Europeans. Of these 3614, or nearly one-half, came from Ireland. Until
1850 this proportion was maintained. Here was evidence of the first
ground swell of immigration to the United States whose subsequent
waves in sixty years swept to America one-half of the entire
population of the Little Green Isle. Since 1820 over four and a
quarter million Irish immigrants have found their way hither. In 1900
there were nearly five million persons in the United States descended
from Irish parentage. They comprise today ten per cent of our foreign
born population.

The discontent and grievances of the Irish had a vivid historical
background in their own country. There were four principal causes
which induced the transplanting of the race: rebellion, famine,
restrictive legislation, and absentee landlordism. Every uprising of
this bellicose people from the time of Cromwell onward had been
followed by voluntary and involuntary exile. It is said that
Cromwell's Government transported many thousand Irish to the West
Indies. Many of these exiles subsequently found their way to the
Carolinas, Virginia, and other colonies. After the great Irish
rebellion of 1798 and again after Robert Emmet's melancholy failure in
the rising of 1803 many fled across the sea. The Act of Union in 1801
brought "no submissive love for England," and constant political
agitations for which the Celtic Irish need but little stimulus have
kept the pathway to America populous.

The harsh penal laws of two centuries ago prescribing transportation
and long terms of penal servitude were a compelling agency in driving
the Irish to America. Illiberal laws against religious nonconformists,
especially against the Catholics, closed the doors of political
advancement in their faces, submitted them to humiliating