The Irish Race in the Past and the Present

by Augustus J. Thébaud

It is certain that there is a vast difference between that American spirit and the atmosphere of distrust pervading other countries, and that the rapid spread of the Church throughout the broad regions of the Union has been singularly favored by the soft breeze of a liberal and kindly feeling so common to those even who are not born within the fold. And that the children of Irish parents, themselves lost to the Church, have exercised great influence from the start, in that regard, cannot, we think, be denied.

But, perhaps, too much space has been devoted to that first emigration from Ireland; it is time to come to a more recent period of which there are more certain and positive accounts.

There is no need to speak of the happy change effected in the position of the Catholic Church in America by the Revolution; Washington, in his reply to the address of the Catholics of the country, has given expression to the feelings of the nation in terms so well known that they require no comment.

From that date commences the real history of the Catholic Church in North America, outside of the provinces originally settled by the French and Spaniards. The influx of Irish immigrants now attracts our chief attention.

From the year 1800, when the "Union" was effected between England and Ireland, the number of immigrants increased suddenly and rapidly, and the situation of the new-comers on their arrival was very different from that of their predecessors. They found liberty not only proclaimed, but established; few churches indeed, but, such as there were, known and open, and a bishop and clergymen already practising their ministry.

Before entering upon the extent, nature, and effects of this second Irish immigration—which may be studied from documents existing—it will be well to say a few words on the elements which constituted the Catholic body when first organized. We are concerned, it is true, with the new element introduced by the great movement of which we begin to speak; but we are far from undervaluing other sources of life, which not only affected the Church at its birth in the United States, but have continued to act upon her ever since with more or less of energy. The reader should not imagine that, by not speaking of them, we are unjust or blind to their efficiency; they simply lie without the scope of our plan.

In the North the French, and in the South the Spanish missionaries, had imparted to Catholicity a vitality which could not be extinguished; but its operations were almost entirely confined to limits outside those which circumscribe the field of our investigations. The French element, however, grew into prominence even at the outset within those limits, either through the acquisition of Louisiana, or in consequence of the French immigration during the terrible revolution of last century. It is only necessary to open the pages of Mr. R. H. Clarke's recently-published "Lives of the American Bishops," to be struck with the importance of that element. It may be said that, for the first twenty-five years of the republic, French prelates and clergymen, together with several American Marylanders, were intrusted with the care of the infant Church. Ireland seems to have had scarcely any office to fulfil in that great work, save through the humble exertions of a few devoted but almost unknown missionaries; so that, when bishops of Irish birth were first chosen, they were either taken from Ireland itself, as was Dr. England, Bishop Kelly, of Richmond, or Conwell, of Philadelphia, or from the monasteries of Rome, as were Bishops Connolly and Concanen, of New York. Bishop Egan, of Philadelphia, can scarcely be called an exception, as he had only spent a very few years in this country when he was elevated to the episcopal dignity. The German element showed itself only in Pennsylvania.

It was under circumstances such as these that that stream of desolate people began to flow, spreading gradually through immense regions, and bringing with it only its unconquerable faith.

From the "mustard-seed" a noble tree was to spring up; but as yet it was only a weak sapling. In 1785, Bishop Carroll made an estimate of the Catholic population of the States: "In Maryland, seventeen thousand; in Pennsylvania, over seven thousand; and, as far as information could be obtained, in other States, about fifteen hundred." New York City could not yet boast of a hundred Catholics.

Like all things durable and mighty, the first swelling of that great wave was slow and silent, and scarcely perceptible, until little by little the ripple spread over the vast ocean.