Westward Cork Migration by Sail 1815-1860 by John Sutton

PART II EMIGRANT PERSPECTIVE

transient impact on American society. Instead, host country prejudices, ethnic networking, and enticements offered through the Catholic Church and Irish societies shepherded the Irish together into strong family-rich Irish cultural enclaves that matured and served as havens for later arrivals. Historians have found that Irish families in those times remained impressively intact despite frequent subjection to poverty and urban tenement life (slums). Carol Groneman Pernicone, researching 1855 Census records for the coarse Irish working-class (Five Points) 6 th Ward of New York, found that … “about two thirds of Irish teenagers lived at home compared with one third of German and native-born teenagers. The census also indicated the dominance of nuclear family households, augmented, perhaps, by a boarder or two” (Ó Gráda, 1999). The ability of Irish ethnic communities to foster close family ties has been further described … even in a poor enclave, such as Five Points. Records of the Church of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, near Five Points, have provided further demonstration of close bonding at a community level. Munster and Connacht were highly represented in the parish, accounting for 41.6% and 32.1% respectively between 1853 and 1860. Nearly half the brides and grooms at that Church, and at that time, came from the counties of Cork, Kerry, and Sligo. (Ó Gráda, 1999). That trend of communities in Ireland replicating themselves in America has previously been discussed in relation BNA. New York City’s major Irish enclaves for poorly skilled workers circa 1850 were clustered near the docklands at the south tip of Manhattan (the Battery), along the East River opposite Brooklyn (the first and fourth wards), and in adjacent wards including the sixth ward (Five Points). Other enclaves were scattered through Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx in relation to job opportunities (Shrout, 2012, 536-546). In the City of Boston circa 1850, the poorer and less skilled Irish congregated near the east- facing shipping wharfs of the North End (later an Italian enclave) to the north of State Street, and in tenements to the south of State Street at Fort Hill, between India Wharf and Liverpool Wharf (Miller, 2012, 226). Even Detroit has its own history in relation to both the development of the Midwest US and Ireland. The British acquired Detroit by treaty in 1763 and belatedly yielded it to the new United States in 1796. Even then, Detroit remained largely settled by families of French descent. Settlers from the East Coast states generally preferred the Ohio River Valley and lands southward, as they were more accessible via the Ohio River and gave farmers a longer growing season. In a 1996 article local historian Gordon Prichard Bugbee (1934-2000) stated: “As late as 1825, the only product worth exporting from Detroit was fur - next in revenue was fish which wasn't worth carting east. Half of Detroit residents still bore French surnames in 1825. That year the Erie Canal opened across New York state to Lake Erie, and New Englanders began following it west. By 1840, with a population of over 9,000, Detroit was the third largest town in the Midwest after Cincinnati and St. Louis - Michigan was still rural. “At mid-century, the Irish were the largest ethnic group among Detroit's newcomers, prompted by the Potato Famine in Ireland in the mid-1840's. The Irish moved into the near West Side. Since many of these came from County Cork, their neighborhood came to be known as ‘Corktown.’ In 1853, half the population of the Eighth Ward (which took in Corktown) was of Irish descent ---". Corktown is Detroit’s oldest extant neighborhood - recall that Toronto too had a Corktown.

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