Remembering Irish resilience on St. Patrick’s Day

Saturday is St. Patrick’s Day and Irish and nonIrish alike will be donning green to mark the day.

Since the New World was “discovered” by Europeans, there have always been people of Irish descent in America. Many are descended from the initial wave of settlers of that Heinz 57 mix of people of the British Isles, not only a little bit Irish, but also English, Welsh and Scottish. Then others are descended from the wave that hit in the 1800s, made up of mostly Catholic Irish fleeing the potato famine.

Like many people in the U.S., I’m descended from people in both groups. My father’s side of the family had lived in Appalachia since before the American Revolution, spreading from those lands into the Ozarks and beyond.

On my mother’s side of the family, I’m descended from those who fled the potato famine in the 1800s. They went to Canada first, whose census in the 1800s included religion, which recorded them as members of the “Church of Rome” aka Catholics. Back then, the border with Canada was pretty fluid, with people going back and forth with ease that would be unthinkable today.

The potato famine, or Great Hunger, is something that everyone has heard of, but its effects on how it influenced not only the future of America, but also Ireland, are lost on many who don’t take history…