Bottoms Up:

The Perceptions and Realities of the Irish- American Stereotype in

Boston and New York, 1840-1900.

Fig 1 Anti-Irish political cartoon titled "The Usual Irish Way of Doing Things" by Thomas Nast (18401902),
Published in Harper's Weekly on 2 September 1871. Captions on walls: "Everything obnoxious to us shall be
abolished, our liberty has been taken away (killing Orangemen), We must rule." Caption on barrel: "Uncle
Sam's Gun Powder."

Introduction
Immigration to the United States has always been a contentious issue throughout
the past and in many respects still is today. Various historians have studied the perceptions
of immigration and the effect the new immigrants had on American society. In the 1840s a
new wave of immigration had arrived. An influx of immigrants from Ireland and Germany
aroused many suspicions from local nativist Americans, suspicions of these new strange
ethnicities, their customs and their traditions. Many historians have studied the
perceptions and realities of Irish-American drinking, how locals viewed it, and ways in
which we distinguished stereotypes of the drunk Irish, that exist still today in the United
States.
This version of the Irish stereotype in the United States can be seen with the
American-style celebration that takes place on St. Patricks Day, a day in which everyone is
Irish and everyone celebrates his or her Irish-ness by getting drunk. This is a direct
contrast to how the Irish in Ireland celebrate St. Patricks Day as a Holy Catholic holiday,
not a national drinking fest. Ireland has always been seen as an island of drinkers here in
the United States. Was this actually the case? Do Irish-Americans drink more than their
ethnic immigrant counterparts? Is this a misconception based on stereotypes and
perceptions nativist Americans had of new immigrants, or did the Irish drink more in
reality? I believe that cultural patterns in Ireland and in the United States, and Irish
traditions brought to America with the new waves of immigrants, led IrishAmericans to drink more than their immigrant counterparts. The Irish in America
ultimately began to not only to accept their stereotype in order to assimilate, but
also drank more as a result of cultural traditions that dated back to the 12th century

in the British Isles. This is what I will try to prove and these are the questions in which I
will try to answer. The easiest way to find an answer is to look at the history of alcohol and
drinking in Ireland, prior to the Irish exodus caused by the Great Potato Famine of the
1840s.
The combination of material covered in these previously researched areas helps
adds context to the growing stereotypes and misperceptions of the Irish in America and
how these stereotypes and misconceptions led to racial and ethnic discrimination against
the new waves of Irish immigrants. It also helped to explain how the local nativist
Americans felt about the new wave of immigrants that was arriving on their shores. Here,
we consider the idea of nativism, as the rise in anti-foreign spirit held by the previously
established, mostly protestant population, whose anti-foreign views and popularity
steadily increased along side the new wave of European immigration which flooded into
the United States throughout the 1840s, continuing into the new century.
The historical trend of drinking which followed the immigrants over from Ireland
and attitudes that nativist Americans felt toward theses immigrants upon their arrival, led
to the growing perception of the rowdy drunken Irishman, a stereotype that has persisted
throughout Americas history and continued on to the present day.

Previous Research
In Richard Stivers' 1976 work, Hair of the dog: Irish Drinking and its American
Stereotype, Professor Stivers examines the roots of the Irish drunk stereotype in both
Ireland and in America, that the Irish were always brawling and always perceived as
perpetual barflies. He argues that while being persecuted in their homeland by the English,
the Irish were treated unfairly in their new adopted country of the United States of America

and acquired a reputation for constant drunkenness and alcoholism. This reputation,
Stivers argued, was fabricated over centuries by the English because of their hatred and
contempt for their ape-like, Irish neighbors. Hair of the Dog was an analysis of how
drinking patterns in Ireland evolved prior to the massive influx of emigration to the United
States, while concurrently studying the role alcohol played on early immigrant life. Hair of
the Dog took an in-depth look into research on alcoholism and stereotyping, in both the
United States and in Ireland. Stivers argued that the identity of [the] drunkard was foisted
upon the Irish by a cultural stereotype and related institutionalized practices based on
early cultural practices that took place in Ireland and the British Isles.1 Stivers implied that
these negative stereotypes followed the Irish over to the United States from the British
Isles and fostered their way into the American consciousness.
In Drinking in America: A History, Mark Edward Lender examined the aspects of
drinking in America from the arrival of the pilgrims on the Mayflower in Plymouth in 1621,
and the drinking habits of the founding fathers during the American Revolution, all the way
through to the modern era, to 1987. Lender brought original research, together with new
historical and social science investigations, while putting forth his own interpretation of
what drinking meant to Americans throughout the years. Lender argued, from the very
birth of the republic, drinking has been measured against an extremely exacting standard
of personal and social conduct- a circumstance with profound implications for the next two
centuries of the American experience.2 Lenders writing added context to the idea of
Richard. Stivers. A Hair of the Dog: Irish Drinking and American Stereotype. The
Pennsylvania State University Press University Park and London. 1976. Pg.14.
2 Mark E. Lender, James K. Martin. Drinking In America: A History Freeway Press.
NYC, NY. 1982. Pg. xxi.
1

drinking in America itself and the rise of nativist and temperance movements along the
way. Lender argues that because of biased perceptions, ideas of manhood, Irish nationality,
and drinking rituals performed in the Irish culture all eventually helped lead to the nativist
perception of the drunken Irish here in America.
Another scholarly work that studied patterns of American nativism from 1860-1925
is Strangers in the Land, written by John Higham. Higham looked into the rise of nativism
and its main causes. His book attempted to study and assess the general history of
nativism, or the rise in anti-foreign spirit, in the United States. Higham looked at distinctive
nativist patterns and described how the new Irish immigrants fared at every social level
and in every section where it [nativism] left a mark, and how it has passed into action.3 His
concentration also covered the hostilities of the American nationalists toward European
immigrants, which at this time in the mid-to-late nineteenth century was the primary
group of immigrants coming to America.

History and Customs of Drinking in Ireland Through the 19th Century

Drinking has been a part of Irish and American culture and traditions for many
years. In Ireland, drinking has been a part of the culture for centuries. Irish culture had a
huge affect on Irish drinking habits in Ireland and in the United States. In Ireland,
communal and religious exercises always included drinking alcohol. From marriages to
funerals, both in Ireland included lavish drinking and sometimes ended in games,

John, Higham. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925

New York 1963. Pg. xi.
3

storytelling, singing, smoking, and even proved to be alcohol drinking endurance tests.4
All aspects of life in Ireland included ritual drinking, including economic transactions.
Stivers wrote:
The economic sphere of life was not free from the influence of drink either. Many
bargains and transactions were agreed on after a few drinks, especially at fairs and
markets. Farmers sometimes repaid their neighbors assistance at harvest time in
whiskey. Irish fairs were often the scene of drunkenness in which friendships were
renewed over several drinks. Friends treating friends was part of a system of
compulsory drinking usages.5
Alcohol was important in all aspect of life including economic, social, political and even for
personal medicinal uses, in all parts of the British Isles.
Whiskey was used for many different purposes in Ireland. Including for medicinal
uses. According to Stivers research, some of these medicinal purposes included: a cure for
the palliative for the effects of Irelands dank climate, being used for the treatment of
fatigue, to cure cholera, to revive someone from unconsciousness, and to strengthen
oneself in general.6 Robert Bales, who did a pioneering study on Irish drinking habits in
1944, asserted, it is hard to think of a medicinal use of alcohol which has not been current,
at one time or another, in the Irish culture.7 In Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century,
alcohol was a part of everyday life and was used in some manner or occasion by the Irish
on a daily basis.
Stivers took his title, Hair of the Dog, from the practice of drinking again in the
morning to relieve oneself of the effects of past drinking from the night before. Eventually,
he argues, hair of the dog in Ireland, led to prevalent alcoholism and the rise of alcohol
Richard, Stivers. A Hair of the Dog: Irish Drinking and American Stereotype. The
Pennsylvania State University Press University Park and London. 1976. Pg.16-19.
5 IBID. Pg. 18.
6 IBID. Pg. 18.
7 IBID. Quoted in Stivers. Pg. 18.
4

addiction in Ireland and in the British Isles as a whole.8 The hair of the dog is another
cultural aspect of Irish-ness that led Irish and Irish Americans down the path toward
alcoholism. There were many different social and economical aspects of drinking in Ireland
as well as communal aspects and drinking as a rite of passage. Stivers argues:
Convivial drinking in Ireland was also the context for the expression of political
aggression against the English, whose rule the Irish detested. [] While whiskey
drinking [also] served as a primary means of political resistance [] and the
political integration of all Irishmen 9
Drinking as a form of political aggression against the rule of the English and their
imperialistic empire had been practiced in Ireland for many years prior to the mass
departure of immigrants from the continent in the mid-nineteenth century. Drinking
became a form of resistance and a proud part of Irish heritage. Drinking permeated all
aspects of life in Ireland and in its culture.
According to Stivers, for the Irish, drinking in America also made one more Irish; it
distinguished one from other ethnic groups. Hence in the act of drinking, in the affirmation
of a lifestyle, one was truly nationalistic. Ultimately drink- even more than it had in Irelandacquired a spiritual value; it had become sacred.10 The cultural traditions of hard
drinking, which came over from Ireland, took hold here in the United States and in a sense
became an American Tradition, with an emphasis on the old stereotype that the more you
drink the more Irish you are.
Occupational drinking was another major contributor to this phenomenon. Set rules
in various occupations such as carpentry and even among the higher class occupations
such as among lawyers, physicians and merchants, required heavy drinking both in
IBID. Pg. 18.
IBID. Pg. 17.
10 IBID. Pg. 180.
8
9

America and in Ireland.11 Occupational drinking was often excessive and was centered
around a system of fines that members of a trade levied on each other, and these fines were
almost exclusively spent on drinking. Many Irish-men were even paid in whiskey, such as in
the coalmines and construction industries, with many Irish eventually being forced into
being hard drinkers.12 The pressures on individuals to both pay their fines and to drink
with the work-group was often a very intense and immense social pressure.13 Stivers wrote
The understood conditions of employment are, that the men shall spend, in ardent spirits
and malt liquor, a considerable portion of their earnings sometimes up to as much as half
of their earnings.14
Much of the news and politics of the day were discussed in pubs or public houses.
Shop meetings, union meetings, and political meetings were all held in public houses. The
pub was the community recreation center and worked as the newsstand in Ireland and the
early United States of America, as well.15 Many of the Irish-men were brought up in
bachelor groups of un-married men and only earned their manhood by drinking heavy.
This was a rite-of passage in Ireland and allowed initiation into the bachelor group and into
manhood. According to Richard Stivers:
A combination of drinking alcoholic beverages, entrance into the public house and
the company of bachelor group members, establishes the initiates manhood, his
acceptability into the male community, and his membership into the bachelorgroup. The initiates first drink in the public house in the company of the bachelorgroup members is a ceremonial demonstration of his manhood.16

IBID. Pg. 22.

IBID. Pg. 140.
13 IBID. Pg. 26.
14 IBID. Pg. 30.
15 IBID. Pg. 23.
16 IBID. Pg. 83.
11
12

Here we catch a glimpse of how drinking alcohol and whiskey was extremely prevalent in
Irish customs and traditions and permeated every aspect of Irish male life. In Ireland
alcohol was an important factor every aspect of Irish heritage and was expected at every
celebration and every stage of life.

History of Drinking in Early America

We see in Lenders, Drinking in America that Americans also loved their alcohol.
From the arrival of the Mayflower to the founding fathers of the American Revolution, in an
age where alcohol was considered safer than water, Americans have always enjoyed their
alcoholic beverages. At the same time drinking was occurring in all aspects of life in Ireland,
so too was it slowly making its way into American life. Alcohol in America found its way
into politics as well. Many of these customs and traditions followed the pilgrims from the
British Isles and slowly made their way into American life. According to Lender, weddings,
baptisms, holiday celebrations, ministerial ordinations, militia musters [in the United
States] and even funerals also were normally wet.17
Occupational, cultural and social drinking were taking place in the American
colonies just as in Ireland. Lender wrote:
Labor both on the farms and in the towns was backbreaking, and timely jolts of beer,
cider, or spirits helped to deaden the pain. [] One did not seek office at any level
without treating the electorate during the campaign-that is without providing all
and sundry with generous libations. Polling places themselves were rarely dry.18
He continued that in the United States:
It was common to down a glass of whiskey or other spirits before breakfast [] that
no sex, and scarcely any age were exempt from its application. Instead of taking
coffee or tea breaks, Americans customarily stopped every morning and afternoon
Mark E. Lender, James K. Martin. Drinking In America: A History. Freeway Press. NYC, NY.
1982. Pg. 10.
17

18

IBID. Pg. 10.

8

for eleven oclock (eleveners) and four oclock drams. At the appointed hours,
laborers in the fields, offices and shops halted and picked up the jug. Even school
children took their sip of whiskey, the morning and afternoon glasses being
considered absolutely indispensible to man and boy. Ardent spirits were a basic
part of the diet- most people thought that whiskey was as essential as bread.19
Drinking in the early United States looked a lot like drinking in Ireland during the same
period and occurred at a similar pace. Americans used alcohol in similar customs and
ceremonies and had similar agrarian lifestyles as many Irish.

History of Irish Immigration: The Push and Pull

Irish immigrants brought their own traditions and customs with them when they
began arriving in America in the 1840s. The Irish began to flee their homeland after the
1840s Irish potato blight that caused massive starvation and eventually led to the massive
Irish Exodus of 1847-1848.20 But many Irish came for other reasons. Maguire wrote of
those who wished to leave the homeland for America:
Those who are well off at home do not quit it for a new country; contented with
their present position, they never dreamed of changing it for one which is sure to be
accompanied with more or less of risk or hardship. The impelling motive that has
driven millions across the Atlantic, and that may drive millions more in the same
direction, is the desire, so natural to the civilized man, of improving his condition, of
obtaining the certain means of a decent livelihood- in a word, of making a home and
a future for himself and his children. [] The mass came because they had no option
but to come, because hunger and want were at their heels, and flight was their only
chance of safety. Thus the majority landed from the emigrant ship with little beyond
a box or bundle of clothes, and the means of procuring a weeks or a months
provisions- very many with still less. Some had education, intelligence, and
knowledge of business; but of this class few had money- they crossed the ocean to
secure that.21

IBID. Pg. 47.

John F. Maguire. The Irish in America, Published by Forgotten Books 2012, Originally
Published, New York. 1868. Pg. 134.
21 IBID. Pg. 4.
19
20

The push of the Potato famine, land-laws passed by the British which limited male
land inheritance by restricting the passing of land only to the eldest son and resulted in tiny
unmanageable plots of land, along with un-written rules on marriage, such as many Irishmen and women deciding not marrying young because of limited availability of land and
resources in Ireland and of the rise of the bachelor-groups were all coincided by the
unstoppable pull emanating from the United States. A pull created out of the hope of
economic opportunity and the possibility of workable, livable land in the United States.
Immigrants came to the United States for many different reasons but all came in hope of
finding a better life.

Life Upon Arrival: Nativist Perceptions; Discrimination, Racism and the

Rise of the Irish-American Stereotype

Fig. 2 A satirical cartoon, from the Punch magazine, showing an Irishman depicted as an ape.
Caption reads: Mr. Gorilla, The Young Ireland Party, Exulting over the Insult to the British Flag.
Shouldnt he be Extinguished at once?

10

The Irish were the largest single group of pre-Civil War immigrants to arrive in the
United States. While fleeing poverty and political oppression, during the 1840s, and
because of the effects of the Great Potato Famine, almost two million Irish landed in the
United States between 1830 and 1860. Overwhelmingly, they were poor, and while some of
them moved west or south, most remained in or near Eastern ports of entry. Cities such as
Boston, New York, and Philadelphia contained major Irish populations by the 1850s. These
immigrants lived virtually on the bottom of societys social scale. Crowded into squalid,
wretched tenements, the Irish generally provided a cheap and plentiful labor supply for the
industrializing Northern economy. For the Irish in the United States life was hard, made
even more difficult by massive social discrimination they faced once they arrived.22
Many immigrants to the United States dealt with their own struggle for assimilation
and had their own personal struggle against the rising nativist prejudices, which came
about after the massive influx of immigrants in the 1830s and 40s and continued on into
the new century. Although many of these ethnic groups were discriminated against such as
the Germans, Jews and Italians, none so much as the experience of the Irish immigrant on
the East Coast of the United States between 1850-1880. In places like Boston and New
York, huge influxes of Irish immigration led to a changing cultural social and political
landscape, along with a steady increase in American nativist resentments. This new rise of
nativism led to a growing stereotype and resentment of the Irish immigrant, viewed as a
poor, drunkard, who liked to fight and cause trouble and who had the wrong religion.

Mark E. Lender, James K. Martin. Drinking In America: A History. Freeway Press. NYC, NY.
1982. Pg. 10.
22

11

Fig. 3 Excerpts from the Know Nothing Platform (KNP) that was published in 1855. The writer of the
platform is unknown.

Stivers implied that these prejudices that existed from previous stereotypes held in
Britain, were based on customary British Anglo-Saxon ideology, naturally geared toward
anti-Catholicism because England was crammed in-between and competing with two
Catholic empires of the time, the French and the Spanish. Stivers wrote:
Stereotypes of the Irish and cultural prejudice against them were bound intimately
to an Anglo-Saxon ideology, an amalgam of racial and nationalistic myths and ideas,
class and religious sentiments. The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed
the confluence of numerous ideologies: Anglo-Saxonism, Teutonism, social
Darwinism, and Americanism. These ideologies contained as their driving force a
virulent bourgeois morality. The immigrant Irish stood indicted on every count:
They were the wrong race, the wrong religion, and the wrong class in the right
country. []
He continued:
Anglo-Saxon-ism in both its racial and cultural versions explains why the Irish were
so often caricaturized, satirized, and polemicized against as inferior. The early Irish
immigrants were the very dregs of society. Anglo-Saxon-ism, but especially social
Darwinism, justified the exploitation and neglect of the Irish. The Anglo-Saxon
ideology became embedded in two social movements of unparalleled significance;
the nativist movement, essential ant-Catholic and anti-immigrant, was not
convinced that the democratic ideal of assimilation was viable. The temperance
movement, likewise anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant, perceived excessive drinking
to be the root cause of most social problems, especially poverty and crime. Both of
these movements exuded Americanism. For the Native[ist] American, the Catholic
Irish immigrant was his negative identity.23

Richard. Stivers. A Hair of the Dog: Irish Drinking and American Stereotype. The
Pennsylvania State University Press University Park and London. 1976. Pg.153.
23

12

Here Stivers described how many of these racist stereotypes followed the Irish over from
ideas developed in the Old World, which were based on social Darwinian principles.
Along with these stereotypes came the poor and wretched Irish off the ships. The
Irish were the first in the mass wave of immigration that poured into the US in the midnineteenth century to flood Americas shores to work its industry and to inhabit its urban
slums.24 Many arrived and ended up in the infamous shantytowns in New York City and
Boston, and also formed skid rows in these same Eastern cities.25 Prostitution ran
rampant and many Irish had to work for the company store, being paid barely enough to
cover the cost of tools. Many laborers were forced to buy both food and clothes from the
company stores, which would be heavily marked-up, some by nearly 50 percent. 26 Irish
political organization was mostly made up of street gangs, social clubs and politicalmachine clubs, which were all under control of the ward boss, who controlled his own
territory.27
In The Irish in America (1867), John Francis Maguire described the effects of Irish
migration in the United States from a first hand account and tried to explain why the Irish
were persecuted more often, and discriminated against to a greater extent than other
immigrant populations, such as Jewish and German immigrants. Maguire argued that the
Irish were weighed down by many problems in the nineteenth century, among them were
British external controls and pressures developed in Ireland over years of colonial control,

IBID. Pg. 101.

IBID. Pg. 105. Mark E. Lender, James K. Martin. Drinking In America: A History. Freeway
Press. NYC, NY. 1982. Pg. 103.
26 Richard. Stivers. A Hair of the Dog: Irish Drinking and American Stereotype. The
Pennsylvania State University Press University Park and London. 1976. Pg.106.
27 IBID. Pg. 112.
24
25

13

as well as the occurrence of the great potato famine, which drove millions from the small
island onto the ships headed for the New World.
According to Maguire, these growing internal and external pressures resulted in the
deaths of many citizens at home in Ireland, and squeezed many others out, searching for
freedom and food abroad, especially looking toward the United States of America for
opportunity and freedom from British imperialism.
Maguire argues, Irish immigrants, who by 1860 composed the largest foreign-born
group in America, ended up facing what he saw as perhaps the greatest prejudices,
stereotypes and the most blatant discrimination out of any foreign ethnic group once they
arrived.
Maguire wrote of his personal reasons for travelling to the United States from
Ireland:
I desired to ascertain by personal observation what the Irish- thousands of whom
were constantly emigrating, as it were, from my very door- were doing in America;
and that desire, to see with my own eyes, and judge with my own mind, was
stimulated by the conflicting and contradictory accounts which reached home
through various channels and sources of information, some friendly, more hostile. I
was desirous of understanding practically the true value of mans labour and
industry, as applied to the cultivation of the soil and the development of a country.28
Maguires first-hand experiences as an Irishman in America, gave him a foreign, Irish,
perspective of the Irish circumstances in The United States and allowed us a new
perspective other than the American nativist view, as was prevalent here in the United
States, where the fervent distrust of immigrants was steadily on the rise. Although his view
was very personal, it was also biased by the fact the he, himself was an Irishman. Maguire
John F. Maguire. The Irish in America, Published by Forgotten Books 2012, Originally
Published, New York. 1868. Preface.
28

14

argues that the Irish did not drink more than their counterparts in America, but he did
believe that drinking was a major hindrance to acceptance and assimilation of immigrants
into the new American homeland.
With this new image of the poor, drunken Irishman in their mind, many nativistAmericans began to associate with each other to form political organizations in opposition
to immigration policies and began discriminate against the Irish immigrants as a whole.
Anti-foreign [political] parties began in New York, Boston and other cities after 1835 and
evolved gradually into the powerful Know-Nothing agitation movement of the 1850s.
Whether he was trembling at a Catholic menace to American liberty, or fearing an invasion
of pauper labor; [] Nativists were certain that some influence originating abroad,
threatened the very life of the nation within.29

Fig. 4 Anti Irish and German Propaganda. Know Nothing Cartoon, 1854

The rise of the Know-nothing Party was a result of relaxed immigration policies in
the United States. It resulted from the massive influx of European immigration and focused
mainly on the American-nativist viewpoint. It was founded on anti-immigration principles
John, Higham. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925
New York 1963. Pg. 4.
29

15

and propaganda, which was designed to persuade the politicians and the population in the
cities of the problems that would be involved with this mass influx on foreign immigration.
Maguire wrote of the new rise of anti-immigration he saw when he was visiting America:
The Know-Nothing movement of 1854 and 1855 troubled the peace of Catholics,
and filled the hearts of foreign-born American citizens with sorrow and indignation.
They were made the victims of rampant bigotry and furious political partisanship.
There was nothing-new in the Know Nothing-ism. It was as old as the time of the
Revolution, being Native Americanism under another name. Its animating spirit was
hostility to the stranger-insane jealousy of the foreigner.30
These fears rooted in nativism and Anti-foreigner bigotry, eventually led to
discrimination against the Irish culminating in the infamous Irish people Need Not Apply
slogan, used by nativist Americans in many different industries. This slogan was used in
acknowledging the fact that the Irish in America would not be even considered for
employment in certain industries and sectors. Americans pictured the Irish as rowdy
neer-do-wells, impulsive, quarrelsome, drunken, and thread-bare.31 Even blacks were
said to be preferred to the Irish for many jobs. More often than not, however, these two
groups were compared to one another in highly stereotyped terms as both being inferior
races. As early as the eighteenth century the Irish were being referred to as white negroes
in English literature.32
The term paddy-wagon was coined for the police car and became popularly
recognized as a universal symbol for the drunken, rowdy Irish folk who were arrested and
in trouble at a much higher frequency than their immigrant neighbors, according to
Richard Bales 1940s detailed study on Irish drinking patterns. Many of these Irish-men
John F. Maguire. The Irish in America, Published by Forgotten Books 2012, Originally
Published, New York. 1868. Pg. 444.
31 John, Higham. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925
New York 1963. Pg. 26.
32 IBID. Pg. 137.
30

16

and women were often referred to as Paddies and Mics, derogatory ethnic slurs taken
from popular Irish names of Patrick and Michael, famous on the island because of St.
Patrick and Michael Collins, a local Irish hero.33
The influence of the Temperance Movement, which was gaining popularity in the
1880s, and was a major factor in Irish growing stereotypical propaganda, helped increase
negative stereotypes of Irish immigrants and was fundamental in the founding of the
WTCU, The Womens Christian Temperance Union. Women founded the WTCU to quell the
use of alcohol in the United States, in the mid to late-nineteenth century.
The temperance movement and the women of the WTCU s position on alcohol led to
more discrimination against Irish immigrants and eventually led to prohibition in places
like Maine, and eventually nationally in the 1920s. The temperance movement reinforced
stereotypical Irish images in songs, novels, pamphlet-literature, works-of-history, nativistnewspapers and in political cartoons.34 The arrival and popularity of the Temperance
Movement in nativist, Know-Nothing-America led to increased immigrant discrimination,
especially against the drunken Irish. The Irish immigrants that landed between 1840 and
1880 had to deal with a lot as soon as they arrived off the boat.
Soon the Stage Irishman would appear and give the Irish Americans another
platform to be discriminated against.35 The stage Irishman was one of Englands cultural
gifts to America. The Irish had been satirized as wild Irish since the twelfth century
onward in English writings and political cartoons. According to Stivers:

Richard. Stivers. A Hair of the Dog: Irish Drinking and American Stereotype. The
Pennsylvania State University Press University Park and London. 1976. Pg.140.
34 IBID. Pg. 146.
35 IBID. Pg. 147.
33

17

Along with the newspaper and magazine cartoons, the stage play was perhaps the
most vivid source of the stereotype of the Irish-American as drunkard was the
newspaper sketch and cartoon. The Irishman was often caricatured as drunkard,
thus providing viewers with a living, concrete referent for their image of the
drunkard. [] After 1860 the Irish-American was sketched with exaggerated simian
features. In keeping with the racial and evolutionary theories of the day, the Irish
were often compared to the blacks and were viewed as a race whose physical,
intellectual, and emotional development had been arrested at a primitive stage. The
Irishman was even regarded as a link between the gorilla and the black. In cartoons,
this simian beast was often seen drinking and brawling. L.P. Curtiss excellent study,
Apes and Angels, contains numerous examples of the caricature of the Irish by the
English and of Irish-Americans by fellow Americans.36
Eventually the Irish immigrants would become more American and help
discriminate against the next group of Eastern European immigrants beginning to make
their own voyage to America. Stivers wrote, The caricature prior to the 1890s tended to
satirize the beastly consequences of the Irishmans drinking. During the 1890s, if not
slightly earlier, the caricature turned less savage and more thoroughly humorous.37
The accounts of discrimination and racism toward the Irish are too great to cover
completely but these are some of the general norms in which Irish immigrants would have
experienced in early the mid-nineteenth century in the United States. Stivers summarized
anti-foreign feeling toward the Irish in the United States by writing: :
The antipathy toward the Irish in the form of discriminatory practices, cultural
prejudice, and occasional outbursts of violence is perhaps unmatched in the history
of native-American reaction to immigrant groups. In one sense Irish and immigrant
were synonymous because the Irish in the late 1840s were the first great wave of
immigrants to reach American shores. They became the personification of the
outsider, the stranger, the foreigner-types that Americans had had an
exaggerated fear of ever since the time of colonization.38
Irish immigrants faced many challenging obstacles when arriving in America. From
exploitive living conditions, overcrowding, bad sanitation, disease, alienation, to
IBID. Pg. 39.
IBID. Pg. 143-144.
38 IBID. Pg. 137.
36
37

18

discrimination in jobs and an early death. The average Irish immigrant to the United States
faced the prospect of dying within 14 years upon of their arrival.39
After 1890 the stereotype of the Irish-American immigrant as a drunkard gradually
became more subtle and implied, though at times, it still showed a humorous
drunkenness.40 Half-accepted, half-rejected Irish immigrants were eventually assimilated
into American society but largely on a stereotyped and biased basis. There appears to be
evidence that many of the Irish embraced this stereotype and accepted their ethnic
stereotype once and for all by drinking more.41

Changing Perceptions and Assimilation

Slowly the Irish would be accepted into American culture and society, overcoming
decades of discrimination and alienation. After 1890, the caricature of the angry, drunk
Irishman was soon replaced by the idea and image of the happy drunk; a stage caricature
Irishman. 42 Stivers detailed:
The stage Irishman of earlier decades had been by now universally popularized.
This more positive image was a cultural remission that released the drunkard from
the full weight of reprobation. The Irish were no longer totally judged by the AngloSaxon ideal; compared to their success and demonstrated capacity for hard work,
any vice seemed minor. Stage Irish had become part of the terms for assimilation
into American society. 43
The traditional racist portrayal of the stage Irishman of the past now became the living
embodiment of a more sophisticated stage Irishman, the happy drunk.44 Higham wrote:

IBID. Pg. 106.

IBID. Pg. 156.
41 IBID. Pg. 156-157.
42 IBID. Pg. 14.
43 IBID. Pg. 168.
44 IBID. Pg. 158.
39
40

19

The Irish stereotype however could not help but soften as more and more Irishmen
rose out of the ranks of unskilled labor and merged in speech and manner with the
older population. By the early eighties, they were generally well regarded. It was
almost a proverb to say that a good workman does as much as an Irishman; and
even the harshest critics of the Irish looked forward confidently to their
assimilation.45
During this drawn out process of assimilation, increasing numbers of immigrants and their
children were adopting the nativist distinction between themselves and the newer
nationalities, accepting their Irish-American stereotype, differentiating themselves from
the newer influx of Eastern European immigrants.46
Irish-Americans began to adapt to American culture and assimilate, while new
groups of immigrants from Eastern Europe were now taking the brunt of the antiimmigration backlash. Stivers wrote, Irish-Americans adapted so completely to the
necessities of American industrialism that they eventually earned the grudging admiration
of nativist Americans for their political exploits. They had become more American than the
natives.47
In a sense, accepting their stereotype and caricature allowed the Irish to assimilate
and become more American in the eyes of the nativists who were constantly discriminating
against the Irish until the late 1880s. Stivers summed up the process of Irish assimilation
well, stating:
The nationalistic group consciousness of the Irish confirmed them as assimilated
into American life, albeit as separate and not equal Americans. Nationalistic
[American] leaders accepted almost without exception the dominant ideals and
assumptions of Americans. Irish-Americans made Irelands history over in the ideal
image of America and exaggerated their former group traits by treating their origins
John, Higham. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925
New York 1963. Pg. 26.
46 IBID. Pg. 123.
47 Richard. Stivers. A Hair of the Dog: Irish Drinking and American Stereotype. The
Pennsylvania State University Press University Park and London. 1976. Pg.120.
45

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in caricatured fashion. Ultimately then, Immigrant nationalism, which is to say Irish

self-consciousness and sense of group identity, was a powerful agency of
assimilation, while at the same time giving the appearance of isolating the
immigrant from American life. Irish-American culture was more American than
Irish. By concomitantly proffering and accepting a positive stereotype of
themselves (i.e. stage Irish), they compensated for the stark reality of the present
and created a bond of acceptance between themselves and native[ist] Americans. 48
Irish American assimilation was not easy but was accomplished by the arrival of new
immigrants and the acceptance of the Irish American-stereotype themselves, as drinkers
and drunks.

Summary and Conclusion

Throughout these various sources I found a common theme. Although the Irish were
stereotyped as drunkards, it seems that actually many of them were drunkards, in
comparison to other ethnic groups which inhabited American from 1840 -1900. Rates of
alcoholism in Ireland were high because alcohol was used in all aspects of life in Ireland.
Cultural, social, political and medicinal rituals helped to contribute to higher rates of
alcoholism in the Irish. Many of these cultural practices followed the Irish off the boats and
became intertwined into America alcoholic tendencies. So to be Irish in America meant to
be a drinker. The more one drank the more Irish one became. Maguire describes how
alcoholism kept the Irish down in the United States. As he travelled along the country, he
noted:
Were it possible to induce Irishmen, if not to abandon drink altogether, which is not
at all likely or probable, at least be moderate in its use, the result would be a blessed
one. It were impossible to imagine any result more blessed, more glorious. It would
lift up the Irish race in America as with miraculous power, simply because Irishmen
would then have an opportunity of exhibiting, without flaw or blemish, those

48

IBID. Pg. 127.

21

qualities which, whenever they are allowed fair play, excite the admiration and win
the affections of the American people.49
Here Maguire acknowledges the stigma of alcoholism with-in the Irish community in the
United States and described how if they could have defeated constant inebriation, he
believed, they would be accepted in American society and have the opportunity to prosper.
Lender pointed out among other ethnicities, such as Italian and Jewish populations in the
United States, drinking was moderate-to-low, but not among the Irish.
Like the Italians, the Jews proscribed intemperance. Both these ethnic groups
represented voices for drinking moderation; and while they probably had fewer
total abstainers than did other communities, their rates of alcoholism were among
the lowest (if not the lowest) in the country.50
Lender wrote, with heavy drinking openly accepted [in America] and drunkenness seldom
classed a major vice, the Irish apparently did suffer from a much higher rate of inebriation
than did other groups.51 In this case it seems that the Irish did indeed drink at a much
higher rate than most other ethnicities living in Boston and New York at the same time.
Before the turn of the century, statistical evidence of drinking disorders in Europe
and the United States consisted largely of arrests and convictions for drunkenness. From
the Official Sheriffs Returns of Criminal Convictions in New York City for 1859, Sherriff
Ernst presented his data on convictions for drunkenness and disorderly conduct for
various ethnic groups. The percentage of conviction for drunkenness and disorderly
conduct compromised of a groups total convictions was given. According to Sherriff Ernsts
statistics, the Irish outranked other nationalities in the rate both.52
John F. Maguire. The Irish in America, Published by Forgotten Books 2012, Originally
Published, New York. 1868. Pg. 285.
50 Mark E. Lender, James K. Martin. Drinking In America: A History. Freeway Press. NYC, NY.
1982. Pg. 96.
51 IBID. Pg. 60.
49

52

Richard. Stivers. A Hair of the Dog: Irish Drinking and American Stereotype. The
22

Richard Bales and other students of drink all came to the same conclusion, that
among white American ethnic groups, no group has given evidence of a greater tendency
toward drunkenness and alcoholism than the Irish.53 After his own analysis on the issue,
Stivers came to the conclusion that both Irish men-and-women had higher rates of
alcoholism than other ethnic groups of the same period.54
In a series of monographs that were prepared by Robert Woods at the South End
House, a settlement house in Boston around 1900, describing the Cambridgeport district in
Boston, Woods and his associate observed:
This Race (the Irish), with one-third of the population, furnishes about one-half of
the crime, the major portion of which, however, consists of drunkenness. In unarrested crimes, the Irish again furnish the bulk of the drinking and fighting55
During the same period, in a study of social and economic conditions among various ethnic
groups in Boston, Frederick Bushee observed that not only is there more drunkenness
among the Irish than among other nationalities, but drunkenness and crimes resulting
directly therefrom constitute a large proportion of the Irish misdemeanors.56
After my analysis of the available data on the issue, of the reality versus the
perceptions of Irish drinking, I have concluded that although the stereotype of the
drunkard had followed the Irish over from the Old Country which was based on old English
prejudices and Irish drinking patterns formed on ancient Irish customs and rituals, the
Irish indeed did drink at a higher capacity than other immigrant groups during this same
time period, from 1840-1900.

Pennsylvania State University Press University Park and London. 1976. Pg.5, 6; See Table 1.
53 IBID. Pg. 1.
54 IBID. Pg. 9.
55 IBID. Quoted in Stivers. Pg. 8.
56 IBID. Pg. 7-8.
23

Although the myth of the drunk-Irish still persists today, so too does evidence of
higher trends of alcoholism among Irish-Americans, whose self-realization of this negative
perception-helped lead to their own acceptance and assimilation. The Irish had a lot to
overcome to be accepted into American society and culture. Many of these prejudices could
be seen even up through the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960, culminating with many
Irish-Americans finally having the feeling of overcoming many years of racism and
discrimination.
Today as many as up to 30 million Americans claim have Irish heritage and over 300
million Americans claim they do on March 17th, the fitting American celebration of drinking
alcoholic beverages excessively on St. Patricks Day, the American way of celebrating ones
own Irish-ness.

24

Bibliography
Primary Sources:
Maguire, John F. The Irish in America, Published by Forgotten Books 2012.
NYC. Originally Published, New York City, 1868.
This is a first hand account of an Irish immigrants experience travelling to the United
States from abroad, from his visit to parts of Canada through his experiences here in
America in the mid-nineteenth century.

Primary Source Pictures and Images:

(Fig. 1.)
Nast, Thomas. The Usual Irish Way of Doing Things, 1871
http://thomasnastcartoons.com/irish-catholic-cartoons/irish-stereotype,
(5/5/16).
This Newspaper Carton depicts an Ape-like Irish-man sitting on a powdered keg titled
Uncle Sams Gun Powder, alluding to Anti-Irish sentiments among the nativists.
(Fig. 2)
Tenniel, John (Life time: 1820-1914) - Original publication: Punch Immediate
source: http://natalieharrower.com/dublinbylamplight/historical-context/cirish-british-relations/
A satirical cartoon, from the Punch, showing an Irishman depicted as an ape.
(3/31/16).
Cartoon depicts an Irish-man as an ape, Caption reads: Mr. Gorilla, The Young Ireland
Party, Exulting over the Insult to the British Flag. Shouldnt he be extinguished at once?
(Fig. 3)
Know Nothing Platform: Containing an Account of the Roman Catholic
Hierarchy, on the Civil and Religious Liberties of the People in Europe, Asia,
Africa and America, Showing the Necessity of the Order of Know Nothings.
(Philadelphia 1855), in: Schoenberg Center For Electronic Text & Image
http://sceti.library.upenn.edu/sceti/printedbooksNew/index.cfm?TextID.
(3/31/16).

25

This newspaper article details anti-Catholic sentiments that were building during the midnineteenth century in the United States.
(Fig. 4)
An Irishman and German stealing a ballot box, 1854
http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/anti-immigrantCartoon-showing- two-men-everett.jpg. (05/23/16).
Cartoon depicts an Irish and German immigrant stealing the American ballot box, while
carrying whiskey and lager, respectively. Alludes to Racism felt by immigrants in the United
States during the time.

Secondary Sources:
Dezell, Maureen. Irish America: Coming Into Clover. Norwell, MA: Anchor Press,
2002.
This book takes a new and invigorating look at Americans of Irish Catholic ancestrywho
they are, and how they got that way.
Higham, John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925
(New York 1963).
John Higham looked into the rise of nativism and its causes. His book attempted to study
and assess the general history of nativism, or the rise in anti-foreign spirit, in the United
States.
Lender, Mark E., Martin, James K. Drinking In America: A History Freeway
Press. NYC, NY. 1982.
Mark Lender examined the aspects of drinking in America, from the arrival of the pilgrims
on the Mayflower in Plymouth in 1621, and the drinking habits of the founding fathers
during the American Revolution, all the way through to the modern era to 1987.

26

Rapple, Brendan A. and Jane Stewart Cook. Irish Americans. Gale

Encyclopedia of Multicultural America. Ed. Thomas Riggs. 3rd ed. Vol. 2.
Detroit: Gale, 2014. 459-475. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 31 Mar.
2016.
This encyclopedia details general information about Irish immigration including
immigration statistics and more.
Stivers, Richard. A Hair of the Dog: Irish Drinking and American Stereotype. The
Pennsylvania State University Press University Park and London. 1976.
Professor Stivers examines the roots of the Irish drunk stereotype and misconception in
both Ireland and in America, that the Irish were always brawling and always perceived as
perpetual barflies. He argues that while being persecuted in their homeland by the English,
the Irish were treated unfairly in their new adopted country of the United States of America
and acquired a reputation for constant drunkenness and alcoholism.

27