Although Irishtown had been known as Brooklyn’s most recognizable, infamous
waterfront neighborhood for Irish immigrants in the mid 1800s, it was the city’s long waterfront property that stretched both north and south of Irishtown that was heavily settled by (what the local Anglo-Americans called) the “Famine Irish.” In truth, Irishtown could only be seen as the capital amidst the long stretch of Brooklyn waterfront neighborhoods facing the East River and Manhattan.
By the census year of 1855, the Irish already made up the largest foreign-born group in New York. This constituted a dramatic shift in the ethnic landscape of Brooklyn. In just ten years, the amount of Irish-born inhabitants had jumped from a minimal amount, to 56,753. Out of a total population in Brooklyn of 205,250, its newly arrived Irish-born inhabitants made up about 27.5%.
The impact of such a large amount of immigrants in a short period of time may be difficult to imagine, but it must be remembered that these newly-arrived were not only all from one ethnic background, but they were also terribly destitute, bony from intense starvation, malnourished, disease-ridden, uneducated and untrained people that came from an outdated medieval agrarian community. On top of all of this, at least half of them did not speak English and instead spoke Gaelic and were landing in a culture that was traditionally hostile to their form of religion: Catholicism.
The Great Hunger in Ireland of 1845-1852, or what is commonly, if not erroneously called the “Potato Famine,” caused over 1.5 million (if not more) Irish tenant farmers to flee for lack of food.
“Few newcomers had the resources to go beyond New York and therefore stayed for negative reasons,” said Ronald H. Bayor and Thomas J. Meaghan in their book, The New York Irish. “Most… had no other options… The best capitalized Irish immigrants were those who did not linger in New York, but went elsewhere, making New York and other harbor cities somewhat atypical of the rest of Irish America.”
The waterfront neighborhoods of antebellum Brooklyn was such a place. These neighborhoods of mostly English Protestants and old Dutch aristocracy were quickly overwhelmed by these Catholic “invaders” crippled by diseases, starving and with a 
legacy of rebelliousness, secrecy, violence and faction fighting within their fiercely communal cooperations. In short, these great numbers of Brooklyn immigrants were in no way interested in assimilating into the incumbent Anglo-Protestant culture.
Since 1825 and the opening of the Erie Canal, Brooklyn had begun to boom as the New York Ports along the Hudson and East Rivers now had access to the great and rising cities in the midwest and beyond.
Soon, New York become the busiest port city in the world. There was labor work to be had in Brooklyn, in the manufacturing and loading and unloading of goods to be sent around the country and around the world.
Brooklyn was broken down into wards at that time, and although much of the population lived along the waterfront, there were plenty of other neighborhoods inland that were heavily populated by the English and Dutch before the Great Hunger. But the newly arrived Irish immigrants did not go inland, they stayed along the waterfront where the labor and longshoremen jobs were.
One neighborhood in particular gained fame, though it is not as much known today as it was then: Irishtown.
Located in the old Fifth Ward, Brooklyn’s Irishtown never gained the kind of infamous popularity that Manhattan’s Five Points garnered (as I previously wrote about in Code of Silence), it was nonetheless the center of the immigrant, working class slums and the brawling, closed-off culture of the wild Irish.
Located on one side next to Brooklyn’s Navy Yard that built ships and on the other side with the ferry companies connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan across the East River, Irishtown was centrally located.
Although Irishtown was the face of Brooklyn’s Irish community, it did not even have the distinction of having the most amount of Irish-born (which exclude American born of Irish stock) in it during the 1855 census. The dock and pier neighborhoods of Brooklyn
were not just in the Fifth Ward, they were spread from the waterfront in Williamsburg north of Wallabout Bay all the way down to Red Hook and the Gowanus Canal.
During this time, there are three other wards that outnumber Irishtown in total Irish-born of the 1855 census. Cobble Hill, the Fulton Ferry Landing and southeast of the Navy Yard, north of Fort Greene Park. The brownstones of Brooklyn Heights are still considered mansions for the rich Brooklyn landowners at this time, but later will be divided and subdivided for the working class Irish.
The densest area of Irish-born is obviously from the Navy Yard, both inland and on the water to the Fulton Ferry Landing, but surprising numbers existed in the north along the Williamsburg waterfront and south in Cobble Hill, Red Hook and the Gowanus Canal. In fact, 47.7% of the total population of Red Hook in 1855 is Irish-born.
|
|
|
In fact it is Brooklyn’s most famous Irish-American toughs, the White Hand Gang that originated not in Irishtown, but in and around Warren Street in Cobble Hill and Red Hook at the beginning of the 20th Century.
So, it is right to assume that masses of Famine Irish landed and settled around the more famous neighborhood of Brooklyn’s Irishtown, but it is the general waterfront area from Williamsburg down to Gowanus, in the pier neighborhoods of the fastest growing port and industrial areas of the city where the majority of them settled. In fact, of the 56,753 Irish-born in Brooklyn in 1855, about 51,000 of them lived in the waterfront neighborhoods.
And they just kept coming, well after the Great Hunger ended. With connections in Brooklyn, Irish-born brought their extended families and friends to New York over the coming years, funding new passages to the city helping keep the Brooklyn working class Irish poor for many years to come.
By 1860, Brooklyn was the largest city in America with 279,122 residents, a large portion of which were either Irish-born or of Irish stock as it is still some years ahead of the considerable amounts of Jewish and Italian immigration to Brooklyn later in the century.
By the census of 1875, the population of Irish-born in Brooklyn jumps to 83,069. In 1880, the U.S. census, which counted both place of birth and parents’ birth place as well, estimated that one-third of all New Yorkers were of Irish parentage. By 1890 as Brooklyn neighborhoods were expanding east and south, the amount of people with Irish stock is at 196,372.
My grandmother said the Irish always wanted to live near the water…
Of course they did – anything that was drinkable.
Reading this brought back a memory of my own mother. As a child I too was raised in a mostly Irish neighborhood. Of course there were a few exceptions and I found out the hard way. While ridding my bicycle one day, I couldn’t have been more then ten at the time, I took a nasty spill and limped home with bloodied knees. My dear Irish mom greeted me at the door and through my tears I could hear her say, “If you didn’t ride your bike by the damn protestants you wouldn’t have fallen. God punished you.” Ah yes, the nurturing mom.
I just stumbled upon this today. I have been researching my Irish roots which date back to Fulton and Columbia Heights in Ward 1 in 1830 with the coming of the McGlin’s and then to Ward 7 and the coming of the Sullivan’s and Flynns circa 1853. There hasn’t been a whole lot of info regarding Jackson Hollow which is where the Sullivan’s and flynns lived during the 1855-1910 period. They pretty much lived on Schenck St near Willoughby and I’m delighted to come upon your writing of this period in Brooklyn’s history.
They must have had it rough, sad to say. But here you are! You come from some strong genes of survivors.
Fascinating!! I grew up I. Brooklyn and went to grammar school in Ft. Greene at the corner of Adelphi Street and Willoughby Avenue (PS 20). At that time, the neighborhood was black and Puerto Rican with one or two Irish holdouts and was just beginning to its gentrification process. So interesting to learn about 120 or more years earlier and it’s irish inhabitants. I’ve been studying everything irish and Irish-American for nearly 40 years. Also bought your. Look and am enjoying it very much!!
Wow, everyday more info. My great grandparents lived and died on Little Street next to the Navy Yard. Your very informative site is most helpful
A really fascinating insight into the Brooklyn (and beyond) Irish emigre experience. My family emigrated to East Ham, then a small village in Essex, England, now part of the urban sprawl of London, from Ireland in around 1816. By the late 1830s around thirteen percent of it’s population had distinctly Irish surnames. Seems the pattern was repeated far and wide.
My Mom came off the boat 1927 age three moved into 213 Hudson Ave, irish catholic from Donegal with her rebel parents a older brother and Sister. The family lived in Irishtown until late 1940’s. My mom says it was tuff part of Brooklyn , my Dad said it was a part of Brooklyn that he would not go to but for a date with my mom. I only just leaned of the name Irishtown, asked my mom still living about Irishtown she said how do you know about that.
My grandparents lived there 🙂
this is great! My Dad grew up in Sunset Park when it was all Irish and Norwegian. His Dad grew up on 26th Street below 4th Ave. where my great grandfather and great great grandfather worked in Green Wood Cemetery. Of course they are themselves buried in Holy Cross.
Went back to Sunset Park a few years ago to see the place, the only bar left was The Irish Haven on 4th Avenue, seems like the whole neighborhood is Chinese now.
Hi Steve, thanks for commenting. I am in that neighborhood quite a bit. There are a lot of Spanish speakers there, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans. All of the bars are on 5th Ave such as Freddie’s and The Black Horse… There were a lot of Irish in all Brooklyn waterfront neighborhoods up to Greenpoint and down below Red Hook, but the Italians took Bay Ridge & Bensonhurst and much of what was then called South Brooklyn.
Yes, the Italians moved into “South Brooklyn” where the Norwegians had been – then the Norwegians moved further out into Bay Ridge which is now called sunset park area.
My Irish grandparents and my mom, aunts, uncles and cousins all lived on Warren St. And for many years after they all stayed within a few blocks of each other. Fascinating article, thank you.
Is there a book about the Irish in Brooklyn or irishtown in Brooklyn?
Why yes Tom, LIGHT OF THE DIDDICOY (2014) and EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET (Oct. 2016).
A relative of mine, James Gralton, I believe spent time in Brooklyn organizing the labor movement there. He was exiled from Ireland for similar activity there. I look forward to reading more about the Irish history in New York as my family has settled in Boston and New England b
Awesome! EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET can be pre-ordered now.
Eamon, I’m always learning more about Irishtown from your blog. Thanks. It all makes sense – them staying near the Navy Yard and waterfront, being destitute, living in tenement slums, Gaelic speaking. My father and grandfather were weighers on the docks, my Irish Immigrant great grandfather was a night watchman at a sugar factory (maybe Domino) where my brother worked a hundred years later. None of this has been written about – till you. Thanks a million! Important.
Does anyone know if the loaders club is still at 25 bridge st.
The address still exists. I live not too far from there. The old wood framer was replaced by a brick two-story building sometime in the 1940s though.
Found my great grandfather, Patrcik McDevitt, who came from Donegal in 1887, lived with his family at 73 Bridge Street. Family lived there until about 1905.
Thanks for this. I come from Brooklyn Irish so found it very informative.