Enter the Irish-American

The Irish position is one of shame and poverty. My master is a great tyrant said a Negro lately. He treats me as badly as if I was a common Irishman. an Irishman writing home 1851. I am sorry to find that England is right about the lower class of Irish. They are brutal base cruel cowards and as insolent as base...my own theory is that St. Patricks campaign against the snakes is a Papish delusion. They perished of biting the Irish people. a prominent New Yorker 1863.If you lived in this place you would ask for whisky instead of milk. an Irishwoman in a New York tenement 1868.Thousands of my countrymen at this time fill with dignity and invulnerable fidelity various situations of trust and emolument in the land of their adoption. traveling Irish author 1864.Scratch a convict or a pauper and the chances are that you tickle the skin of an Irish Catholic. the Chicago Post 1868.Of all the tricks which the Irish nation have played on the slow-witted Saxon the most outrageous is the palming off on him of the imaginary Irishman of Bernard Shaw 1896.Anyhow tis a good thing to be an Irishman because people think that all an Irishman does is laugh without a reason an fight without an objik. But ye an I Hinnissy know these things ar-re only our divarsions. Its a good thing to have people size ye up wrong whin theyre got yeer measure yere in danger. -- Finley Peter Dunne 1919.