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Class of 1897 Fund

1915"

BjmgsaiM

THE IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO
AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE

The Irish Contribution to
America's Independence

By
Thomas Hobbs Maginniss, Jr.

PUBLISHED BY
THE DOIRE PUBLISHING COMPANY
Philadelphia 1913

Copyright, 1913, by The Doike Publishing Co., Philadelphia
CId i".?l8

PRESS OF WM. F. FELL CO.
PHILADELPHIA

PREFACE
"It hecomes nations as well as i^ndimduals not to think of them
selves more highli/ than the^y ought, but to think soherl-y. Self-
exaggeration detracts from their character ¦without adding to
their power; but a greater and more dangerous fault is an
habitual depreciation of their real resources and a consequent
want of self-veliance." — Godkin.
ONE of the faults chargeable against the Irish
people, and particularly Americans of Irish de
scent, is that they are ignorant of the achieve
ments of their race in the past. This is probably due to the
fact that the people of Ireland have for generations been
taught to believe that everj^thing respectable has come
from England and that the Enghsh are a superior race.
Indeed, an attempt has been made to impress the same
theory on the minds of Americans, and perhaps the most
pernicious falsehood promulgated by pro-English writers,
who exert a subtle influence in spreading the gospel of
"Anglo-Saxon superiority," is that America owes her
liberty, her benevolent government, and even her pros
perity to her "EngUsh forefathers" and "Anglo-Saxon
blood." The truth is that the impartial history of Ireland
is the story of England's shame, while the history of Amer
ica offers abundant CAddence of the innate greatness of
men of the Irish race. In the first part of this work I have
endeavored to show that the American people derive their
character more from the Celt than from the Anglo-Saxon,
but the book is designed primarily to offer eAridence to
[3]

PREFACE
substantiate the claim that more than one-third the offi
cers and a large proportion of the soldiers of the Conti
nental army in the American Revolution were of Irish
birth or parentage, and that the Irish were an important
element in American colonial history.
As the Irish were driven from their own country by a
system of persecution much more severe than that of which
the Puritans complained, it is necessary to include in a
work of this character some facts of Irish history which
account for the large volume of emigration to America in
colonial times. I am a representative of the very class
in Ireland, which, in an effort to be truthful, I am com
pelled to condemn for their treatment of the main body of
the Irish people. My ancestors in the male and female
lines for many generations have been members of the
Episcopal (or AngHcan) ehurch. My grandfather was a
clergyman of that church in Ireland, and his father was
mayor of the city of Londonderry at a time when it was
perhaps the most anti-Irish city in Ireland. Had I been
born and bred in Ireland, I should probably have had no
opportunity and less inclination to learn the real facts of
her history; but fifteen years' study of Irish genealogies
and family histories has provided me with an intimate
knowledge of the causes that are the root of Irish hostility
to English rule, which, after all, were the basic causes of
the American Revolution.
Thomas Hobbs Maginniss, Jr.
Philadelphia, December 1, 1912.

[4]

INTRODUCTION
IF the peasantry of Western England at the beginning
of the seventeenth century were Anglo-Saxons, then
the first settlers of New England in America were
also Anglo-Saxons, since the Pilgrims and Puritans were
chiefly farmers, small tradesmen, and mechanics from the
western counties of England. The descendants of these
"first settlers" in New England became the landed-
aristocracy, and the majority of them were to be found
among the Loyalists, who formed a considerable portion
of the population of America (especially Massachusetts)
during the Revolution. But most of the people through
out all the Colonies — those who were devoted to the
patriot cause — were by no means English nor Anglo-
Saxon, and American love of hberty, our republican form
of govemment, and our ideals of justice are directly op
posed to the character of the so-called Anglo-Saxons, a
fact that is evident to any one familiar with the history
of that race, who has studied the history of the English
people with any degree of analysis. For several centuries
after the Norman conquest of England the common
people, essentially Anglo-Saxon, were notable for their
serviHty, while the landed proprietors and governing class
were of Norman stock, who contributed to the English
character the spirit of arrogance, selfishness, and lust for
territorial expansion for which England has chiefly been
noted. It is certain that the spirit of independence and
[6]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
liberality shown by the men who founded America finds
no comparison in the servility of the Saxon, nor in the
selfishness and imperiousness of the Norman.
The school histories inform us that the settlers of the
American colonies were Enghsh, Welsh, Germans, Dutch,
Swedes, and French Huguenots. The Irish are mentioned
only in connection with the potato famine in Ireland, which
caused hundreds of thousands of persons of that nation to
emigrate to the United States in the middle of the last
century; but a careful analysis of American colonial
records and immigration statistics will serve to convince
one that more than half the people of the United States,
before the nation was sixty years old, had Celtic blood in
their veins. The Irish, Scotch, and Welsh belong to the
Celtic race, while recent researches by a leamed society
in France lead to the conclusion that the French, too
(whom our histories admit were an important part of our
colonial and revolutionary population), are a Celtic race.
Thus, even if the English population of the colonial period
did outnumber the Irish (which could not be true in the
light of statistics), it surely did not outnumber the Irish,
Welsh, Scotch, French, Swedes, and Dutch, who assuredly
were not Anglo-Saxon.
But because of the preponderance of what appear to be
English names in colonial military and pohtical history,
the average reader may question the truth of the claim
that the Irish came to the colonies in such large numbers,
that a large proportion of the revolutionary army were
men of that race, and that Irishmen occupied positions of
prominence in early American history. Senator Lodge
tries to show the superiority of men of English origin by
classifying the names in a dictionary of biography, and
[6]

INTRODUCTION
naturally he concludes that the majority of great men are
"Anglo-Saxon" because the majority of the names appear
to be of English origin. To arrive at his conclusion he
probably classified as Irish only those men whose names
begin with "Mc" or "0,"' or names obviously Irish.
As a matter of fact, before the period of the Irish revival,
which began in the last century, the use of the prefixes
had been almost universally discontinued by Irish families,
especially those who were within the pale of English
patronage and favor, while members of the laboring and
servant class were frequently led to assume the English
and Scotch names of their masters. The English govern
ment exerted every effort to destroy all vestige of Irish
nationality, and this effort extended even to an attempt
to eradicate ancient Irish names, a purpose which is clearly
illustrated in the following statute of Edward IV, 1465 :
"At the request of the Commons it is ordeyned and
estabUshed that every Irishman that dwells betwixt or
among Enghshmen in the County of Dubhn, Myeth,
Uriell and Kildare (the whole extent then of the English
dominion) shall goe like to one English man in apparell,
and shaving off the beard above the mouth, and shall
take him an Enghsh surname of one town, as Sutton,
Chester, Tyrm, Skyrne, Corke, Kinsale; or color, as
White, Black, Brown; or art, or science, as Smith or
Carpenter; or ofiice, as Cooke, Butler, and that he and
his offspring shall use this name under peyne of forfeiting
of his goods yearly till the premises be done, to be levied
two times by the year to the King's warres, according
to the discretion of the lieutenant of the King or his
Deputy."* But like the Penal Laws, which might have reduced any
* Spenser's "View of the State of Ireland," 1585.
[7]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
other race to barbarism or caused them to change their
religion for the sake of security, the law against the use of
Irish names was in the main a failure, and more Irish
names were changed in the effort to curry governmental
favor than to escape the penalty which the law imposed.
In addition to those famiUes who changed their names
while still in Ireland, thousands changed the form of their
names after their arrival in America, while many of the
inhabitants of Ireland were of English, Scotch, and Nor
man origin, and thus bore names characteristic of those
nations. In tabulating his statistics Senator Lodge would prob
ably have classified Sir William Johnson, Colonial Gov
emor of New York, as Enghsh, yet Sir WiUiam John
son's real name was McShane (which is AngUcized John
son). Reference to the 1912 edition of Burke's "Peerage"
discloses the fact that Sir WilUam Johnson was the son of
Christopher Johnson, of County Meath, Ireland, who was
the son of WilUam McShane, son of Thomas McShane, son
of John O'NeiU.
On the same principle Robert Treat Paine, signer of the
Declaration of Independence, would have been classed as
EngUsh, yet on reference to Vol. I, pp. 726, 727, O'Hart's
" Irish Pedigrees," we find that Tiege O'NeiU, b. 1641, had
a son Robert, who changed his name to Paine and emi
grated to America, and was the ancestor of Robert Treat
Paine. This Tiege also had a son, Henry, whose son, Art
O'Neill, changed his name to Payne, and had a son Thomas,
who emigrated to America.
The genealogy of the Kane faniily, the members of
which occupy a prominent position in law, business, and
society, shows that the first member of the fainily in
[8]

INTRODUCTION
America was John O'Kane, who came to New York in
1752 and dropped the 0'. He was a member of the family
of O'Caihan, of Derry.
Thomas Butler would without doubt be classed as Eng
hsh, yet two distinct famihes of Butlers, both of whom
attained prominence, came from Ireland to America and
were members of a family that had been in Ireland
several centuries and had fought many times against
British oppression. Mathews' "American Armoury and
Blue Book" shows that a Thomas Butler was born in
Ireland in 1674 and settled in Maine in 1692, while
another Thomas Butler, bom in DubUn 1720, settled in
Lancaster County, Pa., 1748. Of the family of the latter,
four were officers in the Revolutionary army, the eldest
advancing to the rank of Major General.
Alexander Falls, who served in the First Colonial Regi
ment of New York, would no doubt be classed as English,
yet he was the son of Alexander McFall, which is proof
of his Celtic origin (Mathews' "Armoury and Blue Book").
Iimumerable instances like the above inight be cited,
but it is an easy matter to trace the transition of names
from an Irish to an English form. The descendants of
men who were named O'Bryan are now Bryant; O'Tooles
have become TuthiUs; McNees in New Hampshire
became "Nay" in the second generation; McCormac has
become Camac; O'Shaughnessys have changed to Chaun-
ceys, and Ryan has even assumed a Dutch form, VanRyn.
Meade might be mistaken for an English name, but it
was formerly O'Meagh. Neilson is not so Irish as Mac-
Neil, but it means precisely the same thing. O'Hart is
Irish, but drop the 0' and it is EngUsh. Moore looks
Scotch or English, yet many descendants of the O'Mores
[9]

miSH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
of Ireland bear the former name. It is obvious, there
fore, that a claim to EngUsh origin must rest upon a
stronger foundation than an English name, and, while
thousands of Scotch, Irish, German, French, and Welsh
names have assumed an EngUsh form, we have been
unable to discover an English or American fainily that
has assumed an Irish name.

10]

THE ANGLO-SAXON AND THE IRISH
SINCE her separation from England America has been
a country of opportunity for all men. Americans
are known as a generous, witty, and democratic
people, and for these characteristics they are indebted
more to the Celtic blood in them than to the narrow,
intolerant, harsh character of the early Anglo-Saxon
Puritans. To arrive at an intelUgent estimate of the
justness of this claim it is only necessary to consider the
points of difference in the character of the Anglo-Saxons
as a whole and the Irish, as it is by an analysis of the vicis
situdes and achievements of a people that we may arrive
at a true estimate of their contribution to the national
character. The most marked difference between the English (Anglo-
Saxons and Norman) and the Celts is that the former
were noted for their achievements in plundering and op
pressing the weak and their land covetousness, while the'
latter were devoted to scholarship, religion, and the de
fense of the principles of Uberty. This is best illustrated
by a consideration of the elemental characteristics of the
tribes or races that formed the EngUsh nation, on the one
hand, and the struggle against oppression carried on by
the Irish people for many centuries, on the other hand.
The island of Britain was anciently inhabited by a
Celtic race, which was succeeded in the course of time by
[11]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
tribes of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, of Teutonic origin,
who came, not Uke the conquerors of the continental
provinces, as disciples of a civiUzation which they revered,
but simply as destroyers of a civiUzation of which they
knew nothing. It was a destroying conquest, which
swept away the former inhabitants and their whole politi
cal system. It was especially a heathen conquest, which
utterly rooted up Christianity from a land where it must
already have taken deep root.* These tribes formed the
EngUsh nation, which, by the ninth century, had become
civiUzed and apparently Christianized, when "Christian
England was now attacked by the heathen Danes, as
Christian Britain had been attacked by the heathen
EngUsh. These Danes were not a people altogether
foreign to the English; they were of a kindred race and
spoke a kindred tongue."t The Danes plundered and
ravaged various parts of the country; they made many
settlements, in which they held the English inhabitants
in bondage; and finally a Dane was crowned king in 1013.
The Danes ruled the EngUsh until 1042, when a Saxon
king was crowned through the efforts of both Danes and
EngUsh. Thus, when WilUam the Conqueror came to England,
he found there a nation made up of the descendants of
heathen tribes, each of which had come to Britain bent
upon plunder and e3ctermination, and the people were
called "Anglo-Saxons." The quality of the Anglo-Saxon
spirit of independence may be judged by the fact that
within five years William had conquered the entire nation,
* "England," Prof. E. A. Freeman, Encyclopedia Britannica,
pp. 266, 7.
t lUd.f'p. 287. [12]

THE ANGLO-SAXON AND THE IRISH
and in 1086, on SaUsbury Plain, received the sworn alle
giance of every lord, every lord's free vassal or tenant, and
every landholder, to the number of about 60,000,* and by
far the greater part of the land was taken from Anglo-
Saxon owners and granted to Norman foUowers of Wil
Uam. This conquest of Britain was not, as some writers
would have us believe, a mere amalgamation of two
branches of a kindred race. On the contrary, it was a
complete conquest, which enriched the conquerors and
reduced to poverty and virtual slavery the conquered.
The condition of the Anglo-Saxons one hundred years after
the landing of the Normans is truly portrayed in Sir
Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe," as foUows:
"A circumstance which greatly tended to enhance the
tyranny of the nobility and the sufferings of the inferior
classes arose from the consequences of the Conquest by
Duke WilUam of Normandy. Four generations had not
sufficed to blend the hostile blood of the Normans and
Anglo-Saxons, or to unite by common language and mutual
interests two hostile races, one of which still felt the ela
tion of triumph, while the other groaned under all the
circumstances of defeat. The power had been completely
placed in the hands of the Norman nobiUty by the event
of the battle of Hastings, and it had been used, as our
histories assure us, with no moderate hand. The whole
race of Saxon princes and nobles had been extirpated or
disinherited, with few or no exceptions; nor were the
numbers great who possessed land in the country of their
fathers, even as proprietors of the second, or of yet inferior
classes. The royal policy had been to weaken, by every
means, legal or illegal, the strength of a part of the popu
lation which was justly considered as nourishing the most
inveterate antipathy to their victor."
* Montgomery's "History of England."
[13 1

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
For two hundred years after the Conquest the Anglo-
Saxons wore the collar of the Norman. Their complete
subjection to Norman rule eventually secured for them a
measure of independence, for they became useful to the
barons in the latters' confUcts with the crown and in their
wars for plunder. Most assuredly the motto, "Give us
liberty or give us death," could not have had its origin
in Anglo-Saxon fideUty to the principles of Uberty. For
centuries the masses of the English people were contented,
because they were wilUng to serve their masters; they were
willing to pay the taxes necessary to maintain an aris
tocracy, whose titles to large landed estates were founded
mainly on the superior force used to obtain them; and
to provide the soldiery necessary to carry on those wars
of conquest that have brought to the kingdom so much of
the treasure that was the foundation of Britain's power.
Indeed, England's greatness as a world power begins with
her conquest of India before the American Revolution,
when the wealth from India, at first mere plunder, began
to pour into England, and the revenue from that country
amounted to from 15,000,000 to 75,000,000 poimds a year
in specie, besides the commerce from the East which
poured into EngUsh harbors.'*
It is clear to the average student of history that the
Anglo-Saxons were not notable as a brave people; that
the Normans, while brave, were adventurers, and that
love of plunder was the predominating characteristic of
both races. And as we contemplate the present state of
the British nation, and the Uberties enjoyed by its mem
bers, we are apt to forget that England, in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, had her " bloody commissions,
* Fisher'a "True Story of the Revolution."
[U]

THE ANGLO-SAXON AND THE IRISH
gun-powder plot, her intrigues and cabals; chevaliers and
round-heads. Pride's Purge and Rump ParUament, Bare-
bone's ParUament, and no ParUament; with dregs of fanat
ics, and for thirty years 100,000 men of the same country
at war with each other, and aU to satisfy the ambition of
the weakest or the worst in mankind."*
On the other hand, the history of the Irish people for
the last nine hundred years deals mainly with their struggle
to retain their property and to secure their independence.
The land in Ireland has been confiscated, the ancient
churches and castles lie in ruins, but the Irish people have
never been conquered and their spirit remains unbroken.
Had the Irish submitted to the loss of their property;
had they been wilUng to wear the collar of Norman
slavery, as the Saxons did, Ireland's history would have
been different. But in Ireland the Normans had an en
tirely different character of people to deal with. The Irish
of the twelfth century were naturally a proud people.
The antiquity of their race, their form of government,
and the fact that serfdom never existed among them made
their submission to the Norman feudal system and Nor
man plundering impossible. The Irish at that period
were not barbarians, nor had Ireland, Uke Britain, been
conquered by the Romans and several successions of
foreign tribes during the period from the beginning of the
Christian era to the coming of the Normans, though it is
true the Danes made settlements on the coast and estab
Ushed separate kingdoms in DubUn, Waterford, and
Limerick, and it was in these cities the EngUsh secured
their first foothold in Ireland.
In scholarship and fideUty to the cause of Christianity
¦""History of Derry."
2 [15]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
the Irish people of the middle ages were unexcelled by any
other nation. Edmund Spenser, the celebrated English
poet, said, "It is certain that Ireland hath had the use of
letters very anciently, and long before England." Not only
did they have the use of letters long before England, but
they actually taught the Saxons the use of letters. The
Saxon nobiUty and gentry resorted to Ireland for edu
cation in the seventh and eighth centuries, and were
received at the famous university of Armagh and main
tained free of charge, supplied with books, and taught with
out fee or reward. Lord Lyttleton, Sir James Ware,
Edmund Spenser, and the Venerable Bede, Anglo-Saxon
historian, furnish ample testimony regarding the superior
learning and culture of the Irish over the inhabitants of
Britain before the Norman conquest; but few EngUshmen
know that one of the founders of the great University of
Oxford was an Irishman, Johannes Scotus Erigena, and
that Alfred, King of the Northumbrian Saxons, received
his education in Ireland the latter part of the seventh
century. While the Saxons, Danes, and Normans (all
belonging to the race of Northmen) were pursuing their
regular vocation of ravaging, murdering, and plundering
the people of other nations in western Europe, the Irish
were engaged in the nobler occupation of spreading
Christianity and learning throughout the world. For the
truth of this statement we have the testimony of not
only EngUsh historians of earUer times, but historians of
other countries. Mosheim, Protestant ecclesiastical his
torian of Germany, said: "That the Irish were lovers of
leaming and distinguished themselves in those times of
ignorance beyond all other European nations, traveling
through the most distant lands with a view to improve and
[16]

THE ANGLO-SAXON AND THE IRISH
communicate their knowledge, is a fact with which I have
long been acquainted, as we see them in the most authentic
records of antiquity discharging with the highest reputa
tion and applause the functions of doctors in France,
Germany, and Italy." Moreri, a distinguished French
man, in his Dictionary, published in 1795, under Ireland,
said: "Ireland has given the most distinguished professors
to the most famous universities of Europe, as Claudius
Clements to Paris, Albuinus to Pavia in Italy, Johannes
Scotus Erigena to Oxford in England. The EngUsh
Saxons received from the Irish their characters or letters,
and with them the arts and sciences that have flourished
since among these people, as Sir James Ware proves, in
his Treatise on the Irish Writers, Book I, chapter 13, where
may be seen an account of the celebrated academies and
pubUc schools which were maintained in Ireland in the
seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth ages, which were resorted
to, particularly by the Anglo-Saxons, the French, and
ancient Britons, who were all received there with greater
hospitality than in any other country of the Christian
world." Irish woolen fabrics were celebrated on the continent
as early as the eighth century; the skill of Irish art metal
workers was notable in the sixth century, and the Tara
Brooch, belonging to the eighth century, "is a wonderful
specimen of exquisite deUcacy." The artistic merit of
the illuminated manuscripts of the seventh and tenth
centuries is a matter of common knowledge, while a no
table church, called St. Caimin, with richly carved doors,
was built on an island in Lough Derg in 1007, fifty years
before Edward the Confessor (a Norman by education and
inclination) laid the foundation of Westminster Abbey.
[17]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
The Irish conception of an enduring state or nation was
seven centuries ahead of the times. "The law with them
was the law of the people," and the Irish clan system was
essentially a pure democracy; in fact it went so far as to
include the initiative and recall, for "each tribe was
supreme within its own borders; it elected its own chief
and could depose him if he acted against the laws." The
head king was the representative of the whole national
life, but his power rested on the tradition of the people
and the consent of the clans. He could impose no new
law, and might demand no service outside the law.*
It is therefore easy to understand why the Irish never
would submit to the Norman feudal system, and why they
so readily adapt themselves to the principles of democracy
as exempUfied by the government of the United States.
But from a race of scholars in the eleventh century the
Irish had developed through necessity into a race of
fighters by the thirteenth century, and whereas the
Anglo-Saxons and the Normans carried on wars of op
pression and plunder, the Irish have been distinguished
for their warfare against oppression, not only with regard
to their national and political existence, but in those
practical affairs that concern the masses of the people.
The reason for this change in the character of the Irish
nation is clear to any one familiar with the practices em
ployed by the English government in their effort to con
quer and despoil the people of Ireland, and as it was these
practices which drove the Irish people to America in
colonial times, we shall now proceed to a consideration of
the causes that engendered in Irishmen that distrust of
British promises which they brought to America.
* Alice Stopford Green, in "Irish Nationality."
[18]

WHY THE IRISH CAME TO AMERICA
THERE is no people on earth that has been so
vihfied, deceived, and persecuted as the Irish,
first, on the pretext of the advancement of civili
zation; next, under the cloak of religion, and lastly, under
the pretext of the common weal; and the underlying
motive has always been plunder. Whether the Irish were
loyal, peaceable, or righteous made little difference if they
did not "stand and deliver" to the horde of EngUsh ad
venturers who came to rob them. EngUsh "civiUzation"
in Ireland began vrith the granting by Henry II of the
County Meath 800,000 acres to Hugh de Lacy, a Norman
baron, who immediately commenced to make good his
claim by the sword. From that time on, for several centu
ries, the English carried on a war to secure the land and for
political ascendency. The Irish fought to retain what had
been theirs for a thousand years before the coming of the
Normans. Henry- II, who first proclaimed himself "Lord of Ire
land," sent his son John in 1185 to receive the homage of
the Irish chieftains. Immediately on his arrival at Water
ford "the leading Irishmen of the neighborhood who had
hitherto been loyal to the EngUsh and had lived peaceably,
came to welcome the king's son as their lord and to give
him the kiss of peace. But John's Norman retinue treated
them with derision, some even rudely pulling their long
[19]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
beards in ridicule of the aUen fashion. This irresponsible
levity had its natural effect. The Irishmen, deeply in
censed, betook themselves and their famiUes to DonneU
O'Brien, and disclosed to him and to Dermot McCarthy,
and even to Rory O'Connor, the treatment they had
received, adding that the king's son was a mere stripling
surrounded and counselled by stripUngs himself, and that
from such a source there was no prospect for Irishmen of
good government or even of security. Influenced by these
reports these three chief kings of the south and west of
Ireland, who, we are told, were prepared to wait upon
John and offer him their submission as they had previously
done to Henry, were induced to take a different course.
Laying aside for the moment their interminable quarrels,
which had hitherto given opportunity to the advance of
foreigners, they formed a league together, and unani
mously determined to defend with their lives their ancient
Uberties. This example was followed by the other native
chieftains, who all held aloof from John and his giddy
court. "A proud and sensitive people never wilUngly submits
to the rule of a master, however mighty, who despises
them. But of course this rude plucking of the beards was
only a symbol of that want of consideration for the native
Irish which exhibited itself in more harmful ways. Con
tinuing with the causes of the failure of the expedition,
Gerald Cambrensis says: 'Contrary to our promises, we
took away the lands of our own Irishmen — those who from
the first coming of Fitzstephen and the Earl had faithfully
stood by us — and gave them to our newcomers. These
Irishmen then went over to the enemy and became spies
and guides for them instead of for us, having all the more
[20]

WHY THE IRISH CAME TO AMERICA
power to injure us because of their former familiarity with
our ways.' "*
"The custody of the maritime towns and castles, with
the adjacent lands and tributes, was given to men who,
instead of using the revenue for the pubUc good and the
detriment of the enemy, squandered it in excessive eating
and drinking. Then, though the country was not half
subdued, both the civil and military command was given
into the hands of carpet knights, who were more intent on
spoiling good citizens than in attacking foemen, who,
reversing the politic maxim of the ancient Romans,
oppressed those who had submitted while leaving the
enemy unscathed. So that nothing was done, either by
making incursions into the enemy's country, or by the
erection of numerous castles throughout the land, or by
clearing the 'bad passes' through the woods, to bring
about a more settled state of things. The bands of mer
cenaries were kept within the seaport towns, and, imitat
ing their captains, gave themselves up to wine and
women." f
Many of the early arrivals were assimilated by the
Irish and adopted their customs, dress, and laws; in fact,
they "became more Irish than the Irish themselves"; and
for three hundred years English influence was confined to
the Pale, which comprised the territory within a radius
of 30 miles of DubUn. This center was a hotbed of in
trigue, treason, and deception. Common honesty was so
rare among the English rulers, it is no wonder that, on
the death of Earl Clifford, the EngUsh President of
* "Ireland Under the Normans," Goddard Henry Orpen, late
Scholar Trinity College, I9II, vol. ii, p. 96, etc.
t Ibid., p. 106. [21]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
Connaught, in 1598, "the Irish of Connaught were not
pleased at CUfford's death — he had never told them a
falsehood."* Naturally, the Irish people looked upon the
English as a nation of robbers, bribers, and deceivers,
because so many of those who failed to satisfy their
ambition in England came to Ireland, a country rich in
natural resources, fertile land, and of honorable traditions.
Her early misery was not due so much to EngUsh laws as
to the action of the parasites who hoped to feed on the
misery they created. As the Protestant Archbishop, King,
wrote in 1697, "The Governors of Ireland for their own
interest have kept it in a state of war these five hundred
years, and will if not prevented keep it so to the end of
the world. A governor comes over here hungry and poor,
with numerous dependents to be provided for, and how
should he provide for them but by bringing as many under
forfeitures as he can, as they have done all along and so
they will do so stiU."
The fundamental cause of the struggle between the
Irish and English from the coming of the Normans to
that of WilUam of Orange was for possession of the land.
By various grants from the Crown to EngUsh adventurers
and court favorites, and by so-called plantations, Irish
gentlemen were removed from their heritages and obUged
to accept the merest shreds of their own soil, to become
laborers for those whom they viewed as highwaymen, or
to fly into the woods and mountains, there to await the
opportunity and the call of a leader to recover their
property. The awful scenes of misery, the enormous blood
shed, and the sacrifice of the general interests of Ireland
as a nation are traceable to the unlawful, un-Christian,
* " Four Masters."
[22]

WHY THE IRISH CAME TO AMERICA
and inhuman disregard of property rights, morality, and
ordinary justice on the part of the EngUsh party in Ireland.
This theory is confirmed by the circumstance that the
Province of Ulster was comparatively free from the misery
suffered by the people further south until the Plantation
of Ulster, begun by James I. The land in the other prov
inces had gradually been taken from the Irish owners
and granted to EngUshmen. Ulster was left, but there
were still more land hungry gentlemen of broken fortune,
and younger sons of noble houses, in England and Scotland
tb be rewarded, hence James undertook the Plantation of
the fertile Province of Ulster in 1607. Large estates in
the possession of ancient Irish families for centuries were
granted to EngUsh and Scotch gentlemen, who for their
greater security, partitioned the land out in smaller tracts
to their own followers, who held upon payment of a yearly
tax to the grantor. By this plan a stranger to Ireland
would secure a tract of, say, 20,000 acres, on which he
colonized 30 or 40 families, who worked the land and paid
him a yearly rental. In many instances an Irish gentle
man who had owned 10,000 or 20,000 acres by inheritance,
in which his kinsmen shared, was allowed to retain a few
hundred acres, subject to the payment of an annual rental
to an English adventurer, as in the case of a colonizer.
Naturally, even if the then owners accepted the conditions
without rebelUng, their sons and grandsons would suffer
the effects of this injustice; and naturally, too, it led to a
division of the inhabitants living side by side in the same
country. On the one hand, were those who had been
reduced from a condition of gentility and plenty to poverty
and peasantry, while on the other hand, were those who
enjoyed comparative plenty, secure in their possessions
[23]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
by the power of an aUen govemment, at the expense of
the former, and who committed such acts as might incite
Irishmen to further rebellion, in the hope of securing the
remaining remnants of the land left to them.
The Plantation of Ulster culminated in the RebelUon of
1641, which marks the last great struggle of the older
Irish families for the recovery of the land and their ancient
liberties. Other features developed which attracted to
the cause of the Irish the descendants of EngUsh settlers
in all the provinces. The Rebellion was finally crushed
by Cromwell, assisted by those in Ireland who represented
English interests. From the standpoint of those interests
Cromwell did his work only too well. His object was
extermination, and when he had finished, Ireland had been
laid waste, the population had been reduced to about
850,000 (of whom about 150,000 were EngUsh and Scotch),
and the helpless CathoUc Irish gentry, with their followers
and tenants, had either been transplanted to the barren
and bog lands, had migrated to foreign lands, or were
so broken as to be no further menace to the EngUsh and
Scotch planters who took their places.
To finance the army which Cromwell used to crush the
RebelUon bonds, each representing so many acres of land
to be confiscated, were sold in England. In addition to
the forfeited lands disposed of in this way, Cromwell's
soldiers were aUotted sections of the land according to
miUtary rank. In this way practically the whole of Ulster
and portions of other provinces not already confiscated
were repeopled. But the ancient Irish were by no means
exterminated, as the majority of Irish laborers were allowed
to stay and work under the new settlers, and in a military
colony, women are scarce, hence Cromwell's soldiers
[24]

WHY THE IRISH CAME TO AMERICA
married natives. "To use their own words, they saw the
daughters of Moab that they were fair."* Furthermore,
recovery from defeat or misfortune is essentially an Irish
characteristic, and many of those who had been trans
planted gradually worked their way back, though under
altered circumstances, and the laborers left sons and grand
sons who became merchants and professional men of a
future generation.
One effect of Cromwell's conquest that concerns us
particularly is that it marks the beginning of the first
noticeable migration of the Irish people to the American
colonies. In addition to those who voluntarily came to
the New World to escape the misery in Ireland, Cromwell
caused about 9000 (some say many more) women and
children to be sent to the colonies and to the West Indies
as slaves, while 40,000 men among the disaffected of the
population are estimated to have enlisted in the armies
of France and other European countries, and transmitted
their Irish blood to the population of other countries that
helped in the peopUng of America.
Apart from the natural struggle for the land, the Irish
people had other causes for detesting a government and
its representatives who not only deprived them of their
property, but attempted to reduce them to a condition
of barbarism, moral depravity, ignorance, and slavery.
The traits we commend in the Irish people — their humor,
pathos, versatiUty, fideUty to principles, and devotion to
traditions — are inherent and a part of their character.
The ignorance of some and the lawlessness of other
members of the race are the direct result of English ex
ample and laws made for the governance of the Irish
* "Ireland," Encyclopedia Britannica.
[25]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
people. The diversity of interests between those that
represented EngUsh interests on the one hand, and the
Irish people on the other, accounts in great measure for
the factional strife down to the period of the great mi
gration to the United States at the beginning of the eigh
teenth century. Added to this was reUgious persecution,
which spared neither Celtic-Irish nor Anglo-Irish, Catholic,
Presbyterian, nor any others who did not conform to the
state reUgion; and still later legislation which affected the
whole nation, or such of the people as were not large land
holders and government employees. We have already
cited the opinion of the Protestant Archbishop, King. At
about the same time, the Catholic Bishop, Molowny,
wrote to Bishop Tyrrel as follows: "Nor is there any
English, Catholic or other, of what quality or degree
soever alive, that will stick to sacrifice all Ireland for to
save the least interest of his own in England, and would
as wilUngly see all Ireland over inhabited by English of
whatsoever religion as by the Irish."*
It was Henry II who strengthened the power of the
Pope in Ireland; it was Henry VIII who received from the
Pope the title of "Defender of the Faith'' for his perse
cution of Protestants before he desired to divorce his wife;
and it was his daughter by his second marriage who first
began the persecution of the Irish and Anglo-Irish who
had not acknowledged Henry as Head of the Church. In
England the religion of the people was a poUtical affair.
During the period of the Reformation, the people changed
their form of religion with a change of kings, and those who
refused to worship according to the then existing reUgion
were persecuted. Thus, in Ehzabeth's reign barbarity was
* "The Revolution in Ireland," p. 87, time of James II.
[26]

WHY THE IRISH CAME TO AMERICA
not only practised on Roman Catholics, but extended to
such Protestants as did not conform to the ritual of the
Church of England. In 1575 two Dutch Baptists of Lon
don were burned alive at the stake, and at one time
Elizabeth had 300 heads of "heretics" exposed over the
entrance to London Bridge and the Tower and Temple
Bar. The Reformation did not affect Ireland as it did other
countries, because the social conditions in that country
did not offer the opportunity, because their reUgion had
been a part of the national life of the people for a thousand
years before the Reformation, and instead of an influence
from within, an attempt was made by an alien government
to coerce the clergy to acknowledge the supremacy of the
English sovereign, rather than to change the material form
and substance of their worship. With a change of rulers
in England, Irish bishops were required to conform on
pain of death. The priests and laity were ordered to
conform or suffer persecution. Apart from the principles
involved, the missionaries sent from England to reform
the Church in Ireland were of a type unlikely to secure
either the confidence or respect of the people. In the
words of a Protestant historian: "To preach what he
thought true when he could do it safely, to testify against
toleration, and in the meantime to make a fortune, was
too often the sum and substance of an AngUcan prelate's
work in Ireland."* This was also the attitude of the entire
English laity in Ireland.
Growing out of the attempt to promote the Protestant
reUgion, or rather the Church of England, in Ireland,
penal laws were enacted from time to time in the reigns
* " Ireland," Encyclopedia Britannica.
[27]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
of EUzabeth, James I, WilUam and Mary, and Anne.
These laws provided that :
1. No Catholic might teach school or any child but
his own, or send children abroad to be educated.
2. Mixed marriages were forbidden between persons
of property, and children might forcibly be
brought up ]?rotestants.
3. A CathoUc could not act as guardian, and all
wards in chancery were brought up as Prot
estants.
4. The son of a Catholic landed proprietor might
by "conforming" — i. e,, turning apostate — ^make
his father simply a tenant and secure his own
inheritance.
5. A Catholic could not take a longer lease than 31
years at two-thirds of a rack rent.
6. If a CathoUc inherited property he could be ousted
by the next Protestant heir unless he "conformed"
within six months.
7. No Catholic might have arms in his possession,
and justices were empowered to searcli houses of
Catholics for arms.
8. If a CathoUc owned a good horse, any Protestant
might claim it on tendering 5 pounds.
9. No CathoUc could be admitted to the bar, nor
could he hold a commission in the Army.
Naturally, "these laws put a premium on hjrpocrisy, and
many conformed only to preserve their property or to
enable them to take office." Of the Penal Code, Edmund
Burke said: "A complete system, fuU of coherence and
consistency, well digested and composed in all parts — a
machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well
fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation
of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature
[28]

WHY THE IRISH CAME TO AMERICA
itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of
man." The wonder is that there were any CathoUcs left
in Ireland, for the Penal Laws were effective wholly or
partially for a period of three hundred years. It was not
until 1795 that CathoUcs were admitted to Trinity CoUege,
the only university permitted in Ireland, and not until
1829 were they permitted to vote for CathoUcs; yet such
is the Irish devotion to principle and their love of liberty
that at the beginning of the eighteenth century, two-
thirds of the Irish people were Catholics!
Dean Swift, while pastor of Laracor, was visited by a
friend from England who, surprised at the forlorn aspect
of the landscape around the rectory, asked the cele
brated divine, "Where are your old Irish nobility?"
Swift repUed: "You will have to search for them
amongst the hovels of the poor." This was not satire:
it was Uteral fact. Many of the Catholic Irish nobility
were reduced to absolute destitution, as Burke's "Vicissi
tudes of Irish FamiUes" amply proves. There was one
remarkable illustration of the completeness of the trans
formation well known in Cork City for many years in the
beginning of the nineteenth century. The representative
of the oldest baronetcy in Ireland, Sir Theophilus Moore,
and his lady, Uved in Cork Bridewell — the baronet
jingUng the keys every day as Bridewell keeper; and the
lady running around in the morning among the hucksters,
buying bread, milk, and vegetables from the hucksters
who rented stalls on the Coal Quay, the spot whereon
the ancient Bridewell stood.
Religion was used in Ireland as a cloak for the ad
vancement of worldly and political power. As all the land
was held by the immigrants from England and Scotland,
[29]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
Protestants naturally became the ruUng class. Their
position was made more secure by vilifying the ancient
Irish whose lands they had taken, and it became the
fashion to keep the "mere Irish" down. While the
Catholics still had some strength, the Penal Laws were
enforced to reduce them to pauperism. After CromweU's
conquest the Presbyterians rose into power, and "as soon
as they felt their strength, asked to have the army under
Presbyterian influence." They refused to take apprentices
that would not covenant to go to their meetings, and when
a majority in municipal corporations, they excluded aU
not of their persuasion. On the return of Charles II, they
lost some of their power, and 61 niinisters in Ulster were
ejected from their churches and Anglican curates appointed
in their places. With the conquest of WilUam of Orange
they again regained strength, but "under Queen Anne
(1702-1714) the Presbyterians again lost almost every
advantage that had been gained and became by the Test
Act of 1705 virtually outlaws. Their marriages were
declared invaUd and their chapels were closed. They could
not maintain schools nor hold office above that of petty
constable." Their right to worship was not legally recog
nized till 1719, but from 1704 to ' 1778, they were in
capacitated for all public office.*
"Persecution peopled America," and in the case of the
Puritans, Pilgrims, and Quakers this meant religious
persecution by a Protestant government. But the Irish
people fled from Ireland, not only because of reUgious
persecution, but because they suffered from every form of
oppression that selfish interests could devise. In Ireland
the government was opposed to everything Irish. Cath-
* Bolton, "Scotch-Irish Pioneers."
[30]

WHY THE IRISH CAME TO AMERICA
olics and Presbyterians aUke were excluded from aU office,
and these were filled by EngUsh members of the Estab
lished Church, "who bartered Irish freedom for the place
and power of their own famiUes and dependents." The
causes that led to the American Revolution were in
significant compared with those of which the Irish com
plained. The Navigation Acts of 1666 excluded Ireland
from all her natural advantages and cut her off from
direct trade with the colonies. When tobacco growing,
introduced into Ireland by Sir Walter Raleigh, had become
profitable, it was forbidden. When the exportation of
cattle into England was placed under prohibitory duties,
the Irish turned to sheep-raising, and the manufacture of
woolen goods, an ancient Irish industry, began to flourish.
The EngUsh Parliament, at the demand of selfish EngUsh
interests, then crushed the Irish woolen industry (1698)
by heavy export duties, and suggested the substitution
of linen manufacture. When this had become profitable,
laws were enacted in 1708 to discourage it, hence we find
thousands of men employed in the linen trade emigrating
to New England, where they introduced the spinning-
wheel and the manufacture of linen in 1718. Cotton,
glass, brewing, sugar-refining, and other industries were
systematically strangled when they interfered with the
trade of Britain. "Kidnapping, enforced service in the
American colonies, and traffic in political prisoners were
indulged in by the government. Ireland as a dwelUng-
place for Catholics or Protestants, for Celts or Saxons,
for native and Scotch settlers, was a country of ever-
renewed distress."*
* Edward Potts Cheyney, "European Background of American
History," 1909.
3 [31]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
While England was at war with the colonies, Irish
men at home were quietly working to secure a measure of
independence for themselves. "England's Extremity is
Ireland's Opportunity," and when England found it neces
sary to withdraw several thousand soldiers from Ireland
for use in America, the Irish Volunteers were organized,
ostensibly for the "defense of Ireland against foreign in
vasion." On February 15, 1782, representatives of 143
corps of volunteers of the Province of Ulster met at
Dungannon and adopted 21 resolutions, among which
were the following:
Resolved, That a citizen, by learning the use of arms,
does not abandon any of his civil rights.
That a claim of any body of men, other than the
King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, to make
laws to bind this kingdom, is unconstitutional,
illegal, and a grievance.
That the ports of this country are, by right, open
to all foreign countries, not at war with the
Kjng; and that any burthen thereupon, or
obstruction thereto, save only by the parUa
ment of Ireland, is unconstitutional, illegal, and
a grievance.
That the independence of judges is equally essen
tial to the impartial administration of justice
in Ireland, as in England; and that the refusal
or delay of this right to Ireland makes a dis
tinction where there should be no distinction,
may excite jealousy where perfect union
should prevail; and is, in itself, unconstitu
tional and a grievance.
That we hold the right of private judgment in
matters of reUgion to be equally sacred in
others as in ourselves. That as men, and as
[32]

WHY THE IRISH CAME TO AMERICA
Irishmen, as Christians and as Protestants,
we rejoice in the relaxation of the penal laws
against our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects;
and that we conceive the measure to be
fraught with the happiest consequences to the
union and prosperity of the inhabitants of
Ireland.
Among the signers of the foregoing resolutions, who
were appointed a committee to represent the corps, were
the following: Mervyn Archdall John Harvey
William Irvine Robert Campbell
Robert McClintock Joseph Pollock
John Ferguson Waddell Cunningham
John Montgomery Francis Evans
Charles Leslie John Cope
Francis Lucas James Dawson
Thomas Morris Jones James Atcheson
James Hamilton Daniel Eccles
Andrew Thompson Thomas Dixon
Alexander Stewart David Bell
James Patterson John Coulston
Francis Dobbs Robert Black
Charles Duffin William Crawford
These resolutions have somewhat the ring of the Dec
laration of Independence. They were passed by men of
the Province of Ulster (whose descendants in America
now call themselves "Scotch-Irish"), and it wiU be noticed
that the names are not at all unlike names prevalent in
Colomal America and would not distinguish the bearers
thereof as Irish; yet these men were as much Irish as
the present members of the Sons of the Revolution are
Americans. The Volunteers of Ireland soon numbered nearly 100,-
000 men in all the provinces, more than half being in the
[33]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
southern provinces. As a result of their strength and
activity, Ireland secured her legislative independence in
January, 1783, and from that time to 1798 there was not a
nation on the habitable globe which had "advanced in
cultivation and commerce, in agriculture and manufac
tures with the same rapidity, in the same period" as Ire
land.'* Had this prosperity come fifty years eariier, it would
have checked the tide of emigration to America and per
haps have changed the whole history of the latter country.
The Volunteers had in mind the estabUshment of a demo
cratic parliament, and they probably would have obtained
absolute independence had not the American Revolution
terminated when it did. With the increase of prosperity
and the growing strength of the people the English gov
ernment, after its recovery from the American war, set
about finally to take away even that measure of inde
pendence which England in her extremity had been com
pelled to grant to Ireland. Writing in 1798, Sir Ralph
Abercromby, who had been appointed commander of the
forces in Ireland the year previous, declared that "Within
these twelve months every crime, every cruelty that could
be committed by Cossacks or Calmucks has been trans
acted here;" that "houses had been burned, men murdered,
others half hanged.'' Abercromby, himself a humane
man, could not countenance these tortures, and in 1798
he was recalled. A month later the Rebellion of the
United Irishmen, whose leaders were, with few exceptions,
Protestants, broke out. When this Rebellion was crushed
the Irish Parliament was packed with placemen, and in
1800 the Act of Union did away with the ParUament and
* Lord Clare, in a pamphlet published by him in 1798.
[34]

WHY THE IRISH CAME TO AMERICA
Ireland lost her national identity. Lord CornwaUis, who
as lord Ueutenant, supervised the details, wrote: "Nothing
but the conviction that an Union is absolutely necessary
for the safety of the British empire could make me endure
the shocking task which is imposed on me.- — I despise and
hate myself every hour for engaging in such dirty work.^ —
How I long to kick those whom my pubUc duty obUges
me to court!" The methods employed to bring about the
Union and to crush opposition are strikingly illustrated
by the following facts:
One hundred and sixty-two members out of a total of
303 in Parliament voted for the Union. Of these, 116
were placemen, some of them English staff generals with
out one foot of land in Ireland.
The expenditure for the miUtary force maintained in
Ireland from 1797 to 1801 amounted to over $80,000,000,
over $20,000,000 of which was spent for the year 1800.
The foUowing received the amounts set opposite their
names for their patronage in supplying placemen for the
Parliament: Lord Shannon  $225,000
The Marquis of Ely  225,000
Lord Clanmorris  115,000 besides a peerage
Lord Belvidere  75,000
Sir Hercules Langrishe . . . 75,000
Seven million five hundred thousand dollars were distri
buted among the members of Parliament, as "compensa
tion for their losses incident to the Union," and many were
raised to the peerage, elevated to the bench, or pensioned.
Reynolds, who kept the government informed of the
proceedings of the United Irishmen, an organization of
patriots, leaders of the Rebellion of 1798, received a pen
sion of $4600 a year for thirty-seven years, $27,000 in
gratuities, and a foreign consulship. [35]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
The above is intended merely to illustrate the lavish
expenditure of money by the British Government, a prac
tice carried on for several hundred years to destroy Irish
independence. The people's money was used for the pur
pose, and the following note on Ireland in 1716, found
among the papers of Archbishop King, shows how this
money was obtained and the suffering it caused the Irish
people. "Upon the whole I do not see how Ireland can
on the present foot pay greater taxes than it does without
starving the inhabitants and leaving them entirely without
meat or clothes. They have already given their bread,
their flesh, their butter, their shoes, their stockings, their
beds, their furniture and houses to pay their landlords and
taxes. / cannot see how an^y more can be got from them,
except we take awajj their potatoes and buttermilk, or slaij
them and sell their skins,"*
* Second Report, G. B. Royal Commission on Historical MS.,
London, 1874, pp. 256, 257.

[36]

THE IRISH RACE OF THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY
NO other race possessed more vitality and assimi
lative powers than the ancient Irish people; and
the settlers from England and Scotland (except
possibly those among the official class) became in a very
short space of time unmistakably Irish. Most of the
Normans and EngUsh that came to Ireland in the thir
teenth and fourteenth centuries soon adopted Irish customs
and dress. The poet Spenser "was one of the band of ad
venturers, who, with mixed motives of love of excitement,
patriotism, piety, and hopes of forfeited estates" went to
Ireland in the sixteenth century to aid in the suppression of
a rebelUon led by the Earl of Desmond, and he advocated the
destruction of the race by a process of systematic starva
tion, yet his own grandson was expelled from house and prop
erty by Cromwell as an "Irish Papist." James the First's
Scotch and English settlement of Ulster took place in 1603,
Cromwell's confiscation and plantation of nearly the whole
of rural Ireland occurred in 1652, and WilUam the Third's
confiscation of more than a milUon acres was made in 1691.
Scotch and EngUsh farmers, soldiers, tradesmen and a few
gentry immigrated into Ireland and settled on the con
fiscated land, yet forty years after the Puritans settled
in Ireland it was reported that many of the children of
Cromwell's soldiers could not speak a word of EngUsh, and
[37]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
in 1690 hundreds of the descendants of Puritan settlers
were fighting for the CathoUc King James II. Seven
years after the battle of the Boyne, when William defeated
King James, many of William's soldiers had become
Catholics.'* Wolfe Tone, leader of the Rebellion of 1798, was the
grandson of an EngUshman and an Episcopalian; Thomas
Addis Emmett, great-great-grandson of one of Cromwell's
soldiers, was banished from Ireland for his participation
in the same Rebellion and emigrated to America. His
brother, Robert, was hanged in 1803 as leader of the Re
belUon of 1803. Francis McKinley, greaf^grand-uncle of
the American President, was hanged as an Irish rebel in
1798. These are not isolated cases, but are typical of
thousands of instances where men of EngUsh and Scotch
name were just as Irish in sentiment and action as the
O'Briens, McLaughlins, Murphys, and O'Callaghans.
It will be observed in the Dungannon Resolutions of the
Ulster Volunteers that the members refer to themselves
as Irishmen, not as Scots or Scotch-Irish, yet of the 28
names of members given, only one is distinctively an Irish
name. The term "Scotch-Irish" is purely an American
invention, used by an unthinking class of descendants of
Irish immigrants who imagine it is more respectable to be
Scotch-Irish than pure Irish. As a matter of fact, it
would be hard to find an Irish family that has not some
Norman, English, or Scotch blood, and if those who pride
themselves on being the direct descendants of Scotch and
EngUsh settlers were familiar with Irish history, it might
occur to them that the majority of English and Scotch in
Ireland were settlers who usurped the property of the
* "The Legacy of Past Years," Lord Dunraven.
[38]

THE IRISH RACE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
rightful owners and were, consciously or unconsciously,
the cause of the poverty and misery suffered by thousands
of ancient Irish families.
Among the middle-class residents of Belfast and Lon
donderry and their immediate environs, the Scotch settlers
retained their Scotch sentiments and characteristics for
a generation or two, but the emigration to America from
these two cities was insignificant compared to that from
other parts of Ireland. Indeed, the few hundred settlers
of Londonderry, New Hampshire, were perhaps the only
body of distinctively Londonderry Irish emigrants in
colonial times. The other Ulster immigrants came from
the hills of Donegal, from Down, Antrim, Tyrone, Mon-
aghan, and Armagh, where they had associated and inter
married with the Irish for several generations and they
possessed the good nature, optimism, and generosity of
the Irish race. A period of over one hundred years had
elapsed from the Plantation of Ulster with Scotch and
English adventurers until the beginning of the great Irish
emigration to the American colonies, and surely a family
that had lived in Ireland for that length of time might be
considered as Irish. It is true, of course, that the people
of Ulster were, as a whole, more prosperous than those
from some other parts of Ireland, but this was due to the
fact that Ulster had since the Plantation enjoyed an equi
table tenure of land, which was not extended to other parts
of Ireland until late in the nineteenth century, and indus
tries were established in Ulster as in no other parts of
Ireland. The prosperity of Ulster could not have been
due to English blood, as there was more Anglo-Saxon and
Norman blood in the Province of Munster in the seven
teenth century than there was in Ulster. The people
[39]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
of Ulster had greater advantages and were freer from
English influence than the people in the South, the south
em provinces, with the ports of Dublin, Waterford, Cork,
and Limerick, being more accessible and more attractive
to English settlers.
But by the eighteenth century the descendants of Scotch
and English settlers had in most instances become Irish
in fact as well as by birth, and in this work we include as
Irish all who came from Ireland. Of late years the
"Scotch-Irish" have been receiving due credit for their
contribution to the settlement and prosperity of America,
but in another chapter we shall show that these so-called
"Scotch-Irish" had good old-fashioned Irish names—
when they arrived in America, at any rate.

140]

THE IRISH COLONIAL IMMIGRATION

"Even the Protestant exiles from Ulster went to America as
'Sons of St. Patrick.' To shun persecution and designed
ruin bl/ the English government, Protestants and Catholics
had gone, and their mone'y, their arms, the furij of their -wrath,
were spent in organizing the American war. Irishmen were
at every meeting, every council, every hattie. Their indignation
was a white flame of revolt that consumed every fear and vacilla
tion around it. That long, deep, bitter experience bore down
the temporizers, and sent out men trained in suffering to
triumph over adversity." — Alice Stopfokd Green, in " Irish
Nationality," pp. 179, 180.

w

E have seen that three causes operated to drive
the Irish people to the American colonies,
namely:

First: Wars of extermination, carried on by the English
to secure the land of the ancient proprietors.
Second: Religious persecution, having for its real object
the advancement of the political power of the Anglican
party. Third: Economic and industrial oppression, which
affected families of all religious persuasions, and particu
larly the inhabitants of the Province of Ulster, who, under
hitherto favorable conditions, had built up thriving in
dustries. It is evident that the first to leave Ireland were the older
Irish people — the men who had fought the incoming ad
venturers in the effort to retain their property. These
[41]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
were foUowed by others who fled to escape the Penal Laws
and other forms of oppression to which the Irish and
Anglo-Irish CathoUcs were subject; the Presbyterians,
who were persecuted by the Anglican Church party; and,
lastly, all classes of Irish men and women who wanted to
work, but were prevented from enjoying the fruits of their
labor by unjust legislation enacted upon the demand of
selfish British business interests to depress Irish industries.
The destruction of the wool trade is estimated to have
ruined over forty thousand families in all parts of Ireland,
while the destruction of the Unen trade, together with
other forms of oppression, reduced the population of
Ulster alone by half a milUon people before the beginning
of the American Revolution.
The actual loss in the population of Ireland from 1672
to 1695, according to the statistics of Sir WilUam Petty,
was over 700,000, while the loss from 1712 to 1785 is
estimated to have been over 1,000,000. The exiles went
into every country in Europe In the service of France
alone over 400,000 Irish soldiers are estimated to have
died from 1691 to 1745. There was not a country among
the powers, and not an occupation, in which Irishmen
were not to be found as generals, admirals, statesmen,
scholars, physicians, engineers, business-men, and labor
ers. As for the American colonies, Irish men, women,
and children began coming before 1650, while in the eigh
teenth century they came in thousands, from North and
South, East and West, CathoUcs, Protestants, gentry,
nobility, and peasantry, bearing English names, Irish
names, Scotch names, or any convenient name that would
free them from English malice. There can be no question
regarding the attitude of these exiles from Ireland. They
[42]

THE IRISH COLONIAL IMMIGRATION
had suffered untold misery; they had been persecuted to
the verge of despair; and they came with a burning sense
of the selfishness and deceit which characterized English
rule in Ireland. The proof of their coming, — that they
came in alarming numbers, — and that they did not alto
gether escape English persecution, is found in contempo
rary records. Nor did they come only to a few of the
colonies, but to aU, and that they influenced the political,
economic, and reUgious life of the colonies is certain.
In "Races and Immigrants in America," John R. Com
mons, speaking of the Irish immigration, says, "This was
by far the largest contribution of any race to the population
of America during the eighteenth century." Writing in
1789, Ramsey, the historian of North Carolina, said:
"The Colonies which now form the United States may be
considered as Europe transplanted. Ireland, England,
Scotland, France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Sweden,
Poland, and Italy furnished the original stock of the pres
ent population, and are generally supposed to have con
tributed to it in the order named. For the last seventy or
eighty years no nation had contributed so much to the popu
lation of America as Ireland." On the other hand. Sena
tor Lodge, in his "Story of the Revolution," says that
"the people of Massachusetts were of almost pure EngUsh
blood, with a small infusion of Huguenots and a sUght
mingling, chiefly in New Hampshire, of Scotch-Irish
from Londonderry." The latter statement shows either
gross ignorance or is a deliberate fabrication. While it
is true the colonists that arrived in New England, from the
landing of the Mayflower passengers in 1620 to the rise of
CromweU in 1648, were almost wholly yeomanry from
England, the latter circumstance reduced the necessity
[43]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
for Puritan emigration to the same extent that it increased
the necessity for Irish emigration; and while numbers of
the Puritans returned to England to receive the benefits
of the rise of their party into power. Irishmen left Ireland
to escape Puritan persecution. In any case, a large num
ber of Irish gentlemen came to New England (by way of
England in some cases) among the 20,000 persons that
are estimated to have arrived during the period of the
great Puritan exodus; but the first noticeable influx of
Irish people into New England began in 1652, when by
Cromwell's orders, 400 Irish children were sent to the
colonies to be sold as slaves.^' From that time on the ship
ment of Irish men, women, and children to New England
was common practice. Many of them were political
prisoners, whose chief crime had been the ownership of
property; hundreds were kidnapped with the connivance
of government officials; and many came of their own
volition. That they came in suflicient numbers as to
cause alarm is evident from a manuscript report of a
committee appointed by the Colony of Massachusetts to
consider certain proposals for the pubUc benefit, dated
October 29, 1654, of which the following, with spelling
revised, is a copy:
"This Court, considering the cruel and maUgnant spirit
that has from time to time been manifest in the Irish
nation against the English nation, does hereby declare the
prohibition of any Irish men, women or children being
brought into this jurisdiction on the penalty of fifty pound
sterling to each inhabitant that shall buy of any merchant,
shipmaster, or other agent, any such person or persons
so transported, which fine shall be by the county's mar-
shall, on conviction of some magistrate or court, levied,
and be to the use of the informer one-third and two-thirds
[44]

THE IRISH COLONIAL IMMIGRATION
to the county. This act to be in force six months after
pubhcation of this order. (Signed) Dan Gooken.
Thomas Savage.
Roger Clap.
Richard Russell.
Francis Norton."
It would appear that similar laws existed earlier, as in
1650 applications were made by several individuals for the
remission of fines imposed for the offense.* The enact
ment of this law is sufficient proof that the number of
arrivals from Ireland must have been large, as a few
hundred women and children would not have given rise to
grave fears. It is more than probable that many proud
New England famihes of today, bearing "EngUsh"
names; are descended from some of these poor Irish serv
ants, many of whom were of better blood than the most
arrogant Puritans, but their old Irish names were in most
instances replaced by EngUsh ones, and not having the
opportunity to practise any other reUgion, became Puri
tans themselves. But servants, political prisoners, and
kidnapped children were not the only classes of Irish
people that came to New England early in her history.
We find, for example, that Captain Daniel Patrick (other
wise Gilpatrick) and Robert Feake, bearers of Irish names,
were the first white settlers in what is now Greenwich,
Conn., 1639; John Burrage Martin, born in England, son
of a County Galway gentleman, came to Massachusetts
in 1637; Captain Robert Keayne or Kane (name of Irish
origin) came from London to Boston in 1635, and founded
the Ancient and Honorable ArtiUery Co., of Boston;
* Notes and Queries Magazine, vol. v, seventh series, p. 226.
[45]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
Richard Wilkins, a householder in Boston, 1689, was
formerly a bookseller in Limerick, Ireland, and the an
cestor of John Hancock, who came from the County Down.
We learn further, from the chapter on King Philip's War,
1675, in the " Pilgrim RepubUc " by Goodwin, and this war
was far more grievous to New England than the Revolu
tion, — that during this war England was an indifferent
spectator, and that the "only aid which ever came to the
colonies from any source" was a subscription for £1000
raised in Dublin, Ireland.
It is clear that Irish or Celtic blood early mingled in the
New England population, which, in 1700, was estimated to
have been 105,000, some part of which, in addition to the
Irish, was made up of Normans from the Channel Islands,
Welsh, and Scotch. Granting, however, that the popula
tion was "almost wholly English" in 1700, it certainly
was not in 1775. With the beginning of the eighteenth
century the Irish began coming to New England in vast
numbers. It would be impossible to estimate the number
of persons that came from Ireland, or the number of ships
from that country which landed colonists at New England
ports, as the arrivals during the eighteenth century were
not so much an event as the landing of the Pilgrims, how
ever much they may have influenced future events of
importance to the colonies. But from the Boston News
Letter we learn that 53 ships from Ireland landed colonists
at Boston in the years from 1714 to 1720. In the Records
of the Boston Selectmen, Report of the Record Commis
sioners, 1736 to 1742, we find the following items: Cap
tain George Bond gave a bond for £1000 for 37 persons
imported from Ireland; Capt. Gibbs and Mr. Ramsey,
bond of £1000 and Mr. Waldo £200 for persons imported
[46 1

THE IRISH COLONIAL IMMIGRATION
from Ireland; Hugh Ramsey, John Weirs and WilUam
Moore £1000 for 381 passengers from Ireland September
15, 1737; Capt. Montgomery and Nathaniel Bethune,
£500 for 80 passengers from Ireland; Capt. Jackson and
Samuel Dowse, bond of £250 for 46 passengers from Ire
land; Sloop Sea Flower with 65 passengers from Ireland.
The records are fuU of such notices. Of 14 ships reported
in the Boston News Letter that arrived in 1718, three were
known to have cofiie from Dubhn and one from Water
ford; while in 1720 one was from Cork and three from
DubUn. Thus the immigrants came from the south as
well as from the north of Ireland. They introduced the
potato into New England, and — mark this — they intro
duced the spinning wheel, considered by all Americans as
a peculiarly New England institution, and the manufacture
of Unen. For this we have the testimony of Drake, in
his "History of Boston," as follows:

"About two years previous to this (1718) there arrived
in the country a large colony of persons from in and about
Londonderry in Ireland, denominated Scotch-Irish, be
cause they emigrated originally from Scotland to Ireland.
The most of thas colony settled in New Hampshire, but
a considerable number of them fixed their residence in
Boston. These emigrants were chiefly manufacturers of
linen, and they brought their utensils for that purpose
with them. The foot or linen wheel, since so famiUar in
the households of New England, was introduced by this
colony and the raising of flax and the manufacture of
linen cloth was looked ppon as of great importance to the
country. The people of Boston took hold of the matter
with great earnestness. The subject was put into the
warrant for a town meeting September 28, 1720."
Note. — The Irish also introduced the potato at this time.
4 [47]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
The author of the above erroneously refers to the
colonists as "Scotch-Irish.'' With few exceptions, the
families of these colonists had lived in Ireland for at least
three generations, and a large number bore Irish names.
In any case they left Ireland because of the persecution
and unjust laws under which they lived while there.
That they were Celtic and not Anglo-Saxon is evident
from the following names which appear on a petition ad
dressed to Governor Shute in 1718 by some of the colo
nists from Londonderry who desired to locate in New
Hampshire:

Neal MoNeaU James Kenedy
James Moore John McKeen
Alex. McGregore Robert MoKeen
Alex. McNeaU Andrew Patrick
John Morrison James McFee
James Cochran Rich. McLaughlen
James Morrison Andrew McFadden
John Cochran James McKerrell
WiUiam Cochran Andrew Fleming
Daniel McKerrell Patrick Orr
Fergos Kenedy Daniel Orr
James Gilmore Alex. McBride
Arch. McCook WiUiam Orr
Edward McKene Samuel McGivern
Samuel McMun George McAlester
Thomas McLaughlen Robert Neilson
Lawrence McLaughlen Henry NeiUe
WUliam Boyle WUl McAlben
Benjamin Boyle John McCan

The settlement of New Hampshire by colonists from
the North of Ireland has received sufficient mention in
American history to be well known; but the Irish of Lon
donderry, N. H., constituted only an insignificant propor
tion of the Irish colonists who came to other parts of New
England and to the other colonies. Irish people from all
[48]

THE IRISH COLONIAL IMMIGRATION
parts of Ireland settled in the city of Boston and in other
parts of New England, from the coast of Maine to Lake
Champlain. In 1718 the town of Worcester, Mass.,
consisted of 58 dwellings and 200 inhabitants. The Rev.
Edward Fitzgerald, a Presbyterian minister, with 50
famiUes from Ireland, settled in Worcester and doubled
the population. The town of Concord was founded by
emigrants from Ireland, as were several other towns in
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. One
of the original settlers of Worcester was James McClel
land, ancestor of General Samuel McClelland, General
Geo. B. McClelland, and of the former Mayor of New
York City.
Among the settlers of Pelham, Mass., were the follow
ing colonists from Ireland:
James Clark Duncan McFarland
John Clark John Mclntyre
Robert Ferrell Robert McLem
Robert Forbush Daniel McMains
Patrick Gregory James McPherson
John Hamilton John Moore
John Lecore John Murray
Wm. McCarter Robert Patrick
Thomas McClanathan Edward Savage
John McClanathan William Sloan
All the above names are as prevalent in Ireland as in
Scotland. The Savages were in Ireland as early as the
fourteenth century, and the Edward Savage above men
tioned was the grandfather of the celebrated portrait
painter who lived in Philadelphia and painted a portrait
of Washington.
Among the colonial settlers in the region now called
Vermont were famiUes with the following distinctively
Irish names: Burke, Barrett, Kennedy, McCoy, Hogan,
[49]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
Dunn, Larkin, McConneU, Moore, Garvey, Goff, Carey,
McCarra, Duane. The Duanes owned 63,000 acres of
land, and the first member of the family in America was
Anthony Duane, who was born in the County Galway,
Ireland. Other settlers in Vermont from Ireland were
Archibald Stark, father of General John Stark; Matthew
Lyon, from the County Wicklow, who by his ¦ eloquence
swung the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont into Une
early in the Revolution; Captain Magennis, who com
manded the New Hampshire Militia and is given credit
for turning the fortunes of the day in the attack on Long
Point, Lake George, March, 1757, French and Indian War;
and many other Irishmen whose sons and grandsons
became famous in American History.
The city of Boston contained a large Irish population
in colonial days and they were by no means aU "Scotch-
Irish from Londonderry." The Records of the Boston
Selectmen already referred to contain the names of per
sons to whom licenses as "City Porters" were issued in the
year 1738. There are 16 names in the list and 12 of these
are as follows : John Whaland, Robert McMilUon, Patrick
Goffe, Paul Bryan, Thomas O'Brien, Patrick Bourke,
John Keefe, Jeremiah Maccarty, Timothy Harney, Ed
ward Kelly, Thomas Pheland, James ColUns. The same
records contain many items of the foUowing character :
"John McGuire appeared and stated he had in his
house, Daniel Grifiith, Mariner, John Welch, Mariner,
James Murfey, Mariner and Joyner, CorneUus FUng,
Victualer." "Sarah McLucas, given charity.''
"John Maccanis (McGinis) wife and four children
arrived from Ireland June 9, 1719."
[60]

THE IRISH COLONIAL IMMIGRATION
"John Mackmaster, wife and four children, who arrived
from Ireland June 1722.
"Dennis SulUvant and wife, lately came from South
CaroUna, is going to return to Ireland or England in about
five weeks."
In 1733 an Irish Church was shown upon the map of the
city; in 1737, on St. Patrick's Day, the Charitable Irish
Society of Boston was organized; the Boston Tea Party
met at an inn kept by a man named John Duggan, and the
tea was thrown into the harbor off Griffin's Wharf; and
Patrick Carr was one of the men killed by the British
soldiers in the Boston Massacre.
The Irish Presbyterians formed extensive settlements,
as a body, in New Hampshire and in the settled portions
of Massachusetts. The Irish Catholics, however, sought
refuge as individuals in the remoter regions of the province.
The territory of Maine, for example, while a part of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, was to a large extent free from
the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts government — so
much so that Governor Winthrop complained: "They
ran a different course from us, both in their ministry and
in their civil administration, for they had lately made
Acomentious (a poor village) a corporation and had made
a tailor their mayor, and had entertained one Hull, an
excommunicated person, and very contentious, for their
minister."* Thus, in the character of the people of Maine,
we see the beginning of American democracy. They had
little of the intolerant, overbearing spirit of the Puritan,
and they had the audacity to elect as mayor a man who
worked for his living. The Irish settled extensively in
Maine. The town of Berwick, one of the earUest settle-
* Bolton, "Scotch-Irish Pioneers."
[51]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
ments, was probably named in honor of the Duke of Ber
Avick, one of the commanders of the Irish forces in the
Revolution of 1691. Among the Irish who lived in the
town was Owen Sullivan, bom in Limerick, Ireland, during
the siege of 1691, who was the father of John SulUvan,
member of the Continental Congress in 1774 and a Briga
dier General of the Continental Army in 1775 at the age
of thirty-three; of James SulUvan, Member of the Provin
cial Congress of Massachusetts 1775, judge of the Superior
Court 1776, Attorney General, Governor of Massachu
setts, and founder of the town of Limerick, Maine, whose
son, John Langdon SuUivan, born 1777, invented a steam
tow-boat for which he received a patent in 1814, in prefer
ence to Robert Fulton, who appUed for one at the same
time."" Another Irish settler in Maine was Maurice O'Brien,
born in Cork, whose five sons, on hearing of the battle of
Lexington, with a few volunteers captured a British
armed schooner in Machias Bay, May 11, 1775 — the first
naval victory and the first blow struck on water in the war for
independence. The leader of this expedition was Jere
miah O'Brien, who was born in Scarboro', 1740, and was
afterwards a captain in the Massachusetts Navy. An
other member of the family, Richard O'Brien, born 1758,
commanded a privateer in the Revolution, and was an
officer on the brig Jefferson in 1781, when he was captured
by the Dey of Algiers and enslaved for many years.f
"¦ Appleton's American Biography.
t Harper's Cyclopedia of American History.

[52]

THE IRISH IN PENNSYLVANIA
THE extent of the Irish colonial population in America
is perhaps best illustrated in the history of their set
tlement and activity in the province of Pennsylva
nia. Penn received his grant of the province and his pro
prietary charter from King James II. His father owned an
estate in Cork, Ireland, where the eminent Quaker spent
much of his time as manager of the estate before coming to
America. He manned a vessel that brought him to Amer
ica mostly with men that he secured in the city of Cork.
His secretary, James Logan, was born in Lisburn, County
Antrim, and Thomas Holme, his Surveyor-General, who
laid out the city of Philadelphia, was born in Waterford.
According to a recent authority, "the actual treaty for the
lands of the present Philadelphia and adjacent county,
out to the Susquehaima, was made in the year 1685 by
Thomas Holme, as president of the Council in the absence
of William Perm who had gone to England."* WilUam
Welsh, who was one of Penn's councillors, negotiated a
treaty with the Indians of northwestern New York in
1683, and he represented the Governor of Pennsylvania in
negotiations with Governor Dongan, of New York, in
1684, relative to Penn's quarrel with Lord Baltimore.
The Irish Quakers who came to Pennsylvania formed so
large a proportion of the colonists that the "Irish Quaker
'* Appleton's "American Biographies."
[53]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
Immigration to Pennsylvania" is the subject of a volume
of more than 500 pages.
In 1700 Pennsylvania and Delaware together had a
population of about 20,000. While the inhabitants of
Pennsylvania were chiefly Quakers at that time, a large
number of Irish Catholics and Protestants must have
settled in the Province in the seventeenth century, for
Penn offered freedom of worship to all settlers, and be
cause of his well-known toleration for CathoUcs he was
himself sometimes accused of being a "Papist.'' In 1729
.an Irish lady of some means, with a number of her tenantry
from Ireland, settled near what is now Nicetown, Phila
delphia, and estabUshed a Roman Catholic chapel on her
estate.* About the same time the Irish were coming to
Philadelphia in such large numbers as to alarm the Quaker
and EngUsh inhabitants, for in a statement to the Council
in 1729 the Deputy Governor of the Province said:
"It looks as if Ireland is to send all its inhabitants
hither, for last week not less than six ships arrived, and
every day two or three arrive also. The common fear is
that if they thus continue to come, they will make them
selves masters of the province."t
That the EngUsh inhabitants of the city had cause for
alarm at their rapidly diminishing majority is indicated in
the following table of the immigrants arriving in Pennsyl
vania during the year ending December, 1729: EngUsh
and Welsh, 267; Scotch, 43; German Palatines, 243;
Irish, 5655. t In 1728 there arrived at New Castle,
Delaware, 4500 persons, most of whom came from Ire-
* Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia.'' f Ihid.
X Gordon's "History of Pennsylvania."
[54 1

THE IRISH IN PENNSYLVANIA
land.* By 1772, the Irish immigration had reached such
proportions that 3500 persons from Ireland arrived in
Philadelphia during the first two weeks in August of that
year.f Before the Revolution the prophecy of the Deputy
Governor had been fulfilled, and the Irish and their de
scendants had indeed become proprietors of the province.
In a measure this was fortunate for the colonies, as the
principles of the Quakers prohibited their taking an active
part in the war, and the Tory sentiment among the Eng
Ush residents of the province was notorious.
For confirmation of the claim that the Irish population
of the province was large we need only examine the colo
nial marriage records, Usts of soldiers in the colonial
miUtia companies, and Usts of taxables, for Irish names.
In Philadelphia the marriage records of all Protestant
churches contain old-fashioned Irish names in abundance.
Most of the bearers of these names were undoubtedly of
CathoUc birth, but in many cases their marriage in Protes
tant churches was due, despite the liberal attitude of Penn
himself in founding of his colony, to restrictive laws
against the performance of the marriage ceremony by
CathoUc clergymen. The Pennsylvania Archives, second
series, vol. ix, contain the marriage records of PhUadelphia
churches covering certain periods before the Revolution.
On the Ust of the First Presbyterian Church, 1702 to 1745,
occur the fbUowing distinctively Irish names:
Mary Brian and John Smith
Mary Bryan and WiUiam Love
Henry Bryan and Dinah PhiUps
Margaret Bryan and WUUam Porter
* Watson's "Annals," p. 266.
t Spencer's "History of the United States."
[56]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
Patrick Caffry and Esther Rice
Richard Cahill aud Eliz. Burrege
John Callahan and EUz. Sweet
John Callahan and Winifred Caseburn
Edward Callahan and Mary Rice
Roger Cane and EUz. Welsh
Rose Cane and Adam Little
Jannet Cannon and Geo. Calahone
Joseph Cannon and Rachel Gethram
Margaret Carey and John McMickeu
Jane Carnaghan and Josias Brown
AJDraham Carel and Kath. Van Pelt
Richard Carrel and Grace WiUiams
Anne CarroU and Geo. Hawkins
Daniel Carty and Margaret Lavender
Miles Carty and Joan Dickey
Darby Carty and Hannah Richardson
Thomas Carty and Anne Haimer
Jane Cary and George Brown
John Cleary and Jane CoUins
Katherine Coghran and Francis Willson
Charles CoUe and Anne Price
Mary Magdalena Colerain and Christian Taylor
Jacob Coney and Barbara Van Chnkenbaugh
Mary Coney and Joseph Walton
Darby ConneUy and Jane Price
John Conner and Mary Rambo
WilUam Conner and Mary QuiU
Michael Connolly and Anne Chngman
John Connor and Mary Foreman
John Conway and Susanna Bound
WilUam Conway and Mary McAnally
Daniel Daily and Mary HiU
Eleanor Daily and Aidrew McBroom
Joanna Daily and John Murphy
Katherine Daily and Duncan CampbeU
Mary Daily and Robert Fleming
Thomas Daily and Mary Harden
Daniel Donavin and Anne Wood
Peter Donavin and EUz. Wright
John Donelan and EUz. Parker
John Dorkarty and Susanna Seinchy
Jane Drogheda and Thomas Jones
Katherine Drogheda and Richards Warkins
Kath. Eagin and Patrick Daveny
James Farrel and Jane Heath
John Farel and Honour Farel
WiUiam FarreU and Mary Barroe [56]

THE IRISH IN PENNSYI^VANIA
Mary Flanekin and Edward Swinney
Samuel Foley and Mary SinMer
James Kerrel and Dinah VanKirk
James Laughlin and Jane Jones
Rebecca Mackinaire and Peter Jackson
John Mackneal and Martha Floyd
Mary Magenny and James KeUey
Margaret Mahaffy and WilUam Walker
Honour Malenny and Michael Fleming
Edward Malone and Agnes Kider
Jane McCane and Hugh Gunning
Mary McCannin and Samuel Low
Margaret McCarty and Thomas Holmes
Jane McClenaghan and Job Guthrey
Agness McClenan and John Griffith
Isabel McCloghlin and Abram Russel
Martha McConneU and James Little
Patrick McCormick and Blanch Hughes
Mary McGeorge and George Lewis
Margaret McGown and Joseph Frazier
Susanna McKelan and James Steward
Elizabeth McKane and Joseph Kerr
SaraU McKenny and Walter Bryson
Jane McMurran and John Forsyth
Michael McDonald and Bridget Kerr
Margaret Meals and Daniel Dismond
Jane MuUegan and John Wayne
Mary Mullin and WiUiam Hart
John Murphy and Joanna Daily
Katherine Murphy and John McPack
Eleanor O'Bryan and Robert Baker
Katherine O'Bryan and Edward Winter
Jolm G'Bryant and Mary Dukeminer
Anne O'Bum and Thomas HoUand
Peter Okely and Mary Asson
Joseph Oregh and Cath. Kirk
Mary Pendergrass and James Frazier
Eleanor Reiley and Henry Early
Charles ReUy and Isabel Easly
Joshua Reily and Rebecca Doyle
Timothy SuUiman and Rose Waters
Mary SulUvan and John Fleming
Dennis SuUivan and EUzabeth Caldwell
Bartholomew Welsh and Mary Kirk
EUzabeth Welsh and Roger Cane
Mary Welsh and Abraham Laybrook
Rebecca Welsh and John Lockhart [57]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
On the above list, in addition to the names given, the
name Dunn occurs 3 times, Fitzgerald 6 times, Fleming 5,
Kelley 11, Kilpatrick 3, Martin 11, and there are 95
names beginning with "Mc".
The marriage lists of Old Swedes Church, 1750 to 1810,
contain a very much larger proportion of Irish names.
There are 486 names beginning with "Mc," as weU as
every other form of Irish names, of which the following is
an indication:

Mary Branagen and William Erskin
Michael Branin and Barbara Evans
Patrick Brawley and Sarah Thompson
Patrick Brian and Margaret Smith
Timothy Brian and IsabeUa Dickinson
Roger Brogen and EUzabeth Warren
Sarah Brogen and Lewis MoUere
Patrick Cacharin and Gracey McNeal
Mary Carrigan and Charles Domonick
Ann Cartey and Patrick Dowen
Patrick Caahaday and Catharine Baldwin
Hugh Cassaday and Rachel Richards
Aim Cassel and Dennis Leary
James Colgun and Mary Flannagan
Catherine Condon and Michael Murphy
Patrick Condren and Mart Latterson
Dennis Conneley and Mary Kilkenney
Neal ConnoUy and Mary Macumtire
Margaret Connoway and Thomas Haley
Patrick Conrey and Nancy Early
Biddy Devine and John Boggs
Patrick Doran and Jane Long
Patrick Fares and Elec. Garvey
Elizabeth Fairies and James Cochran
Brigith Fegen and Chris. Fitzgerald
Patrick GaUenogh and Susanna Brown
Patrick Glyn and Mary Christie
Patrick Kempsey and EUz. Davis
John Logan and Jane O'Connor
Patrick Loghan and Margaret Docherty

[58]

THE IRISH IN PENNSYLVANIA
On the same Ust the names following occur the number
of times shown:
Barry, Bary, 15
Braidy, Brady, 9
Brannon, 6
Burk, Burke, 19
Burn, Burnes, 14
Cahan, Cahil, CahiU
Cain, Cane, 7
CaUaghan, Callahan, CaUan, 7
Cannon and Canon, 6
CarreU, Caril, CariU, Carol, 6
Carney, 10
Carr, 22 — 2 Michaels and 2 Patricks
Cassidy, Cavenaugh, Cavener, Cavenough
ConneUy, 4
CoTinar, Connard, Conner, Connor, 19
Connel, ConeU, ConneUy, Connerly, Connil, 10
Conway, 3
Corran, Corridon, Corrigan, CorriU, CoughUn, Courtney, Curin
Daugherty, 2, Daley, 2, Delaney, 7, Dempsey, 5, Dennis
Deyer, 2, DUlon, 2, Docherty, 2, Doharty, 2, DoU, Doile, Doyle, 15
Donavan, Donevan, Donovan, 5, Donohus, Donohow, Donohoo, 4
Dorian, Doman, Dougan
Dougharty, 21, Donlin, Dyer, Dwire, Dyar, Dyer
Egan, Eagan, Egins
Farran, 2, Fanrel, 5, FerreU, 4
Fitzgerald, 12, Fitzpatrick, 3
Flaherty, Flanigan, Flaniken, Flannigan, Flannagam
Ford, 15
GaUagher, 3, Galespy, GiUaspy, 2
GiUnar, Gilmer, Gillmore, 8
Griffen, Griffin, 5
Hagarthy, Hagerty, Haggerty
Hagens, Haley, Haney, 5, Hanighan, Hanley, Hennesey
Higgins, 5, Hogan, 6
Kaley, 2, Kane ,2, Karrigan, Kavanagh, Kean, 3, Keen, 11, Keane
Keley, KeUey, Kelly, 23
Kenneday, 3, Kennedy, 10, Kenney, 2
Laffarty, Lafferty, 3
Madden, 7
Maguire, 3, Maquire, Mahon, Mahoney, Mahney
Patrick Mahney, Patrick Mahoney, "Timothy Mahoney, Anthony
Mahony
Maloney, 4, Mooney, Moraty, Moriaty
MuUan, 16, Morphy, Morphey, Morphy, Murphey, 26
[59]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
Neal, Nealy, O'Neal, O'NeU, 18 times
O'Bryan (Obrayne, O'Brian, Obrian, Obrien, Ibryon, etc.), 17 times
O'Connor, 5
O'Daniel, O'Dannil, O'Dear, OdonneUy, O'Donnel
O'Hagerty, O'Hara, Ohara, O'Harra
O'Lary, Onie, Onor, Orane
Timothy Organ
Quinn, Quin, Quinlin
Reighley, Reiley, Reily, Riley, 7, Ryan, 9
Sweeney, Swiney
SuUevan, SulUvan 8, Swayney, Sweaney
Welch, 7, Welsh, 16, Walsh, Whelan, 3
The Marriages of Christ Church (Episcopal) at the same
period contain 332 names, beginning with Mc and 29
beginning with "O' ", 14 Bryan and Bryant, 37 KeUy and
KeUey, 17 Kennedy, 12 Ryan, 10 Sullivan, and 10 Welsh,
together with manv other names of evident Irish origin.
Persons bearing such names as appear in the foregoing
lists were unquestionably of Irish birth or extraction; but
there were thousands of men in Philadelphia, who, while
of Irish birth or descent and enthusiastic Irishmen, bore
names that would not be classed as Irish by the average
reader. This is best illustrated in the membership of the
Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, a Society organized in Phila
delphia March 17, 1771. Active membership was confined
to men of Irish birth or extraction, and the Society was
evidently the successor of the Hibernian Club, which was
holding meetings as early as 1749. On March 17, 1781, the
active members of the Friendly Sons were as follow:
Thomas Barclay John Murray
George Campbell John Donaldson
WiUiam West Matthew Mease
Benjamin FuUer James Caldwell
J. M. Nesbitt D. H. Conyngham
George Davis John Barclay
George Henry John Nixon
[60]

THE IRISH IN PENNSYLVANIA
Samuel Caldwell Commodore John Barry
John Brown James Crawford
John Mitchell George Meade
Sharp Delaney Thomas Fitzimmons
Andrew Caldwell Col. John Shee
Gen. Anthony Wayne William West, Jr.
Blair McClenachan James Mease
John Dunlap Tench Francis
John Mease Alex. Nesbitt
George Hughes John Patton
John MitcheU, Jr. Gen. Ephraim Blaine
Gen. Stephen Moylan Francis Johnston
Randle MitcheU Gen. WilUam Irvine
John Boyle Col. Richard Butler
John Patterson Robert Gray
James Moylan Joseph Wilson
Every one of the gentlemen above named was either
bom in Ireland or was descended from a man born in
Ireland; and they were not what is now commonly called
"Scotch-Irish." Gen. Stephen Moylan was born in
County Cork, was a Catholic and the first president of the
Society; George Meade was a son of Robert Meade, an
Irish CathoUc refugee from Limerick, Ireland. The name
is derived from O'Meagh, and 18 properties owned by
persons of the name Meade were confiscated by Cromwell
and are mentioned in his book of forfeitures. (See Bache's
Life of Gen. George Gordon Meade, page 2, and the Life
of Richard Meade.) Col. Richard Butler was born in the
Parish of St. Bride's Dubhn, and his father in Kilkenney.
While Butler is not an Irish name, the family had been in
Ireland for several centuries, and played an important
part in the rebellions against EngUsh rule in Ireland.
The First City Troop of Philadelphia, now one of the
most exclusive miUtary organizations in the country, was
organized November 1774, as the Light Horse of the City
of Philadelphia. Of the twenty-eight men who comprised
[61]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
the Troop on the date of its organization, ten were bom in
Ireland and were members of the Friendly Sons of St.
Patrick, namely; James and John Mease, John Boyle,
John Mitchell, George Campbell, Samuel Campbell,
Samuel and Andrew Caldwell, George FuUerton, John
Dunlap, and Blair McClenachan. Of the remaining
eighteen members, WilUam West, Jr., was the son of an
Irishman, and it is probable others were of Irish birth or
descent, but the eleven already mentioned were members
of the Friendly Sons, and their nationaUty is therefore
known. Among the eighty-eight men who were members
of the Troop during the period of the Revolution, thirty
were members of the Friendly Sons and represented only a
small proportion of the men of Irish blood who would have
been Ukely to join such a troop.
Many other names, well known in Philadelphia society,
were borne by colonial immigrants from Ireland. Thomas
Lea came from Dublin before 1757, and his son was one
of the twelve founders of the Hibernian Society; George
FuUerton was born in Ireland and joined the Friendly
Sons in 1771 ; John Frazer was born in County Monaghan,
Ireland, came to Philadelphia in 1735, and was the father
of Gen. Persifor Frazer of the Revolution and the great
grandfather of Dr. Persifor Frazer, the weU known phy
sician; WilUam West, ancestor of the West family of
Philadelphia, was born in Sligo, Ireland. On the other
hand, the designer and builder of many of the most im
portant buUdings in Philadelphia during and after the
Revolutionary period, "a man of marked abiUty as an
architect and at that time thought to be the best in this
country," was an Irish Catholic named Nicholas Fagan,
who was born in Dublin and came to Philadelphia in boy-
[62]

THE IRISH IN PENNSYLVANIA
hood. He designed the First Church of St. Augustine,
Philadelphia.* Andrew Porter, whose father came from Ireland, opened
a mathematical school in Philadelphia in 1767, and his
grandson became Governor of Pennsylvania. Rev.
Francis Allison, the first vice-provost of the University of
Pennsylvania, emigrated from Ireland in 1735. The
parents of Thomas McKean, Chief Justice of Pennsyl
vania for 22 years from 1777, and Governor of Pennsyl
vania in 1799, were both born in Ireland.
It is evident from the foregoing that the Irish held a
position of considerable prominence in Philadelphia during
the Colonial period. The men who comprised the Friendly
Sons of St. Patrick were all well to do, for each member
had to provide himself with the Medal of the Society, at
a cost of $15, and the fine for absence from the meeting
on March 17th of each year was $1.80 and from other
meetings $1.25. It was essentially an Irish society, whose
badge contained on one side a representation of Hibernia
and America, with Liberty in the center joining their
hands, and the inscription "Unite," while on the other
side was a picture of St. Patrick, holding a cross, trampUng
on a snake.
While the Irish were numerous in Philadelphia, they
were stiU more numerous in other parts of the province.
Local historians erroneously class them as "Scotch-Irish,"
but as the names of most of them were distinctively Irish,
it is difficult to comprehend why they should be so classed.
Let us take, as an iUustration, the list of inhabitants of
Fort Pitt, Pa., for the year 1760, when the village numbered
149 inhabitants outside of the army. In this list occur the
following Irish names:
* Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia."
5 [63]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
Ephraim Blane James Mulhgan
Charles Boyle  Sinnott
James Bradden Jacob Sinnott
Andrew Byarly Susannah Sinnott '
PhiUp Byarly Thomas Welsh
WiUiam Bryan Bridget Winsor
John Coleman Patrick Feagan
Patrick Cunningham Thomas McCoUum
John Daily George McSwine
Sarah Daily John and PhiUp Sinnott
WiUiam Downy Margaret and Rebecca Boyle
Patrick McCarthy Margaret Coghran
NeU McCoUum Susan DaUy
Hugh McSwine Mary McSwine
Susannah McSwine
In addition to the foregoing, there were George Carr,
John Finley, WiUiam McAlUster, John McClure, John
McKee, who were undoubtedly Irishmen with Scotch
names. John Finley was known to have been born in the
North of Ireland, and Burke's "Landed Gentry" shows
that a Robert Finlay fought for Queen Mary and on her
defeat fled to Ireland in 1568. Unquestionably, a number
of the other inhabitants, bearing English-sounding names,
were also Irish. In the census of Fort Pitt for 1761 —
house-owners only — occur the following Irish names addi
tional to those already given:
Thomas Carney Dennis McLaughUn
WilUam Cassady Richard McM^an
John Craven Joseph McMurray
George Croghan Patrick McQuaid
Dennis Drogharty John Neal
Dennis HaU Christopher Negley
Hugh Henry John Welch
There is no mistaking Dennis Hall, but if his name had
been John HaU, he would have been omitted from the Ust,
even though he might have been of Irish birth.
[64]

THE IRISH IN PENNSYLVANIA

The Usts of Taxpayers in Dauphin County, 1750,
printed in the Historical Sketch of Dauphin County,
include the following Irish names:

Derry Township
James McKee
Patrick Down
Charles Neely
Andrew Morrison
John Kerr
David McNair
Michael Houry
John Welsh
Hugh Hayes
John McCord
David McCord
Leonard Devine
John McCulloch
Charles Conway
Andrew Moore
Thomas Mackey
Robert McClure
John McQueen
Niel McAlUster
Neal Dougherty
Thomas Logan
John McAlUster
John McCleUand
Andrew Rowan
John Kerr
Duncan McDonnell
Mr. McClan
Patrick Kelly
WiUiam Hayes
John Cochran
John McCoUoch

Paxton Township
Robert Dugan
James McKnight
WilUam McCaUey
George GiUaspy
Alex. McCay
Patrick Gillespy
Thomas McArthur
Robert Curry
John Neal
John Dougherty
John Daily
WilUam Calhoun
Thomas McCormick
Andrew Cochran
WilUam Kirkpatrick
Peter Fleming
Kennedy Kanix
Rich. McClure
H. McKinney
Thomas Dugan
Timothy McKnight
H. McEUoy
Timothy Shaw
Matthew Jordan
John Welsh
John McKnight
Patrick Kinney

Hanover Township

James McCreight
Thomas McQuire
John McCord
Wm. McClenahan
David McClenahan
Daniel Shaw
John McCavitt
James McCavitt

Mr. McCowen
Thomas McClure
WiUiam Barnet
Francis McClure
Michael Neal
John McCormick
James Finney
John McNealey

[65:

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
James McConneU John Kansey
Charles McClure James McCorey
John McClure Dennis Kerril
Patrick Gracey John Sloan
Michael Wallace Andrew McKeehan
James Sloan Patrick Brown
Walter McFarland Antony McElrath
Barnet McNight Adam McNeeley
Hugh McGowen John McClure
Edward McMurray Patrick Bowen
Jacob McCormick
In the above list, it is probable "Patrick Brown" and
"Patrick Bowen" were Irish, but if their names had been
"James," they would not have been included and thus two
Irishmen would have been missed, as many others are
when an attempt is made to select them by name. One
can always be sure of a man's origin if he has an Irish name,
but one with an EngUsh name inight be Irish, Scotch,
German, Swedish, or Russian.
The following men with Irish names received licenses
in the State of Pennsylvania as Indian traders between
1720 and 1758:
Patrick Boyd, Lancaster Co., 1730
Lawrence Burke, Wyoming, 1758
Thomas Burke, employe of John Martin, 1750
George Connell, Chester Co., 1749
Charles Conner, Chester Co., 1730
Peter Corbet, Donegal, 1747
James Crawley or Crowley, 1747
George Croghan, 1744
Barnaby Curran, Ohio Company, 1749
Timothy Fitzpatrick, Allegheny, 1734
Timothy Higgins, Shamokin, 1728
Barnabas Hughes, Donegal, 1753
John KeUy, Donegal, Allegheny, 1732-34
John Kennedy, a Lowry Trader, 1754
Edward Kenny, Allegheny, 1734
Ralph Kilgore, PickawiUany, 1750 [66]

THE IRISH IN PENNSYLVANIA
Alexander McGinty, 1733, furnished information for Evans' Map,
i/qo
John McGuire, one of Washington's guides in 1753
James McLaughlin, 1762
Neal McLaughUn, Chester Co., 1749
Charles McMichael, Chester Co., 1742
Samuel Mealy, Chester Co., 1750
Thomas Moran, Allegheny, 1734
Owen Nicholson, 1752
Terence O'Neal, Chester Co., 1730
Garret Prendergrass, 1735
John Quinn, Allegheny, 1748
Timothy Reardon, Venango, 1752
Dennis SulUvan, Donegal, 1747
Michael Taafe, Logstown, 1753
Patrick Whinney, Chester Co., 1749

In addition to the above list, the following names appear
on the Ust of Traders, but were not included because the
names might be claimed to be of other than Irish origin,
yet are just as prevalent in Ireland as in Scotland or else
where: James Butler, 1747
Thomas Butler, 1747
John Carson, AUegheny, 1753
PhiUp Coleman, 1745-47
CorneUus Comegys, Trader among the Susquehannocks, 1695
John DougeU, 1748
James Dunning, AUegheny, 1734 to 54
Robert Dunning, Donegal, 1730
John Finley, 1744
Edward Hart, Shamokin, 1729
James McAlUster, 1743
Andrew McBryer, Lowrey's Trader, 1752
John McClure, Chester Co., 1743
Archibald McGee, Chester Co., 1730
John Mcllvaine, 1743
Thomas McKee, 1744, Capt. in French and Indian War
James McKnight, 1743
James McMordie, Chester Co., I75I
John Martin, Ohio Trader, 1750
Thomas Meener, 1747
Peter Moyer, 1748 [67]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
Peter, Robert, Thomas and William Wilkins, Donegal, 1718-46.
Samuel Smith, of Donegal, a prominent trader, was born in the
North of Ireland.
Lasarus Lowrey, Lancaster Co., one of the largest traders in the
State, whose five sons, were also traders, came from the North of
Ireland.

The Butlers, Finley, Dunnings, McClure, McKnight,
Martin, McGee, etc., are known to have come from Ireland.
George Croghan, in the first list, came from DubUn in
1741, and was probably the best known trader in the
country; "A complete history of his life and activities
would be a history of the Indians and Indian trade of
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana from 1746 to
1776."=^ On March 29 and May 25, 1748, commissions were
issued by the Governor of Pennsylvania to the following
oflacers chosen for that part of Lancaster County Ijdng
between the River Susquehanna and the Unes of the prov-

Colonel, Benjamin Chambers
Lt. Colonel, Robert Dunning
Major WilUam MaxweU
Captains, Richard O'Cain
James Carnaghan
James McTeer
James Galbreath
Adam Reed
John McKown
John Galbreath
David McClure
Thomas McKee
Lieuts. Andred Findlay
James Dyssart
John McCormick
Charles McGiU
*For further information relating to Indian Traders see "The
Wilderness Trail," by Hanna. [68]

THE IRISH IN PENNSYLVANIA
Ensigns James Finney
John Dougherty
WilUam McMuUan
John Lesan
George Brannan
Of the above twenty-one names, 10 are distinctively
Irish, while of the remaining number, WilUam MaxweU,
Andrew Findlay, Charles McGiU, James and John Gal
breath, David McClure, and Thomas McKee came from
the North of Ireland.
The predominance of Irish names in the lists of colonial
taxpayers, traders, soldiers, officers, etc., as illustrated by
the foregoing, is suflicient evidence of two facts, namely:
that the Irish were numerous in Pennsylvania before the
Revolution, and they were not altogether the so-caUed
"Scotch-Irish," as they bore real Irish names. As it was a
common practice among Irish families to change or modify
their names to a Scotch or EngUsh form, many men of
Irish origin were necessarily omitted from the lists.

[69]

THE IRISH IN OTHER PROVINCES
WE have devoted considerable space to the Irish in
New England and Pennsylvania because of the
theory that New England contained no real Irish
population, and because, while it is conceded by most
writers that the Irish came to Pennsylvania in large
numbers, they have been called "Scotch-Irish" from
Ulster, who had no "Celtic blood in their veins" — a theory
which is destroyed by the names of these early Irish set
tlers and the facts already presented. But what is true
of the Irish in New England and Pennsylvania is true of
all the other colonies. The Irish in early New York was
the subject of an address by Michael J. O'Brien, Esq., de
livered before the N. Y. State Historical Society at Lake
George, August 22, 1906, from which we take the following
facts to indicate the extent of the Irish population of the
province: In the census of the city of New York for 1703 occur a
large number of distinctively Irish names, as Mooney,
Dooley, Walsh, Carroll, Dauly, Corbett, Kenny, Gillen,
Morrayn, and in 1733, McLennon, Lynch, Rafty, Hanlon,
Darcy, Dwire, etc.
The tax rate lists of Long Island for 1675 contain the
following distinctively Irish names: Kelly, Dalton,
Whelan, Condon, Barry, Byrne, Goulden, Quinn, Cayne,
Kane, Bradley, Griffin, Terrell, Brien, Clery, Patrick,
[71]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
Holdren, Sweeney, Murphy, McCorkel, Kennedy, Mc-
Cown, etc.
In the lists of marriage licenses issued by the secretary
of the province previous to 1784, which has been printed
in small type in double column, there are eleven pages of
names beginning with "Mc," three pages of names begin
ning with the capital O', and hundreds of other distinct
ively Irish names, as McDonnell, 24; Walsh, 22; Murphy,
21; Kelly, 16; Ryan, 17; Kennedy, 15; Sullivan, 11;
ColUn, 24; and Moore, 84 times.
Sir William Johnson, Colonial Governor of New York,
had as his lawyer a man named Kelly, his physician was
named Daly, his secretary Lafferty, his superintendent of
properties Flood, and among other employes were Byrne,
McCarthy, Colter, Doran, McDonald, and Connor.
In a petition to the Governor of New York dated
January, 1695, occur the following Irish names: Connor,
Kilmore, McLean, McDermott, Whalen, Dennis, Mc
Arthur, Cannay, Murphy, Mclntyre.
But perhaps the most interesting records are those of
the marriages performed in the Dutch Reformed Church
of New York between 1639 and 1801, between persons of
Irish birth. These records contain numerous entries like
the following:

George Walker, from Ireland, to Miss VanHeck, September
23, 1692.
WilUam Doulen, from Ireland, to Catharine Strides, April 18,
1701.
Denys Costula, B. in Ireland, m. EUzabeth Rendel, widow of
Barney Hamilton, born in Ireland.
John O'Bryan to Margary FUngh, both born in Ireland, June
7, 1761.
Martin Coin and Hannah Boyl, January 6, 1757.
[72]

THE IRISH IN OTHER PROVINCES
Hannah Ryn to Wm. Hayes, both born in Ireland, January 3,
1772.
Magrite Dally, from Ireland, to Patrick Dallon, December 22,
1774.

The records are full of such names as Boil, Coil, Rein,
Rian, Ryen, Ryn, Ryne (for Ryan), McManus, Mc-
Manness, McMoness, McMuUand, Macknult, Megee, etc.,
and it is easy to trace the transition of Irish names like
Ryan to the Dutch Ryn or Van Ryn, and McManus to
McMoness and Moness, etc.
A large number of Irish Quakers settled in New Jersey,
but a still larger number of Irish of other denominations
came to that colony just before the Revolution, and the
lists of New Jersey ofiicers and soldiers of the Revo
lutionary War contain an abundance of Irish names.
By reason of the fact that CathoUc Churches were scarce
and practice of the Catholic religion prohibited, many
Irish CathoUcs or their children drifted away from the
Church. The foUowing excerpts from the biography of
Richard Collins, printed in Heston's "Annals of Eyren
Haven and Atlantic City," illustrate a typical case:
"In 1765, one year before the organization of the State
Medical Society, Richard ColUns, a native of Ireland,
settled in that part of old Gloucester which afterwards
became Atlantic County. Dr. ColUns was the first
physician resident in the county. . . He was a Roman
CathoUc, but settUng among Quakers, he eventually
adopted their mode of speech and dress. . . Speaking
of his three sons by his second marriage, he once said:
' I have raised one Methodist, one Quaker, and one Uni-
versaUst.' He died a Methodist in 1808."
[73]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
It is commonly known that Maryland had a large Irish
Catholic population early in its history, and it was the
only one of the colonies that sent a Catholic to the Conti
nental Congress — Charles Carroll, the signer, grandson of
an Irish colonist. The shipment of Irish political prisoners
and persons kidnapped in Ireland to Virginia and other
Southern colonies was carried on extensively during the
latter part of the seventeenth and early in the eighteenth
century. Campbell's News Letter, Boston, April 27, 1703,
contains the foUowing significant item: "PhUadelphia,
April 13th, they writt that on Saturday last arrived a
Gentleman from Maryland brings the following news.
That 40 Sayle of West Countrey Men were arrived in
Maryland and Virginia about 7 weeks passage. . . .
two men of warr Conveyed them from Corke in Ireland."
About 1683 a large number of immigrants from Ireland,
influenced by Sir Richard Kyrle (Governor in 1684) who
was himself a Dublin Irishman, settled in South Carolina.
In 1700, James Moore, descendant of Roger O'More, who
had emigrated from Ireland in 1665, was governor of the
colony, and Patrick Calhoun, born in Donegal, father of
Vice-President J. E. Calhoun, settled there in 1735. In
fact, the history of the entire South is largely the story of
the Irish immigrants and their descendants. In Virginia
the Colemans, Ryans, Dohertys, McLoughlins, McDowell,
Shays, Joyces, Conways, and Dalys were colonial settlers;
in CaroUna were the Burkes, Rutledges, Moores, Lsmches,
Calhouns, Caldwells, and Jacksons (ancestors of President
Andrew Jackson) ; in Georgia were Knoxes, Dooleys, Mc-
Callas, Clarkes, Butlers, and Pollocks (ancestors of Gover
nor Polk), who came from Ireland.
That these early settlers were not altogether the so-
[74]

THE IRISH IN OTHER PROVINCES
called "Scotch-Irish" is clearly evident from the foUowing
distinctively Irish names which appear in the lists of
soldiers of Colonel George Washington's Regiment of
Virginia Militia, appearing in a report made July 9, 1754,
just after the battle of Great Meadows:

David Welsh
John CarroU
Robert McKoy
Anthony Kennedy
WiUiam Deveny
James Welch
Joseph Costerton
Henry Neill
John Bryan
Michael McGrath, wounded
Michael Reily, wounded
Patrick Durphy, wounded
Robert McCulroy, wounded
Daniel McClaran, killed
Thomas Langdon, Sergeant
Dennis Kenton
Michael ScuUy
David Gorman
Dominick Moran
Michael McGannon
Patrick Coyle
John Burk
CorneUus Henley
WUUam Games
Terrence Swinney
Lieutenant Savage
John McCuUey

John Rodgers
Edward CahiU
PhiUp Comerley
George McSwine
Robert Murphy
John Mclntyre
Patrick McPick
Daniel Malatte
James McCormick
Thomas Dunahough
John McGuire
John Coin
Charles Dunn
Patrick Galloway
Thomas Heimessy
Angus McDonald
James Tyrrel
John Given
Nathaniel Barret
Thomas Burk
Timothy Conway
Barnaby McKan
John Gallahour
WilUam Mclntyre
Hugh McKay
James DaUey
John McQuire

How many of the soldiers bearing other than Irish
names were of Irish birth or extraction it would be im
possible to guess, but Andrew Lewis, a captain in one of
the companies (a general in the Revolution), was bom in
Donegal.

[76]

THE IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMER
ICA'S MATERIAL PROGRESS
THERE can be no doubt that the colonial immigration
from Ireland was large. Several volumes of stories
of a most romantic character might be written to
portray the rise of these Irish immigrants, exiles from the
country of their birth because of intolerable conditions,
baiushed because of their devotion to principle, kidnapped
and sold into slavery because of their helplessness, and
starving because they were robbed of their sustenance,
finding their opportunity in another world, an unde
veloped wilderness where the very air and vastness of the
country instilled in their hearts the feeUng that here at
last was hberty. As former President Roosevelt has said :
"The Irish people have proved themselves a masterful
race of rugged character — a race the qualities of whose
womanhood have become proverbial, while its men have
the elemental, the indispensable virtues of working hard
in times of peace and fighting hard in time of war." What
a sad commentary on British rule in Ireland that Irishmen
need only leave their own land to become leaders in every
occupation, or at least to develop habits of industry and
self-reliance. In his "Annals of Philadelphia," in comment
ing on the Irish immigration, Watson says : "In some cases
the severity of the British laws pushed off young men of
[77]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
good abilities for very smaU offences, who made very capa
ble clerks, storekeepers, etc., among us. I have knowl
edge of two or three among us, even within my memory,
who rose to riches and credit here and have left fine
families. One great man before my time had been sold in
Maryland as an offender in Ireland. While serving his
master as a common servant, he showed much ability,
unexpectedly, in managing for him an important lawsuit,
for which he instantly gave him free. He then came to
Philadelphia and amassed a great fortune in landed estate,
now of great value among his heirs." The same author
says that Lord Altham came to Philadelphia from Ireland
in 1728 and served out his indenture as James Annesley,
with a farmer.
The type of men that Ireland lost and America gained
through the severity of British laws referred to by Watson,
is illustrated by the following brief biographies of "Irish
rebels" who came to America early in her history:
Robert Adrian, born in Carrickfergus, Ireland, took part
in the Irish revolution of 1798, was wounded in an engage
ment and later escaped to America, where he became one
of the foremost mathematicians of the early part of the
nineteenth century. He was Professor of Mathematics
at Rutgers College, at Columbia College, and the Uni
versity of Pennsylvania.
Matthew Carey had to flee from Ireland because of
inflammatory articles against the government. While in
Paris he met Franklin, who employed him to write for the
patriotic cause in America. Later he returned to Ireland
and became a power in politics, was arrested for libel,
imprisoned, and on his release came to America. In 1784
he began the Pennsylvania Herald, the first newspaper
[78]

THE IRISH IN OTHER PROVINCES
in the United States that furiushed accurate reports of
legislative debates, and "he interested himself in forward
ing education and in estabhshing the charitable institutions
for which Philadelphia is famous."
John Lewis, of County Donegal, killed his landlord in
resisting an illegal attempt to eject him from his home,
and with three sons he came to Virginia in 1732, being the
first white settler in Belief ont, Va. His oldest son Andrew
became brigadier general in the Continental Army; his
son Thomas was a member of the Virginia legislature; and
his sons WilUam and Charles were colonels in the Revo
lution. Dr. WiUiam James MacNevin, born in Ballynhowne,
County Galway, at twelve years of age went to Austria,
where his uncle. Baron O'Kelly MacNevin (also an exile),
was physician to the Empress Maria Theresa. Returned
to Ireland and became a leader in the rebelUon of 1798,
was imprisoned four years, came to America, and estab
lished the first chemical laboratory in New York. Was
Professor of Obstetrics and Chemistry College of Phy
sicians and Surgeons, and vnth others founded a medical
school in New York City.
George McCook, who was concerned in the United
Irishmen, fled from Ireland about 1780, and came to
America. He was the ancestor of the ' 'Fighting McCooks, ' '
a family well known in American history. His two sons
and eight grandsons were officers in the army and one
grandson a naval officer during the Civil War.
The Irish contribution to the material development of
America is best illustrated in a practical way by the
foUowing facts:
6 [79]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
The first daily newspaper in America, 1784, the "Pennsyl
vania Packet" (predecessor of the North American),
was edited and printed by John Dunlap, of Philadel
phia, born in Strabane, County Tyrone, 1747, came
to America in early youth." '
First American writer on Political Economy, Matthew
Carey, was born in Armagh, Ireland, 1761.
First steam engine built in United States by Christopher
CoUes, born in Ireland, 1738, came to America, 1765.
Was also the first to suggest canals and improve
ments to connect Lake Ontario with the Hudson, and
a system of pipes to supply New York city with water
from outside.
First steamboat built and operated by Robert Fulton,
whose father came from Kilkenny, Ireland.
First grain-cutter manufactured and invented by Robert
McCormick, son of Robert McCormick and Mary
McChesney HaU, daughter of Patrick Hall, both of
Irish descent.
First practical reaping machine manufactured by Cyrus
HaU McCormick, son of Robert McCormick. In
1859 Beverly Johnson said: "The McCormick reaper
has already contributed an annual income to the
whole country of $55,000,000 at least.
First cut nails invented and made by James Cochran,
whose father came from Coleraine, Ireland.
First to introduce cotton manufacture, Patrick Tracey
Jackson, in partnership with Francis C. Lowell.
First to introduce linen manufacture into New England,
the Irish colonists of 1718.
First piano manufactured in the United States by Thomas
Crehore, descendant of Teague Crehore, who was
said to have been kidnapped in Ireland and brought
to Massachusetts, between 1640 and 1650 (CuUen's
"Irish in Boston").
First chocolate in America manufactured by John Hannan,
who came to Boston from Ireland in 1764 (Haltigan).
[80]

THE IRISH IN OTHER PROVINCES
First coUege in the world to admit women on equal terms
with men, and which received colored students
twenty-eight years before emancipation, was OberUn
College. First president of this coUege, Asa Mahon,
whose ancestor came to New England from Ireland
("National Cyclop. American Biography," vol. ii,
p. 461).
First literary institution higher than a common school
within the bounds of the Presbyterian Church, which
is regarded as the germ from which sprang Princeton
College and several lesser institutions of learning,
was the "Log College," founded at Neshaminy, Pa.,
in 1728, by Gilbert 'Pennant, who was born in Ireland
in 1673, educated at Trinity College, and settled at
Neshaminy in 1726 (Appleton's "Biographies").
First Presbyterian Church in New England founded at
Londonderry, N. H., by James MacGreggor, who
was born in Ireland, 1677.
First Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, Md., established
by Patrick AlUson, a native of Ireland.
First RepubUcan Methodist Church, afterwards the
Christian Church, in North Carolina and Virginia,
founded by James O'Kelly, who was born in 1735.
First Roman Catholic Bishop of America, John Carroll,
grandson of an Irishman.
First Methodist Episcopal Bishop in America, WiUiam
McKendree, born in Virginia, 1757.
It was not alone in the settled portions of the Atlantic
colomes that the Irish became leaders in public enter
prise. The immigrants from Ireland were the advance
guard of civilization in the vast wilderness of the West.
Alexander Macomb, who came from Belfast in youth,
became one of the largest fur merchants in the west, with
headquarters in Detroit, and was associated with John
Jacob Astor and Elias Kane. His fortune was such that
[81]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
in 1791 he bought of the State of New York 3,670,715
acres of land on the St. Lawrence River, including all
of the Thousand Islands that belonged to New York.
The first white chUd born in the Western Reserve was
the grandson of a Dublin woman,'* and the history of
Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana is closely interwoven with
the activities of George Croghan from Dublin, the Mc-
Gradys, from County Mayo, the Robinsons and Robert
sons, from the North of Ireland, the O'Haras, the O'Fal-
lons, and many others of Irish name. John McDonough,
who at his death in 1850 left the bulk of his fortune of
nearly 12,000,000 to the cities of New Orleans and Balti
more to found free schools, who liberated all his slaves
and shipped many to Africa, was the son of an Irish immi
grant who served in the Colonial Wars and the Revolu
tion. John O'Fallon, who established the O'FaUon
Polytechnic Institute (now the scientific department of
St. Louis University), gave Uberally to Washington
University, built a dispensary and medical college, and
altogether spent over $1,000,000 for benevolent purposes
in St. Louis, was the son of Dr. James O'Fallon, who
immigrated to North Carolina in 1774 and served in the
Revolution. The man who wrote the poem, " The
Bivouac of the Dead," verses of which are carved over
the entrances to all national cemeteries, Theodore O'Hara,
was the son of Kane O'Hara, an Irish political exile who
settled in Kentucky.
"' The son of William Tappan Thompson, whose father was of
Irish descent and mother a native of Dublin (Appleton's "American
Biographies").

[.82]

THE GROWTH OF RELIGIOUS
FREEDOM IN AMERICA
THE "Charter of Liberties and Privileges" granted
to the province of New York in the year 1683,
nearly a century before the adoption of the Decla
ration of Independence, is a landmark in the history of
popular government in America. It provided that :
"Every freeholder within this province and freeman
in any corporation shall have his free choice and vote in
the election of the representatives, without any manner
of constraint or imposition, and in all elections the ma
jority of voices shall carry it.
"No aid, tax, toUage, assessment, custom, loan, benevo
lence, or imposition whatsoever shall be laid, assessed,
imposed or levied on any of his Majesty's subjects within
this province, or their estates, upon any manner of color
or pretense but by the act and consent of the Governor,
Council, and representatives of the people in General
Assembly met and assembled."
The man who granted this charter was not an "Anglo-
Saxon," but a Roman Catholic Irishman named Thomas
Dongan, born in Castletown, County Kildare, who was
Govemor of New York from 1682 to 1688. Had aU the
English Governors in all the provinces of America been
equally liberal in their government, the Revolution would
not have occurred.
The reUgious freedom which Americans now enjoy,
[83]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
and which began with the close of the Revolution, presents
a strong contrast to the spirit which prevailed in Massa
chusetts under Puritan domination. The New England
Puritans, who supposedly came to America to escape
persecution, were themselves bitterly intolerant toward
all other sects. Their burning of heretics, their per
secution of Quakers, Baptists, and others of more Uberal
views, whom they drove from the province, are matters
with which students of history are well acquainted. The
extent to which their narrowness prevailed is perhaps
best illustrated in the following law, promulgated by the
Massachusetts Puritans in 1670:
"For preventing disorders arising in several places
within this jurisdiction by reason of some still observing
such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other coun
tries, to the great dishonour of God and offence to others :
It is therefore ordered by this Court and the authority
thereof, that whosoever shall be found observing any
such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing
labor, feasting, or any other way upon such account as
aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for
every such offence five shillings as a fine to the country."
Americans have cause to be thankful that Puritanism
coUapsed, and for the further fact that the poUticians
within the Anglican Church, who used the Church to
further their own interests, did not secure the hold on
young America that they had on Ireland. "It is inter
esting to observe that the Quakers and the Catholics,
men standing at the opposite poles of theology, set the
highest examples of tolerance. Quaker Pennsylvania
enforced absolute liberty of conscience, and Quakers in
all the provinces worked for religious harmony and free-
[84]

GROWTH OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA
dom. CathoUc Maryland, as long as its government
remained in Catholic hands, and under the guidance of
the wise and Uberal proprietary, Lord Baltimore, pursued
the same policy and attracted members of sects perse
cuted in New England." * But when the Puritans gained
control of the Assembly in Maryland in 1654 they im
mediately passed an act against popery, while in 1689,
the Church of England was estabUshed by law and the
Penal Laws were applied to the CathoUcs of Maryland.
After the death of WilUam Penn, with the rise of the
Anglican Church party in Pennsylvania, intolerance im
mediately became the order.
It is clear that war on popery was the ruling passion of
the Puritans and a certain element in the Established
Church. In the former this was due to a narrow spirit,
which was "dull, unamiable, and unintelligent." In the
latter it was fostered by pure selfishness and that greed
of spiritual and worldly power which has always been
the ruling element in British character. The chief com
plaint against the Church of Rome was its activity in
seciUar affairs, yet the Church of England carried this
very principle to an excess in Ireland which no other
church has tried to equal, and this at a time when the
world had emerged from the dark ages of ignorance,
superstition. Knights Templars, and Crusaders.
At the period when the Irish began coming to America
in large numbers, early in the eighteenth century, they
found the restrictions against Catholics as severe as in
Ireland. In every colony except Pennsylvania (Mary
land being then subject to the Church of England) Roman
* Erskine Childers, "The Framework of Home Rule,'' London,
I9II. [85]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
CathoUcs were debarred from civil rights or were sub-
j ected to severe penalties.'* This accounts in large measure
for the fact that so large a proportion of the Irish immi
grants, instead of founding distinct colonies themselves
on the Atlantic seaboard, scattered through all the prov
inces, settled in the remote parts of some provinces, or
pushed on to the frontiers, where they were comparatively
free from British persecution. Thus, in Maine, a re
mote district of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, numbers
of Irish Catholics — SuUivans, O'Briens, Murphys, Burkes,
and Ryans — settled, while thousands found refuge in the
wildernesses of western New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia,
and the Carolinas.
Thousands of CathoUc Irish, brought to the Colonies
in youth, were reared as Protestants; others, finding the
struggle against persecution too hard, became Protestants
for the sake of the advantages denied to CathoUcs; while
others became Protestants through intermarriage. This
is clearly illustrated in the marriage records of Protestant
churches in Philadelphia, previously referred to.
What proportion of the Irish population of the colonies
at the beginning of the Revolution was Catholic it would
be impossible for any one to say, because the practice of
that reUgion openly was proscribed and churches did not
legally exist. Even in Philadelphia, where hundreds of
men of some prominence were members of the Catholic
faith, the Governor of the Council, Patrick Gordon, at a
meeting held July 25, 1734, "informed the Board that
he was under no small concern to hear a house lately
built in Walnut Street in this city had been set apart for
the exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, and is com-
* Channing's "History of the United States," p. 144.
[86]

GROWTH OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA
monly called a Romish Chapell, where several Persons,
he understands, resort on Sundays to hear Mass Openly
celebrated by a Popish Priest; that he conceives the
tolerating the Public Exercise of that Religion to be con
trary to the Laws of England, some of which, particularly
the 11 and 12 of King WiUiam the Third, are extended to
all His Majesty's dominions; but those of that Perswasion
here imagined that they have a right to it, from some
general Expressions in the Charter of Privileges granted
to the inhabitants of this Government by our late Honour
able Proprietor, he was desirous to know the sentiments
of this Board on the subject."*
Evidently, it was considered inexpedient to interfere
with the Church, as the complaint seems to have been
tabled and no further action was taken on the subject.
It is strange that the complaint should have come from
a man with such a name as that of Patrick Gordon, but
it always happens that the man loudest in his denuncia
tion of any religion is one who has abjured that religion
for the sake of his own worldly advancement or some
equally base motive. As a general rule, the bigot lacks
an appreciation of the fundamental principles of Chris
tianity—charity and sympathy.
On November 5, 1775, while camped before Boston,
General Washington found it necessary to publish an
order against the celebration of "Pope's Night" by the
New England troops. The celebration, a childish practice,
was aimed at the Catholic people, and while Puritanism
would not tolerate the celebration of the birthday of
Christ by any other form than fasting and prayer, it set
apart a day to give vent to its hatred of the head and
* "Colonial Records," vol. ii, p. 589.
[87]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
followers of a Christian church. Before the Revolution
had ended Catholics were not only tolerated, but eight
of the colonies which formed the United States incorpor
ated in their constitutions the great principle of religious
equality. The emancipation of the Catholics in America
began as early as 1774, when England, in order to
strengthen her own hands against the Colonies by secur
ing the loyalty of the people of Canada and the Catholics
of England, relieved them of the pressure of the Penal
Laws. The Continental Congress, having in its army a
large number of Catholics, and at the same time seeking
the aid of a Catholic nation, France, was forced to a similar
policy, and Catholics were thereafter cultivated by both
sides to the struggle.
To such an extent had official and public sentiment
regarding Catholics changed with the breaking of the
ties that bound the Colonies to England that in 1791, on
the visit of the Roman Catholic Bishop Carroll to Boston,
he was invited to the annual dinner of the Ancient and
Honorable Artillery Company; about the same time.
President Washington made a contribution to the build
ing fund of the Church of St. Augustine, Philadelphia; in
1799, President John Adams headed the list of contrib
utors to the building fund of a CathoUc Church for the
city of Boston; while Bishop Carroll was unanimously
selected by Congress to deUver a panegyric on Washington,
22 February, 1800.
Thus the soldiers of the Revolution secured for America
not only political freedom, but religious tolerance and
equality, and the universal equality and Uberty extended
to Catholics were, without doubt, due to the part played
by Irish CathoUcs in the Revolution. [88]

THE IRISH AND THE WAR FOR
INDEPENDENCE
IN her effort to subdue the American colonists, England
spent £100,000,000 steriing and some 50,000 Uves.
Had she been successful, the history of Ireland would
have been repeated in America. Washington, Hancock,
Adams, Franklin, and other leaders would have been
hanged as "rebels," and "America would have become a
great boiUng volcano, a poUtical hell of rebellion, revolu
tions, vengeance, assassinations, and wholesale executions,
with here and there a province or a section winning its
independence for a time to go under at the next turn in
the poUtical game. The British ParUament meantime
would be kept busy through the centuries passing those
land acts, reform acts, and crimes acts which, in the case
of Ireland, have been steadily turned out for nearly seven
hundred years. In a word, it is extremely doubtful whether
England could have controlled America any more profit
ably than she has controlled Ireland."*
While the Irish were unable to throw off the British
yoke in Ireland, they contributed their strength to the
cause of the colonists, and, being the best fighting men
in the world and the most eloquent orators in the cause of
liberty, those of them who bore arms in the patriot army
were a match for the British soldiers sent to suppress the
"¦ "The Struggle for American Independence," vol. ii, p. 553.
[89]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
"rebels," while the Irish orators aroused the temporizers
among the colonists, and by their eloquence kept aUve
the spirit of patriotism which finally led to success. Their
experience with the broken promises of the British govem
ment, their intimate knowledge of the methods employed
by that govemment to serve her purpose in Ireland — ^this
knowledge, combined with a brief respite from the depri
vations and misery they suffered in Ireland, gave added
strength to their determination to destroy every vestige
of English tyranny in the new world to which they had
come to escape that tyranny.
The leaders of the patriot party in the Colonies early
realized the importance of securing the moral and
practical support of the Irish people for their cause.
The Irish had for centuries been fighting England's bat
tles, as there was no other occupation open to them, and
many were compelled to serve in the army to keep from
starving. Their reputation as excellent soldiers was known
throughout the world. Hundreds of thousands of exiles
had gone into the service of France, Spain, Austria, Ger
many, and even Russia. The Irish Brigade in the service
of France preserved its Irish identity and carried the flag
of Ireland into every battle in which it participated from
1691 to 1794, and every year thousands of young men
were recruited in Ireland for the Brigade. Spain main
tained four distinctively Irish regiments for many years.
Two Irishmen had become field-marshals in Russia, an
Irish lord and an Irish soldier had become marshals of
France, while Maguires, Lacys, O'Donnells, Taafes, and
Nugents were Austrian generals; and O'Donnell, O'Reilly,
O'Neill, O'Hara, and O'Mahony were famous Spanish
generals. [90]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
With a view to securing some of this talent in the cause
of the Colonies, Franklin visited Ireland in 1771. He met
Irishmen in Paris and encouraged Irish revolutionary
leaders in their plans to secure Irish independence.*
On May 10, 1775, the Second Continental Congress met
at Philadelphia and sent an address to the people of
Ireland, in which they enlarged on the wrongs committed
against Ireland, "in whose rich pastures many hungry
parasites have fed and grown strong to labor in its de
struction," and they offered the whole region of America
as a safe asylum for the Irish people, t This was followed
by a letter from Franklin to the people of Ireland, in
which he argued the justice of the American cause and
pleaded for the support of Ireland.
In Ireland, every man not bound to England by ties
of self-interest was with America, while in America every
Irishman was a patriot. The seventeenth century writings
of Molyneoux, a Dublin Irishman, in defense of Irish lib
erty, became the text-book of American freedom,t and
while Burke and Barre, Irishmen in the English Parliament,
were influencing English sentiment in favor of the Colonies,
Matthew Lyons, Patrick Henry, and other orators of the
Irish race were using their eloquence to convince Ameri-
* WhUe in Paris, FrankUn met Matthew Carey, who had fled from
Ireland because of inflammatory articles he had pubUshed in a
DubUn paper, and gave him employment. Later Carey returned to
Ireland and established the "Volunteers' Journal," and in 1784
was tried for Ubel before the House of Commons and was imprisoned.
On his release he came to America and established the "Pennsyl
vania Herald" and interested himself in forwarding education and in
estabhshing the charitable institutions for which Philadelphia is
famous (Appleton).
t"The Struggle for American Independence," Sydney George
Fisher, 1908, vol. i, p. 330.
t"The Legacy of Past Years," Lord Dunraven.
[91]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
cans of the desirabiUty of separation. This required
considerable eloquence, as it is well known that the
majority of the New Englanders and many inhabitants
of other colonies had no idea of separation when hostilities
commenced. We have already seen that the immigration from Ire
land had steadily increased in volume, and during the
years 1772 and 1773 it reached the enormous number of
18,500 persons, mostly men. This immigration had an
important bearing on affairs in the Colonies, and it should
be borne in mind that many of the immigrants were men
of education and position, who came directly for the
purpose of bearing arms against England.'" The welcome
they received is illustrated in the following statement of
the Marquis de Chastellux, a Frenchman who was in
America in 1782:
"An Irishman, the instant he sets foot on American
soil, becomes ipso facto an American. This was uniformly
the case during the whole of the late war. While English
men and Scotchmen were treated with jealousy and dis
trust, even with the best recommendations of zeal and
attachment to the cause, the native of Ireland stood in
need of no other certificate than his dialect. Indeed,
their conduct in the late war amply justified their favor
able opinion, for whilst the Irish emigrant was fighting
the battles of America by sea and land, the Irish merchants,
principally of Charleston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia,
labored with indefatigable zeal at all hazards to promote
• Among many others were Richard Montgomery, from Donegal,
who settled in New York, 1773, brigadier-general, the first to fall
in the Revolution; Edward Hand, from Clyduff, Kings County,
who settled in Pennsylvania, 1774, and became brigadier-general;
James McHenry, who came from Ireland to Philadelphia in 1771,
was Medical Director of the Army and became Secretary of War to
Washington, January, 1796. [92]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
the spirit of enterprise, and increase the wealth and
maintain the credit of the country. Their purses always
were opened, and their persons devoted to the country's
cause, and on more than one imminent occasion Congress
itself, and the very existence of America probably, owed
its preservation to the fidehty and firmness of the Irish."
In his "History of Ireland," 1809, Plowden said: "It
is a fact beyond question that most of the early successes
in America were immediately owing to the vigorous
exertions and prowess of the Irish immigrants who bore
arms in that cause." The "vigorous exertions and
prowess of the Irish" were not confined to arms, but
extended to the deliberations of councils and the Congress,
the raising of money to feed and clothe the army, and
advancing the credit of the new government. Irishmen
were "first in war, first in peace," and during and im
mediately following the Revolution, first in the hearts of
their fellow-Americans, as the following address made by
George Washington Parke Custis, grandson of Martha
Washington, in 1828, in answer to an appeal from Ire
land for funds in aid of the fight for Catholic emancipa
tion, would indicate:
"And why is this imposing appeal made to our sympa
thies? It is an appeal from that very Ireland whose
generous sons, aUke in the day of our gloom and of our
glory, shared in our misfortunes and joined in our success;
who, with undaunted courage breasted the storm which,
once threatening to overwhelm us, howled with fearful
and desolating fury through this now happy land; who,
vrith aspirations deep and fervent for our cause, whether
under the walls of the Castle of DubUn, in the shock of
our liberty's battles, or in the feeble expiring accents of
famine and misery, amidst the horrors of the prison ships,
[93]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
cried from their hearts, 'God Save America.' Tell me
not of the aid which we received from another European
nation in the struggle for independence; that aid was
most, nay, all essential to our ultimate success; but
remember, years of the conflict had rolled away. Of the
operatives in war — I mean the soldiet — up to the coming
of the French, Ireland had furnished in the ratio of one
hundred for one of any foreign nation whatever.
"Then honored be the old good service of the sons of
Erin, in the War of Independence. Let the shamrock be
entwined with the laurels of the Revolution, and truth
and justice, guiding the pen of history, inscribe on the
tablets of America's remembrance 'Eternal Gratitude to
Irishmen.' " '"'

We shall now proceed to illustrate in a practical way
the part played by men of the Irish race in securing the
independence of the Colonies, by evidence that is incon
trovertible. The Declaration of Independence, for ex
ample, is the basis of American independence. No one
knows the true origin of all the members of the Congress
that adopted it, and it has been the practice to claim
English descent for every man of importance in American
history unless his name leaves no doubt of other nation
aUty; but the following facts are interesting:
John Hancock, President of the Congress, was the des
cendant of an immigrant from Ulster, Ireland.
Charles Thompson, Secretary of Congress, who made the
first finished copy of the Declaration, was born in
Maghera, County Derry, Ireland.
John Nixon, Member of the Pennsylvania Council of
Safety, who first pubUcly read the Declaration, from
the steps of the State House in PhUadelphia, July
* " Case of Ireland Stated," Burke.
[94]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
8, 1776, was the son of Richard Nixon, of County
Wexford, Ireland.
John Dunlap, who first printed the document, was born
in Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland.

Among the signers of the Declaration who were known
to be of Irish descent, besides John Hancock, were the
following: Matthew Thornton, N. H., whose father came from
Ireland. John Hart, N. J., whose ancestor from Ireland settled
in Jersey.
James Smith, Penna., born in Ireland, came to America
in 1729.
George Taylor, Penna., born in Ireland, came to Amer
ica as a redemptioner.
George Reed, Delaware, son of John Reed who was born
in Dublin.
Thomas McKean, Delaware; father and mother born
in Ireland.
Charles CarroU, grandson of Charles CarroU, an Irish
Catholic who emigrated to America in 1689.
Edward Rutledge, South Carolina, son of Dr. John
Rutledge, who came from Ireland to America in 1735.
Thomas Lynch, South CaroUna, grandson of Thomas
Lynch, a native of Galway, who went to Austria after the
Irish Revolution of 1691.
Robert Treat Paine, Massachusetts, descendant of
Robert O'Neill, who changed his name to Paine and
emigrated to America.
George Taylor, in the above Ust, was the lessee of the
Durham Furnace, the first iron works in America, at
the time when it was turning out shot and shell for
Washington's army.
7 [95]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
American history records the fact that Robert Morris
was "the financier of the Revolution," and tells how he
later occupied a debtors' prison because of advances made
to the Government; but we never hear of Oliver Pollock,
a native of Ireland, who settled in Carlisle, Pa., 1760, who
from 1777 to 1783 made advances to the province of
Virginia and the Continental government, on the basis of
his own credit, to the amount of S300,000, over $100,000
of which amount had not been repaid to him at the time
of his death; and Edward Fox, a native of Dublin, who
came to America in 1775 was ruined by the large advances
he made to Robert Morris and the latter's associates, a
decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (2 Norris'
Reports, 512), showing that in 1797 these gentlemen owed
Edward Fox the sum of $900,000. When the Continental
army was in dire distress and Congress unable to raise the
money to supply its needs, a number of gentlemen of
Philadelphia conceived and put into operation "the plan
of the Bank of Pennsylvania" for supplying the army with
provisions and clothing. Robert Morris headed the Ust
of subscribers with a subscription of £10,000. Blair Mc
Clenachan, a native of Ireland, subscribed an equal
amount, and the following Irishmen subscribed the
amounts set opposite their names:
J. M. Nesbitt  £5000
James Mease  " 5000
Thomas Barclay  " 5000
Hugh ShieU  " 5000
John Dunlap  " 4000
John Nixon, father from Wexford,
Ireland  " 5000
George Campbell  " 2000
John Mease  " 4000
John Murray (firm of Bunner, Murray
& Co.)  " 6000
[96]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
John Patton  £ 2000
Benjamin FuUer  " 2000
George Meade & Co. (members Irish) " 2000
John Donaldson  " 2000
Kean & Nichols  " 4000
James CaldweU  " 1000
John Shee  " 1000
Sharp Delany  " 1000
Tench Francis  " 5500
John MitcheU  " 2000 Hibernian Society
Joseph Carson  " 4000 " "
Thomas McKean  " 2500 " "
The above named-subscribers were members of the
Friendly Sons of St. Patrick and the Hibernian Society.
They were all born in Ireland, except John Nixon, whose
father came from County Wexford. Robert Morris, who
was a native of England, was an honorary member of the
Friendly Sons, as were also William Bingham, Richard
Peters, Samuel Meredith, and Henry Hill, who, in ad
dition to the above, subscribed £20,000 to the bank.
Thus, of the total amount subscribed to supply the army
(£315,000) £112,000 was subscribed by men who were
members of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick and the
Hibernian Society.*
When the Continental soldiers were half starved, half
clothed, and their spirits so low that their commanders had
almost despaired of holding the army together, an Irish
ditty was used to revive their sinking spirits, as the
foUowing letter, written by Richard Peters, of Philadelphia,
to General Anthony Wajme, will show:
"I heard an Irishman the other day sing a very fooUsh
ballad of three or four verses, yet its simplicity struck me
* The information regarding contributions of money was obtained
from the records of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick and the Hi
bernian Society, of Philadelphia, edited by John H. Campbell.
[97]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
and I have this rainy morning scribbled the enclosed. I
have adopted, with a few alterations, the first verse, and
except for another line or two, am answerable for both the
folly and length of the rest. I send it to you that you may
give it to some of your singing sergeants or corporals, as I
wish the poor devil to be introduced into the army under
the protection of at least a non-commissioned officer. It
goes to the tune of an Irish Ult, which I have often heard
the fifers play  I am a great believer of ballads
and believe that more can be achieved by a few occasional
simple songs than by an hundred recommendations of
Congress, especially considering how few attend to or read
them." (Signed) Richaeu Peters.
General Wayne replied that he had given the song to
some "Singing Colonels."*

The first armed attack on land against the British was
the capture of the arms and ammunition at Portsmouth,
four months before the battle of Lexington. The attack
was led by John SulUvan (afterward major general), the
son of Owen Sullivan, a native of Limerick, Ireland.
The first decisive victory of the Revolution for the
American cause was won at Moore's Creek Bridge, near
Wilmington, N. C, February, 1776, when 1500 Tories
surrendered to the troops under command of Colonel
(afterward General) James Moore, descendant of Roger
O'More, a leader of the Irish RebelUon of 1641. (Apple-
ton's "American Biography.")
The first general officer killed on the American side was
General Richard Montgomery, who fell leading the attack
* Register of Pennsylvania, vol. iv, No. 7, p. 47.
[98]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
on Quebec, December 31, 1775. General Montgomery
was born in the County Donegal and settled in New York
State in 1773.
The first attack against the British on water was the
capture of a British armed schooner in Machias Bay, May
11, 1775. The capture was made by Jeremiah O'Brien,
assisted by his four brothers and some other volunteers.
(Harper's "Cyclopedia of American History.")
The first Commodore of the American navy was John
Barry, born in County Wexford, Ireland, in 1745.

Turning now to the Generals of the Continental Army,
we find among them the following men of Irish origin:
Richard Montgomery, Major General, born in Donegal,
Ireland. Thomas Conway (Count de Conway, of France), Major
General, born in Ireland.
John SuUivan, Major General, son of Owen Sullivan who
was born in Limerick, Ireland.
Henry Knox, Major General, son of Andrew Knox who
was born in Ireland.
John Armstrong, Brigadier-General, born in Ireland.
William Thompson, Brigadier-General, born in Ireland.
Andrew Lewis, Brigadier-General, born in Donegal,
Ireland. WiUiam Maxwell, Brigadier-General, born in Ireland.
Anthony Wayne, Brigadier-General, father born in Ire
land. James CUnton, Brigadier-General, son of Charles
Chnton who was born in County Longford, Ireland.
James Moore, Brigadier-General, descendant of Roger
O'More, a leader of the Irish Rebellion of 1641.
Joseph Reed, Brigadier-General, father born in Ireland.
[99]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
John Nixon, Brigadier-General, son of Richard Nixon,
of County Wexford, Ireland.
WilUam Irvine, Brigadier-General, born in Enniskillen,
County Fermanagh, Ireland.
Edward Hand, Brigadier-General, born in Clyduff,
King's County, Ireland.
Richard Butler, Brigadier-General, born in the parish
of St. Bride's, DubUn.
Walter Stewart, Brevet Brigadier-General, born in Ire
land. Stephen Moylan, Brevet Brigadier-General, and Chief
of Cavalry, born in Cork, Ireland.
James Cochran, Surgeon-General, parents born in Ire
land.

We have already referred to the Irishmen in the French
service. When the French Government decided to send
aid to the Colonies, among the first troops sent were the
Dillon, Berwick, Roche-Fermoy, and Walsh regiments of
the Irish Brigade, composed exclusively of Irishmen; and
among the French officers in the Continental Army whose
names appear in the "Historical Register of the Officers of
the Continental Army" were the foUowing who bore
distinctively Irish names;
Jacques Philippe D'Arcy, Captain, died at Savannah, son
of Patrick D'Arcy, who was born in Galway, Ireland,
and was appointed mar6chal-de-champ in|France,
1770.
Captain Commandant O'Neill, wounded at Savannah.
(He represented the fifth generation of those who had
served the King of France in the Dillon Regiment,
since the passage of Irishmen into France.)
Arthur Dillon (Count de DUlon), Colonel, March, 1772, in
France. [100]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
Barthelemy Dillon, Lieutenant-Colonel, bom in Ireland,
1729.
Denis d'Hubart Du Barry, Captain, 1776.
Count de Dune (name also given as O'Dunn), "took part
in all engagements of the. campaign."
Isidore Lj-nch, Captain in DiUon Regiment.
Captain Macdonnal, of second DiUon Regiment.
Captain Mullens, Lieutenant in the Regiment de Berwick.
Lieutenant de la Roche Negley, wounded at Savannah.
Lieutenant O'FarreU, of the DiUon Regiment, wounded
at Savannah.
Jacques O'Moran, Major, born in Ireland.
Jacques Shee, Captain, born in Ireland.
Georges Taafe, Lieutenant, killed at Savannah, 1779, born
in Ireland.
Ferdinand O'Neill, Captain of Lee's Battalion of Light
Dragoons, Pulasld Legion.

The very highest estimate of the patriotic portion of the
population of the colonies places it at two-thirds, or about
1,400,000, of the white inhabitants. A. R. Fisher, in his
"True History of the American Revolution," says: "If
there were really 1,400,000 enthusiastic patriots, they
would surely have furnished more than the 11,000 men
which Washington usually had. Even in their direst need
and by the greatest urging and compulsion of all the
patriotic leaders by offering bounties, gifts of land, and by
drafting, they could never get quite 25,000 aU told."
While the New Englanders were active in the protection
of their ovim homes and in opposing the stamp tax and
duties which affected their own pockets, they were rather
lukewarm in their support of the principle that America
was to be absolutely free and independent of England,
[101]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
and while the first armed resistance to British authority
occurred on New England soil, the siege of Boston, 1775,
was the last struggle between the Continental Army and
English troops in New England, and King PhiUp's Indian
War of 1675 was "far more grievous to New England than
the Revolution."* AU the colonies furnished a large
number of miUtia, who were more or less "home guards,"
but most of the real fighting was done by the Continental
Line, of which a large proportion were men of the Irish
race. "One of the offences charged upon the Irish, and
amongst the many pretexts for refusing redress to the
Catholics of Ireland, was that sixteen thousand of them
fought on the side of America."! It -would be difficult to
give exact figures as to the number of Irish that fought
on the side of America, for, apart from the natives of Ire
land who came to America in such large numbers before
and during the Revolution, there were thousands of native
Americans who were of Irish descent. Furthermore, if
there were 16,000 Irish CathoUcs in the American army,
there was an equal or greater number of Irish Presbyterians
and EpiscopaUans. That the Irish were loyal to the
American cause, and that they helped to establish the
new nation are facts which, while ignored in the school
histories, are supported by the testimony of men who Uved
at a time when "Anglophobia" had not begun to affect the
thoughts of American writers. In December, 1781, Gen
eral George Washington was elected an ''adopted" mem
ber of the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick,
of Philadelphia, and in his letter of acceptance to the
* Drake, "History of Boston."
t From an address made in New York, 1809, by William J.
MacNevin. [102]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
President of the Society he said: " I accept with singular
pleasure the ensign of so worthy a fraternity as that of
the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick — a society distinguished
for the firm adherence of its members to the glorious cause
in which we are embarked." But this is not all, for in an
address to the Catholics of the United States (most of
whom were Irish), in 1790, President Washington said:
"I hope ever to see America amongst the foremost nations
in examples of justice and UberaUty, and I presume that
your fellow citizens will not forget the patriotic part which
you took in the accomplishment of their revolution and in
the establishment of their government,"

The most conclusive evidence of the prominence of the
Irish race in the accomplishment of America's independ
ence is to be found in the abundance of Irish names in
the lists of soldiers of the Revolutionary War. As the
official lists do not contain nationaUty of soldiers, it would
be impossible to judge by names alone those who were of
Irish blood, but bearing in mind the fact that those who
bore real Irish names constituted only a small percentage
of the number who were actually of Irish birth or descent,
the Usts to follow will serve to indicate the large number
of men of Irish blood that served in the Revolutionary
Army. Irish names on rolls of the Minutemen of Lexington
and Concord:
Daniel Bagley John Bradlee
John Barrett WilUam Bradley
John Boyd Joseph Burke
Daniel Bradley Richard Burke
[103]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE

Joseph Carroll
Coruehus Cochran
William Cochran
Henry Cogen
John Colhns
Jeremiah Collins
Daniel CoUins
Wilham Connors
John Crehore
Timothy Crehore
William Crehore
James Dempsey
PhiUp Donehue
Benjamin Donnell
James Donnell
Joseph Donnell
John Donnelly
John Downing
Andrew Dunigan
John Fadden
Thomas Fanning
WilUam Fanning
John Farley
Michael Farley
John Fay
Thomas Fay
Timothy Fay
WilUam Fay
John Flood
Wilham Flood
John Foley
Matthew GiUigen
Richard Gilpatrick
James Gleeson
John Gleeson
Thomas Gleason
John Golden
Joseph Golden

James Gooly
John Grace
Daniel GriflBn
Joseph Griffin
John Hacket
Joseph Hacket
Wait Burke
Daniel Carey
Joseph Carey
Peter Carey
Wilham Carey
Silas Carty
John CarroU
Patrick CarreU
Jonathan Carroll
Joel Hogan
John Haley
Thomas Haley
WilUam Haley
John Healy
John HoUand
John Hugh
David KeUy
George KeUy
John KeUy
Patrick Kelly
Peter Kelly
Richard KeUy
Stephen Kelly
Samuel KeUy
James Keimy
David Kenny
John Kenny
Nathaniel Kenny
Thomas Kenny
WilUam Kenny
Jeremiah Kinney
Daniel Lary

[104]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE

Samuel Lauchlin
James Logan
Joseph McAnneU
Thomas McBride
John McCarty
Andrew McCausland
John McCuUin
Michael McDonneU
James McFadden
Ebenezer McFarley
Thomas McFarley
Henry McDonegal
John McGrah
Daniel McGuire
Patrick McKeen
James McKenny
Joseph McKenny
John McLeary
David McLeary
John McMuUen
Thomas McMuUen
John Mack
John Madden
Daniel Mahon
James MaUone
John Manning
Robert Manning

Samuel Manning
Thomas Maiming
Timothy Manning
WilUam Manning
James Magoone
John Mehoney
Daniel MuUikin
Ebenezer MulUkin
John Murphy
Patrick Newjent
Patrick O'Brien
Richard O'Brien
Daniel Shay
John Shea
Edward Tappan
Michael Tappan
John Walsh
Joseph Walsh
Benjamin Walsh
Edward Welsh
John Welsh
Joseph Welsh
Samuel Welsh
Thomas Welsh
Walter Welsh
William Welsh

Irish names of American officers and soldiers at the
Battle of Bunker HiU:

Colonel John Nixon
Major Andrew McClary
Captain Samuel Dunn
Captain Timothy Carey
Captain Michael Gleason
Captain Nathaniel Healy
Captain Jeremiah Gilman

Captain Daniel Gallusha
Captain John Ford
Lieut. Charles Dougherty
Lieut. Joseph Welsh
Lieut. Daniel Collins
James Barry
John Barry
[105]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE

Joseph Barry
John Bryan
John Bogan
WilUam Bogan
Wait Burk
TiUy Burk
Josiah Burk
Edward Burk
Thomas Burk
Richard Burk
Joseph Burne
Thomas Burn
WilUam Connor
John Connor
David Cormor
Edward Connor
James Connor
John Coner
John Cronyn
Isaac Collins
Stephen Collins
Demerel ColUns
Lemuel ColUns
Richard ColUns
Henry Collins
Daniel ColUns
Ambrose ColUns
David ColUns
Peter Collins
John Collins
Aaron Carey
Luther Carey
Caleb Carey
Arthur Carey
Josiah Carey
Jesse Carey
Joshua Carey
John Coy

Daniel Callahan
Robert CaUaghan
Joseph Cavenaugh
Josiah Cummings
John Cummings
Charles Casity
Arthur CoUamore
Samuel Carr
David Coye
Ambrose Craggin
Edward Casey
Michael Clary
Jeremiah Cady
Ebenezer Craggin
Daniel Carmical
WUUam CarraU
James CarraU
WilUam Casey
Laurence Carrol
John Connelly
Francis Crowley
Hugh CargiU
John Carel
Caleb Comings
John Calahan
WiUiam Dougherty
Thomas Dougherty
WiUiam Dunn (2)
John Dougherty
John Dun
James Dunn
James DonneU
Jotham DonneU
Thomas Doyle
Patrick Doyle
Charles Doroughty
John Dougharty
EUjah Doyle

[106]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE

Edward Finiken
John Flyn
John Foy
Thomas Finn
Edward Fogarty
David FUng
James Fitzgerald
John Foye
Jacob Flyn
John Fitchjeril
Kendel Farley
Matthew GilUgan
John Gleason
WilUam Gihnan
WilUam Gilmore
Joseph Griffin
Richard Gilpatrick
Joshua GUpatrick
John Gihnor
Joseph Gleason
Thomas Gleason
Daniel Griffin
Joseph Griffin
Nathaniel Griffin
Daniel Leary
WUUam Lumehan
Bartholomew Lynch
John Laughton
John McCartney
John McCoy
Thomas McLaughlin
Thomas McCuUough
George McCleary
Robert McCleary
Peter McGee
Terrance McMahon
James McCormick
Daniel McNamara

John McDonald
Joseph McDonnell
Joseph McLalUn
WilUam McKenny
John McCuUough
John McGrath
John McLarty
Hugh McCarthy
James McGraw
WUliam McCleary
Michael McDonald
Robert McCormick
James MeCorrer
Morris McCleary
WilUam McClure
John McDonald
John McGuire
James McFadden
Lawrence McLaughlin
David McElroy
James McCoy
James McCuUough
Daniel McCarthy
Daniel Maguire
John Morrison
Israel Murphy
Thomas Mahoney
WilUam Murphy
Daniel Morrison
James MilUken
Daniel Moore
Daniel Maley
Hugh Morrison
James MUUken
Joseph Manning
Peter Martin
Richard Murphy
Edward Madden

[107]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE

Daniel Murphy
John Manning
John Mitchel
John Madden
Michael Minihan
Edward Manning
Patrick Mahoney
John Noonan
John O'Connor
Dennis O'Brien
Bryant Ryan
CorneUus Ryan
John Ryan
Thomas Ryan
Dennis Ryan
James Ryan
Augustus Ryan
Martin Rourke
Daniel Rioden
Timothy Roach
Thomas Roach
James Richey
Fred Roach
John Rannor
John Rickey
John Savage
Jeremiah Scanlon
John SulUvan
Timothy SulUvan
OUver SulUvan
Ebenezer SuUivan

Patrick Shea
Richard Shea
James Shay
Daniel Shay
John Shay
John Shield
John Shanahan
Patrick ScandaUn
Thomas Savage
Patrick Tracey
Thomas Tobin
Mathew Tobin
Peter Welch
James Welch
Jonas Welch
SUas Welch
John WoUey
Joseph Welch
Walter Welch
Isaach Welch
Richard Welch
Richard Welch
John Welch
Mathias Welch
Benjamin Welch
John Welch
WilUam Welch
WilUam Welch
Edmund Welch
Joseph Welch
WUUam Welch

If, as Senator Lodge says, the inhabitants of Massachu
setts at the period of the Revolution "were almost wholly
of pure English descent," that may account for the fact
that Massachusetts furnished more Tories during the
[108]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
Revolution than any other province; but there were evi
dently enough Irish ready to bear arms in the patriot
cause, as the muster rolls of Massachusetts soldiers and
sailors of the Revolution clearly prove. In the Usts
pubUshed by the State of Massachusetts the name O'Brien
under its various forms occurs 369 times; O'Neill, 48
times; Ryan and Rion, 92 times; SulUvan, 47; Murphy
andMorfey, 80; Higgins, 140; Gleason, 140; McCarthy,
42; Maloney, 54; Larkin, 69. Altogether there are more
than 2000 names of Irish origin — McSweeneys, O'Donnells,
Mahoneys, McGuires, McMahons, Connors, Dalys, Dona
hues, Donovans, Kennedys, Kellys, Kenneys, Learys, etc.,
by the hundreds, to say nothing of thousands of men of
Irish nationality who bore EngUsh and Scotch-sounding
names.

The following letter, written by no less an authority on
Pennsylvania history than William H. Egle, State Libra
rian to the late Dr. Charles J. Stille, which the latter
printed in his "Anthony Wayne and the Pennsylvania
Line, " illustrates the effort made by historians to detract
from the credit due to the Irish for their part in the
Revolution : State Library of Pennsylvania,
Harrisburg, Pa., April 11, 1892.
Charies J. StiUe, LL.D.,
Philadelphia.
My dear Sir:
In reply to your inquiry of 9th April, permit me to state
that Mr. Bancroft and other writers were entirely wrong
in their statements as to the nationality of the soldiers of
[109]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
Wayne's Division. With the exception of the Scotch-
Irish who formed about two-thirds of his force, the re
mainder were almost entirely of German parentage. In
the French and Indian War the emigrants from the
Province of Ulster were chiefly selected, while those of
pure Irish descent or migration were rejected on the
ground that they were Roman Catholics and that they
would not be loyal to the Province when opposed by the
French troops. If you so desire, when the opportune
time arrives, I might amplify what I have here alluded
to. The Irish were not in it, although all immigrants
from Ireland were thus claimed. The facts are, few Irish
came until after the War of the Revolution. I doubt if
there were 300 persons of Irish birth (Roman CathoUc
and Celtic) in the war from Pennsylvania.
Yours with respect,
(Signed) William H. Egle.
Is there such a thing as a "pure Irish Celt"? Is it not
true that hundreds of Roman Catholic Irish families in
the bog lands of the south and west of Ireland, with names
like Smith, Johnson, Fleming, Nash, Molyneaux, Dever-
eaux, Lestrange, DeCourcey, Montgomery, etc., have as
much Celtic blood in them as the McGuires, McLaughlins,
McMuUens, O'Briens, and O'Reillys, with whom they have
intermarried for centuries? On the other hand, are the
Maguires, Bryans, Ryans, Reillys, Kennedys, Sweeneys,
etc., of the Province of Ulster any less Celtic Irish be
cause they live in Ulster and are Protestants? Is Thomas
Flaherty, Presbyterian clergyman, "Scotch-Irish" and
Patrick O'Flaherty, ditch digger, "Celtic-Irish" because
he is a Roman Catholic? Why should Edward Hand,
[UO]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
Brigadier General in the Revolutionary army, born in
Ireland, a Protestant, be classed as "Scotch-Irish," and
Patrick Hand, private in the Third Pennsylvania Conti
nental Regiment, a Roman Catholic, simply as "Irish"?
What is the racial difference between Dennis McKnight,
of the County Mayo, and David Knight, of the County
Antrim, if Dennis's mother's maiden name was Knox and
David's mother's maiden name was Maguire? Which
one is "Scotch-Irish"?
In the foregoing letter Dr. Egle makes the following
assertions: 1. That few Irish came to America until after the
Revolution.
2. That in the French and Indian War the immigrants
from Ulster were chiefly selected, while those of
"pure Irish descent or migration" were rejected.
3. He doubts if there were 300 persons of Irish birth
(Roman Catholic and Celtic) in the war from
Pennsylvania.
4. That two-thirds of the soldiers of Wayne's Division
(the Pennsylvania Line) were "Scotch-Irish."
In previous chapters of this work we have shown that
the Irish came to America in very large numbers before
the Revolution. The three remaining statements are
refuted by material edited and published under the direc
tion of Dr. Egle himself while State Librarian. The
Pennsylvania Archives, notably Vols. I, II, Second Series,
edited by Dr. WilUam H. Egle and John B. Linn, contain
lists of Pennsylvaiua soldiers in the Colonial wars and the
Revolutionary War. The nationality of soldiers is, with
few exceptions, not stated, but on pages 490 to 501 of
8 [111]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE

Vol. II, 2d Series, Penna. Archives, are Usts of the soldiers
in four companies of Provincial Militia, in which, for
tunately, the country of birth is in most instances given.
The muster rolls are dated August and September, 1746,
while the French and Indian War was in progress. As
the roll of the first company includes birthplaces of only
half the members, we shall consider the other three, com
manded by Capt. WilUam Trent, Capt. Samuel Shannon,
and Capt. Samuel Perry. These three companies con
tained 324 men, country of birth of 301 being mentioned.
Of the latter, 167 whose names are printed below were
born in Ireland. An examination of these names will
enable the reader to judge how ridiculous the claim is that
the real Irish were excluded from the ranks during the
French and Indian War:

Adams, Emanuel
Almond, Thomas
Armsbie, Luke
Armstrong, Joseph
Baem, David
Bamett, James
Barr, Thomas
Bayman, Nathaniel
Black, Thomas
Boyd, John
Boyle, James
Brennan, Edward
Brennan, James
Burn, Edward
Bums, Edward
Bums, John
Byrn, Charles
Caldwell, Robert
Carney, Daniel
Carr, George

CarroU, John
Carson, Robert
Carty, Thomas
Cayton, Edward
Cooley, WiUiam
Corbet, John
ComealUe, CorneUus
Coyle, Charles
Crowley, Bartholomew
Crowley, James
Davis, Valentine
Davis, Edward
Dick, Johu
Dennahew, Florence
Dermott, Matthew
DonneUy, John
DonaUy, FeUx
Donohue, Timothy
Dunbar, John
Eakin, Michael

[1121

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE

Ensley, John
Fay, Matthew
Frazier, Andrew
Fitzpatrick, Dennis
Flannigan, George
Flood, John
Fox, Thomas
Futhey, Henry
Gallagher, Felix
Gallagher, Thomas
GiUespie, Abel
GaUagher, Henry
GoodfeUow, Daniel
Gethins, Daniel
Grace, WiUiam
Grant, John
HaU, Jonas
Hammon, John
Harkins, James
Harris, James
Henry, Henry
Holland, Charles
Hamilton, James
Huston, WUUam
Johnston, James
Jones, Robert
Kain, John
Kain, MUes
KeUy, Peter
Kelly, Daniel
Kennedy, Hugh
Lappin, Paul
Lastly, Barnabas
Larey, John
Laverty, Patrick
Lee, James
Lee, Robert
Lee, Thomas

Lindon, Patrick
Lindsey, Walter
Lome, Charles
McAfee, Robert
McCabe, Alexander
McCalla, Charles
McClean, John
McDaniel, Dennis
McGarvey, James
McGuire, Nicholas
McKee, Andrew
McCarty, Bartholomew
McCarty, CorneUus
McCarty, John
McCloskey, Henry
McCord, WUUam
McCormick, Thomas
McDonald, Minass
McGaughy, John
McGaughy, WilUam
McGee, Thomas
McGoun, Patrick
McGuire, PhiUp
Mcllvaine, Joseph
McKee, WUliam
McKinney, Alex.
McKinny, James
McLees, Archibald
McLees, James
McMahon, Redmond
McManus, James
McPeak, James
Mahan, Owen
Malvain, WiUiam
Mangan, Owen
Martin, Patrick
Matthews, George
Merchant, William

[113]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE

Meredith, Philip
Miller, Henry
Mooney, Michael
Mooney, Patrick
Morrison, James
Murphy, Michael
Murphy, Patrick
Murphy, Thomas
Murphy, Archibald
Neal, John
Nicholas, David
Neigle, James
Newman, Edward
O'Donnelly, Arthur
O'DonneU, Michael
O'Neale, Arthur
Parker, Anthony
Priscott, James
Raredon, Michael
R«a, Thomas
Read, John
Reynolds, Edward
Reynolds, Patrick
Richardson, WilUam
Rodgers, James
Robertson, WilUam

Runnell, Peter
RusseU, Nicholas
Savage, Patrick
Scott, Valentine
Semple, WiUiam
Shea, Timothy
ShortaU, John
ShortaU, OUver
Sim, John
Simpson, James
Slevan, John
Smith, James
Stevenson, James
SutUff, Michael
Snapes, Paul
SulUvan, Daniel
Swaney, Thomas
Tomey, John
Tay, Daniel
Tulton, WiUiam
Turner, Samuel
Wasson, Robert
Weir, Owen
Wilson, Thomas
Yorgen, Dennis

The list of soldiers in Colonel Washington's Regi
ment of Virginia Militia, engaged in the French and Indian
War, printed at end of the chapter on "The Irish in Other
Provinces," is additional evidence that the "pure Irish"
were not rejected during the French and Indian War.
But even if it were true that the emigrants were mainly
from Ulster, the following Ust of soldiers born in Ireland,
taken from a "Return of a FuU Company enUsted for the
Campaign in the Lower Counties, by Capt. McClughan,
[114]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
delivered Wednesday, the 17th May, 1758," printed on
pp. 570-73, Vol. II, 2d S. Pa., in which the County of birth
is given, will show that the Irish Irish were well repre
sented among the Ulster emigrants.
Black, George, from Armagh, Ulster
ConneUy, Bryan, from Monaghan, Ulster
Crawford, John, Donegal, Ulster
Dougherty, John, Donegal
Dougherty, Owen, Donegal
Dougherty, Patrick, Donegal
Dunbar, John, Tyrone, Ulster
Dunfee, Michael, Wexford
Fitzsimmons, John, Dublin
Henderson, James, Antrim, Ulster
Houston, Alexander, "Toboyne"
Innis, Timothy, Kildare
Jones, Christopher, West Meath
Kelley, John, Down, Ulster
Kilpatrick, Patrick, "Faughboyne"
McAnulty, John, Londonderry
McClearn, James, Londonderry
McClelan, James, Antrim
McGiU, Patrick, "Kilmore"
Martin, Hugh, Tyrone, Ulster
Mitchell, Joseph, Down, Ulster
MuUan, Daniel, Dunluce, Ulster
Murrain, John, Dublin
Sheerman, James, Dublin
Sloan, John, Tyrone
Stragan, John, Londonderry
Whellan, Luke, Waterford [115]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
Vol. I (10), Second Series, Pennsylvania Archives,
contains lists of names of soldiers in the Pennsylvania
regiments of the Continental Line in the Revolution.
The regiments are numbered First to Thirteenth in
clusive, and to show the falsity of Dr. Egle's statements
that not more than 300 Irish were in the war from Penn
sylvania, we give the following list of 1000 distinctively
Irish names taken from the Usts of soldiers in only the
first six regiments :

First Pennsylvania Regiment

Ambrose, Patrick
Barney, Nicholas
Bradley, Robert
Bums, WiUiam
Bryan, Jacob
Blake, Edward
Blake, Michael
Blakenny, John
Bleak, Michael
Bough, John
Boughter, Martin
Boyle, James
Boyles, Charles
Bradley, James
Brady, Michael
Branahan, George
Burke, Edmund
Burns, John
Burns, Lawrence
Burns, Michael
Butler, Patrick
Cavanagh, John
Calahan, Daniel
Callen, Edward
Camahan, WilUam

Carney, Barnabas
CarroU, James
Cary, Aiken
Casey, Roger
Cavenaugh, Edward
Cavenaugh, Patrick
Cochran, George
Colgon, Barnabas
CoUier, Richard
ColUns, John
ColUns, Thomas
Coneway, James
Condon, Peter
ConneUy, Patrick
Connel, Terrence
Conner, Charles
Conner, John
Cooley, James
Cooney, John
Coyle, Alexander
Cross, Patrick
Crowley, Lawrence
Crowly, Miles
Cummings, Edward
Curley, Barnabas
[116]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE

Curry, James
Curry, Samuel
Curry, Samuel
Curry, WilUam
Donlin, WilUam
Dailey, Joseph
DaUey, WiUiam
Dalton, Richard
Delany, Martin
Delany, Murdoch
Dempsey, Charles
Dempsey, Sampson
Dempsey, Timothy
Devinney, John
DonneU, John
Donahoo, Timothy
Donovan, John
Donovan, Timothy
Doran, James
Dorsey, Matthew
Dougherty, Daniel
Dougherty, James, Jr.
Dougherty, Matthew
Downing, Jeremiah
Dowther, John
Doyle, John
Doyle, Morris
Doyle, Samuel
Dugan, Charles
Dunahoo, Patrick
Dunn, John
Dwier, CorneUus
Early, Michael
Ermis, Francis
Enos, Francis
Farrall, Patrick
Feagan, James
Feagan, WilUam

Fennell, Patrick
FerroU, Michael
Finley, Robert
Finnegan, Christopher
Finney, Roger
Fitzpatrick, WiUiam
Fleming, Hugh
Fowler, Patrick
Grimes, James
Garvey, John
Gowen, Henry
Gehan, Peter
Gibbon, James
Golding, WUUam
Gordon, WilUam
Gorman, Laurence
Gorman, John
Gorman, Samuel
Gowen, Francis
Grimes, John
Hagan, Peter
Haggerty, Archibald
Hagey, Henry
Haley, Michael
Hanley, Hugh
Hanlon, Marmaduke
Heagey, Henry
Heaney, Henry
Hening, Patrick
Heron, Patrick
Higgins, James
Hogan, Sylvester
Kelly, John
Kinkaid, Joseph
Kinkaid, Andrew
Kain, John
Kain, Michael
Keam, Luke

[117]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE

Keary, Arthur
Keaton, John
Keaton, Thomas
Keenan, Lawrence
Keenon, John
Keenon, Roger
KeUy, Alexander
Kelly, Edward
KeUy, Hugh
KeUy, James
Kelly, John
KeUy, KilUan
Kelly, Patrick
KeUy, Thomas
Kelly, Timothy
Kempsey, Patrick
Kennaghan, Richard
Kennedy, Denis
Kennedy, Richard
Kennedy, Thomas
Kinney, Michael
Knight, John
Lochery, Michael
Lafferty, Edward
Leaman, Michael
Leamy, James
Leonard, John
Leonard, Patrick*
Leonard, Richard
Leonard, Roger
Linn, John
Linn, William

Lynch, John
Lyons, Edward
Lyons, Moses
McCartney, John
McCartney, Henry
McCartney, James
McBride, Peter
McCann, Daniel
McCarroU, John
McCartney, FeUx
McCarter, David
McCarty, John
McCasUn, Patrick
McCloskey, John
McCloskey, NeiU
McCloskey, WiUiam
McClurghan, Samuel
McConneU, Charles
McConneU, CorneUus
McConneU, WiUiam
McCord, Isaiah
McCord, Thomas
McCormick, John
McCormick, Hugh
McCormick, Patrick
McCormick, WilUam
McCortley, Michael
McCoy, Michael
McCoy, Rory
McCoy, William
McCreedy, James
McCrossan, Patrick

* Born in Ireland, 1740; joined First Rifles, and served in Proc
ter's ArtiUery at Bunker Hill, Long Island, White Plains, Trenton,
Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown, Stony Point. Served in
Captain Ziegler's company at Block House, where he carried off
Lieut. David Hammond, who was badly wounded. Discharged
at Pittsburgh, 1783. Served also under Harmar, St. Clair, and
Wayne, 1791-96. [118]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE

McCuUom, John
McCune, James
McCuUough, John
McDonald, Francis
McDonald, John
McDonald, Michael
McDonald, Robert
McDonald, WUUam
McDonald, John
McDonald, Alexander
McDonnagh, James
McDowell, Andrew
McElhone, Isaac
McEnnaUy, Matthew
McFatridge, Daniel
McGakey, Andrew
McGaw, Patrick
McGee, Robert
McGinnis, Daniel
McGinnis, Robert
McGinness, Owen
McGlaughlin, FeUx
McGlaughUn, Samuel
McGowen, John
McGraw, John
McGuire, Barney
McGuire, John
McGehegan, George
McHaffy, James
McHose, Isaac
Mclntire, John
McKeen, Edward
(McKelvey, McKinleys, Mc-
Kenzies, etc., etc., evidently
Scotch, omitted)
McKnight, Dennis
McMahon, John
McManus, John

McMuUan, Daniel
McMuUan, Michael
McMuUen, John
McNair, John
McNorton, Michael
McOnaUy, Michael
McPike, Richard
McSwine, George
McMurray, WilUam
McMurtrie, John
Madden, Edward
Madden, Michael
Madden, Thomas
Magee, James
Magrath, Thomas
Mahoney, James
Mahoney, Arthur
Mahoney, WilUam
Maloney, John
Maloney, WilUam
(Martins omitted)
Means, Thomas
MilUgan, James
MilUgan, Hugh
Morney, Henry
(Moores omitted)
Moriarty, Dennis
(Morgans omitted)
MulhoUan, Hugh
Mullen, John
Mullen, Patrick
Mullen, WilUam
Mulvany, Patrick
Murphy, Archibald
Murphy, Dennis
Murphy, James
Murphy, Peter
Murphy, PhiUp

11191

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE

Murphy, Timothy
Murphy, WiUiam
Murray, Daniel
Murray, Francis
Murray, Jeremiah
Murray, John
Murray, Patrick
Murray, Thomas
Murray, WiUiam
Neill, James
Norton, Joseph
Norton, Henry
Norton, Patrick
O'Bryan, Daniel
O'Bryan, Dennis
O'Bryan, Martin
O'Bryan, WiUiam
O'Neal, Edward
O'Neal, James
O'Neal, John
O'Neal, Richard
Phelan, Peter
Power, John
Powers, Robert
Quigley, James
Quinn, Francis
Quinn, Michael
Quinn, Patrick

Roark, Andrew
Ryan, John
Redman, Michael
Redman, John
ReUey, Bernard
ReUey, Christopher
Reiley, Job
Reiley, John
(Reynolds omitted)
Riley, Christian
Rowan, John
Rudy, Barney
Rudy, Patrick
Ryon, Patrick
Sweeney, James
Shehan, Thomas
Shehan, Daniel
Sloane, Lawrence
SulUvan, Murty
SuUivan, Patrick
Sweeney, Hugh
Taggart, Dennis
Temay, Matthew
Welsh, James
Welsh, John
Welsh, Michael
Welsh, Thomas

Seconp Pennsylvania Regiment

Burns, Samuel
Boyd, Abraham
Boyle, PhiUp
Bradley, Hugh
Brady, Michael
Brandon, Nathaniel
Brannon, James

Brannon, John
Brogan, Michael
Bryan, WiUiam
Burke, Alexander
Burns, Carberry
Calalan, Patrick
Callagan, John

[120]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE

Carney, Barney
Casey, Richard
Cassaday, Patrick
Cochran, John
ColUns, John
ColUns, Joseph
Collins, Thomas
ColUns, Patrick
Connely, James
Connor, Matthew
Cooley, Edward
Cooney, James
Cowan, Charles
Cross, Patrick
Crossan, John
Crowley, David
CuUen, Thomas
Cummings, James
Dailey, Joseph
Devine, James
Duggan, Patrick
Deady, Patrick
Derry, Michael
Donahoo, John
Donovan, James
Dougherty, John
Dougherty, James
Dungan, Thomas
Dunmore, Paul
Dwire, CorneUus
Eagan, John
Fagan, Garrett
Fagge, Patrick
Fagony, James
Faugh, Michael
(Finleys omitted)
Fitzgerald, Edward
Fitzgerald, John

Flanagan, Timothy
GaUigher, Francis
Gillespie, George
Gordon, Daniel
Gordon, John
Griffin, David
Hurley, John
Hagan, Peter
Hagerthy, Dennis
Hale, John
Haley, Morris
Hanney, Thomas
Harlan, John
Jennings, Thomas
Kerney, Barnet
Kennedy, Thomas
Kennedy, Robert
KaUahan, John
Keaton, John
Keating, Ignatius
Keating, John
Keele, Francis
Keene, Francis
Keenan, Roger
KeUy, James
Kelly, John
KeUy, Matthew
Kelly, Patrick
Kempsey, Patrick
Kennard, Joseph
Kennedy, Andrew
Kennedy, Samuel
Kenny, Neal
Kiught, Michael
Kough, Ludwig
Kusick, John
Lafferty, Daniel
Larkins, David

[121]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE

Lary, Daniel
Leary, Daniel
Lough, George
McCullan, John
McDonald, WilUam
McKilloh, Robert
McMurdy, John
McPike. James
MulhoUon, Hugh
Murphy, Archibald
McLaughlin, Robert
McCarty, Daniel
Murray, WilUam
McAfee, NeU
McCahan, Richard
MeCaUa, Daniel
McCarty, Richard
McCastleton, Samuel
McCay, Daniel
McChord, Isaiah
McCloskey, John
McCoUum, John
McConneU, WilUam
McCormick, John
McCormick, WilUam
McCourt, John
McCowen, John
McCue, Arthur
McDoweU, WUUam
McEhoy, John
McElvaine, John
McElvany, Patrick
McFatridge, Daniel
McGahan, John
McGahy, Andrew
McGaughin, Michael
McGeary, Neal
McGilton, WilUam

McGinnis, Roger
McGrath, WUUam
McGraw, John
McGraw, WiUiam
Mclntire, Daniel
Mclntire, WilUam
McKiUin, Edward
McKinney, John
McKinsey, John
McMahon, Richard
McManus, Hugh
McQuead, John
McQuiUin, James
McQuiUion, Robert
McVeagh, Patrick
McVey, Daniel
Madden, Thomas
Magee, Thomas
Mahon, John
Malony, John
Maloy, James
(Martins omitted)
Mellen, John
(Morrisons omitted)
Moyne, John
MuUen, John
MuUoney, John
Mulvany, Patrick
Murphy, Andrew
Murphy, Christian
Murphy, John
Murphy, PhiUp
(Murrays omitted)
Neill, James
NeiU, John
Norton, John
Norton, Henry
O'Brien, Daniel

:i22]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE

O'Bryan, Martin
O'Bryan, Sylvester
O'Bryan, WiUiam
O'Foy, Patrick
O'Neal, Christopher
O'Neal, Edward
O'Neal, James
Grand, Patrick
Quigley, Edward
Reagan, James
Reagan, Michael
Reardon, Jeremiah
Record, Patrick
Redman, John
Redman, Michael

Reily, Job
Ryan, James
Sloan, John
(Shaw, Patrick)
Shea, Daniel
SulUvan, James
SulUvan, Michael
SulUvan, Patrick
SlUUvan, Thomas
SulUvan, WilUam
Tague, Patrick
Terney, Matthew
Thornton, James
Whelin, WiUiam

Third Pennsylvania Regiment

Boyd, Thomas
(Brown, Patrick)
Barrett, WUUam
Boyd, Thomas
Boyle, Neal
Boylea, Charles
Bradley, Thomas
Brady, Thomas
Brannon, John
Bryan, WUUam
Bryan, Patrick
Burk, John
Bums, James
Bums, Timothy
Bums, WilUam
CoUings, Thomas
ColUns, Samuel
Cain, John
CaUigan, John
CaUigan, WilUam

Carahay, Michael
Cochran, Blaney
Collier, Richard
Collins, David
Collins, Richard
ColUns, WiUiam
Connell, Terrence
Conner, Patrick
Conroy, James
Conway, Michael
Cooley, WUUam
Courtney, CorneUus
Courtney, William
Coyle, Mark
Coyle, Robert
Craven, John
Cummings, Edward
Curley, Barney
Cusick, John
Doyle 

[123]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE

Dougherty, George
Dagley, James
Dagon, WilUam
Dougherty, WiUiam
Delaney, Daniel
Dempsey, Charles
Dennison, John
Donely, WilUam
Donohoo, Patrick
Donavan, John
Doody, James
Dorman, William
Doyle, Henry
Doyle, Samuel
Doud, Michael
Dougherty, John
DowUng, Lambert
Downey, Patrick
Druery, Michael
Dugg, James
Dunivan, John
Dunleavy, Anthony
Ferall, Patrick
Fitzsimmons, PhiUp
Ford, Charles
Fagan, Garrett
Pagan, James
Fagan, Michael
Farren, Francis
FarroU, Patrick
Fitzgerald, Edward
Fitzgerald, John
Fitzgibbon, James
Fleming, Henry
FUnn, James
Ford, John
Gowen, Hugh
Gordon, John

Gordon, WilUam
Gordon, Abraham
GaUagher, Daniel
Gallagher, James
Gibson, Thomas
GilUng, Daniel
Gordon, Joseph
Hagerty, James
(Hand, Dominic)
(Hand, Patrick)
Hanlin, Patrick
Hannon, John
Hartney, Patrick
Herron, Patrick
Houghey, Patrick
Huggins, John
Hughes, James
Hughes, WilUam
Hurley, James
(Jennings omitted)
Joyce, Michael
KeUy 
Kennedy 
KUpatrick, WiUiam
Kennedy, Robert
Kating, Ignatius
Keenan, Nicholas
Kelly, George
KeUy, Thomas
(Kerr, Michael)
Kincaid, John
Kusick, John
Lafferty, Daniel
Lavery, John
Leary, Daniel
(Leland, Patrick)
Lynch, Lawrence
McMeehan, John

[124]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE

McLaughUn 
McFaddin, Angus
Mack, Peter
McFaddin, Joseph
McAnarmey, Patrick
McAnnelly, James
McAnneUy, Patrick
McCarr, John
McCartney, Dennis
McCaspy, John
McClarren, Thomas
McCloskey, CorneUus
McClosky, John
McClung, WiUiam
McConnel, James
McCormick, Hugh
McCormick, Timothy
McCoy, Nicholas
McCoy, WUUam
McCummings, John
McCune, WilUam
McDermott, John
McDonald, Charles
McDonald, Godfrey
McDonald, John
McDonald, Patrick
McDonald, WilUam
McDoweU, John
McElhone, WilUam
McEU-oy, John
McEntire, Thomas
McFatridge, Daniel
McGahy, WilUam

McCary, Neal
McGeary, Hugh
McGinnis, Daniel
McGinnis, John
McGinnis, John
McGowan, WUUam
McGuighan, Peter
Mcllgar, John
Mclntire, Daniel
Mclntire, WUliam
McKann, Charles
McKinney, John
McKnight, David
McLaughlin, George
McManus, John
McMath, Daniel
McMichael, James
McMichael, John
McMuUen, John*
McMuUen, WUUam
McQuin, Daniel
Mahan, Arthur
Malone, Richard
Malony, Archibald
Malony, Richard
(Martins omitted)
MuUen, Andrew
Mulvany, John
Murphy, Christian
Murphy, Timothy
Murphy, Thomas
(Nixon, Martin)
Nowland, John

"' At Newark he and thirty-three other Irishmen and other soldiers
were captured; was a prisoner nine months and ten days; rejoined
the company commanded by Capt. Thomas Butler; then marched
south in the company commanded by Cajjt. Henderson; at Green
Springs and surrender of ComwalUs; died in Mifflin county, Jan. 3,
1832, aged eighty-one. [125]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE

O'Neal, Nicholas
O'Haira, Patrick
O'Hara, WiUiam
O'Neal, Daniel
O'Neal, James
O'Neal, John
Quigley, Edward
Quinn, Francis
ReiUy, John
Redman, John
Reily, WilUam
(Rock, Patrick)
Rowan, John

Ryan, James
Shehan, Daniel
Sloan, Lawrence
Slone, WilUam
SulUvan, Daniel
Sullivan, Owen
Sweeney, James
Sweeney, Hugh
Toner, James
Toner, John
Toole, John
(Wear, ComeUus)
Welsh, WUUam

Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment

(AUwine, Barney)
Boyle, John
(Butler, Patrick)
Bannon, Jeremiah
Blake, Michael
Boyd, Thomas
Boyle, John
Boyle, Neal
Bradley, John
Brannon, Darby
Bryan, WiUiam
Burke, Francis
Byrns, James
Cochran, George
Conroy, James
Connor, Patrick
CaUaghan, John
Carnaghan, James
Carroll, Thomas
Cassady, WilUam
Cavanaugh, John
Cochran, Blaney

Cochran, John
CoUings, John
CoUings, Richard
CoUings, Robert
CoUings, WUUam
Conner, Charles
Conner, Martin
CormeUy, Andrew
Courtney, ComeUus
Donnell, John
Dunbar, John
Doimelly, George
DaUey, John
Demond, Peter
Dempsey, Patrick
Dennison, Thomas
Desmond, John
Deveney, Hugh
Devine, Bernard
Devine, Hugh
Drudge, John
Donahoo, Patrick
[126]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE

Dougan, John
Duffield, FeUx
Duffield, John
Fagin, James
Fitzgerald, Edward
Garvin, Henry
Galagher, Daniel
Galagher, James
Garvey, John
Gogehan, Joseph
Hagan, Patrick
Hanlin, Patrick
Hartney, Patrick
Higgins, James
Kain, Michael
Kain, Henry
KeaUng, Thomas
Keenan, John
Keilan, John
KeUy, Barnabas
KeUy, Charles
KeUy, Thomas
KeUy, WUUam
Kennedy, Andrew
Kemahan, Richard
Lynch, Michael
Lafferty, Robert
Larkins, James
Lynch, Lawrence
Lynch, Michael
Mclntire, WiUiam
McPike, James
McMuUen, WilUam
McDonald, Alexander
Mcllvaine, Thomas
McBride, James
McCarty, Denis
McCoUy, Robert

McConneU, Charles
McCormick, John
McCormick, Patrick
McCoy, Rory
McCune, John
McDonald, Francis
McDonough, James
McEUoy, Hugh
McFarland, James
McGahy, Andrew
MoCarrigan, Daniel
McGlaughUn, Bryan
McGuire, John
Mclntire, James
McKevey, Hugh
McKevey, Thomas
McMahon, Timothy
McManus, Hugh
McNamara, Dennis
McPike, Thomas
McQueen, Daniel
McQueen, John
McSwaine, George
Madden, Michael
Magan, Patrick
Magee, Daniel
Maloney, William
Maloney, Archibald
Maloy, James
Martin, Patrick
Mullen, Manus
Murphy, Peter
Murray, Daniel
Murray, Patrick
Nixon, John
Noglan, William
O'Neal, John
O'Hara, Patrick

[127]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE

O'Neal, Richard
ReUy, Charles
Rourk, Andrew
Rion, John
Roach, Sadler
Ryan, Michael
Ryan, Patrick
Sloan, John
Shannon, James

SuUivan, Daniel
SuUivan, Murty
SulUvan, Owen
SulUvan, Thomas
Welch, Edward
Welsh, James
Welsh, Patrick
Welsh, WUUam

Fifth Pennsylvania Regiment

Bradley, Hugh
Brady, Robert
Brady, Thomas
Bums, Daniel
Bums, LaughUn
Bums, Lawrence
Coyne, Bartholomew
Cain, John
Cary, Arthur
Cavanaugh, John
Cochran, Robert
ColUns, John
Connel, Patrick
Conner, John
Conner, Matthew
Connor, Ambrose
Cooley, James
CosteUo, Jordan
Crossley, Thomas
Crowley, MUes
Curry, Roger
Curry, WilUam
Delany, WiUiam
Devene, James
Daly, James
Deveny, John

DaUey, James
Dailey, John
Delaney, Martin
Deviny, ComeUus
Donnelly, John
Doran, James
Dorney, Matthew
Dorsey, Matthew
Dougherty, Bernard
Dougherty, James
Dougherty, WUUam
Doyle, John
Doyle, Morris
Doyle, Peter
Doyle, Thomas, Sr.
Doyle, Thomas, Jr.
Drury, Michael
Duffy, George
Duffy, Michael
Dunn, John
Eagan, John
FarraU, Patrick
FarroU, Michael
Feagan, WiUiam
FenneU, Patrick
Fitzpatrick, WUUam
[128]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE

Flanaghan, John
Forbes, James
Fowler, Patrick
Garvey, John
GiUespy, John
Gordon, WiUiam
Gowen, Francis
Griffin, WiUiam
Hagens, Daniel
Haney, David
Hanin, Richard
Hannan, John
Hargan, John
Harrigan, John
Heany, Daniel
Hogan, Daniel
Hogan, Sylvester
Kennedy, James
Keary, Arthur
Keenan, Nicholas
KeUy, John
KeUy, Michael
KeUy, Thomas
KeUy, Timothy
Kennedy, Cornelius
Kennedy, Dennis
Kergey, John
Linn, Patrick
Ljfnch, Patrick
McDonald, WiUiam
McDougal, WiUiam
McMahon, John
McCowan, John
McCowen, WilUam
McAnaly, Matthew
McCamron, James
McCann, Daniel
McCarter, John

McCarty, Jeremiah
McCarty, Michael
MeCoUy, Samuel
McCord, Thomas
McCortley, Michael
McCowan, Hugh
McCowan, John
McCoy, John
McCoy, Michael
McCrackin, John
McCrossan, Patrick
McCuen, WUliam
McCuUoch, John
McCulloch, John
McCuUoch, Samuel
McDaniel, Robert
McDonagh, John
McDonald, Robert
McDonald, Terrence
McDonald, WiUiam
McDonneU, Robert
McElheny, George
McEnaUy, Martin
McEwen, John
McFaU, Archibald
McFaU, Dennis
McFall, Thomas
McGee, WiUiam
McGlaughUn, George
McGlaughlin, John
McGrotty, Dennis
McGuigan, Andrew
McGuire, Charles
McKissick, John
McKnight, David
McLochlin, Hugh
McMahon, John
McManness, Michael

129

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE

McMuUen, Francis
McNamara, Patrick
McOwen, John
McPheran, Andrew
McPike, Thomas
McQuillen, Charles
McSherry, Peter
McSwine, Dennis
McWUliams, Alexander
Mahoney, James
Manley, WiUiam
Murphy, Lawrence
Murphy, Arthur
Murphy, WilUam
Neill, James
Nixon, Marvin

Norton, John
O'Hara, George
O'Harron, David
O'Harra, Daniel
O'NeU, James
Phelan, Peter
Redman, John
ReUy, James
Rock, Patrick
Roddy, Patrick
Rodgers, Patrick
Rooney, Peter
Saladay, Daniel
Walsh, John
Welsh, John
Welsh, Michael

Sixth Pennsylvania Regiment

Bready, Robert
Burke, Michael
Brady, Samuel
Bryan, WUUam
Buckley, Daniel
Burke, WilUam
Burns, John
Carroll, Dennis
Colgan, John
CaUaghan, Patrick
Casaday, John
Colgan, Barnabas, Sr.
Colgan, Barnabas, Jr.
ColUns, WilUam
Connor, John
(Cox, Barney)
Donavan, John
Doyle, Peter
Duffy, James

Fitzpatrick, Peter
Finley, Peter
Finney, Roger
Flanagan, Timothy
Gehon, Peter
Gordon, Charles
Gordon, John
Griffin, David
Grimes, John
Henny, Henry
Haley, John
Hanley, Christopher
Hanley, Marmaduke
Healey, John
Henley, Maurice
Hogan, Daniel
Huggan, Daniel
Kelly, Benjamin
Kelley, Charles

[130]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE

KeUey, KilUan
Kelly, Dennis
KeUy, WilUam
Kenney, Daniel
Kenon, Lawrence
LaughUn, Peter
Logan, Michael
Lowrey, Patrick
McGilton, WilUam
McGee, James
McCord, Samuel
McAfee, John
McBride, James
McCarroU, John
McCastleton, James
McCastleton, Samuel D.
McCasUn, Patrick
McCaston, James
McClusky, Francis
McDaniel, Malcolm
McDaniel, Matthew
McDaniel, Michael
McDonald, Michael
McDonald, Terrence
McDonagh, James
McDoweU, John
McEntire, James
McGee, Thomas

McGinnis, Robert
McGuire, PhiUp
McKinney, John
McCune, Frederick
McLine, John
McManamy, Daniel
McMulUn, John
McPike, Richard
Magaw, John
Malone, John
MilUgan, WilUam
Moran, Michael
Morrison, Michael
Mullin, WilUam
MulUn, Patrick
Mulvaney, John
Norton, Patrick
O'Brian, Philip
O'Brien, John
O'Bryan, WUliam
O'Neal, Daniel
O'Neal, James
Reily, Thomas
Shawnesse, John"'
Shehey, Daniel
Swaine, Edward*
Welsh, John

One hundred Irish names of Pensioners of the Revolu
tionary War, Uving in Virginia, printed in Senate Docu-
* These two names illustrate how Irish names are changed :
O'Shaughnessy, Shaughnessy, Shawnesse, Shaw; McSwine, Swine,
Swaine. Hundreds of names of Irish origin were necessarily omitted
from the list because so many Irish names have assumed an English
form. The names Shaw, Moore, Smith, Morrison, Newman, Kerr,
Carr, Clarke, are just as prevalent among Irish CathoUc families as
names beginning with "Mc" or "O' ".
[131]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
ments, 1835, giving names of State Troops in which they
served and year pension commenced.
Martin Mooney, Virginia, 1819
Edward Casey, Virginia, 1819
Bartholomew Ragan, Virginia, 1818
Patrick McCowan, Pennsylvama, 1818
James Bryams, Virginia, 1818
Peter Dager, Virginia, 1818
Benjamin Galloway, Virginia, 1818
Sampson Dempsey, Pennsylvania, 1818
John GaUegher, Maryland, 1818
Wm. Connerly, Virginia, 1818
Wm. Kennedy, Virginia, 1818
Dempsey Stuart, Virginia, 1819
Francis Burk, Maryland, 1818
John Cochran, Virginia, 1828
John DonneU, Pennsylvania, 1818
Archibald Casey, Virginia, 1818
Wm. Burke, 2nd, Virginia, 1818
Daniel FUn, Virginia. 1818
Perry Carroll, Virginia, 1818
Joshua Dunn, Virginia, 1818
Michael Grosh, Maryland, 1818
Samuel Courtney, Virginia, 1818
William Drone, Virginia, 1818
John Dulin, Virginia, 1818
Thomas McGee, Pennsylvania, 1819
WilUam Burke, Virginia, 1808
Dennis Bush, Virginia, 1818
WiUiam Burke, Virginia, 1808
Dennis Bush, Virginia, 1818
John Hefferlin, Virginia, 1818
Samuel Harrell, Virginia, 1819
John Haney, Maryland, 1818
Daniel Hayley, Virginia, 1818
Alex. McMuUen, Virginia, 1818
Arch. McDonald, Virginia, 1782
[132]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
Dennis O'Brian, Maryland, 1818
John Hackett, Virginia, 1819
Dennis Ready, Virginia, 1818
John MaUory, Virginia, 1818
Francis McCraw, Virginia, 1818
Martin Delany, Pennsylvania, 1818
Geo. Dougherty, Pennsylvania, 1824
John Dailey, Virginia, 1818
Hugh Malone, Maryland, 1818
Isaac Welch, Virginia, 1819
John Byrns, Virgima, 1818
James Cochran, Ensign, Virginia, 1818
Michael Cary, Maryland, 1818
Stephen Flecherty, Maryland, 1818
James Hanlon, Virgima, 1818
Hugh MuUegan, Pennsylvama, 1790
Michael McKnight, Virginia, 1785
Terence McDonald, Virginia,
Geo. Murfree, Virgima, 1818
Samuel McCoy, Virgima, 1818
Daniel Brian, Maryland, 1818
Peter Hains, Virgima and Maryland, 1818
Andrew McCarty, Pennsylvania, 1818
John ColUns, Virginia, 1818
Patrick Gleason, Virginia, 1818
John Meanly, Virginia, 1818
Wm. McGeorge, Virginia, 1818
Wm. Dennis Hampton, aUas Wm. Dennis, Virginia,
1818
Peter McCune, Virginia, 1818
Wm. Carney, Virginia, 1818
Francis Dyer, Virgima, 1832
Dennis Crow, Virginia, 1832
James McDade, Virginia, 1818
Argelon Toone, Virgima, 1818
Daniel Lee, New York, 1818
Thomas Malone, Delaware, 1820
James Larkin, Virginia, 1818
[133]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
Thomas McDaniel, North CaroUna, 1821
Daniel Conner, Virginia, 1820
John Nash, Virginia, 1819
John O'Neal, Pennsylvania, 1818
John Bourn, Virginia, 1818
Charles Murphey, Virginia, 1818
Terry McHaney, Georgia, 1821
John Quinn, Virgima, 1823
Robert Dyson, Virginia, 1818
Thos. Dondeen, Virginia, 1818
John Flaridy, Pennsylvania, 1820
Thomas Mahorney, Virgima, 1818, aged 105 years
Patrick McEwing, Virginia, 1818
John Roach, Virginia, 1818
John SulUvan, Virginia, 1830
John Ferrall, Pennsylvania, 1818
Thomas Plumkett, Virgima, 1818
John Reardon, Virginia, 1800
Peter Grim, Virginia, 1818
Wm. Grady, Virginia, 1819
Joseph GoUoday, Virginia, 1819
Benj. McKnight, Virginia, 1819
Wm. Knight, Virginia, 1818
Wm. Thornton, Virginia, 1818
Archibald Maloney, Virginia, 1819
Patrick Hanlin, Pennsylvania, 1818
John Burke, Maryland, 1818
Terence Doran, Virginia, 1818
Bennet McKey, Virgima, 1818
Daniel Bennett, aUas Bennings, Maryland, 1823
One hundred Irish names of Pensioners of the Revolu
tionary War, living in Ohio and Indiana, printed in Senate
Documents, 1835, giving name of state troops in which
they served. Michael Bowen, Massachusetts
John Burns, Sergeant, Virginia
[134]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
Sylvanus Burke, Massachusetts
Lawrence Byrn, Pennsylvama
Daniel Cornell, Pennsylvama
James Curry, Captain, Virginia
George Carrol, Maryland
William Colgan, Virginia
John Clancey, Maryland
Francis Costigan, Lieutenant, New Jersey
Daniel Clay, New Hampshire
Patrick Cunningham, Pennsylvania
Jacob Casey, Virginia
Thomas Downey, Pennsylvania
Henry Dugan, Pennsylvania
Elias Dailey, Pennsylvania
Dennis Dailey, Virginia
Richard Done, Connecticut
John Derrough, Virginia
Samuel Dailey, Massachusetts
John Denoon, Maryland
Andrew Dennis, Pennsylvania
Joseph D. Finley, Major, Pennsylvania
Henry Fitzgerald, Pennsylvania
William Flood, Virginia
Robert Fleming, Pennsylvania
Anthony Geoghegan, Maryland
Cornelius Hurley, Virginia
John Kelly, Virginia
Daniel Keyes, Sergeant, Massachusetts
Andrew Kennedy, Pennsylvama
John Legore, Pennsylvania
Peter Lynch, Pennsylvama
James Larkins, Sergeant, Pennsylvania
Patrick Leonard, Pennsylvania
Patrick Logan, Virginia
Daniel Morley, Connecticut
Peter Magee, Lieutenant, New York
John McMahon, Pennsylvania
John McElroy, fife major, Pennsylvania
[135]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
Neal Murry, Pennsylvania
John McKnight, Maryland
Redmont McDonough, Virginia
Hugh McClelland, Pennsylvania
Hugh MuUoy, Lieutenant, Massachusetts
John McCarroU, Pennsylvania
John Murphy, Virginia
Samuel McKee, Pennsylvama
John McQuown, Virginia
WilUam McGee, New Hampshire
James McEver, Massachusetts
Patrick McDaniel, Pennsylvania
James Murphy, Pennsylvania
James McBumey, New Jersey
Alexander McGloggan, Pennsylvania
Robert McCuUough, Connecticut
Cornelius Morris, Maryland
Connelly McFaden, New Jersey
Walter McFarland, Pennsylvania
Charles Magin, Maryland
Richard McHenry, Pennsylvania
Wm. McClain, Pennsylvania
Wm. Manning, Sergeant, Connecticut
Francis McConneU, New Jersey
Abner McMahon, New Jersey
Wm. McKelvey, Pennsylvania
Michael McClunie, Pennsylvania
Neil McMuUen, Pennsylvania
Jesse Meneley, New Jersey
James McGuinnes, Pennsylvania
Thomas Mclntire, Pennsylvania
William McMurray, Pennsylvania
Charles McGuire, Pennsylvania
Dennis O'LaughUn, Pennsylvania
William Roach, Pennsylvania
Daniel Reddington, Massachusetts
James Reiley, Pennsylvania
Richard Rilea, Virginia [136]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
Patrick Sullivan, Pennsylvania
Timothy Sherman, Massachusetts
David Boylls, Virgima
Charles Boyll, Virginia
John Burns, Virginia
Bartholomew Carroll, Virginia
Michael Courtney, Virginia
Terrance Coimor, Virginia
Thomas Flynn, Delaware
David Haney, Pennsylvania
Richard Kenney, Maryland
Daniel Kenny, Pennsylvama
Matthew McAfee, Pennsylvama
James J. Murphy, Virginia
James Mahoney, Virginia
Daniel Sullivan, Pennsylvama
Daniel Welch, Connecticut

One hundred Irish names of Pensioners of the Revolu
tionary War, Uving in New York State, printed in Senate
Documents, 1835, giving names of State Troops in which
they served. Lewis Brady, New York
Daniel Brackett, Massachusetts
James Bryan, Rhode Island
Adam Brannon, New York
Michael Burdge, Sergeant, New York
Elijah Bryan, Connecticut
Nicholas Cusick, Lieutenant, New York
Michael Cross, Hazen's Regiment
Joseph Carley, New York
Levids J. Costigin, Lieutenant, New Jersey
WiUiam Conner, New York
James Cooley, Massachusetts
John Cahall, New York
James Dorsey, Massachusetts [ 137 ]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
Daniel Dorsey, Captain, Maryland
Timothy Dunn, Connecticut
Timothy Driskell, Pennsylvania
James Dailey, Connecticut
James Dorey, New York
John Dailey, New Jersey
Thomas Dennis, Rhode Island
Francis Delaney, North CaroUna
Silas Daley, New York
Jonathan Farley, Massachusetts
William Farley, New Hampshire
Amos Flood, New Hampshire
Joseph Flood, Massachusetts
Aaron Forbes, Massachusetts
Samuel Farley, Massachusetts
Jonathan Finney, Massachusetts
Bethuel Finney, Massachusetts
Benjamin Griffin, New York
Thomas Gilligan, Massachusetts
Francis Garvey, New York
Kirkland Griffin, Mariner
Thomas Gillen, Maryland
Joseph Henegin, Connecticut
Daniel Hayden, Massachusetts
Benoni Hogan, Connecticut
Nathaniel Higgins, Sergeant, New York
Robert Kelly, New York
Hugh Kennedy, Rhode Island
William Kennedy, Connecticut
Edmund Kelly, New York
Joshua Kelly, New York
WilUam KeUy, 2nd, Massachusetts
James Kane, Pennsylvania
John Kenneily, Hazen's Regiment
Josiah Kenney, Massachusetts
WilUam McMennes, New York
Neil McCoy, Massachusetts
Charles McDonald, Sergeant, Connecticut
[1S8]

IRISH AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
Patrick McGee, Hazen's Regiment
Bernard McKnight, Massachusetts
James McCauley, New York
Michael McGingar, Sergeant, New York
John McMillan, New Jersey
Paul McCoy, Connecticut
John McNeil, New Jersey
George McMurphy, New Hampshire
Martin McNeary, Connecticut
Jeremiah McCartney, North Carolina
John McManners, Connecticut
Joseph McFarland, New Hampshire
WUUam McMuUin, Pennsylvania
John McDongal, New York
Andrew McKenney, Pennsylvania
James McKinney, New York
John McMuUan, Massachusetts
Thomas McCarty, New York
Michael Madden, Massachusetts
WilUam Mooney, New York
Ebenezer Morley, Massachusetts
John McNally, Massachusetts
Hugh McConneU, New York
Daniel McCarty, Massachusetts
Henry McNeal, New York
Robert McKnight, Massachusetts
Rufus Mclntire, Rhode Island
Christopher McManus, Sergeant, New Jersey
John C. McNeil, Sergeant, New Hampshire
Andrew McNutt, New York
John Maloney, Massachusetts
Alexander Maroney, New York
Michael Madden, Massachusetts
John Murphy, New York
James Murphy, Massachusetts
Richard Nixon, New Jersey
Daniel O'Keiff, Pennsylvania
CorneUus Organ, Pennsylvania [139]

IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE
James Patrick, Rhode Island
Thomas Quigley, Captain, New York
William Quigley, Massachusetts
Robert Ryan, Connecticut
Jacob Reddington, Massachusetts
Daniel Shays, Captain, Massachusetts
John Sloan, Massachusetts
John Welsh, New York
Joseph Walsh, Lieutenant, Massachusetts
Robert Welch, Connecticut
Walter Whalen, New York
Jeremiah Whalen, Rhode Island
Samuel Welch, Connecticut
Rossel Welch, Massachusetts
Thomas Walsh, New York
Note the New England influence on the names of many
of these soldiers who were unquestionably of Celtic Irish
origin, e. g., Adam Brannon, Silas Daley, Jonathan Farley,
Amos Flood, Aaron Forbes, Jonathan Finney, Nathaniel
Higgins, Joshua Kelly, Josiah Kenney, Ebenezer Morley,
Jacob Redington, Jeremiah Whalen.
In compiUng the foregoing Usts, names Uke Michael
Dunning, Daniel Fort, Daniel Hamilton, Daniel Moss,
Michael Lochrey, Daniel Lindsley, Daniel Osbourn,
Daniel Ward, etc., etc., were not included, as the sur
names might not be considered as Irish.

[140]

YALE UNIVERSITY

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