BlogEvolve.com

Most people don't think about the Irish when they think about the American Revolution. After all, the big migration of Irish was during the Irish Potato Famine in the mid-19th century. The Irish were major participants in the Civil War, with numerous Irish fighting on each side. But the Revolution?

Actually, there was a large Irish population in the U.S. during colonial times. Most were the so called Scots-Irish, Calvinist peasants from the lowlands of Scotland who had migrated from Scotland to the Ulster area of northern Ireland. By the mid-eighteenth century there was a mass migration of these Scots-Irish from the north of Ireland to the American colonies to escape the economic regulations that limited their ability to earn a decent living and the taxes imposed to pay for the support of the Church of England (while the Scots-Irish were of the Protestant faith, they were not members of the Church of England). There was also some emigration from the Catholic southern part of Ireland to the American colonies as well.

Given the large numbers of Irish in the colonies and their historic dislike of the British, it is not surprising that many major figures in the Revolution were either from Ireland or of Irish descent. Major General John Sullivan, leader of the famous Sullivan-Clinton campaign that laid waste to the Iroquois Indian nations on the western New York frontier who had been allied with the British and waging war against American frontier settlements. Sullivan had been a delegate to the First Continental Congress and then resigned to join the army. He was in many important battles during the war and then returned to politics serving in Congress, serving as New Hampshire's first governor and later appointed a Federal Judge by President Washington. Sullivan himself was born in New Hampshire, the colony to which his parents had migrated to from Northern Ireland.

Then there was Commodore John Barry who was born in 1745 in the village of Ballysampson, in County Wexford, Ireland. His parents were poor tenant farmers who lost their farm shortly after Barry was born. At a young age, Barry went to sea as a cabin boy worked his way up to ship's captain in the West Indies trade. Seeing the freedom and opportunity available in the American Colonies, Barry soon made Philadelphia his home. As a seaport, Philadelphia was one of the focal points of the triangular trade between the Britain, her colonies in North America and her Caribbean Island possessions. Also, the religious tolerance laws in the Pennsylvania colony allowed Barry to freely practice his Catholic religion. When the Revolution came, Barry went from merchant ship captain to naval captain in the Continental Navy. Barry has the distinction of capturing the first British warship during the Revolution as well as fighting in the last naval battle of the war. Following the war, he spent most of the rest of his life working to create a permanent American Navy. As a result, he was given the title Father of the American Navy by his contemporaries and is still honored by the Navy today as its founder.

Three of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, James Smith, George Taylor and Matthew Thornton were born in reland while five others, Charles Carroll, Thomas Lynch, Thomas McKean, George Read and Edward Rutledge were of Irish descendant.

Overall, the Irish, traditional enemies of Great Britain, left a fair sized mark on the founding of the United States of America.

Airnavigator

My BlogEvolve

My HubPages

Bookmark/Search this post with:
| | | | | | | | | | |