New York

by Edward Rutherfurd

Above all, though, it was Irish pride. You might blame the English for the Famine, but once you arrived in the New World, there was no one to blame for anything. And even here, in the land of boundless opportunity, you might have to crowd your family into a tenement hovel; and when you went to look for work, find a sign on the door that said: “Irish Need Not Apply”. Humiliation, for the proud princes of Ireland. No wonder they loved Cardinal Hughes for building them a magnificent cathedral, and for championing Catholic schools. No wonder they flooded into the police and the fire brigade, which gave them authority and honour. No wonder they sought and gave protection in Tammany Hall. And now they had a chance to prove their American loyalty and valour in battle. No wonder they marched out proudly, under their Irish banners.

“Free the damn niggers in the South, so they can come up here and steal our jobs?” the labouring men of New York protested. “Dammit, there’s four million of them.” The fact that Lincoln had not actually freed a single slave was overlooked. But then politics was seldom about reality.