The first official
figures show that in 1820 there arrived 8385 aliens of whom 7691 were
Europeans. Of these 3614, or nearly one-half, came from Ireland. Until
1850 this proportion was maintained. Here was evidence of the first
ground swell of immigration to the United States whose subsequent
waves in sixty years swept to America one-half of the entire
population of the Little Green Isle. Since 1820 over four and a
quarter million Irish immigrants have found their way hither. In 1900
there were nearly five million persons in the United States descended
from Irish parentage. They comprise today ten per cent of our foreign
born population.
The discontent and grievances of the Irish had a vivid historical
background in their own country. There were four principal causes
which induced the transplanting of the race: rebellion, famine,
restrictive legislation, and absentee landlordism. Every uprising of
this bellicose people from the time of Cromwell onward had been
followed by voluntary and involuntary exile. It is said that
Cromwell's Government transported many thousand Irish to the West
Indies. Many of these exiles subsequently found their way to the
Carolinas, Virginia, and other colonies. After the great Irish
rebellion of 1798 and again after Robert Emmet's melancholy failure in
the rising of 1803 many fled across the sea.
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