The first apparent causes have been well expressed by T. D. McGee, in his "Irish Settlers:" "The breaking out of the French War in 1793, and the degrading legislative Union of 1800, had deprived many of bread, and all of liberty at home, and made the mechanical as well as the agricultural class embark to cross the Atlantic.
"Hitherto the Irish had colonized, sowed and reaped, fought, spoken, and legislated in the New World, if not always in proportion to their numbers, yet always to the measure of their educational resources. Now they are about to plant a new emblem - -the Cross—and a new institution—the Church—throughout the American Continent. For, the faith of their fathers they did not leave behind them; nay, rather, wheresoever six Irish roof-trees rise, there you will find the cross of Christ reared over all, and Celtic piety and Celtic enthusiasm, all sighs and tears, kneeling before it."
Let us look at a few particular signs of the coming of this great wave in its first scarcely perceptible movement.
"John Timon was born at Conewago, Pennsylvania, February 12, 1797, and baptized on the 17th of the same month; his parents, James Timon and Margaret Leddy, had quite recently arrived in this country from Ireland, and were from Belturbet, County Cavan. A family of ten children, of whom John was the second son, blessed the Catholic household of these pious parents."—(Lives of American Bishops.)
"Francis Xavier Gartland was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1805; he came to America, while yet a child, and made his studies at Mount St. Mary's, Emmettsburg."—(Ibid.)
"John B. Fitzpatrick was born in Boston, November 1, 1812. His parents emigrated from Ireland, and settled in Boston in 1805."— (Ibid.)
What did the parents of the future bishop find on their arrival at Boston? In the year previous, the first Catholic congregation was assembled in that city by the Abbe La Poitre, a French navy- chaplain, who had remained in America after the departure of the French fleet, which rendered such powerful assistance in the struggle for American independence. In 1808, four years before the birth of him who was destined to wear the mitre, the Catholics had obtained the old "French Church" in School Street, which was probably a Calvinist meeting house.
Another wavelet of a precious kind was the following: "Bishop Lanigan was meditating" (in Ireland) "the establishment of a religious community in the city of Kilkenny, and designed Miss Alice Lalor for one of its future members. But, in 1797, her parents emigrated from Ireland and settled in America, and she felt it to be her duty . . . . to accompany them. But she promised the bishop to return in two years. On arriving at Philadelphia, she became acquainted with the Reverend Leonard Neale. . . . Feeling convinced that it was not the design of Providence that she should abandon America for Ireland, Father Neale released her from her promise to return to Kilkenny, in order that she might become his cooperator in the foundation of a religious order in the United States (the Visitation Nuns)."— (Ibid.)
Already was the young church robbing the old of some of its best members, who were to give some weight to the Irish element in this country.
"George A. Carrell was born at Philadelphia. . . . He was the seventh child of his Irish parents, and the house they occupied, and in which he was born, was the old mansion of William Penn, at the corner of Market Street and Letitia Court."— (Ibid.)