Talk:Irish Americans

"Rampant" discrimination?

The Columbia Guide to Irish American History, by Tim Meagher, discusses regional variations in immigrant experiences, although this work has been removed from the internet and will have to be retrieved (it's in the chapter on race, p. 214 I believe). The gist of it is that anti-Irish prejudice wasn't a significant thing in the South, partly because Irish numbers were small, but also because the slave threat superseded white ethnic tensions. Joe Regan's thesis echoes this argument: Most Irish immigrants were willing to uphold the social order, and by accepting slavery, they eased their assimilation into society as “hard-drinking, gambling, horse-racing, cock-fighting and tobacco-chewing Southerners.” p. 216[1]/

Out West, too, Meagher argues that white solidarity prevailed, as Irish Catholics were among the earliest settlers who brutally displaced the natives. Malcom Campbell's study of the Irish in California agrees with this[2].

And back in the 1990s, Reginald Byron's study of the Irish in Albany, NY, (Irish America) turned up no evidence of anti-Irish prejudice for the period in question (this will have to be retrieved as well[3]).

That leaves us with a predominately big-city urban phenomenon, on the Northeastern seaboard, which peaked in the 1850 -1870 period. But only a minority of Irish immigrants settled in big cities in these decades, which would also have to be taken into account when discussing discrimination.[4]. The demographics of big cities in the antebellum and reconstruction era were statistically unrepresentative of the rest of the US.

The discrimination section could use more nuance (it is light on detail and needs context), while the currently unsourced statement (or improperly sourced) which claims the prejudice or 'sentiment' (whatever that means?) was "rampant in the US" is directly contradicted by more than one RS, including Gleeson's work on the Southern Irish (cited in article). Jonathan f1 (talk) 15:54, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Lead is a mess

Even assuming it's true that "most Irish Americans" descend from "!9th Century" immigrants (sounds reasonable, but is it in fact what most sources say?) to describe Irish-Americans as "ethnic Irish" is total nonsense -whoever wrote this doesn't seem to have any idea what "ethnic" means. Having an ancestry doesn't imply "ethnic" -if most of these Americans have 19th Century immigrant ancestors, then they assimilated many moons ago. Having Irish ancestry and being ethnically Irish are two completely different things. Jonathan f1 (talk) 21:49, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Do you have evidence for that? The Banner talk 23:08, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Evidence that the descendants of 19th Century immigrants assimilated into American culture? Are you serious? Jonathan f1 (talk) 21:15, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

You are claiming something, then it is reasonable that you come with evidence of that claim. The Banner talk 23:12, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

I suppose that on the Beavis and Butt-Head side of Wikipedia it's reasonable to request evidence that people who've been in a country for 150 -200 years are assimilated, but I was truly taken aback by this strange challenge. What kind of evidence you want? We can start with a definition of "ethnicity" and then see if this sounds like what this article is covering:

"ethnic group, a social group or category of the population that, in a larger society, is set apart and bound together by common ties of race, language, nationality, or culture."[5].

Is this article covering people "set apart from larger [American] society" by a common 'race", language, nationality or culture? Last I checked there is no Irish-American "race", their language is American English, their nationality is American, and their culture is, for the most part, American. This article covers people who have some degree of Irish ancestry, however large or small, but not specifically any ethnic group. Jonathan f1 (talk) 17:08, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

So you think personal attacks are useful? The Banner talk 00:05, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

More useful than describing people with an ancestry as "ethnic Irish". I'm not saying you're the buffoon who wrote this (I didn't bother checking), but you seem to find this statement reasonable and want "evidence" that it's not true. How about this -why don't you put up some evidence that an "ethnic group" is merely another name for "ancestry group" and even applies to people who belong to multiple ancestry groups. This article covers Americans who have/had full or partial ancestry from Ireland, not "ethnic Irish". Jonathan f1 (talk) 20:33, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

"Ethnicity" and the fantasy of the Irish-American ethnic victim

Is there any particular reason why everyone who edits this article seems to be incapable of looking a word up in a dictionary and realizing that it is not being used properly in the lead? This article is not merely about "ethnic Irish" in the US, but is much broader and covers all Americans who have or had Irish ancestors, in some cases a trivial or distant amount of Irish ancestry. There are dozens of people cited in this article who are or were in no sense "ethnic". What's so difficult to understand about the idea that an ancestry category and an ethnicity may overlap but are not always the same thing?

Another issue I've raised here, some time ago, is the claim in the discrimination section that anti-Irish prejudice was "rampant" throughout the entire US. Please refer to Tim Meagher's Columbia Guide to Irish American History where he details variations in Irish immigrant experience in 19th C. America. He writes that bigotry against the Irish was most intense in the Northeast (and particularly in big cities) but not a significant factor in Southern culture and places out West (like California). He also differentiates immigrants by period: the Irish who arrived during the Famine years were significantly poorer, less skilled and educated than the Irish who arrived in the late 19th Century, and the earlier group was indeed overrepresented in jails and insane asylums. After the Famine, Ireland pursued massive educational reforms and Irish primary schools aggressively promoted English-language literacy (some even banned the Irish language in classrooms), so that by the end of the century the average immigrant was fluent in English and primed for middle-class assimilation. You may also want to refer to Dave Wilson's piece on Irish experience in North America here[6], or a more recent talk by historian Kevin Kenny (who happens to be an expert in this particular niche) where he argues that, despite encountering some nativist hostility, 19th Century America was still a pretty good place to be if you were European, even an Irish Catholic European.[7] Contrast the arguments of these scholars with the language used in the discrimination section of this article, which essentially promotes the myth of the Irish-American perpetual ethnic victim (although it stops short of making the idiotic claim that Irish immigrants were treated like black people, one could easily walk away from that section with this impression).

And of course, in typical fashion, much article space is reserved for content about prejudice/discrimination, but nothing is said of the relatively large role the Irish themselves played in American racism. Most of Liam Hogan's work on Irish involvement in chattel slavery, colonization and anti-black (and anti-Chinese) racism in the US is freely available online so there's no excuse for not being able to access any sources[8][9][10]. It's articles like this why the average person is unaware of this history and "shocked" to learn the Irish played any role in colonialism and American racism, despite the fact that most historians have known this for a long time.

I'd improve these sections myself, but I am still being "punished" for earlier editing behavior when I was relatively new on here, although I've corrected my conduct and should probably appeal soon. For now I would request that a more objective editor, who knows how to review scholarship and edit neutral encyclopedic content, consider my arguments and sources and improve the aforementioned sections, starting with a change in the lead description. Jonathan f1 (talk) 22:07, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Starting with a personal attack on a whole cohort of editors and ending with bemoaning the fact that you've been "punished" but will soon appeal? Yeah, let me know how that goes for you... Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:53, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

You were already active from 2018 before people had enough of your disruptive an tendentious editing. To be true, I do not get the idea that you learned anything from the (partial) block and it is clearly still necessary to protect the encyclopedia from your opinions and editing. The Banner talk 12:37, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

stereotypes vs racial discrimination

I tried to open a DRN discussion for more constructive dialogue, but the moderator decided these issues have not yet been properly discussed in talk, since there've been "no real exchanges" (he is, of course, correct). Rather than pile on 3 criticisms in one section, I will (try to) briefly raise them one-by-one (assuming we get anywhere on the first go), starting with some content in the "stereotype" section.

"There were also Social Darwinian-inspired excuses for the discrimination of the Irish in America. Many Americans believed that since the Irish were Celts and not Anglo-Saxons, they were racially inferior and deserved second-class citizenship. The Irish being of inferior intelligence was a belief held by many Americans.. The racial supremacy belief that many Americans had at the time contributed significantly to Irish discrimination." (sourced to a chapter by Kevin Kenny that starts on p. 364 here [11])

This is quite an embellishment, even by the standards of the strange little world of Irish race-porn. It also grossly distorts the arguments and views of the author.

On p. 376, Kenny writes: "In this essay I have been concerned only with the first task, discerning why some Americans disliked the Irish and expressed their contempt racially." At no point in this chapter does he use the phrase "many Americans". On p. 375 he narrows the culprits down to "urban, middle-class" publishers and consumers of the literature in question (at a time when most Americans were rural, I would add[12]).

The author doesn't even believe the American Irish suffered racial discrimination. On p. 375 he draws a distinction between "prejudice" (which the Irish encountered) and "racial discrimination" (which they did not), and warns against the dangers of conflating the two. Kenny's view is that there was a "disparity" between "rhetoric" (verbal- and image-based racialization) and "impact" (the actual effect it had on Irish immigrants).[13]

Elsewhere in this chapter he writes that "The forms of racial representation under consideration had a relatively brief heyday" (p. 366); that the attempts to racialize the Irish "did not do them much harm" (p. 376); and that the American Irish "did very well, very quickly" (also p. 376)

Does anyone really believe the quoted text accurately reflects the source? Jonathan f1 (talk) 23:06, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Can you me more exact in where to find the quotes? Like the exact page number? The Banner talk 23:46, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Which quote do you want?

On p. 375 he writes: But in neither Britain nor America did prejudice translate into a system of racial discrimination or subordination enshrined in law. Invoking the ambiguities of Irish "whiteness" tends to obscure this distinction between prejudice and discrimination, with sometimes unfortunate results in the classroom, where Irish-American students, newly empowered with a sense of past victimhood, too often embrace a single lesson: "If we pulled ourselves up through hard work, then why can't they?"

I don't know where the statement came from that "The racial supremacy belief that many Americans had at the time contributed significantly to Irish discrimination," but the source comes nowhere close to making this point, and explicitly argues against it.

Of course the Irish did encounter prejudice in 19th Century America, and denying that would be equally absurd. But there is no evidence of any link between racialized stereotypes of the Irish and full-blown racial discrimination. Jonathan f1 (talk) 01:34, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

IMHO the use of negative stereotypes is a form of discrimination but often not recognized as that. The Banner talk 11:55, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

The author distinguishes between "attitudes" (prejudice) and "actions" (discrimination). He specifically cites the ability of 19th Century Irish immigrants to obtain citizenship, vote, own property, testify in court and move freely between the states, and contrasts this with Asian immigrants and African Americans who could do none of these things. He writes that Irish immigrants were unlikely to read the publications in which these stereotypes appeared (p. 375), and argues against the idea that racialized images, caricatures and satirical representations of the Irish had any real effect on them. The text I quoted simply doesn't represent the source. Jonathan f1 (talk) 19:24, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Lead

Please cite a reliable, scholarly source stating that "most Irish-Americans" are descendants of Great Famine refugees? The source in current use is utterly insufficient for an encyclopedia. Jonathan f1 (talk) 20:40, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

The lead summarises the body and doesn't actually need to be referenced. There doesn't appear to be anything especially wrong or misleading with the reference in the lead, though. In any case, there are other references in the body for the numbers who emigrated from Ireland, during and after the Great Hunger. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 22:41, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Are you saying that, of the 30 million or so Irish-Americans, "most" of them descend from ancestors who came to the US during that 5 year period? To avoid having to go through all these sources, can you cite some legitimate scholarship here that makes this claim?

And yes I'm aware that the lead doesn't need citations, but a source *is* cited, and it's an "Irish genealogy" website, which is essentially selling a product -namely heritage -which raises reliability questions. Jonathan f1 (talk) 23:18, 3 August 2024 (UTC)