Irish immigrant involvement in collective violence in New York from 1845 to 1875

Abstract

During the period of Famine and post-Famine immigration from 1845 to 1875, New York City experienced a large number of riots involving Irish immigrants. The popular press and official records indicate that the Irish community was more likely to riot than the German immigrant community that also began arriving in the 1840s. German immigrants were less likely to engage primitive rioting than the Irish, because they arrived in America with a more modern social tradition than the impoverished rural Irish. This dissertation will show that the traditional culture of the pre-Famine Irish was responsible for the over representation of the Irish immigrant community in collective violence. As the effects of modernization, which can be measured in the growth of political power, occupational advancement, increased leisure and recreational opportunities, and the increased stature of the Roman Catholic Church in the immigrant community, were felt in the last quarter of the century, the Irish community left the more problematic aspects of the older culture behind and collective violence declined.