Serious at powell hall and is a working artist producing woodcut prints on display in several st. Louis galleries. He is the author of candy men, the story of the Candy Company and the irish in st. Louis. His next book is on catholic churches, monasteries, and shrines throughout the state of missouri due to be in bookstores in the winter of 2023 but today he is here to talk about the history of the irish in st. Louis and after the talk we invite you to join us upstairs, outside the museum shop where he will be signing copies of his book. You can purchase them there. I will turn the stage over to Patrick Murphy. Please join me in giving him a warm welcome today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all for turning up. What a great turnout today on such a cold day. I appreciate that. Missouri Historical Society has been a wonderful help in putting this book together with their wonderful documents and photographs and they are just wonderful people and a great treasure for the st. Louis community. So, how many of you out there identified to some degree as being irish . Is there anybody who does not, in some way, identify as being well, good. Thank you for coming anyway. Both of you. I grew up with the perception of being irish and it started at a very early the first time i actually remember becoming aware, in some sense, that i was a part of some subgroup of the subspecies called irish, i was about five years old and it was at the downtown famous bar when i visited santa claus. Some of you, of a certain age would remember that the real santa claus was at the downtown famous. When i started developing a bit of theological sophistication, i asked my mother, how can there be a santa claus at scruggs and vendor birds and and she said, patrick, the real santa claus is at downtown famous. The rest are helpers. So i climbed into his lap on christmas and he asked me in his normal, jolly way, what is your name, little boy and he said Patrick Murphy and he said that is a fine irish name. It was the first time, a major celebrity like santa claus this was something worth mentioning, that this had to be something and i would probably have to look into that. There are certain names that have a certain ethnic flavor to them and, Patrick Murphy is one of them. So, even as a little boy i would be introduced to people and even to this day i am introduced the people as Patrick Murphy and not all of them, maybe not even half of them, but a lot of them feel compelled to comment on my name and its always friendly. And its always wonderful. And its always warm and its always Something Like top of the morning. Which i understand they dont really say in ireland but we say it here because being irish in america is different from being irish in ireland and irish people regard irish americans as being americans. So, i was im old enough to remember a lot of family members in a storytelling family of people who were actually born my grandfather and his brothers were born in the 1880s and early 1890s and they grew up in cary patch. My uncle would tell stories of the streetcar strike and throwing rocks at the streetcars and helping the other kids tear up the tracks. So i heard a lot of cary patch stories and i always wondered, what is the essence of this thing called being irish . And over the course of the book, i asked a lot of people irish americans, denny long. The ceo of anheuserbusch. I asked him who grew up in another neighborhood, what being irish meant to him because he is a very proud irishman. At the brewery he had a bunch of proud irish people who reported to him. He called them murphia. And he said, well, patrick, i dont know what being irish really means, but i know that im very proud of it. So, i thought the best way to approach this whole subject of being irish was to write a book. Its about 80 different stories from the beginning to today. Each of them focusing on some aspect of irishness or being irish and i went back to the very beginning. I thought, why did we all come here in the first place . And that was very interesting. I learned a lot. I was always surprised, talking to the older people in my family and hearing their stories. About how it used to be. Because i grew up in st. Louis where Everybody Loves the irish. Once a year everybody dresses irish and pretends that there irish and, kiss me, im irish. We are the only city of our size that has two st. Patricks day parades and i knew that it wasnt always like that, from the stories that i heard from my grandfather and his brothers, that at one time, they were all pushed together in neighborhoods like dogtown and kerry patch and it was hard to get a job and there were signs that said irish need not apply. There was very strong anti catholic and antiirish sentiment in st. Louis and i thought, what happened . How did they start out hating us and in the loving us . There is your poor irishman from an english newspaper back in the 1870s, standing in an irish or english port, dreamily looking at a sign that will take him to a to america. Ireland had the misfortune of being an island very close to another island called england and, i learned that in the year 1155, an english pope, adrian the fourth, gave ireland to an irish king. Henry ii, i believe it was. And he gave it to him with the explicit directions that he should instill virtue and morality in the irish people. Something for which 900 years later, the irish have never express their gratitude. To put it in perspective, ireland and its important to understand why irish americans are the way they are today. In the light of their history. Ireland was occupied for over 800 years. By a foreign power. Putting that into perspective, something we can more closely relate to, europe was occupied by germany for six years. So, the effect on the irish people is staggering. There were laws called the penal laws in the 1600s which made it essentially illegal to be irish in ireland. Protestant or catholic. You couldnt own a horse of a certain size. You couldnt marry a protestant. You couldnt drift more than travel more than so many miles from your home. At one point, the language was made illegal. Their names were anglo sized. I learned that murphy used to be but everyone had to anglo sized their name so we have kellys and flanagans and i met mc google before the show started. It was essentially illegal to be irish. The harp was banned as a national symbol. The shamrock was banned as a national symbol. It really was illegal to wear green at one time and you really could be hanged for wearing it as a symbol. As early as the 1820s, irish, protestants, and some catholics started coming to st. Louis to get away from these laws that tended to be ambitious people who wanted to get away and st. Louis had a couple of appealing aspects to it. One, it was named after a saint. It was a catholic town and many of the irish who were coming over or catholic. Also, hostility in st. Louis toward the irish was not nearly as bad as it was in a lot of the eastern cities. Baltimore, new york, philadelphia, cases like that where there was even more hostility and, a nice thing about st. Louis was it was generally a french town and the french hated english too. So, they could share that. So, a lot of these people came and they were very successful. These were the names like malan sea and ofallon. Old names. Some of them even owned slaves because there was nothing really to stop them. The church took no real moral stance on the subject of slavery and they were just trying to fit in and it was st. Louis and people owned slaves. So theres a dark side and a happy side of this whole history which i try to capture in the book. So they integrated very well. They were a Benevolent Society who helped other irish as they came but in the 1840s, Something Different happened that totally change the nature of the people in the system. In the 1840s, the potato famine changed everything. People were dispossessed from their land. Theres a picture of a woman being put out of her home. In 1846 all the way to 1852, the potatoes, which were the main staple of ireland, because that was another thing that the english imposed on the irish, was a one crop staple that was pretty easy to grow and cheap and it allowed their tenants to eat without them having to put a lot of money into it. The famine 3 Million People on the island left between 1846 and 1852. 1 million died. Entire families dying in ditches and in abandoned towns. 2 million emigrated. Most of the United States and probably many of your families, that was probably the time when they came. Came over. It was an awful trip. I have a letter that my great brother wrote who came over in 1852 in steerage, advising her younger brother, patrick, what you should bring on the trip. How much water, how many potatoes, and warned him to avoid man catchers in liverpool and not to drink before he got on the boat. Just a wonderful letter that really i just put that up because the story is getting so grim right now that i thought we could use a little relief. Isnt she lovely . So, st. Louis had never seen poverty on the scale that the irish brought to st. Louis was largely german at that time and was becoming less french. Many of the irish moved to some land that was owned by john malan sea on the north side. North of washington. North of the east bridge which eventually became kerry patch because so many of the irish coming over wherefrom county kerry. They created lien twos and squatted and then early brick buildings. That is an early picture of kerry patch. People ask a lot of, where was kerry patch . There is no trace of it anymore. I spent a lot of time wandering around st. Louis trying to find any remnant and theres practically nothing left. Theres the old immigrant home which is falling down. Every once in a while you will see a house from the era but even the street has been changed. But if you think in terms of task, malan sea, jefferson east, six street, where st. Patrick used to be, dogtown, dogtown quickly got a reputation of being a horrible place. It wasnt just one slum but several interrelated slums led by irish gangs who generally reported to aldermen. They were political gangs and they kept the discipline the way the city thought of the town is reflected in an 1870 guide to st. Louis. This is a picture from the guide to st. Louis. This is a guide put out by the chamber of commerce trying to attract people to st. Louis. So, in the kerry patch section, its treated more like a zoo. This is the title of that picture is, a typical kerry patch resident. Kerry patch is described as a place occupied by funloving people prone to telling fantastic stories and drink. And that night, prone to punching each others eyes out. Thats about the best they could come up with in terms of describing the irish. So we get into more kerry patch, 13th street, none of that is there anymore. The center of kerry patch was, three churches. They call them the shamrock churches. St. Loris otoole, to the west, on jefferson and, to the east, st. Patrick. And the three of those provided a lot of stability for the neighborhood and, they are all gone now. That is one of the more complementary pictures of a typical irish family and, stereotypes are certainly not exclusive to the irish. And, one of the things that interested me was, as i was writing this book about the irish, i kept thinking, how much of this applies or is similar to what other groups went through to try to become american . The irish had it lucky. They were basically white and spoke english. After a generation they could lose their brogue. You couldnt tell just by looking at somebody whether they were catholic or not, but the stereotypes are very interesting. There are two stereotypes really and its striking because he wouldnt think they could coexist. One is of the firebreathing, nationalist, bomb throwing irishman which, actually is still out there. The other stereotype is just the simple buffoon. Too many kids, dumb, doesnt want to work. Usually drunk. And on top of that, i found this really interesting. So much of American History, and prejudices, are based on race or our perception of race. Are what we invent race to be, because they tell us that race has no biological basis. Its more of a social phenomenon. The irish were, according to the pseudoscience of the day, and among many academics and intellectuals, are not considered to be white. And this is harpers weekly, a respected magazine in 1876. This is the cover. And basically, the title on the article is, the black man is the problem of the south. The irishman who looks very much like a in that picture, actually, is seen as the problem of the north. And there was this pseudoscience that, among all of the races of humanity they even saw this at the world fair in 1904, but at the very top of it, the whitest you could be was either teutonic or anglo. And there was sort of a descending whiteness all the way down to other races that are not caucasian. The irish were sort of there in the middle somewhere with italians and other people who were not german or english. So, along with all of the other prejudices, theres this sort of racial in the 1920s, a writer named Kenneth Mcmanus turned that on its head and wrote a very popular book in which he embraced the idea of the irish being a different race and decided to write a book about how they were a great race and a wonderful race. So embracing rather than rejecting it. So, along with all these other problems the irish are having, 1849, theres a cholera epidemic. Who are they going to blame it on . Altogether now . In 1849, theres a fire in downtown lewisburg. Whos responsible for that . You got it. Back then, it was a long time ago. People believed in something called voter fraud. We should know this. About our history. Nobody liked the irish, but everybody wanted their vote. So, there were a number of riots. This was a time of the know nothing party. Virulently anticatholic, anti irish america should be white and protestant. In 1854, there was a riot. Somebody in north st. Louis had a voting poll where the people vote, accused some irish of voting fraud. Somebody pulled out a knife, somebody gets stabbed, and three days of rioting occurred. 1854. Fighting was hand to hand. People were killed all the way out to where the Convention Center is now. All the way from the riverfront. I never learned about this in school. They threatened to bring down the old cathedral. The priest mobilized a number of his parishioners. They put a canyon cannon threatening to fire it into the crowd. The hibernians were originally a paramilitary group. They were armed and fighting as well. Took three days, a good many irish homes and shops were burned down and it created some bad will. On the other hand, happy st. Patricks day parade in the 1870s, the neighborhood also had a lot of cohesion and a lot of the Positive Side was that it was a neighborhood that was very close knit and people helped other people. This is funny too. And i think it reflects the mentality of the irish, because one of the things about being irish is, theres a very strange, dark sense of humor that permeates irish culture. And, the deadpan, the straight face, and they are people who escaped to clean queen victoria, mostly, in that time. And they proclaimed a king. And he actually passed the title onto his son. Right after the civil war, a man named dennis one of the few people who could read and write in kerry patch. He had a saloon and he was the postmaster there. He was also someone who is very well respected and settled disputes in the neighborhood. He went to jail because he was prosouthern. When he came out, they decided to proclaim him king of kerry patch. So, there was a three day celebration. There was a lot of unemployment. People had time on their hands. So, for three days, mostly nice, there were torchlight parades and i was reading articles about these torchlight parades. 10,000 people with torchlights wending their way to the streets of kerry patch with dennis on his throne, a chair, and they are singing songs. This is so irish. And, they listed in this article, the songs they were singing, and my favorite was and imagine, 10,000 irishman. I think drink was involved. Singing this song called, oh why did they dig my mothers grave so deep. With tears in their eyes. And Dennis Sheehan on a chair. The role of the irish in st. Louis during the civil war is complicated. And in many northern cities, the irish identified with the union army and the union side. St. Louis had a very southern flavor to it at the time and many of the irish in st. Louis, many of them, from the early days actually owned slaves. I learned, sadly, that archbishop kenrick owned three slaves and i actually called up the archdiocese and they confirmed that is true and i wondered, why, how could that be . How could you be an enslaved people, yourself, and then come to another country and own people . And the best explanations i got, really, where, first of all, the church didnt have any position on slavery at all. Sadly. Also, a lot of the irish interpreted American History in terms of their own history and many of them associated washington as being the big capital, i. E. , london, and the southerners, as being working people on the land like themselves. And another reason was, they were afraid freed slaves would compete against them and they would no longer be second to the bottom of society. They would be at the very bottom. And i look at this and its very disturbing and there are a lot of different ways of looking at history. One is to look back and simply condemned the way people thought. And it was wrong and it was ignorant and it was harmful and it was. But, i think its helpful to go a step further and at least try to understand what they were thinking. My grandparents never really talked much about race. My dad married a protestant. It was a big deal. So, i can only imagine what their thoughts on race were. Theres another aspect to being irish. Here is the battle of wilson creek which is so sad. Because wilson creek, which is in southern missouri, was a battle where, on both sides, most of the soldiers were irish on both sides. Confederate and irish. And that is so much a part of the irish story too. All the way up until the time of the troubles. Irish fighting irish. And, even today we have two st. Patricks day parades because there was a different differences between the leadership of the downtown irish organizers and the hibernian, later to become the dogtown irish in terms of who should be included and what should be the flavor of it. Talking about battles. This is interesting. Also very irish. My greatgrandfather was involved and came to america because he was 20 years old and they were going to hang him because he participated in a rebellion outside of dublin and they didnt get him but they got his name. If they caught him, they were going to hang him. He came over and ended up in st. Louis. There were so many rebellions. There was the rebellion of 1798. There was the rebellion of 1848. Rebellion of 1867. The rebellion of the easter rising in 1916. And every case, there is an adjective that goes before irish rebellion and its failed. The failed rebellion. So, in 1867, the irish, being a clever people, that they are, had an ingenious plan to free ireland. There were a number of st. Louis ands involved in it too. Their plan was to invade canada. To capture canada and hold it hostage. You are laughing. And the only way that england could get canada back and they would want it back, because its canada was to free ireland. And they actually invaded and failed. This is the irish in 1904. This is the irish pavilion at the world fair. On the pike. One of the things i found very interesting was, when did the irish start to become acceptable . In my own family they moved from kerry patch, then west end, northside, and later they moved to the suburbs over generations, they got jobs and got respectable. Secondgeneration they lost their brogue and got a shoeshine and a haircut and they pass for just being americans. But there were a couple of times, as i did my research, it was kind of moving, starting to realize that the irish americans and the irish, irish, were starting to become two different people. And over a beer, and the irish americans, they were irish, but in the larger scope of things, they were becoming americans and in the 1904 world fair, the people who brought the fair and put the irish pavilion together were of two minds. One of them wanted to show in 1904 that ireland was a modern day country that was capable of being independent from england. The movement was very strong. It was a Cultural Movement led by people to show that there was irish culture and irish music and irish industry. The other half of the people that put the fair together wanted to have goat rides on trails past rosie cheeked colleens and heartbroken counters singing. All of the stereotypes. They had a band called 64 sober irishman. As if, where did they find 64 sober irishman anyway . John mclaughlin, who is a famous tenor im sure your grandparents all had a John Mclaughlin record. Minded. And, he was going to go on stage. He was supposed to follow a guy with a putty nose and a red fright wig playing the stage irish and he says either that guy goes or i go. So there was that. They sent them back to ireland. The funny thing was, all the people coming down, they thought the stage irish stuff was hilarious. They liked laughing at themselves and they thought it was funny because for them, they felt more american than irish and they didnt feel threatened by that. They had enough distance between them and the experience to be able to laugh at it, not like the irish. In 1882 there was a veiled profit float. I dont know who put the float together but it wasnt the st. Louis irish. 1882. The night before, hibernians actually saw the float and gathered a bunch of people to burn it down so that it wouldnt be in the parade the next day. They worked it out and they took the float out but what the float was, and i heard about this in the globe democrat it was st. Patrick him a standing on a little rock, blessing a bar fight. So, that was rough. That was rough. And, they took the float out and there was a lot of bad publicity and a lot of people in st. Louis said, cant the irish take a joke . They call themselves mick and patty. How come we cant . And an irish doctor wrote to the paper and said its true. We do call each other mick and we do college other patty. We enjoy our stereotypes but thats for us. Its too early. We need more time. When we are a free and independent country, then we can laugh and we will see the humor in the joke. Another instance was in 1916. Europe was at war with germany. England was fighting germany. We were on the verge of instituting a draft. The easter rising had occurred in dublin. England made the terrible mistake, after suppressing the easter rising, of executing 16 of its leaders. Shot them at dublin castle. Got terrible press all over the world for that. And, st. Louis was always on the route where irish artist and irish politicians, always in st. Louis because there was such a big irish population. At the coliseum in jefferson there was a huge rally and the German Society was there with the Irish Society and the hibernians and the whole point was to argue that young, irish, american men should not enlist in the u. S. Army to fight in world war i alongside the british. The germans had never occupied ireland. The english had. We had no fight with the germans. Our fight was still and would always be with the english until ireland was free and united as a country. And there was a lot of applause and people expressing their favor of that but the thing is, irishamerican young men enlisted at the same rate or higher than other people. That was an indication that, they love being irish, they identify with being irish american, but they considered themselves to be more american than irish. Another funny thing, by 1918, by the end of world war i, kerry patch really wasnt exclusively irish anymore. It was other people coming in. Other poor people. People from Eastern Europe and africanamericans were starting to move into the neighborhood. So it becomes more difficult to decide, who is irish anyway . Part of this book is about identity as well and over the course of the book i met a lot of people who identified as irish and their last name mightve been schmidt, but in doing book signings and things i run into people who say, my name is wagner but my mothers side is flanigan. And i love that. So, how do you determine . In the first generation it was easy to see who the irish were. They dressed funny and they talk funny and they all lived in one part of town, but ive met africanamericans named murphy. Who is irish and who isnt . And the best answer i could come up with is, this is america. And you can identify in any way you want. And if you want to be irish, you go right ahead and do it because, youre welcome. Bad men, these. Good catholic boys, but bad men. Thats jellyroll hogan on the left with a couple of his guys. A lot of crime. A lot of organized crime. Actually they werent all that organized. Their biggest nemesis was egans rats. These are all kerry patch. Prohibition did them a great favor. Hogan retired from crime and spent years in the missouri legislature, actually. Theres so many punchlines. Im not even going to go there. But, many of these stories, when they are shot, they call for the bishop to give them their last rites. They are just wonderful stories. And, they pretty much killed each other off. The police didnt have that much to do with it. So, by the late 1920s, they were practically nonexistent as gangs and gangsters need work too. So when your gang falls apart, you freelance. Al capone, in chicago, was looking for some boys to come up to chicago and take care of a job on valentines day. And egans rats and i almost said hogans heroes. Jellyroll hogans boys went up to chicago to perform the valentines massacre because they had a reputation of being real professionals. This is one of my favorite pictures. To me, this is a picture of irish st. Louis. You got cops and priests and leprechauns. This is the 1930s at . E[st. Patricks. St. Patricks was 06 on sixth street. You got a politician in there. By this time they are getting pretty well assimilated. One of the things that contributed to assimilation and this was a surprise. By the end of the first world war, piano starting to go out of style. The victrola were getting pretty Sophisticated Technology but it was still pretty rough. Not a lot of the frequencies could cut through a victrola. One of the frequencies that could was the frequency of an irish tenor. So people with victrolas in their home, irish records were very popular. Its a long way to temporary. My wild irish rose. Sung by tenors. These were very popular songs and irish culture started getting into peoples parlors. I just thought that was going to be interesting and kind of strange. Today, st. Patricks day, i called the book the irish and st. Louis from shanty to lace curtain because it expands the experience. I some family, friends or people neither one of these is a compliment. Neither one of them is a compliment. It means you just got off the boat and you dont know nothing. You are rough. It implies that you forgot where you came from. She is to say, a little big for your britches. Even today, irish americans have a tendency to identify themselves. The reason that even people consider, are they identified or when you meet somebody else with an irish name you kind of wink and you are in a club. It is basically the power of all of the history behind it and how they were told and retold that a story is that he better every time its told. It still carries on today. Also, in the culture, music and irish. These are the kinds of things that the english couldnt take stories away. Those would be passed on. When i left home i will wrap this up and take questions. When i left home at 18 years old, my mom made an embroidery for me that she embroidered and framed. It is hung on my wall in every place i have ever lived over the last 55 years or however long it has been. It is the same. You know the corny saying . I made the wind beat your back and pockets full of potatoes and may the devil not know your. This is the one. This is the one my mother embroidered for me. May those who love us, love us. May those who love us dont love us may god turn their hearts. If you wont turn their hearts, turned their ankles, so we know them by their limping. That captures the whole chip on the shoulder spirit. I am irish. You have something to say about that . A lot of you know what im talking about. It is a quarter till and we have the room until noon. We have a couple of microphones on either side. I ask that you go to a microphone or someone emily will bring the mic to you. Any questions . Come on. Did i explain everything that clearly . Please. Not. And i think i really love the distinction you make between irish americans and the i think i love the distinction you make between and americans and irish. I was raised by irish who came over and whatnot. We were always taught to root for the underdogs and remember where we came from. I just want to see if you have any experience with folks of Irish Heritage really understanding where we came from and working towards helping to liberate those among us who still suffer the indignities that we suffered in the 19th and early 20th century and how that sort of play out. Thank you. The majority of irish in st. Louis are roman catholic. I probably see that mostly in the parish is probably. The parish freshman holy redeemer of a pretty rich Irish Heritage from its early days and i think that a lot of the charity work and work that comes out of the parish is evident. Unfortunately, a lot of the history of the irish in st. Louis and u. S. Is they spent so much time trying to establish themselves that it was later in history that they had the luxury of being able to actually focus on the plate of other people. There was so much struggle all the way into the 20th century and there is still catholicism out there, but not in st. Louis. You get out state and emily mentioned that im writing a book on catholic churches all around the state of missouri and they are parts of missouri where people think its weird to be irish or calf. A lot of the energy that the irish spent was trying to bring themselves up by their own bootstraps. It is a good point and im glad you had that experience. I can repeat the question. Here we go. Good. I havent had the opportunity of reading a book. My cousin is going through it and she will give it to me. Dont read hers. We are selling them after the speech. I wondered if you went into any depth with where the patch was and how that came about . I asked that, because i had the opportunity of meeting denny very casually at his sons restaurant. After a 20 minute laugh and conversation, fell madly in love with the man. He is great. He didnt mention how much it meant to him and my husband and i drive around there and we ask people if this is it, but nobody knows. It is confusing. I spent a lot of time and he is absolutely wonderful. He went to st. Marys and attended saint column, which is the only thing left, which is the front steps. That is about it. Of course, catholics, german and irish. They made sure that every block had a catholic church. An irish kid from the patch. For me, i thought the patch was carried patch, because it is abbreviated and there was downtown. The patch was along michigan and it was very small. Very irish. It was nestled between a spanish neighborhood and german neighborhood. And, the reason so many irish came is because a lot of irish came up through new orleans on their way to st. Louis. They would look off the boat and off to the left, they would see smokestacks and factories. Basically, let me off here. It looks like there is work here. They built ships there and ironworks. A very dangerous place. These factories were always blowing up or very dangerous places. Solid Irish Community settled down there and kind of along michigan on the streets. You know about the patch . A lot of people dont. I didnt. Is treated hi how the bushes mtreated him. The third bush, especially. Held it against that he was from the patch. We didnt talk about that, but i know that they had a lot of pride. It was at the brewery. There was mike doherty who came up with this and weekends for made for michelob. They actually went to ireland and made budweiser in ireland, which was amazing. They bought the derby horse race and because they were irish american, they established a great relationship with the irish, because in business, denny was telling me a lot about how close the irish and irish americans in ireland do overseas business together. Being the only englishspeaking country right now. It is a natural gateway to europe. Americans and particularly irish americans. We didnt talk much about mr. Bush or his feelings. I am sure interesting cultural dynamic going on there. Help i can get this question right. In old times, the rich english people im talking about wanted to hunt or something, so they captured people. I guess they were called the irish to run plantations. Is that a true story . I want to know, where did they capture the people that are slaves . Where did they come from . I didnt run into that. What i did run into is that there was a landgrab in the north. That is why they threw off all of the irish aristocracy and english aristocracy and that is why it is in the north and a catholic republic. It is now the source of all of the troubles. Basically, what the english data was take the landing and consolidated it and particularly during the famine. They were all tenants. They didnt own their own land, but they rented it. When the famine came, they threw them off the land and consolidated the land. They were more like sharecroppers than slaves. When it wasnt economically feasible, they had been living on the land and threw them out. They did. They died by the thousands and millions of them died alongside the road. The irish dont call it the famine. The word for what happened back then is more literally the great hunger, because a famine implies that it is somehow an act of god. It happens through some quirk of nature. It more implies that it was more of genocide. It was the ultimate solution that the english employed against the irish to get rid of them all. In the 17th century, you dont want to mention all of her cromwell in an irish pub. He told the troops that the irish ballooned killed thousands of irish Going Village to village and massacring them. They burned down half of the trees and cut down half of them. He told his troops that the irish really werent human beings and that will need their clothing, they had tail. It kind of makes you mad when you think about it. We do it today. Its not just the english. Demonizing or eliminating the enemy humanity is easier. Its easier to do whatever you want with them. I think we have time for another couple of questions. I listened to a podcast once about an Africanamerican Community that were the poorest people, but they pulled all of their money and send it to ireland for the famine, because they can relate to the genocide. Did you hear of that . I did not. It was just this past year. I dont know if it was here or some kind of podcast. I have never heard of it, but you have the poorest americans sending their money to ireland, because they felt so compassionate. Is a wonderful story. I talked to many irish who say that it would have not been free or a free country were it not for the money that irish americans and cities like st. Louis sent to ireland to buy guns. During the civil war, a lot of irish who served in confederacy and the union land warfare in the civil war and went back to ireland to fight for irish freedom. There is always a strong connection between the two countries. I could add to what she was saying. The cherokee very much sent a lot of food to ireland during the hunger. My family lives in southwestern and still revered the American Indians because of that. It was the cherokee. This is where i get a lot of good material for the second edition. Where were you when i was writing the book . Those are wonderful stories. Great stories. I think we have time for another question or two. We have a couple of minutes left. That is tough. Pat connolly is great. He helped me launch the book. We have the opening at mcgurks. Its hard to decide. How do you decide . They are all my children. How can you love one more than another . They dont make a big deal out of being irish when i interviewed them and they are in the book, too. We dont have shamrocks on the walls. We are just irish and Everybody Knows it. We dont make a big deal out of it. We just are lowkey beneath the radar. You mentioned that there was an irish tenor that was popular around the 1900s. His name is john . Yeah. Did you mean John Mccormick . Yes, i did. Thats what i meant. Thats what i thought. Thanks. Do you want a good irish song . Where did i get mclaughlin . Thank you for keeping me honest. I appreciate it. [ laughter ] i could have it be asked my way through that. I meant that. John mccormick. I wont make that mistake again. How many have been so polite im not said anything . Patrick doesnt know his tenors. Would you remind mind singing or something . Lets finish it up with a good irish song. [ applause ] thank you. This song was before John Mccormick. It was a song originally titled air and they made her change it to danny boy. That is probably the most popular irish song there is. Oh, danny boy. The pipes the pets are calling from england to glenn and down the mountainside. The summers gone and all the leaves have fallen. Its you, its you. Must go and i must abide. Coming back when the summer is in the meadow are when the valleys are white with snow. If i will be here in sunshine or in shadow, oh, danny boy, oh, danny boy. I love you so. When he come and all the flowers are dying, if i am dead , as dead as i will may be, you come and find the place where i am. Are they there for me . I shall hear each book read about me and all my grave will warm or sweet to be. Tell me that he loves me and i shall sleep in peace until you come to me. [ applause ] apologize bect irish. I apologize, because im not irish. [ laughter ] i cant top that. I cant top that. Thank you all so much for coming. I believe we are moving upstairs and if you would like a book, i would be happy to sign it and personalize it i will write anything you want in it. Thank you. You have been delightful. Thank you so much. Featured renown experts who will shed light on the book impacted by these iconic works. Virtual journeys and Significant Locations across the country to the celebrated authors and books. Among our future books, common sense by thomas paine. Your eyes are watching god and free to choose. Watch our 10 part series, but that shaped america starting monday september 18 at 9 00 eastern. Our free mobile video apps or online at cspan. Org. 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