famine to Feast - the Irish in Washington State
Diaspora Arriving in America Moving Westward Washington State Summary Biographies Home

“This island has been inhabited for more than five thousand years. It has been shaped by pre-Celtic wanderers, by Celts, Vikings, Normans, Huguenots, Scottish and English settlers. Whatever the rights or wrongs of history, all those people marked this island: down to the small detail of the distinctive ship-building of the Vikings, the linen-making of the Huguenots, the words of Planter balladeers.”

Mary Robinson, President Of Ireland, 1995

The Irish Diaspora following the Irish Potato Famine in 1849 began the largest mass movement of individuals in history. In excess of two million individuals left Ireland in search of hope. The potato blight was a singular event in a series of events that lead to the Diaspora. For centuries, the Irish people had suffered under British rule until in the nineteenth century the great Famine tipped the scales past the point where leaving was the best option.
The journey was perilous and while many did not survive, those who did were greeted with prejudice, distain and poverty. Cities on the eastern seaboard of the United States were teeming with immigrants from all over the globe and the Irish were at a slight advantage if they were English speaking, which many were not. Faced with poverty and joblessness, the Irish learned quickly that there was strength in numbers and soon developed sizeable Irish communities that were able to acquire political power.
Corruption and greed soon overwhelmed any gains made on behalf of the poor and the Irish began to slowly move west. Hard gritty labor was their ticket as they built the canals, railroads and mines moving westward and pushing the frontier into the Pacific Ocean. The Homestead Act and the gold rush hastened their tempo westward, as did their service in the Civil War and subsequent Indian Wars.
What they found in the west was a different America, which offered them the freedom to succeed or fail as determined by their own efforts. While there were enclaves of Irish dominance like the mining town of Butte, Montana, the Irish generally preferred to blend into the multitude of new Americans moving west.
Freedom from the control of the political boss, the Catholic Church and the brutal discrimination of the east resulted in social, academic and financial success for many while most simply blended into the emerging middle class. Relative to the grinding, endless poverty they experienced in the east, this was success.

My aim in this thesis is to shed some light on the
contribution of the Irish-American in building the new nation, for his contribution was offered one shovelful at a time in the mines, the canals, the railroads and the farms from port of entry through Paddytown to homestead. They are the American middle-class and their Irishness should be lauded rather than disguised. The story of the Irish in the west is largely untold, save for the those who gained fortune or fame. To escape the undeserved reputation of their race at the hands of the English, the Irish immigrant chose to remain anonymous in their nationality in order to fit in and assimilate into the American culture as quickly as possible.
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