Historically, there have been four Irish churchmen who have wielded a great influence in American affairs—Father Mathew, the apostle of temperance, who persuaded 600,000 Americans to sign the pledge; Archbishop Hughes, of New York, who was sent to England by President Lincoln during the Civil War; Father Ryan, the poet of the South; and the Rev. John Hall, the pulpit orator of New York.
Nothing can be more absurd than to speak of the Irish as newcomers in America. No one but a resurrected mound-builder would be entitled to do that. For the last thousand years or more, wherever there has been any great enterprise on foot, in the thick of things there have always been men with the shamrock in their hearts. The ship that carried Columbus from the known continent to the unknown had a Galway man aboard—so we are told on good authority. And one of the maps which cheered Columbus forward showed a country across the ocean which was called “Great Ireland.” This far western land had been discovered, it was reported, by St. Brendan, an Irish monk, eight or nine centuries before.
There were a few Irish on the Mayflower, but the first large body arrived about twenty years later. There were five or six hundred of them—a forlorn and pitiful mob, forcibly transported from their native land. Those were the black days of Cromwell, when $25 was paid for the head of a wolf and $50 for the head of a patriot Irishman. In ten years probably 100,000 were driven out, and many of them came to the American colonies.
The first big Irishman in our colonial history was Gov. Thomas Dongan, who gave New York its earliest charter, and who deserves to be called one of the pioneer champions of popular rights in America. The second was the distinguished philosopher, Bishop Berkeley, who came from Derry to Rhode Island in 1728, lured by a missionary enterprise that failed. All through the eighteenth century came a steady stream of the exiled Irish—men and women who had been toughened in a terrible school, and who were fit and ready for the perils of the American wilderness. Most of them were from the north of Ireland—from little Ulster, that giant-breeding province whose sons have made history in almost every country of the earth. They were the first across the Alleghanies. They settled Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia and the coal and iron regions of Pennsylvania. Such men as Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and Matthew Lyon were their leaders. It was they who colonized Ulster County in New York and Londonderry in New Hampshire. The colonial hero of the Catskills was Timothy Murphy—so wrote Jay Gould in his famous History of Delaware County, published fifty years ago.
When the War of Independence began there were Irish on the firing-line everywhere. They had a personal as well as a colonial grievance against Great Britain; and here was a chance, at last, to even up old scores. A writer of those times describes them as “a hardy, brave, hot-headed race; excitable in temper; unrestrainable in passion; invincible in prejudice. They are impatient of restraint, and rebellious against anything that in their eyes bears the resemblance of injustice. They were the readiest of the ready on the battlefields of the Revolution.” These were not parlor virtues, but they were the kind that founded the American republic. “You lost America by the Irish,” declared Lord Mountjoy in the British Parliament.
In those critical days, while thousands were dilly-dallying, the Irish were hot for action. It was John Sullivan who struck the first blow, four months before the historic skirmish at Lexington, by capturing military stores at Portsmouth. The Sullivan family, of which he was a member, furnished three governors for the young republic. Their mother, in her old age, used to say that she had often worked in the fields carrying the governor of Massachusetts, while the governors of New Hampshire and Vermont tagged at her skirts. The first British warship was captured by an O’Brien; and John Barry became the official father of the American navy by receiving the earliest commission as captain. The first American general to fall was the brilliant Richard Montgomery, whose virtues compelled even Lord North to lament his death. It is an interesting fact, and one of which few are aware, that the three monuments in front of New York’s oldest church—St. Paul’s, on lower Broadway, are in memory of three famous Irishmen—General Montgomery, Thomas Addis Emmet and Dr. William MacNevin, the first scientific chemist of New York.
In 1776 three of the signers were of Irish birth—Matthew Thornton, James Smith and George Taylor. Five others, at least, were of Irish blood—Edward Rutledge, Thomas Lynch, Thomas McKean, George Reed and Charles Carroll of Carrollton. The secretary of the assemblage, who read aloud the Declaration on the birth-morning of our republic, was Charles Thompson, Irish born and the son of an evicted farmer. And one of the first societies to back George Washington with men and money was the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of Philadelphia, who raised half a million dollars and swung into line with a cheer. Only one of their members objected, and his name was struck from the society’s rolls. Washington was a frequent guest at their banquets and an honorary member, as President Roosevelt is of the same society in New York.
No history of the Revolution is complete without its Irish chapter. What with the dashing work of the Irish Brigade under Count Dillon; with the exploits of Mad Anthony Wayne and General Moylan, the Murat of the Revolutionary cavalry; and with the powerful aid of Burke and Sheridan in England, King George the Third found himself beset by Irishmen from all quarters. There were whole companies of Irishmen who fought for American independence under their own green flag, as loyal to their adopted country as to the land of their birth.
The most typical Irishman of pioneer times was Andrew Jackson, our seventh president. One secret of his greatness lay in the fact that there were many men of his mold and nationality in every American community. It is a fact that should cause every Irish heart to beat with pride that the first American president who rose from the rank and file, without the prestige of aristocratic birth or the polish of education, was the son of a rack-rented exile from Ulster. It may even be true that he was the first in the world’s history to climb so high, not by force of arms, but by the free choice of a free people.
“Old Hickory,” as his soldiers called him, has had no superiors as a popular leader. None of his enemies, and he made many of them, could question his honesty, his sincerity, his courage. He believed that the duty of a government was to protect the weak, curb the strong, and obey public opinion. During his presidency the United States bounded into industrial greatness and international prestige.