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Irish
Contents
Irish Immigration to New York City >The Irish at 97 Orchard
Street > 19th Century Dublin > Irish Immigrants in the Workplace
> Irish Immigrants and the Catholic Church in America > Tammany
Hall and Irish Political Participation > Irish Nationalism >
Irish Fraternal and County Organizations > 19th Century Health
Care and the Immigrant Irish > The Irish Wake
Irish Immigrants and the Catholic Church in America
The years immediately after the Famine brought
a Devotional Revolution to Ireland and a greater emphasis on parish
life. Immigrants brought this new devotion to the parish with them
when they came to New York. However, many Irish, especially rural
peasants from the west of Ireland, practiced more of a folk Catholicism
rather than a strict theology. Many had never received communion
and did not understand the Latin responses for the Mass, or even
the basic tenets of their faith. They were Catholic because they
were born Catholic. In addition, the British presence and disgust
for the Catholic Irish reinforced their religion as an integral
part of their ethnic identity. This loyalty was strengthened in
America under nativist attacks. As such, Irish immigrants felt a
strong connection to the Church and supported their local parishes
in the city, but did not attend Mass regularly-sometimes only for
the major sacraments of baptism, marriage and death, as well as
the holy days.1
Despite irregular attendance by many immigrants, the parish church
was one of the main centers of Irish life in New York. Unlike German
immigrants, who were a diverse group of Catholics, Protestants,
and Jews, Irish immigrants in this period were much more homogenous.
While they had individual county ties, these were superceded by
national and Catholic loyalties. Germans, conversely, often identified
more strongly with their ethnic rather than their religious identity.
They supported their separate parishes, but these were not the center
of ethnic life as they were for the Irish. Irish parishes supported
religious societies, and branches of ethnic organizations like the
Ancient Order of Hibernians, and temperance societies like the Father
Mathew Temperance Association.2
Women were often the lifeblood of the parish. They not only ran
church fairs, but also attended mass, established religious societies,
and donated to the collections (domestic servants and factory workers
were among the most generous contributors to local parishes). While
men did become involved in Catholic and ethnic associations attached
to the parish, women were more involved in its day-to-day functioning.3
Although the religious devotion of Irish immigrants living in Little
Germany is uncertain, it seems likely that they would probably belong
to an Irish parish and feel a strong attachment to it. Becoming
involved in the parish, especially for Bridget Moore, would be a
means of maintaining a sense of ethnic and religious identity, surrounded
as they were by other national and religious groups. Joseph and
Bridget likely practiced a variety of Catholicism which mixed the
folk religion of western Ireland with the more structured Catholicism
of the more urban, Anglicized east of Ireland where the Devotional
Revolution had made greater impact by the mid 19th century. Despite
living in a German neighborhood, the Moores had plenty of English-speaking,
Irish churches to choose from in close proximity to their home,
so they would probably not have chosen to go to a German church
in which they would not understand the language. Their choice would
be determined more by whom attended the Irish parishes in their
area. Certain churches were dominated by immigrants from specific
counties, based on where they lived in the city.4
The Irish Catholic Church in the United States reflected the community's
class structure. Religious life centered on the parish, which usually
encompassed a diverse range of members. Wealthy parishioners sat
at the front of the Church often in rented pews, which most parishes
used as a way of generating consistent revenue while giving wealthy
members an opportunity to demonstrate to the community their piety
and charity. Most Catholic parishes in the first part of the 19th
century were in precarious financial states; in addition to renting
pews, many Churches charged admission fees. Moving backwards from
the alter, behind the wealthiest members of the parish sat the community's
middle class, grocers, saloonkeepers, and other small business owners.
They were followed by the bulk of the community, laborers, domestics,
and other working class Irish, with the very back reserved for those
whose attendance at Mass was infrequent.5
In the Church itself, Mass was the principal act of worship for
the Irish Catholics, although they might only receive communion
once or twice a year. Nevertheless, most Catholics believed it was
an integral part of their religious experience to witness the act
of transubstantiation and the offering of Jesus Christ to God, even
if they were not actively taking part in it. Most Sunday sermons
contained a message that can be roughly broken down into two parts.
Foremost, priests emphasized the Catholic notion of personal salvation,
urging parishioners to practice individual penitence for sins they
had committed. The second focus of the sermon was on the primacy
of the Roman Catholic Church. This developed in mid-19th century
America as a response to nativism and as a means of guarding parishioners
from the Protestant society that surrounded them.6
Philosophically and practically, the Catholic Church was not actively
involved in the reform movements of the 19th century - most Catholic
clergy members viewed reform as a Protestant attempt to proselytize
and otherwise weaken their influence over parishioners. Catholic
charity was organized around the notion of the foremost importance
of the salvation of the individual soul, not the reorganization
of society as a whole. The Catholic World and other voices of the
Catholic community urged "practical benevolence". Catholic
philanthropy took the form of almshouses, and organizations such
as the Ladies Society of Charity and the St. Vincent de Paul Society,
which raised money, clothes, and food for relief, but did not seek
to affect holistic changes in housing, sanitation, etc. The Catholic
Church, especially in the Irish community, also idealized poverty,
viewing it as a condition that illustrated one's worthiness of attaining
salvation.7
Another aspect of worship that infiltrated American Catholicism
in the 19th century was the popularity of and widespread participation
in revival missions. Emulating Protestant evangelism that had gained
prominence as part of the Second Great Awakening during the first
part of the century, Catholic revival missions combated the message
of rationalism promoted by Enlightenment thinkers and increased
secularization. (Revivalism was a phenomenon throughout the English-speaking,
Christian world - between 1850 and 1875, Ireland also experienced
a surge in both Protestant and Catholic missions.) Revival missions
targeted lapsed Catholics, and sought to bring them back into the
Church community. In 1860 and 1862, Transfiguration Church hosted
revivals that lasted two weeks, each attracting approximately 20,000
people. Revivals also helped to fuel the devotional movement - at
the revivals, attendees could select from a wide range of religious
merchandise that included catechism books, rosaries, medals, and
other prayer books catering to the individualized needs of the worshipers.
(Similarly, peddlers would make door-to-door rounds in Catholic
neighborhoods, selling devotional materials.)8
St. Patrick's Old Cathedral
The original St Patrick's Cathedral in New York City was then, as
the new one is now, the formal center of religious life for members
of the Archdiocese of New York, and the seat of the Archbishop.
The oldest Roman Catholic Church building in New York City, it played
vital social and political roles in the lives of young immigrants,
helping them adapt to their new home. Described as "a cathedral
in the wilderness" upon its dedication in 1815, for many years
Old St. Patrick's stood beyond the limits of the city proper. The
Catholic leadership in New York, however, foresaw a greater presence
for the Church in the city, and thus commissioned the construction
of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral to serve as the seat of the bishop
when he arrived from Rome.9
For most of the early nineteenth century, the Church of the Transfiguration
was the spiritual center for Irish Catholic immigrants in New York.
Given the size and scope of the sixth ward's Irish immigrant community,
this held true after the Civil War as well. Indeed, in 1840, Transfiguration
was the largest Catholic parish in New York. By comparison, although
St. Patrick's Old Cathedral was the formal, institutional center
of the Catholic Church in New York rather than its spiritual heart,
in the 1850s it had about 10,000 active parishioners, many of whom
were Irish. Agnes and Cecilia Moore, two daughters of Joseph and
Bridget, were baptized at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral.10
The massive influx of Irish and German Catholics between 1840-1860
resulted in the explosive growth of the city's Catholic population,
leading then Bishop Hughes to conclude that something more than
building small new churches should be done. From the pulpit of Old
St. Pat's in 1850, Bishop Hughes declared, "I propose to erect
a cathedral in the city of New York which may be worthy of our increasing
numbers, intelligence and faith as a religious community, as a public
architectural monument of the present and a prospective crown of
this metropolis of the American continent." This "new"
Cathedral, which came to stand on Fifth Avenue, was an outgrowth
of the first St. Patrick's Cathedral, founded in 1809. Rebuilt after
a fire in 1866, the latter still stands at Mott and Prince Streets.
As mentioned, Old St. Pat's served as the seat of the bishop and
later archbishop until the new Cathedral opened in 1879. Indeed,
the remains of Archbishop Hughes, the first Archbishop in New York,
were interred at Old St. Pat's until 1883 when they were moved to
the newly opened Cathedral.11
Church of the Transfiguration
Built in 1801 as the English Lutheran First Church of Zion, it was
purchased in 1853 by John McClellan and his Roman Catholic congregation.
Located on Mott Street in the heavily Irish Catholic sixth ward,
during the mid 19th century Transfiguration emerged as the spiritual
center of the Catholic Church in New York City and its most heavily
populated parish. Towards the end of the 19th century, large numbers
of Italian immigrants settled in the sixth ward. In the 1890s, the
Irish leaders of the parish relegated the more than eight thousand
Italian to a basement congregation. Tensions between Transfiguration's
Irish and Italian congregants persisted until 1902 when Ernest Coppo
became pastor and moved the Italians upstairs. Today Transfiguration
primarily serves
the Chinese population that lives in the neighborhood.12
St. Mary's
Erected in 1826 by Irish-Catholics, it was only the third Roman
Catholic Church built in New York City. In a violent display of
anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic feelings, the church was set afire
by Nativists in 1831. Luckily, the building was not completely destroyed
and continued to operate. In 1836, the Ancient Order of Hibernians
established their first New York page in response to the burning
of St. Mary's and other acts of violence against clergy and property.
St. Mary's parish office has ever since been held by Vicars of Irish
descent, although today the Church primarily serves the Dominican
and Puerto Rican population that lives in the neighborhood.
1 Jay Dolan, The Immigrant Church:
New York's Irish and German Catholics, 1815-1865 (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975); Emmett Larkin, "The
Devotional Revolution in Ireland, 1850-75," The American
Historical Review, vol. 77, no. 3 (June, 1972); Colleen McDannell,
"Going to the Ladies' Fair: Irish Catholics in New York City,
1870-1900," in Ronald H Bayor and Timothy J. Meagher, eds.,
The New York Irish (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1996); Ann Taves, The Household of Faith: Roman Catholic Devotions
in Mid-Nineteenth Century America (Notre Dame, Indiana: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1986).
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Souvenir of the Centennial Celebration
of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral (New York, 1909); Jay Dolan,
The Immigrant Church: New York's Irish and German Catholics,
1815-1865 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975);
Stephen I. Hannigan, Sketch of St. Patrick's Church (Old Cathedral)
(New York: Cathedral Library Association, 1909).
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Tyler Annbinder, Five Points: The 19th Century New York City
Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became
the World's Notorious Slum (New York: Plume, 2001).
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