It will show how nobly the men of Irish birth and lineage have illustrated old Ireland under the benign influences of free institutions and popular government, where liberty is regulated by law, where justice balances the scales between man and man without regard to race or creed, giving to every citizen equal advantages and equal opportunities in the race of life.
A people who have done so much for the honor and glory of this great republic should feel a just pride in publishing to the world the part they have taken in the progress of the United States. While there should be, in the ordinary affairs of life and of government, no discrimination on account of race or creed, as between citizens of our common country, each nationality that has borne a prominent part in its history should seek to perpetuate the record of its people.
In the war between the states Americans of Irish birth or descent stood for the right as they saw it, and fought for their principles and their convictions with a patriotic fortitude and heroic valor never surpassed in ancient or modern times. From the shot at Sumter that was heard around the world until the Confederate banner was furled forever in imperishable glory at Appomattox, the Irish and the Irish-Americans of the North and of the South participated in and confronted each other in battle array. They fought in the mightiest contest of all the ages, for their principles and for their altars and their firesides.
I cannot undertake to give in detail the history of the Irish and the Irish-Americans in South Carolina. It would fill a volume. The Irish immigration into South Carolina began long since. Of South Carolina history, they embrace a large part. I find the following in a reprint of the Maryland Journal of August 20, 1773, for which I am indebted to Gen. Felix Agnus, proprietor of the Baltimore American, which is the successor of the former:
“Philadelphia, Aug. 11, 1773.
“Since our last, arrived here the ship Alexander, Captain Hunter, with five hundred passengers, and the ship Hannah, Captain Mitchel, with five hundred and fifty, both from Londonderry.
“The ship Walworth, Captain McCausland, sailed from Londonderry for South Carolina, about the first of June, with three hundred passengers and servants, who were obliged to leave their native country, not for their misbehavior, but on account of the great distress among the middle and lower class of people.”
Hon. M. P. O’Connor, upon assuming the presidency of the Hibernian Society of Charleston many years ago, delivered an address in which he stated that the Hibernian Society of Charleston, S. C., was organized in 1799. “Its first president was the serene and scholarly Rev. Father Gallagher, who was worthily followed by O’Brien Smith, Simon Magwood, Samuel Patterson, William A. Caldwell, Thomas Stephens, Henry W. Conner, the father of Gen. James Conner; James E. Robinson, William Gilliland, Judge Burke, Governor A. G. Magrath, Bernard O’Neill and M. P. O’Connor. These men give dignity and character and purpose to the organization.
“Its founders were Thomas A. Malcolm, Edward Courtenay, William and James Hunter, Joseph Crombie, John S. Adams and a few others. They professed as the primary object of their union, aid and relief to the distressed emigrant. But there was latent in their bosoms an object beyond and higher. It was to preserve the traditions of their downtrodden race; to embody and cluster around a common centre, in a genial and hospitable clime, the virtues of their ancestors, and to reflect in all their splendor under the bright blaze of a Carolina sun the united rays of true Irish manhood and Irish intelligence.... At the base of our organization is one grand permeating idea, to give character and worth and potency to the Irishman in America. It was this society which built the first Irish-American hall in the United States.”
The gallant and distinguished Gen. M. C. Butler, in response to inquiries about his family, writes from his home at Edgefield, S. C.: