Happy St. Patrick's Day! Remember the last time people in the US were freaking out that immigrants belonging to a strange foreign religion were part of an insidious plot to take over America and make it a theocracy?
And on the topic of Irish immigration in the 19th century, it is also important to remember the cause of this mass immigration: A man-made famine created by capitalism.
"...during the first winter of famine, 1846-47, as perhaps 400,000 Irish peasants starved, landlords exported 17 million pounds sterling worth of grain, cattle, pigs, flour, eggs, and poultry—food that could have prevented those deaths. Throughout the famine, as Gallagher notes, there was an abundance of food produced in Ireland, yet the landlords exported it to markets abroad."
