The Famine Irish and the Irish-American Press: Strangers in a Hostile Land

Abstract

This article examines the role of two Irish-American newspapers from 1846–1879, the years during and after the Great Irish Famine. When blight destroyed successive potato harvests in Ireland, one million people died of starvation or fever. Another one-and-a-half million fled to North America. The Boston Pilot and the New York Irish World defended the immigrant Irish against nativist attacks and offered competing strategies by which the Irish could win acceptance. The Pilot emphasized the Catholic dimension of Irish identity and promoted accommodation with the Anglo-Saxon majority The Irish World advocated solidarity with other oppressed groups and urged resistance against Anglo-Saxon domination in both the new country and the old.