The first generation of immigrants came to America in desperation, but regardless of their situation most longed for their home country. Irish nationalism ran strong and was driven by love of the country and family or by hatred of the English and desire for revenge. In 1858, a trans-Atlantic revolutionary organization, the Fenian Brotherhood was formed to gather money, arms and trained soldiers in preparation for a possible Irish revolution against British Rule. Membership remained small until the American civil War ended. Many of the 150,000 Irish-Americans who served in the Union army joined the brotherhood and donated money to the cause. At the war’s end, Fenianism claimed nearly 50,000 members many of them trained soldiers. The movement collapsed by 1870 when it’s leaders were arrested by Britain and the Fenian’s economic situation changed for the worse.

Some of the Famine Irish immigrants never traveled beyond their port of entry: New York, Boston, Philadelphia and New Orleans. A majority however passed through their port of entry, using it as a step­ping-stone west. “...of the 1.8 million immigrants who landed at the Port of New York during the Famine years, 848,000 were Irish (the rest were mainly German); but only 134,000 were resident in New York when the census of 1850 was taken.”

 The American west was at once a great mystery and a temptation. Land and wealth and freedom was there for the taking but the risks were great. It was an Irish-American journalist, John L. O'Sullivan, who first conceptualized an American "Manifest Destiny." The phrase first appears in print in July of 1845 in the "Democratic Review". O'Sullivan was trying to defend the American claim to Texas and he mentioned that the United States had a Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent with its multiplying millions. The phrase grew into a national mission to spread the ideals of American Democracy into the untamed regions of the continent.

Irish immigrants found a place in this mission but the historiography is as yet, incomplete. Much has been recorded and written about the role of the Irish in the industrial east, the basic assumptions are that the Irish were mainly urban, the movement west was mainly native born and protestant, and that the Irish consisted of a small percentage of the western population.

While these assumptions were largely true, their existence magnified the impact of the Irish who braved the frontier. The west was free from the dominating influences that affected the Irish in the east: the church, political machines, Irish nationalism, extreme religious and racial bigotry and pervasive social and economic discrimination.

The independence of the west served the Irish well. There existed a freedom to succeed based on individual effort regardless of social, political and economic status that the Irish had never experienced – either on the eastern seaboard or in their native country.

That that freedom extended to women was itself unusual for the time period. In “A place of Greater Opportunity: Irish Women’s Search for home, Family and Leisure in Butte, Montana”, Mary Murphy argues that women found the western United States freer and richer than the Ireland they had left which offered only unemployment, spinsterhood and religious oppression. “The task facing them in Butte was to blend successfully Irish customs with norms of American society. For many women that meant providing a home and education for their American-born children, adjusting to the embrace of American style consumerism and still keeping alive vestiges of Irish culture to ease the transition of other new immigrants.”

While there are many instances of wealthy Irish-Americans in the west, some of which will follow, overall the Irish experience in the American west was one of relative success given the even playing field offered in the western states. Numerous studies show that the further west an Irish immigrant traveled, the larger was his presence in the middle class.

Regardless of whether they were drawn west by accident, employment, wealth, adventure, distain for the old or hunger for the new, hopes of marriage, income, property, status or political power, what the Irish found was opportunity and mobility which shaped the context of their lives. For the Irish, the move westward began with the opening of the west itself. Lewis and Clarke’s Corps of Discovery included Irish names such as Bratton, Gass, McNeal and Shannon. The fur trade of John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company drew Irish and Scotch-Irish trappers such as Ross Cox and John Reed into the Oregon Territory.

Irish and Scotch-Irish served as crew aboard Spanish, English and U.S. vessels that explored the American west during the second half of the eighteenth century. Many young Irishmen fled from their native country beginning in the fourteenth century and enlisted as mercenaries in the armies of Europe, these expatriates were collectively known as 'na Gaena Fiadhaine', or "the Wild Geese”. These “Wild Geese” came to America as members of Spanish expeditionary forces.

Lt. Colonel Hugh O'Conor, a member of Spain’s Hibernian Regiment, born in Dublin in 1734, accompanied Juan Bautista de Anza in the 1770’s during his efforts to organize an expedition to lead almost 300 settlers across the deserts and mountains to the area of San Francisco Bay, and establish a village, Presidio and mission.

Many of the “Wild Geese” were involved in the Spanish settlements and missions in what is now California. Timothy Murphy of County Wexford, Ireland, tried farming, hunting and trapping before he helped Juan Bautista Alvarado quell a revolution and re-gain the governorship of Monterey. For his efforts, he was appointed the administrator of San Rafael and awarded a 22,000-acre rancho grant bordering San Francisco in Marin County.

In the 1840’s, groups of pioneer settlers began the overland trek to the Pacific coast. The Bartleson-Bidwell party was lead by a legendary mountain man, Thomas Fitzpatrick. The first party to drive all the way to California was the Murphy-Miller party, led by Martin Murphy and his Son-in-Law, James Miller both from County Wexford, Ireland. Following the Truckee river, they crossed the Sierra Nevada mountains near Lake Tahoe and went down the other side into what is now the Sacramento Valley. Their route established the Truckee trail that was used: “...not only for other settlers, but also for the forty-niners, the stagecoach, the railroad and today’s principal interstate route across the Sierra, Highway 80.”

The gold rush brought thousands of Irishmen into California. Fully one third of the new arrivals came from overseas and more than half came from Ireland. “During the 1850’s, 60’s and 70’s most of the gold camps had populations that were 10-20% Irish-born. Grass Valley was 22% Irish-born during its boom years and Bodie was 16%. San Francisco competed with the mining camps with 16% Irish-born in 1860.”

The Irish became some of California’s most prosperous citizens whose ranks include the so-called “Silver Kings” of the Comstock Lode fame. John McKay, James Fair, William O’Brien and James Flood became enormously wealthy from the mine and invested heavily in businesses, banks, railroads and communications lines (telegraph). In southern California, the Irish were involved in developing railroads, ports, oil drilling and water resources.

The state of Montana became an enclave for Irish-Americans beginning in 1860 with the discovery of gold which gave way to silver and finally, and most abundantly copper. Willingness to work in the mines opened a world of opportunity for the Irish in the mills, smelters, refineries, timber and railroads necessary to acquire, refine and transport the products of the mines. Butte was the headquarters of the (ACM), which produced 50% of the world’s copper in 1890.

Butte was not only a mining center; it was also the most Irish town in America, with more Irish Catholics than Boston, New York, Philadelphia or San Francisco. The first four CEO’s of ACM were Irish as was a majority of the board of directors. “Managers of mines, smelters, lumberyards, timberlands, lawyers, metallurgists, foremen, shift bosses and other hiring officers –the whole management team of this fourth largest corporation in America–was dominated by associational Irish Catholics.”

What the Irish found in Butte, besides hard work was a lack of the prejudice found elsewhere in the United States, particularly in the east. Shared ethnicity and religion afforded the Irish more freedom to prosper. Irish hiring Irish was unique to the region rumors of the practice spread amongst Irish-Americans across the country. In response to the insulting, “No Irish need apply.” advertisements found in eastern newspapers and shop windows, “No ENGLISH need apply.” was posted on the entrance of some mines.

Thomas Francis Meagher, Irish revolutionary and General in the American Civil War served as Governor of the Montana Territory (1863-1867) proposed, “the territory be used as a place to colonize the often desperately poor of the Eastern cities”. Many came and settled into agricultural communities such as Shonkin, Charlo and Plentywood.

Montana’s Irish found common ground in fraternal organizations regardless of whether they came from the mines, the farms or the front office. The Ancient order of Hibernians (AOH) and Clan-na-Gael were among the largest and most organized. All were nationalistic and supported liberation of Ireland but more than that they were self-help organizations which helped the newly-arrived find jobs, pay off mortgages, arrange wakes, and provide health and funeral benefits.

Colorado first saw the Irish in 1806 when Zebulon Pike first explored the area. With him were Thomas Daugherty and Hugh Menaugh, two of the many Irish immigrants who were to follow. In 1859, a rush of gold seekers included the Irish, but as yet in small numbers. However, by 1870, the Irish were the largest foreign-born population group in the territory. Fortunes were made in silver and gold mines, cattle, wheat and banking. Of those who did not strike it rich, many advanced from the mines to politics and civil service.

Idaho saw the Irish in her mines by 1862 but the boom-bust cycle of mining caused the Irish population to fluctuate. “Between 1863 and 1872, more than 1.7 million ounces of gold were produced in Boise County. The Irish were the single largest ethnic group to work in the extraction of this gold. Of the 885 Irish listed in the Idaho Territorial Census of 1870, 623 of them were engaged in mining or related mechanical trades.” As gold production declined, so did the Irish until fewer than 10% remained in 1880.