Join us upstairs outside the museum shop, where hell be signing copies of his book. You can purchase them there. And thats enough for me. Im going to turn the stage over to Patrick Murphy. So please join me in giving him a really warm welcome today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, emily. And thank you all for turning out. What a great 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 all their wonderful documents and and photographs. And they were just there, just wonderful people and just a great treasure for for the saint louis community. So how many of you out there identify to some degree as being irish. Okay. Is there anybody who does not in some way identify with being i . Okay. Well, good. Thanks for coming anyway. Both of you. I grew up with the perception of being irish and it started at a very early in fact, the first time i actually remember becoming aware there in some sense that i was a part of some subgroup group of of the species called irish. I was about five years old and, and it was at the downtown famous bar when i visited santa claus. Now, some of you of a certain age would remember that the real santa claus was at the downtown famous. Well, i started developing a little bit of theological sophistication. I asked my mother, how could there be a santa claus . Its scruggs and it found divots and and she said, patrick, the real santa claus, is it downtown famous . But the rest are helpers. So i climbed into his his his lap before christmas and he asked me in his normal, jolly way, what is your name, little boy . And i said, Patrick Murphy. And he said, ah, that is a fine irish name. And it was the first time i figured that if a major celebrity like santa claus that this was something worth mentioning, that this had to be something. And i would probably have to look into that. Well, 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 to 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 excuse me. And its always wonderful and its always warm and its always something like, well, sure. And viagra or top of the morning, which i understand they dont really say in ireland, but we say it we say it here because being irish in america is i learned putting this book together different from being irish in ireland and irish people regard irishamericans 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, his brothers, they were born in the 1880s and early 1890s, and they grew up in kerry patch. My uncle fred would tell stories of the streetcar strike in 1900, throwing rocks at the streetcars from kerry patch and helping the other kids tear up the tracks. So i heard a lot of kerry patch stories and i always sort of wonder, 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, danny long, the ceo of anheuserbusch, i asked danny, who grew up in that kerry patch, but another neighborhood called the patch, an irish neighborhood in carondelet. What being irish meant to him, because hes a very proud irishman. In fact, at the brewery, he had a bunch of irishamerican people who reported to him dan flynn, mike rorty called the murphy at german brewery. Irish, irish leadership. 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 right from the beginning, you know, to, to to today, each one of them focusing on some aspect of irishness or being irish. And i went back to the very beginning. I thought, well, why did we all come here in the first place . And that was that that was that was very interesting. I learned a lot. I, i was always surprised talking to the older people in my family and hearing their stories. And it was, as i said, a very storytelling family about how it used to be, because i grew up in a st louis where Everybody Loves the irish once a year, everybody dresses irish and pretends that theyre irish and kiss me, im irish and were the only city our size that has a baby of any size that has to 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 the patch, and it was hard to get a job and there were signs that said irish need not apply. There was a very strong anticatholic and anti irish sentiment in st louis and i wondered what happened . How did they start out hating us . And then end up end up of loving, loving us . Theres theres your poor, theres 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. Take him to 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 the second, i believe it was, just gave it to him. 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 expressed their gratitude that. 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. Now to put that into perspective is something that we can more closely relate to. Europe was occupied by nazi germany for six years, so the effect on the irish people is, is just staggering. There were laws called the penal laws, which in the 1600s made it essentially illegal to be irish in ireland. Protestant or catholic. You could not own a horse of a certain size. You couldnt marry a protest and you couldnt drift more than traveled. More than so many miles from from your home. At one point, the language was made illegal. Their names were anglicized. I learned that murphy used to be omoore garda, but everyone had to anglicized anglicized their names. So now we have kellys and flanagans and murphys and. And i met him at google earlier, before the before the show. Show started. So it was essentially illegal to to be irish. The harp was banned as a national symbol. The shamrock was banned as an action. It really was illegal to wear green at one time, and you really could be hanged for wearing it as as as a symbol. So as early as the 1820s, an irish protestant, many of them protestant and some catholics started coming to st louis to get away from these laws. They tended to be ambitious people who wanted to get away. And st louis had a couple of appealing aspects to it. One was that it was named after a saint, so it was a catholic town and many of the irish who were coming over were were catholic also hostility in st louis towards the irish was not nearly as bad as it was in a lot of the the eastern cities, baltimore, new york, philadelphia. Yeah, places 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 the english too, so they could share that. So a lot of these people came, they were very successful. These are the names like milan fee and ofallon. Old names, some of them in fact, actually own 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, owned slaves. So theres the dark side and the happy side of this whole history, which i try to capture in the book. So they integrated pretty well. They were they were benevolent societies of the irish who helped other irish as they came. But then in the 1840s, something totally different happened that totally changed the nature of the people. This is the people digging for potatoes. In the 1840s, the famine changed everything. People were dispossess east from from their land. Theres a picture of a woman is being put out of her. Out of her home in 1846, all the way to 1852, the potatoes, which were the main staple of of 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 it. 3 Million People on the island left between 1846 and 1852. A million of them died. Entire families dying in ditches and in abandoned towns. 2 million emigrated, most of them to the United States and probably many of your families. That was probably the time when when they came came over in steerage. It was an awful trip. I actually have a letter that my great grandmother wrote who came over in 1852 in steerage, advising her younger brother patrick what he 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 wonder, a wonderful letter that that really i just put that up because the story is getting so grim right now that i thought we could use a little a little relief. Isnt she lovely . Isnt she lovely . So st louis had never seen poverty on the scale that the irish brought to st louis was. It was largely german at that time. It was becoming less french and many of the irish moved to some land that was owned by john milan. Feet on the north side and north of washington, north of the eades bridge, which eventually came kerry patch because so many of the irish who were coming over were were from county, from county kerry at first they just create a lean tos squatted. Then they built brick buildings. Thats an early picture of of of kerry patch people ask a lot about where was kerry patch. Well theres no trace of it anymore. I spent a lot of time just driving around and wandering around north st louis trying to find any remnant of kerry patch. And theres practically nothing left. Theres the old emigrant home, which is falling down. Every once in a while youll see a row house from that era. But even the streets have have been changed. Their routes and dead ended, but basically, if you think in terms of cash, moulin fee, maybe west all the way to jefferson east maybe the way to sweet to sixth street where st patrick used to be dogtown. Dogtown quickly got a reputation as being a horrible place. It wasnt just one slum, it was several interrelated slums run by gangs irish gangs who generally reported to older men. They were political gangs work and they kept the discipline the way the city thought of of the town is reflected in an 1870 guide to st louis. This is a picture from the 1870 guide from st louis. This was a guide put up by the chamber of commerce trying to attract people to st louis. So in the little kerry patch section, its treated more like a zoo, actually. This is the title of that picture is a typical kerry patch resident. A kerry patch is described as a place occupied by fun loving people prone to telling fantastic stories and drink and at night, prone to punching each others eyes out. So thats about the best they can come up with in terms of describing describing the irish. So, you know, we get into it, we get into that is more, more kerry patch. 13th street. None of that is. No, there is there anymore. The center of the center of kerry patch. There was three churches. They called them the shamrock churches. There was St Laurence Otoole to the west, the first one on jefferson st, brigid of aaron and to the east st patrick. St patrick and the three of those provided a lot of stability for for the, for the neighborhood. And of course, theyre all gone now. Are. That is one of the more complimentary pictures of a typical irish family and stereotypes are certainly not exclusive to the to the irish. And one of the things that interested me interested me was as i was writing this book about the irish, i kept on 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, 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 to stereotype types, really. And its strange because you wouldnt think that they could coexist. The one is of of the the fire breathing fenian nationalist bomb throwing irishman which actually is still out there, you know, during the troubles. That was a stereotype. The other stereotype is just the simple buffoon. Too many kids, dumb, doesnt want to work. You know, usually drunk. And on top of that, and i found this really interesting. So much of American History and prejudice says are based on race or our perception of race or what we invent race to to be because they tell us that race has really no biological basis. Its more of a social phenomenon. And the irish were, according to the pseudo science of the day. And among many academicians and intellectuals and not considered to be white. And this is harpers weekly, a respected magazine in 1876. This this is the cover of harpers. And basically the article was about and the title on it is is it the black man is the problem of the south . The irishman who looks very much like a monkey in that picture, actually is is portrayed as the problem of of of the north. And there was this this pseudo this pseudo science that that. Among all of the races of humanity, you even saw this at the worlds fair in 1904. But but at the very top of it, the whitest you could be was either too tannic or anglo. And then there was sort of a descending whiteness all the way down to other other races that are not caucasian. The irish were sort of there in the middle somewhere, you know, with italian 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 Seamus Mcmanus actually turned that whole race thing on its head and wrote a a very popular book called the irish race, 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 it, rather rather than than rejecting it. So along with all of these other problems with the irish, youre having 1849. Theres a cholera epidemic. Who are they going to blame it on altogether . Now . In 1849, there was a fire and most of downtown st louis burned down whose responsible for that . You got it back then. It was a long time ago. People believe in something called voter fraud. We should know this about about our our history. Nobody like the irish but everybody wanted their vote. So there were a number of riots. This is the time when the know nothing party. Remember studying the know nothings in school are virulently anticatholic. Antiirish. America should be white and protestant. In 1854, there was a riot. Somebody in north st louis at a voting. At a voting pole of a voting what do you call it . A precinct where people vote accused some irish of voting voting fraud. Somebody pulled out a knife. Somebody gets stabbed. And three days of riot 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 burn down the old cathedral. The priest mobilized a number of his his parishioners. They put a canon in front of the front door of the old cathedral, threatening to fire it into the crowd. The hibernians. We have all heard of hibernia, and they were originally organized as a paramilitary group. Thats why hibernian chapters today are called divisions. The hibernian were armed and fighting is as well took three days. A good many irish homes and shops were were burned down and. It creates it created some some bad will. On the other hand heres a happy st patricks day parade in the 1870s. The neighborhood also had a lot of a lot of cohesion. And a lot of the positive side, was it was that it was a neighborhood that there was very, very close knit. And people helped other people. This is funny, too. And i think this reflects the mentality of the irish because one of the things about being irish is theres a very strange kind of dark sense of humor that that permeates irish. Irish culture and the deadpan, the straight face and they are people who escape to queen. Queen victoria, mostly during that time. And they proclaim carrie page, they proclaimed a king and actually passed the title on to his son. Right after the civil war, a man named Dennis Sheehan, he was one of the few people who could read and write in carey page. He had a saloon because he could read and write. He was the postmaster there. He was also the person who was very well respected and settled disputes in the neighborhood he went to. He went to jail because he was pro southern. When he came out, they decided to proclaim him king of carey patch. So there was a three day celebration. There was a lot of unemployment. You know, people had time on their hands. So for three days, i should say, mostly nights, there were torchlight parades and i was reading articles in the globe democrat about these torchlight parades. Tenths thousand people with torch lights wending their way to the streets of carey patch. With Dennis Sheehan on his throne, a chair and theyre singing songs. This is so irish. And they listed in this article in the globe democrat. The songs that they were singing. And my favorite was and. Imagine 10,000 irishmen. And i think drink was involved singing the song called oh why did they dig my mothers grave so deep. With tears in their eyes . And Dennis Sheehan, irish on a on a chair. The the role of the irish in saint louis during the civil war is complicated. And in many northern cities, the Irish Associated identified with the union army and the union side of st louis was 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 bishop archbishop kenrick owned three slaves and i actually called up the archdiocese and i, i confirmed that its true. And i wondered why. How could that be . How how could you be . And i an enslaved people yourself in your own country,