Question About Irish in America?

Question:My ancestors came from Ireland to New York, they were Protestants

Where were the most common places in NY State that Irish Protestants settled and where did the Catholics settle?

Would you have found both settling in the same communities?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: My ancestors came from Ireland to New York, they were Protestants

Where were the most common places in NY State that Irish Protestants settled and where did the Catholics settle?

Would you have found both settling in the same communities?

When did they come over? Do you know the year? Yes, they more than likely settled in the same area. Everyone stuck with their own group.

The Church of Latter Day Saints has the most extensive geneology data base anywhere. Call one in your area and they will help you do the research. You don't have to be a member.

Interesting question! I await some knowledgeable answers., and will watch this space.

they wouldnt be too far apart if they didnt live right next to each other i think they would stick together because they have a better chance of knowing people.

Depends on when they came over. When my grandfather came over in 1917, the Bronx was the place was that most Irish settled. In the 1800's, it was the lower east side of manhattan. Different eras had different Irish ghetto's where immigrants would settle.

As for the Irish in general, they tended to settle in areas where there was alot of construction work available. The Protestants especially were more middlle class, hard laboring people so in the growing cities like New York itself, were the places that they seemed to congregate.

Scotch Irish Prostestants have been in this country since colonial times.

For instance in the South, the English were on the coastline. Germans, Scots and Scotch Irish opened up the western part of the Southern colonies. After they cleared the land and built the roads, then many English migrated westward.

Savannah Georgia and Charleston, S.C. have always had a sizeable Irish Catholic population. I understand they never experienced any "No nothing riots" or problems in those cities. However if Catholics moved away from areas like Savannah and Charleston they found themselves isolated and their children usually married Protestants.

To my knowledge, the Irish pretty much stayed together, whether Catholic or Protestant. Although they spread to all corners of the New World, the largest numbers immediately settled in New York and other large centres in the northeast. This was not only for job opportunities but because they were joining relatives in those particular areas.

The same goes for other ethnic groups which, for example, lived in NY's lower east side but moved away for better accommodation.

While Irish, especially Irish catholic, have been immigrating since colonial times, the STANDARD immigration patterns, though certainly not absolute are..

Irish catholics immigrated mainly to large cities and various construction sites and mill towns -- note that the Erie Canal was built mainly by Irish Catholics. Most of the city slum impoverished Irish immigrants were catholics.

Protestants (Scots-Irish) headed to farms, the "wilderness", the "frontier".

Of course there were protestants in the cities and catholics in the farmlands, but intermarriage between catholics and protestants was VERY uncommon as it was strongly discouraged by both protestant ministers and catholic priests.

There was also intense discrimination against Irish Catholics in the mid 1800s which tended to separate the protestants and catholics even more - protestants "removing" themselves from city areas to avoid discrimination leveled upon the catholics.

BTW this isn't a "War of Religion". In genealogical research, such immigration patterns are very important parts of the research. That the patterns were different because of religion, city of origin, gender, or whatever, is just a useful fact. It is no more a religious war than recognizing that people from the Northern Spain went to different places than Southern Spain is a regional war.

Please put down the War of religion let us smoke a bowl and drink a six pack and get over it.The war is still with the Crown. If we continue killing each other how will we know which religion is right and who's wrong.NY is still the home of Protestant &Cathloic

Irish Catholics in the United States tended to congregate in cities in the Northwestern US (no pun intended), but in Canada, they were just as likely to live on a farm as their Scotch-Irish (Protestant) counterparts. My great-grandfather's family, for instance, immigrated to Castlemore, Ontario, Canada (where the Toronto airport is now located) from Donegal, Ireland. The reason: passage to Canada from Ireland was cheaper than it was to the US, and farm land was readily available.

Irish Catholics usually didn't intermarry with Protestants, but in some rare instances they did. Helping to build the railroads, my great-grandfather made his way from Canada to Texas during the 1880s because his oldest brother inherited the family farm whereupon he met my great-grandmother, who was Scottish. I'm sure their marriage was saved because there wasn't a Catholic Church within 100 miles of their farm. [There probably wasn't a Presbyterian one either. At that point in time, religion in Northwest Texas came in two brands--Methodist and Baptist.]

Incidentally, my great grandfather and his descendants kept in contact with his family in Canada. My parents and I visited my grandmother's cousin, who was a retired Catholic priest who taught European History at the University of Toronto in about 1980. Curiously enough, in the mid-1990s, my niece discovered that her 5th grade teacher in San Jose, California, was a descendant of one of the brothers of my great grandfather. You know everyone eventually ends up in California!