.

Today, Boston has the largest percentage of Irish-Americans of any city in the United States, while New York City has the most Irish Americans in raw numbers.[http://www.chiff.com/home_life/holiday/st-patricks-day/irish-numbers.htm Irish American Fun Facts & Trivia] During the Celtic Tiger years, when the Irish economy was booming, the city saw a buying spree of residences by native Irish as second homes{{Cite web |url=http://www.therealestatebloggers.com/2007/05/08/the-irish-are-coming-the-irish-are-coming/ |title=The Real Estate Bloggers |access-date=2007-05-08 |archive-date=2007-05-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070513172305/http://www.therealestatebloggers.com/2007/05/08/the-irish-are-coming-the-irish-are-coming/ |url-status=dead }} or as investment property.An Irish Taste for Real Estate in Manhattan, by Patrick McHeehan, N.Y. Times, May 8, 2007 (The page number is not available; it is available on-line with registration).

History

File:Irish Hunger Memorial.JPG in Downtown Manhattan]]

Irish Americans (most of whom are Irish Catholic) make up approximately 5.3% of New York City's population, composing the second largest non-Hispanic white ethnic group.{{cite web|url=http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=16000US3651000&-qr_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U_QTP13&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U|title=New York city, New York – QT-P13. Ancestry: 2000|year=2000|work=census.gov American Fact Finder|publisher=United States Census Bureau|access-date=April 23, 2009|archive-url=https://archive.today/20200212041822/http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=16000US3651000&-qr_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U_QTP13&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U|archive-date=February 12, 2020|url-status=dead}} Irish American Protestants Scotch-Irish Americans first came to America in colonial years (pre-1776).The largest wave of Catholic Irish immigration came after the Great Famine in 1845 although many Catholics immigrated during the colonial period. Ronald H. Bayor and Timothy J. Meagher, eds. The New York Irish (1996) pp 12-18. Most came from some of Ireland's most populous counties, such as Cork, Galway, and Tipperary. Large numbers also originated in counties Cavan, Meath, Dublin, and Laois.{{Cite journal|last=Anbinder|first=Tyler|doi=10.1017/ihs.2015.22|title=Which Irish men and women immigrated to the United States during the Great Famine migration of 1846-54?|url=https://zenodo.org/record/894736|journal=Irish Historical Studies|volume=39|issue=156|pages=620–642|year=2015|s2cid=163537029}}

In the Civil War, the massive anti-draft riots of 1863 represented a "civil war" inside the Irish Catholic community, according to Toby Joyce. The mostly Irish Catholic rioters confronted police, soldiers, and pro-war politicians who were often leaders of the Irish community.Toby Joyce, "The New York Draft Riots of 1863: An Irish Civil War?" History Ireland (March 2003) 11#2, pp 22-27.

In the "early days", the 19th century, the Irish formed a predominant part of the European immigrant population of New York City, a "city of immigrants", which added to the city's diversity to this day.{{sfn|Helmreich|2013|p=25}} After they came, Irish immigrants often crowded into subdivided homes, only meant for one family, and cellars, attics, and alleys all became home for the poorest immigrants. As they accumulated wealth they moved into better housing. Bayor and Meagher, eds. The New York Irish (1996) pp. 88, 400-401. Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, was originally developed as a resort for wealthy Manhattanites in 1879, but instead became an upscale family-oriented Italian- and Irish-American community.{{cite web|url=http://brooklyn.about.com/od/brooklynneighborhoods/ig/Brooklyn-Neighborhoods/Bay-Ridge.htm|title=Bay Ridge, Brooklyn|last=Goode|first=Kristen|work=about.com|publisher=The New York Times Company|access-date=May 4, 2009|archive-date=June 23, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090623081801/http://brooklyn.about.com/od/brooklynneighborhoods/ig/Brooklyn-Neighborhoods/Bay-Ridge.htm|url-status=dead}} Another large Irish-American community is located in Woodlawn Heights, Bronx,{{sfn|Helmreich|2013|p=27}} but Woodlawn Heights also has a mix of different ethnic groups.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/realestate/if-you-re-thinking-of-living-in-woodlawn-a-bronx-enclave-with-a-suburban-feel.html|title=If You're Thinking of Living In/Woodlawn; A Bronx Enclave With a Suburban Feel|last=Wilson|first=Claire|date=February 16, 2003|work=The New York Times|page=1|access-date=May 4, 2009}} Conditions were slow to improve in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen.Manhattan|work=primemanhattan.com|publisher=Prime Manhattan Realty|accessdate=May 4, 2009

Other sizable Irish-American communities include Belle Harbor and Breezy Point, both in Queens.{{cite web|url=http://www.walkingaround.com/belle_harbor_irish.html|title=Walking Around – Belle Harbor – Irish New York City's Ethnic neighborhoods|year=2004|work=walkingaround.com|access-date=May 4, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090302085705/http://www.walkingaround.com/belle_harbor_irish.html|archive-date=2009-03-02|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|url=http://www.walkingaround.com/breezy_point_irish.html|title=Walking Around – Breezy Point – Irish New York City's Ethnic neighborhoods|year=2004|work=walkingaround.com|access-date=May 4, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090302085313/http://www.walkingaround.com/breezy_point_irish.html|archive-date=2009-03-02|url-status=dead}} Two big Irish communities are Marine Park and neighboring Gerritsen Beach. The Irish have also settled "to a far lesser extent [in] Maspeth, Woodside, and Sunnyside, Queens."{{sfn|Helmreich|2013|p=27}}

The Irish Catholic men were successful in joining the New York City Police Department as well as the New York Fire Department. Religious women became nuns teaching in parochial schools; others became public school teachers. In the neighborhoods, the Irish organized to again control over territory, jobs, and political organizations. As the "new immigrants" from Southern and Eastern Europe arrived 1880s-1914, the Irish incorporating them into their established system. It was a process of "Americanization." The Irish dominated the Catholic Church as bishops, priests, pastors and nuns.Thomas Shelley, " 'Only One Class of People to Draw Upon for Support': Irish-Americans and the Archdiocese of New York." American Catholic Studies (2001): 1-21. The Church worked hard to keep Catholicism strong among the new arrivals, opening parish schools and high schools. James R. Barrett, and David R. Roediger, "The Irish and the 'Americanization' of the 'New Immigrants' in the Streets and in the Churches of the Urban United States, 1900-1930." Journal of American Ethnic History 24.4 (2005): 3-33, focus on New YHork and Chicago.

After 1945, a large-scale movement to the suburbs was made possible by the steady upward social mobility of the Irish.Morton D. Winsberg, "The Suburbanization of the Irish in Boston, Chicago and New-York." Eire-Ireland 21.3 (1986): 90-104.

Irish colleges and universities

  • Fordham University Founded by Archbishop John Hughes an Irish immigrant, and built by Irish labor. Most of the Jesuits are Irish-Americans and Irish Americans make up a sizeable amount of the student body. The University president Rev. Joseph McShane, SJ is an Irish American.
  • St. John's University Founded by Bishop John Laughlin an Irish immigrant aiming to educate Irish and other immigrants in a strong Catholic atmosphere. Almost every president of the University has been an Irish American, and many of the Vincentian priests that run the University are Irish as well as lay staff and professors. The University president Rev. Brian Shanley, OP is an Irish American.
  • Manhattan University Many of the students, staff and professors are Irish American. Its athletic teams are named the Jaspers, in honor of Brother Jasper of Mary, an Irish immigrant, administrator at the school and inventor of the seventh inning stretch.

Irish neighborhoods

File:Rory Dolan's Irish Pub McLean Av jeh.jpg]]

=Current=

  • Woodlawn, BronxA bit o' the Irish brogue: Woodlawn: An Irish enclave in the far reaches of the Bronx, by Patrick Ward, amNY, February 8, 2007, at pp. 34, 36, 38; see also at [http://www.amNY.com].[http://www.answers.com/topic/woodlawn-bronx Answer.com page on Woodlawn][http://www.yelp.com/search?cflt=restaurants&find_loc=North+Riverdale%2C+New+York%2C+NY Irish restaurants in N. Riverdale]
  • North Riverdale, Bronx[https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40B15FC395B0C778CDDAB0894DF404482 NY Times article, requires registration]{{Cite web |url=http://www.irishtribute.com/tributes/view.adp%40d%3D236920%26t%3D238541.html |title=Irish fire-fighter obit |access-date=2020-01-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303184810/http://www.irishtribute.com/tributes/view.adp%40d%3D236920%26t%3D238541.html |archive-date=2016-03-03 |url-status=dead }}
  • City Island, Bronx
  • Pelham Bay, Bronx
  • Throggs Neck, Bronx
  • Bay Ridge, Brooklyn[http://brooklyn.about.com/od/barsnightlife/tp/irishpubs.htm "Top 7 Brooklyn Irish Pubs and Bars", by Wendy Zarganis, About:New York:Brooklyn web site] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070707184649/http://brooklyn.about.com/od/barsnightlife/tp/irishpubs.htm |date=2007-07-07 }}[http://overinbrooklyn.blogspot.com/search/label/Irish%20Brooklyn Blog: "A Shamrock Grows in Brooklyn"][http://henrygrattans.net/ Henry Grattan's Pub web site] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929222415/http://henrygrattans.net/ |date=2007-09-29 }}
  • Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn[http://www.house.gov/weiner/neighborhoods/hoods_gerritsenbeach.htm Congressman' s site] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070430073437/http://www.house.gov/weiner/neighborhoods/hoods_gerritsenbeach.htm |date=2007-04-30 }}[http://www.answers.com/topic/gerritsen-beach-brooklyn Answers.com]{{Cite web |url=http://www.gerritsenbeach.net/ |title=Neighborhood web site |access-date=2007-05-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130617025007/http://www.gerritsenbeach.net/ |archive-date=2013-06-17 |url-status=dead }}
  • Marine Park, Brooklyn{{Cite web |url=http://www.marineparkcivic.com/president.htm |title=Civic group |access-date=2007-05-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131116105501/http://marineparkcivic.com/president.htm |archive-date=2013-11-16 |url-status=dead }}[https://web.archive.org/web/20010608174103/http://www.omalleyirishdance.com/omevents.htm Irish dance group]
  • Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn
  • Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn[http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%20SCENES/Vinegar%20Hill%20Page/vinegar.html Forgotten NY web site]{{Cite web |url=http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/0449,adkison,59179,15.html |title="Close up on Vinegar Hill", by Danial Adkinson, Village Voice web site |access-date=2007-05-18 |archive-date=2008-06-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080609213206/http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/0449,adkison,59179,15.html |url-status=dead }}[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E04EFDA1E39F932A0575BC0A9659C8B63 "If You're Thinking of Living in Vinegar Hill...", by Dulcie Leimbach, N.Y. Times, August 31, 2003 on line.]
  • Broad Channel, Queens
  • Belle Harbor, Queens
  • Breezy Point, Queens
  • Rockaway Park, Queens
  • Rockaway Beach, Queens
  • Sunnyside, QueensEllen Freudenheim, Queens: What to do, where to go (and how not to get lost) in New York's Undiscovered Borough, pp. 15-16 (Woodside), 262-265 (Rockaways), 267-275 (Sunnyside), 277-287 (Woodside). (St. Martin's NY 2006) {{ISBN|0-312-35818-0}}.
  • Maspeth, Queens
  • Woodside, Queens{{cite book|author=Bayor and Meaghar|title=The New York Irish|year=1996|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|isbn=978-0-8018-5199-5|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/newyorkirish00bayorich}} (p. 414)
  • St. George, Staten Island[http://www.statenislandarts.org/cultural/cultural.html Staten Is. Cultural web site] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070506081341/http://www.statenislandarts.org/cultural/cultural.html |date=2007-05-06 }}[http://www.statenislandirish.org/Home_002.html Staten Island Irish Fair web site]{{dead link|date=November 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
  • West Brighton, Staten Island
  • Randall Manor, Staten Island

=Historic=

Notable Irish New Yorkers

= Irish mayors =

=Irish Bishops of the Archdiocese of New York=

=Irish Bishops of the Diocese of Brooklyn=

=Notable Irish New Yorkers=

= Irish gangs =

{{See also|List of identities in The Gangs of New York (book)}}

Entertainment about Irish in New York City

=Music=

Fairytale of New York by Irish band The Pogues refers to the NYPD choir singing Galway Bay. This is traditional because the force traditionally was largely made up of Irish Americans.

=Notable films=

=Television=

See also

{{Portal|Ireland|New York City}}

References

{{Reflist}}

Further reading

  • Almeida, Linda Dowling. Irish Immigrants in New York City, 1945-1995 (Indiana University Press, 2001).
  • Anbinder, Tyler. Five Points: The 19th-century New York City neighborhood that invented tap dance, stole elections, and became the world's most notorious slum (Simon and Schuster, 2001). [https://archive.org/details/fivepoints19thce0000anbi online]
  • Anbinder, Tyler. "We will dirk every mother’s son of you- Five Points and the Irish conquest of New York Politics" Eire-Ireland (2001) 36(1): 29–46. [https://muse.jhu.edu/article/667009/summary excerpt]
  • Barrett, James R., and David R. Roediger. "The Irish and the 'Americanization' of the 'New Immigrants' in the Streets and in the Churches of the Urban United States, 1900-1930." Journal of American Ethnic History 24.4 (2005): 3-33. How the Irish helped the "new immigration" in New York City and Chicago. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/27501633 online]
  • Bayor, Ronald H., and Timothy Meagher, eds. The New York Irish (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997) [https://archive.org/details/newyorkirish00bayorich online]; 22 topical essays by experts.
  • Bayor, Ronald H. Neighbors in Conflict: The Irish, Germans, Jews, and Italians of New York City, 1929-1941 (U of Illinois Press, 1988). [https://archive.org/details/neighborsinconfl0000bayo online]
  • Bernstein, Iver. The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War (1990).
  • Burrows, Edwin G., and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (Oxford University Press, 1999) 1383pp; a standard scholarly history.
  • Carregal-Romero, José. "The Irish Female Migrant, Silence and Family Duty in Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn." Études irlandaises 43-2 (2018): 129-141. [https://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/5785 online]
  • Cook, Adrian. The Armies of the Streets: The New York City Draft Riots of 1863 (University Press of Kentucky, 1974).
  • Darby, Paul. "Gaelic games, ethnic identity and Irish nationalism in New York City c. 1880–1917." Sport in Society 10.3 (2007): 347-367.
  • Dolan, Jay P. The Immigrant Church: New York's Irish and German Catholics, 1815-1865 (1975) [https://archive.org/details/immigrantchurchn00dola online]
  • Glazer, Nathan, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City (MIT Press, 1970). [https://archive.org/details/beyondmeltingpot0000glaz online]
  • Gordon, Michael Allen. The Orange Riots: Irish Political Violence in New York City, 1870 and 1871 (Cornell University Press, 1993). [https://archive.org/details/orangeriotsirish0000gord online]
  • Gurock, Jeffrey S. "'Getting Along' in Parkchester: A New Era in Jewish–Irish Relations in New York City 1940–1970." Religions 9.6 (2018): 181+ [https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/9/6/181/pdfonline]{{Dead link|date=September 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}.
  • {{cite book

|last=Helmreich

|first=William B.

|year=2013

|title=The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6000 Miles in the City

|publisher=Princeton U. Press

|location=Princeton, New Jersey

|isbn=978-0-691-14405-4

}}

  • Jackson, Kenneth T., ed. The encyclopedia of New York city (Yale University Press, 2010). [https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780300055368 online]
  • Joyce, Toby. "The New York Draft Riots of 1863: An Irish Civil War?" History Ireland (March 2003) 11#2, pp 22-27. [http://www.jstor.com/stable/27725015 online]
  • Kelly, Mary C. The shamrock and the lily: the New York Irish and the creation of a transatlantic identity, 1845-1921 (Peter Lang, 2005). [https://networks.h-net.org/node/3595/reviews/4390/mcgovern-kelly-shamrock-and-lily-new-york-irish-and-creation online review]
  • McGlmpsey, Christopher D. "Internal ethnic friction: Orange and green in nineteenth‐century New York, 1868–1872." Immigrants & Minorities 1.1 (1982): 39-59.
  • McGrath, Patrick. "Secular Power, Sectarian Politics: The American-Born Irish Elite and Catholic Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century New York." Journal of American Ethnic History 38.3 (2019): 36-75. [https://doi.org/10.5406/jamerethnhist.38.3.0036. online]
  • Marston, Sallie A. "Making difference: conflict over Irish identity in the New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade." Political Geography 21.3 (2002): 373-392. [https://www.academia.edu/download/35399462/Making_Difference_Conflict_over_Irish_Identity.pdf online]{{dead link|date=January 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}
  • Maye-Banbury, Angela. "Emerald City? The case for situational capital in advancing our understanding of Irish immigrants’ attachment to New York City as place." Irish Journal of Sociology (2022): 07916035221082548. [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/07916035221082548 online]
  • Moses, Paul. An unlikely union: The love-hate story of New York's Irish and Italians (NYU Press, 2017). [https://archive.org/details/unlikelyunionlov0000mose online]
  • Nilsen, Kenneth E. "Irish in nineteenth century New York." in The Multilingual Apple: Languages in New York City (2002) pp: 53-69.
  • O'Donnell, Edward T. "Hibernians Versus Hebrews? A New Look at the 1902 Jacob Joseph Funeral Riot" Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 6.2 (2007): 209-225.
  • Rohs, Stephen Albert, and Stephen Rohs. Eccentric Nation: Irish Performance in Nineteenth-Century New York City (Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 2009), regarding theatres
  • Shelley, Thomas. " 'Only One Class of People to Draw Upon for Support': Irish-Americans and the Archdiocese of New York." American Catholic Studies (2001): 1-21.
  • Winsberg, Morton D. "The Suburbanization of the Irish in Boston, Chicago and New-York." Eire-Ireland 21.3 (1986): 90-104.

External links

{{commonscat|Irish diaspora in New York City}}

  • [http://www.fdnyemerald.com/ FDNY Emerald Society] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220706124403/https://www.fdnyemerald.com/ |date=2022-07-06 }}
  • [http://fdnypipesanddrums.com/ FDNY Emerald Society Pipes and Drums]
  • [http://www.fordham.edu/ Fordham University]
  • [https://www.stjohns.edu/ St. John's University]
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20050403203945/http://www.murphguide.com/irish.htm New York Irish Bars]
  • [https://nycdemeraldsociety.org NYCD Emerald Society]
  • [http://irishnyhistory.org/ New York Irish History Roundtable]
  • [http://www.nypdemeralds.com/ NYPD Emerald Society]
  • [http://www.oldstpatricks.com/ St. Patrick's Old Cathedral]
  • [http://www.nyirish.org/ New York Irish Center]
  • [http://www.woodhavenhouse.com/ Woodhaven House web site, with discussion of history of Irish pubs in Queens]
  • [http://www.wingedfist.org Winged Fist Organization]

{{Irish Americans by location}}

{{Ethnicity in New York City}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Irish Americans In New York City}}

Category:Ethnic groups in New York City