friendly sons of st. patrick essays

friendly sons of st. patrick essays In the 1800s, immigrants from all different countries flooded into the United States for various reasons. Among the different immigrants that came into America were the Irish. The Irish had various long-standing reasons for migrating to the United States. Among those reasons was the resentment of British Protestantism, British landlords, British taxes, British rule, and a long depression that gave them social hardships. Ireland was the most densely populated country in Europe and it was devastated by economic collapse. The average age of death at this time declined down to nineteen (America 523). Another reason why they fled Ireland was the potato rot epidemic in 1845. The potato rot of 1845 brought a great famine to mostly all of rural Ireland and killed almost one million peasants (Irish 463). These events were what began the flood of Irish immigrants into America. Nearly 214,000 thousand Irish emigrated to the United States and Canada in 1847 on ships that were crowded and had very unsanitary conditions. These coffin ships claimed to have great space on board and warmed steerage (America 521). The living conditions turned out to be deadly as it killed thirty percent of all immigrants on board. Among the thirty percent that died, forty thousand were Irish (America 521). The boats arrived in such cities as Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. The immigrants had very little money that could afford a place to stay, so they stayed in the back alleys of buildings and around Catholic churches in the cities were their ships had docked (America 522). The reason the Irish had very little money or no money at all was because they were mostly farmers in Ireland. The Farmers main crop was the potato, which was ravaged by the rot of 1845. The rot had left the farmers with very little or no profit at all on their main crop (America 522). With no mon ey to live off of the Irish would have to go loo...