Reconnecting Roots

At TowHaul, we value the creativity and hard work that built this country and improves our lives, by supporting education towards careers in manufacturing and the trades. TowHaul proud sponsor of Reconnecting Roots and public television. Support for Reconnecting Roots and public television is provided by Taylor Stitch, Taylor Stitch is responsibly built for the long haul and is proud to partner with brands that inspire hope for a more sustainable future. Muletown Coffee Roasters is honored to be a part of Reconnecting Roots and it's hope to inspire the future through lessons of the past. Muletown Coffee Roasters is all about slowing things down, digging into community and encouraging good for goodness sake. Music Ranch Montana sharing a common passion for music and community in beautiful paradise valley. Music Ranch Montana's mission to support musicians and provide a place to enjoy it together is reflected in Reconnecting Roots. upbeat music It's the quintessential story of the American immigrant, how the Irish came to form America's first underclass and rose to the pinnacle of world power. (Irish music) From the East out to the Western shore Most of the Irish chose to go to America, as opposed to going across to Britain. (Irish music) ...and many more will fall. Walk away me boy, walk away me boy. And by mornin' we'll be free opening music I'm Gabe McCauley yesterday and the promise of tomorrow. beautiful for spacious skies, amber waves of grain, purple mountain majesties on the fruited plains. We're home. Hooooome, Hooooome. Framing the future through the past. This is Reconnecting Roots. Home Earth. So peaceful So serene. There's a lot to love. But sometimes the planet does things that make it hard for us to survive here. Typhoons destroying the Philippines, earthquakes decimating poor nations like Haiti and droughts the bring starvation to Ethiopia. Of course, humans create our own disasters too. Fortunately one thing that helps everyone overcome each type of disaster is humanitarian aid. These monies and the efforts they support help to save lives with food, clean water and medicine and help rebuild their homes and livelihoods. Since 1947, the US government has committed one and a quarter trillion dollars in total foreign assistance. Just a century earlier, America's first major foreign disaster response was under way hoping to save a nation on the brink of utter collapse. the U.S.S. Jamestown sailing under a Shamrock flag was carrying a cargo of food and supplies to Ireland where the potato famine was reaching its terrible peak. A year remembered as black 47. Here at home, Irish Americans stirred up the relief efforts, raising one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in a few short weeks from all across the states with an official charter from Washington DC. But when the crew of Jamestown found the Irish in a severe state of poverty and oppression, they knew they couldn't do enough to relieve their dire situation. While Irish fields produced plenty of food, British rule saw that it was all sent to market. So that when their potato gardens failed, they had nothing to get them through the winter. Over the course of four years one million Irish would die from the famine. And another million fled, reducing Ireland's population by nearly 25 percent. Yet after receiving help, many Irish saw hope for a new life in America and left their beloved homeland. It was a turn of hope for these destitute immigrants who would come to embody the American dream. (rap song opening) Pack it up, pack it in, let me begin I came to win, battle me that's a sin I won't ever slack up, punk you better back up There are over 30 million Americans of Irish descent. Many of which trace back to the famine. But some have deeper roots, like myself, tracing back to the Thompsons of County Down and the Boggs of Londonderry in Ulster Northern Ireland. I came to explore some of those roots here and see the places where they live and maybe understand why they left this beautiful country behind. Today's Ireland is a far cry from its dire history, but the effects of the famine still weigh on the heart of the people. One million people left Ireland One million people died in Ireland over a 5 to 6 year period of the famine. In fact it's only at that 150th anniversary that people started to talk and discuss much more about the famine. Up until that it had almost been too difficult a subject for people to really talk about and engage. So yeah. The wounds were raw for a couple of generations after the famine. The Ulster American Folk Park preserves this chapter of Irish history with an open air museum that tells the story of Irish immigration to North America in the 1800's. This is a beautiful park and important for American history as well. Hugely important for of American history. Most of the Irish chose to go to America as opposed to going across to Britain. And what are we looking at here? This would have been the house that the poorest people in Ireland would have lived in, coming up to the famine. This example is built in stone. Most examples would have been built with a sod wall. And once the people left either due to death during the famine or immigration, the sod walls would just have melted away. We're lucky to have this one. To keep these chapters of Irish history from melting away, the park has also brought some American artifacts, one with a surprising twist. What kind of cabin is this is? This is a log cabin from Cabell County, Virginia, now West Virginia. Built around about 1800 and fairly typical of Appalachian house construction of the time. This very well could have been one of my cousins. I'm from West Virginia....from West Virginia? Wow! It is pretty fascinating to think about this house sitting in my home state of West Virginia and now sitting here in my ancestors area. Just all these stories connecting and overlapping. So many connections. So many connections. The park also exhibits this full scale replica of the Brig Union, a converted cargo ship, that carried Irish immigrants across the Atlantic. This was an appalling way to travel though. It truly was. You're talking about cramped conditions, a ceiling lower than this, dark 50 of these beds though, so you're sharing, sharing blankets but also illnesses, infections, nasty little friends crawling over skin. You're sharing one of these as well. A bucket. That's your toilet. You know it's disgusting to imagine. But you'll be glad to have them because or course sea sickness is going to effect every single passenger and you're going to be enduring this for well, six weeks if you're lucky. But if the wind is stubborn, this could be your home for anything up to 16 weeks. This is a testament to what the conditions must have been like in Ireland to say this is worth the risk. This is what you're going to get. I've actually been to Fells Point, Baltimore, the real one. So being here in this re-creation. I mean it makes the world feel a little smaller. Do you feel the Irish kept a sense of their own culture though and what pieces of that culture can you see in Americans today? They came to work. They came to make a life for themselves and I think that's very much an American characteristic. That it's a land of opportunity but the opportunity isn't given to you, you have to take it. You have to seize it. They could see how you could mobilize numbers to make a difference in elections. And they used that very wisely. During the Great Migration, Irish immigrants went on incredibly dangerous journeys to make it to America. But it wasn't smooth sailing once they touched U.S. soil either. They faced discrimination just about everywhere they turned, even though previous waves of Irish immigration fought for independence in the Revolutionary War. Thanks to their shared distaste for British rule. These new Irish Americans were living like exiles, poor and unskilled. And good work was hard to find. As they came in large numbers, political cartoons regularly portrayed them as violent monsters, spurring fear and racism against Irish Catholics, over-running a Protestant country. Housing applications, social clubs and of course help wanted ads bluntly posted their discrimination up front. So they were forced to take the jobs no one else once wanted, which were usually unsafe and low paying, like railroad construction, which was so dangerous there's a saying that an Irishman is buried under every tie. The company overseeing construction of the New Basin Canal in New Orleans opted for Irish workers because they were cheaper and more expendable than slaves. The small wages they earned, forced them to live in tiny spaces. It wasn't uncommon for a single family home to be shared with multiple Irish families and tenement buildings saw many families squeezed into a single small apartment. Running water wasn't a given. So staying clean was a chore and made it easy for disease to spread among the tenants. They were in the land of the free but they weren't free from bigotry and terrible living conditions. However, as they grew comfortable in their new country, they became more involved in creating a better future for themselves. We sailed our ship down the Hudson River to the wild Atlantic we said farewell On Staten Island when we landed There we had our tale to tell We're the poor, the huddled masses We have crossed the lonely sea Left the Old World for the New World Left the old ways to be free We left our homes in 47' Turned our backs against the wind From our ships of creakin' timber We bid farewell to a famished land We're the poor, the huddled masses We have crossed the lonely sea Left the Old World for the New World Left the old ways to be free With heavy hearts we left behind us Memories of better days Old men talkin', laughin' As we danced the night away We're the poor, the huddled masses We have crossed the lonely sea Left the Old World for the New World Left the old ways to be free. Now those years are far behind us Now our spirits have grown strong In this land that gave us freedom And the will to carry on We're the poor, the huddled masses We have crossed the lonely sea Left the Old World for the New World Left the old ways to be free Testaments to Irish immigrant labor can still be found all over this country. By 1860, an estimated 4000 miles of canal were spread across America, mostly dug by Irish immigrants, who also helped build the Transcontinental Railroad. After building across the nation. They went upwards with Irish sweat and blood directing the iconic Empire State building. And while many had remained poor, it was Irish pennies that paid for America's cathedrals like St Patrick's in Chicago, confirming the influence of Catholicism across the nation. The rising number of Catholics in America didn't not endear them to the majority Protestants, Oh God bless 'em! Whose discrimination against Irish Catholics helped bond them together. Against clandestine opposition like the 'know nothings' an anti Catholic political movement. The Irish Americans banded together religiously and culturally. They voted in higher proportions than other ethnic groups and soon they controlled powerful political machines in cities across the United States. But you can't talk about Irish American political rise, without talking about Tammany Hall. Tammany Hall may have started as a benevolent society in 1789 but by 1868 it was a corrupt political machine run by William M. Tweed. He was neither Irish nor Catholic, but he utilized their support. And in turn worked in their favor, albeit in a less than legal manner. The Irish community may have profited from this corruption but they were also instrumental in cleaning it up, resulting in the rise of Al Smith, the grandson of four Irish immigrants. He was the first 4 term governor of New York. And in 1928, he became the first Catholic to win a major party's presidential nomination. But this faith also led to his defeat. With more political influence, the Irish found better jobs, initially government work, like that of the officer of the law, for instance. But eventually any job was fair game. They made grand strides culturally in 1903 Irish American, Henry Ford created cars and assembly line jobs for the middle class. And Nellie Bly became the mother of investigative journalism. Georgia O'Keeffe pioneered modern art. Eugene O'Neill won the Nobel Prize for literature. And in Hollywood the Irish American was celebrated both on the screen and off. But it doesn't stop there John F. Kennedy was elected as America's first Irish Catholic president. Not to mention, Presidents Reagan, Presidents Bush and Bush. Clinton and Obama claim Irish heritage. Instead of asking what this country can do for them, the Irish American asked what they could do for this country. Together we can make America Gaelic again. (applause) Thank you. While they once came to America by the thousands, now only about a hundred and fifty Irish a year are able to migrate here because of changes in our laws. In 1965, the new policy ironically supported by Robert and Ted Kennedy allowed immigration based on a system of criteria instead of their nationality, giving preference to skilled individuals and those with close relatives already here. This of course had an adverse effect on the flow of Irish immigrants, that is the legal ones. A wave of a hundred and fifty thousand arrived from Ireland in the 80's who lobbied for an amnesty that President Reagan signed into law, legalizing an estimated three million immigrants and setting a controversial precedent. So today we're witnessing racial discrimination, worrying about the effective assimilation. The impact on our schools and public resources and hearing cries from workers upset about the ones taking away the jobs Americans won't do. Seems like I've heard this story somewhere before. While the move to America elevated many poor Irish to greater standing in life, several generations of their descendants haven't escaped the trappings of poverty. Appalachia, mostly settled by the Ulster Irish lags behind the rest of the nation in socio-economic progress. Despite millions of dollars in aid pumped into the multi state region, it continues to decline due to lack of access, lack of opportunity, and an abundance of substance abuse well detailed in the bestseller 'Hillbilly Elegy.' These are problems that have followed folks out of Appalachia and into communities where previous generations migrated to find work. Some blame conditions. Others the culture. But one interesting theory describes how a combination of absentee corporate and government rights to the land has displaced the people from their habitat and restricted their capabilities for economic output, which is basically the same thing their ancestors meant to escape in British controlled Ireland. These and other white blue collar Americans are viewed as the battleground of the next political revolution. But aside from picking government representatives, the folks in this region have been doing a different kind of picking for decades that has been hugely influential. Scots Irish immigrants along with those from northern England brought over their traditional music, which people loved. Over the years this music evolved into several popular genre, such as bluegrass, folk and country. (banjo music) They also brought their dancing feet with them, introducing their styles of square dancing and clogging to us. And that's only a small piece of the Irish influence on America. We've seen it spread to our cereal boxes, sports teams, and even on our bars of soap. Seriously, this is a real thing they do in the commercials. Clean as a whistle. (Someone whistling in background) And of course everyone's favorite Irish holiday, St Patrick's day. This celebration started with a feast day in Ireland honoring St Patrick in 1631, who funny enough, wasn't even Irish. But the celebration was a minor one in Ireland. It really grew in popularity here in America thanks to parades started by Irish Americans. But Americans wanted more than a single Irish holiday. So now there are over 140 Irish or Celtic festivals in the US. And more than 45 states in almost every month of the year and they're incredibly popular. For example, the Irish festival in Dublin, Ohio hosts around one hundred thousand visitors annually. As Irish culture is increasingly celebrated, more people are happily More than thirty two million people in America or roughly ten percent of the population, claim they have Irish ancestry. That's more than six times the entire population of Ireland. Just a few generations ago, Irish ancestry was downplayed in order to avoid bigotry. Now everybody's Irish. Slainte. A major turnaround for Ireland has occurred in recent years. The island nation that has suffered so many hardships has become a beacon of economic development with big tech and international corporations flocking to the emerald Isle to make some green. But there was something that inspired two brothers to leave behind America's shores and settle in the picturesque harbor town of Dingle, where their ice cream parlors are scooping up the region's local flavors. How early in the morning is acceptable to have ice cream? I don't think there's rules. We've never, no. I think there's no rules on it. Sean Murphy and his brother Kieran created flavors to celebrate Irish culture, like brown bread and Dingle sea salt, but the main ingredient for both is what makes all the difference. So what makes this specific ice cream unique? Ireland is just an amazing climate for dairy. But it's an Irish breed of cows and they go back thousands and thousands of years this specific breed of cow. And there's only a couple thousand of them left in the world. Really. Yeah because they don't give as much milk as the big cows. So they've falling out of fashion and out of favor.- Good milk. But it's the good milk. Do you have Irish heritage? With Sean Murphy as a name, (laughs) yes. Definitely! My father was born and raised in Cortland. So you're not far removed? No. -from your Irish roots. Oh Yeah. No I go down to Cork and there's this bewildering network of cousins. I have the immediate connection right there. What do most Irish think of the American culture? The concept of the land of opportunity is real. People do tap into that and they believe that and they love that. And Ireland now, which is growing so much, is so much driven by that the entrepreneurial spirit even so strong. There obviously have been a lot of reasons to leave Ireland, but from my understanding in the last 20 years, they're more immigrants coming into Ireland than leaving. Right. So it seems like there's been a shift. It's new for Ireland suddenly. Immigration's a thing, you know, from all over the world. It's interesting to watch a country that sent out migrants even, they weren't called refugees at the time, but basically refugees and millions of them to suddenly have to grapple with people coming here, you know, and the tensions that's springing up. So it's a fascinating time for them. (Irish music) The idea that suddenly Ireland's shooting forward and growing is, it's exciting. It is an optimism around the place. I think it's incredible to be part of that, you know, to be here and be part of that. Why do you think Americans are so fascinated with Irish culture? I think there's a sense of this old, old, old culture that's still really coming through really strongly. The music is still going here. The Irish language is still going here. The Irish version of Gaelic. And I think that's irresistible for a lot of people. But I think that sense of the people being important, really is a big deal, more than stuff, more than anything else, and on top of that, you can't live right here and not understand the importance of nature, the green-ness, the power of the ocean. Like right now it's cloudy but sometimes I think the bad weather is more beautiful than the good weather, because the sea starts to churn, and the clouds start to swirl around. And yet it's just this visceral force that I think is hard to miss. The American dream was put to the test by the Irish invasion of the 1850's. While it wasn't easy, they found success in America. Unlike anything they dreamed of back home in Ireland, the story of the Irish and their contributions to this nation, should make us think about how we view immigrants who are chasing the American dream today. Thanks for watching. Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling From glen to glen, and down the mountain side. Summer's gone, and all the roses falling, It's you, it's you must go and I must bide. But come ye back when summer's in the meadow, And when the valley's hushed and white with snow, It's I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow, Oh, Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so! are calling from glen to glen, and down the mountain side. closing music Reconnect with us at reconnectingroots.tv where you can check out blogs, extra videos, behind the scenes, a podcast and the album from season two. And don't forget, follow us here. Support for Reconnecting Roots and public television is provided by Taylor Stitch, Taylor Stitch is responsibly built for the long haul and is proud to partner with brands that inspire hope for a more sustainable future. Muletown Coffee Roasters is honored to be a part of Reconnecting Roots and it's hope to inspire the future through lessons of the past. Muletown Coffee Roasters is all about slowing things down digging into community and encouraging good for goodness sake. Music Ranch Montana sharing a common passion for music and community in beautiful paradise valley. Music Ranch Montana's mission to support musicians and provide a place to enjoy it together is reflected in Reconnecting Roots. At TowHaul, we value the creativity and hard work that built this country and improves our lives, by supporting education towards careers in manufacturing and the trades. TowHaul proud sponsor of Reconnecting Roots and public television.