Dan Milner - The Unstoppable Irish: Songs and Integration of the New York Irish, 1783–1883

THE UNSTOPPABLE IRISH

Figure 1. Bernard Ratzer (cartographer), Map of New York Showing the Extent of the Great Fire, 1776. Engraving. New York Public Library.

DAN MILNER

The
Unstoppable Irish

Songs and Integration of the
New York Irish, 17831883

University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana

Copyright 2019 by the University of Notre Dame

Notre Dame, Indiana 46556

undpress.nd.edu

All Rights Reserved

Published in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Milner, Dan, author.

Title: The unstoppable Irish : songs and integration of the New York Irish, 1783/1883 / Dan Milner.

Description: Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2019002907 (print) | LCCN 2019003433 (ebook) | ISBN 9780268105761 (pdf) | ISBN 9780268105754 (epub) | ISBN 9780268105730 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 0268105731 (hardback : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: IrishNew York (State)New YorkMusicHistory and criticism. | Irish AmericansNew York (State)New YorkMusicHistory and criticism. | IrishNew York (State)New YorkSongs and musicHistory and criticism. | Popular musicNew York (State)New YorkTo 1901History and criticism. | IrishNew York (State)New YorkHistory. | Irish AmericansNew York (State)New YorkHistory. | ImmigrantsNew York (State)New YorkHistory. | New York (N.Y.)Emigration and immigrationHistory.

Classification: LCC ML3477.8.N48 (ebook) | LCC ML3477.8.N48 M55 2019 (print) | DDC 305.8916/207471dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019002907

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at

IN MEMORY OF JOE BANJO BURKE

19462003

You may not have heard him sing

But those who did cannot forget his voice

And how he made it soar.

Writing is a lonely pursuit, but in the end it takes many people to make a book. Not coincidentally, nearly everyone who helped with The Unstoppable Irish is a librarian, a singer, or a teacher. Some are all three.

As this book is about to be published, I thank my loving wife, Bonnie Milner, for gracefully enduring my seven-year preoccupation.

Five fine scholars made time in their busy schedules to read the manuscript and provide many helpful suggestions. They are John Fagg, senior lecturer in American Studies at the University of Birmingham, England, and author of On the Cusp: Stephen Crane, George Bellows and Modernism; Bill Keogan, teaching librarian at St. Johns University, New York; Patrick McGough, lecturer on all things Irish at Queens College (CUNY); Rob Snyder, director of American Studies at Rutgers UniversityNewark and author of The Voice of the City: Vaudeville and Popular Culture in New York; and William H. A. Williams, retired professor of history and author of Twas Only an Irishmans Dream. I also remember fondly the late Leo Hershkowitz, retired professor of history at Queens College (CUNY) and author of Tweeds New York: Another Look. I visited Leo frequently while working on this book, and the first words he always spoke were, Are you finished? Bless you all!

My research efforts were greatly aided by the assistance of Paul Mercer at the New York State Library; Grace Toland, former chief librarian and now director of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, Dublin; Peter Knapp of the Watkinson Library, Trinity College, Connecticut; Nancy-Jean Ballard, former Archive of Folk Culture researcher at the Library of Congress; Brendan Dolan, formerly of the Tamiment Library at New York University; and Arlene Coscia and Dorothy McGovern of St. Johns University Library. Various personnel at the New York Public Library, the New York Historical Society, the Hay Library of Brown University, Providence Public Library, and the Bobst Library of New York University also aided my research efforts. Thanks also to Steve Roud, who generously made available from his private collection a copy of the Glasgow ballad sheet Skibbereen; and Marion Casey of Ireland House, New York University, who kindly gave me a copy of Patricks Hearty Invitation to His Countrymen.

Over the years, I have regularly discussed songs with a network of like-minded friends, some of whom are no longer living. Sharing their company has been a great pleasure, and hearing their insights ever informative. They are John Baker, Jackie Boyce, Jon Campbell, Luke Cheevers, Jimmy Crowley, Jeff Davis, Gabriel Donahue, John Doyle, Bill Dunlap, Gina Dunlap, Mick Fowler, Barry Gleeson, Martin Graebe, Len Graham, Ken Hall, Frank Harte, Lou Killen, Sean Laffey, Maurice Leyden, Margaret MacArthur, Jim MacFarland, Jimmy McBride, Geordie McIntyre, Alison McMorland, Don Meade, Mick Moloney, John Moulden, Tom Munnelly, Deirdre Murtha, Lisa Null, Andy OBrien, Robbie OConnell, Mike OLeary-Johns, Jerry OReilly, Sandy Paton, Mick Quinn, Tim Radford, Mike Risinger, Ian Robb, Fergus Russell, Martin Ryan, Grace Toland, Evelyn Timmie Vitz, Shay Walker, and Peta Webb.

I thank my colleagues at St. Johns University for their interest in this project, especially Bob Pecorella, Judy DeSena, Phyllis Conn, and Paul Gawkowski.

Last but not least, my gratitude to Eli Bortz and Matt Dowd of the University of Notre Dame Press for their steadfast support.

New York City

June 2018

Those in power write the history, those who suffer write the songs.

Frank Harte, An Phoblacht, 7 July 2005

The Unstoppable Irish traces the changing fortunes of New Yorks Irish Catholics, commencing in 1783 and concluding a hundred years later with the completion of the initial term of the citys first Catholic mayor. During that century, Hibernians first coalesced, then progressed slowly and painfully in uneven fashion from a variously dismissed, despised, and feared foreign group, ultimately to receive acceptance as constituent members of the citys population. This book presents evidence that the Catholic Irish of New York gradually integrated (came into common and equal membership) within the city populace, rather than assimilated (adopted the culture of a larger host group). Assimilation had always been an option for Catholics, even in Ireland. In order to fit in, they needed only to adopt mainstream Anglo-Protestant identity; but the same virile strain within the Hibernian psyche that had overwhelmingly rejected the abandonment of Gaelic Catholic being in Ireland continued to hold forth in Manhattan, and the community remained largely intact.

A novel aspect of the book is its use of song texts in combination with period newspaper reports and existing scholarship to develop a fuller picture of the Irish Catholic struggle. Because they have been long recognized as a highly verbal and passionately musical people, it follows that songs should provide special insight into their attitudes and popularly held beliefs. Largely folk songs, street songs, and early variety theater lyrics, the examples quoted here are principally products of working-class people or members of the middling class who had risen through the trades. They are important because they articulate issues and voice viewpoints from a street-level perspective. Their words are imperative to integration discourse because they were circulated without significant direction from the shaping channels of church, government, and the music industry. Here, song texts make the act of integration more vivid and its stages more discernable.