Earlier Acceptance of the Irish

I'm writing a short story set in my Afrikaner TL in which one Irish Catholic spymaster repeatedly refers to Italians as "dagos" and thinks they're all corrupt, even though this makes one of his subordinates (also an Irish Catholic, albeit significantly younger) rather uncomfortable.

My theory is that due to the first wave of mass Irish immigration coming to the Thirteen Colonies before independence (as a result of Cromwell's depredations), the Irish would be accepted into the American politic much earlier than OTL and would join the WASPs in sneering at the newer waves of immigrants (the Italians, Poles, Jews, Greeks, etc--to make things even more fun, possibly even the Irish who fled the Famine, possibly due to their hatred of Britain).

Thus we've got the prejudiced Irishman in intelligence establishment (which in OTL was dominated by WASPs) who shares their snobbery.

Does that seem realistic to you? If so, what do you all think would be the likely results of a much earlier "acceptance" of the Irish in the USA?
 

Dure

Banned
If you have already reduced the population pressure in Ireland (by earlier migration) why do you think the potato murrain will still cause a famine and drive emmigration? Without so many peasants with small holdings large land owners would be able to move into the more profitable wheat trade and it would be unlikely that potatos become the monocrop they did in OTL. The murrain would be a problem but it would not produce famine.
 
If you have already reduced the population pressure in Ireland (by earlier migration) why do you think the potato murrain will still cause a famine and drive emmigration? Without so many peasants with small holdings large land owners would be able to move into the more profitable wheat trade and it would be unlikely that potatos become the monocrop they did in OTL. The murrain would be a problem but it would not produce famine.

The 13 Colonies at this point might not have been heavily populated, so you wouldn't need many Irish to change the demographics greatly. By 1776, IIRC there were only 3 million people, although Philadelphia was second only to London.

The "Cromwellian Migration" of the Afrikaner TL has more to do with TTL's somewhat larger Ulster than the situation in the rest of the island.
 
I'm writing a short story set in my Afrikaner TL in which one Irish Catholic spymaster repeatedly refers to Italians as "dagos" and thinks they're all corrupt, even though this makes one of his subordinates (also an Irish Catholic, albeit significantly younger) rather uncomfortable.

My theory is that due to the first wave of mass Irish immigration coming to the Thirteen Colonies before independence (as a result of Cromwell's depredations), the Irish would be accepted into the American politic much earlier than OTL and would join the WASPs in sneering at the newer waves of immigrants (the Italians, Poles, Jews, Greeks, etc--to make things even more fun, possibly even the Irish who fled the Famine, possibly due to their hatred of Britain).

Thus we've got the prejudiced Irishman in intelligence establishment (which in OTL was dominated by WASPs) who shares their snobbery.

Does that seem realistic to you? If so, what do you all think would be the likely results of a much earlier "acceptance" of the Irish in the USA?

The problem I see is that most of the original 13 colonies had restrictions in place to prevent Catholic migration, Maryland being the major exception. While Protestant Ulster Irish would have been, and were, welcomed with open arms, Catholic Irish would not have been. So unless we basically posit a huge migration into Maryland, and possibly Pennsylvania (another place which was somewhat less intolerant of Catholics), this is a non-starter. Could these two colonies have accommodated the numbers you are thinking of? Would that have allowed the type of demographic changes you are thinking of?
 
The problem I see is that most of the original 13 colonies had restrictions in place to prevent Catholic migration, Maryland being the major exception. While Protestant Ulster Irish would have been, and were, welcomed with open arms, Catholic Irish would not have been. So unless we basically posit a huge migration into Maryland, and possibly Pennsylvania (another place which was somewhat less intolerant of Catholics), this is a non-starter. Could these two colonies have accommodated the numbers you are thinking of? Would that have allowed the type of demographic changes you are thinking of?

That's a good point.

Maryland, Philadelphia, and Rhode Island (where IIRC there was total religious freedom) could be the initial entry point and they (or their kids) could spread out from there.
 

Keenir

Banned
The problem I see is that most of the original 13 colonies had restrictions in place to prevent Catholic migration, Maryland being the major exception. While Protestant Ulster Irish would have been, and were, welcomed with open arms, Catholic Irish would not have been. So unless we basically posit a huge migration into Maryland, and possibly Pennsylvania (another place which was somewhat less intolerant of Catholics), this is a non-starter. Could these two colonies have accommodated the numbers you are thinking of? Would that have allowed the type of demographic changes you are thinking of?

maybe have all the Protestant Irish fleeing Ireland and taking refuge in the Colonies.
 
So unless we basically posit a huge migration into Maryland, and possibly Pennsylvania (another place which was somewhat less intolerant of Catholics), this is a non-starter.

The Quakers in Pennsylvania actually recruited Scots-Irish settlers as a military arm against Maryland, due to the border/religious dispute. The Marylanders claimed the border between the two colonies was just a few miles south of Lancaster. The Scots-Irish Presbyterians were given lands in Southern Lancaster Co. to keep the Catholic Marylanders out. The two southernmost townships in Lancaster at the time were Drumore and Colerain, both Irish names after Northern Ireland locations.
 
hmmm, I agree with the earlier posts that widespread anti-Irish sentiment would've made largescale Irish emigration into colonial North America very difficult- I mean, acbk in the 17th C, when the English were fightin their Indian wars in NE, they compared the native Americans to the Irish in their savagery...
 
hmmm, I agree with the earlier posts that widespread anti-Irish sentiment would've made largescale Irish emigration into colonial North America very difficult- I mean, acbk in the 17th C, when the English were fightin their Indian wars in NE, they compared the native Americans to the Irish in their savagery...

Hmm...frontier cannon fodder?
 
Here's what I've managed to put together:

The Irish are sent as indentured servants to Virginia and the Caribbean, as well as simply being dumped in Maryland (which was apparently a dumping-ground for convicts as well). Many go to Rhode Island due to its religious tolerance.

Eventually, this leads to overpopulation and (in more repressive colonies) "dangerous concentrations." The leaders of several of the colonies eventually decide to allow the Irish Catholics to settle in frontier zones, to keep the Indians at bay.

Although they're allowed in, they're subject to all kinds of restrictions and the fall of Cromwell's government in Britain triggers a "Papist Rising" in several places.

What do you all think?
 
If you said dumping ground, why not go a bit further and have Irish Australia?

Well, I do have a certain sociological dynamic in my world.

If I really wanted to be butterfly-anal, there would not even be a United States in the first place, since the POD is in 1579.
 
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