Irish people were among the earliest pioneers in this country to settle along the Atlantic coast, beginning about 1730 and through the 1840s. The priority port cities were Belfast, Ireland, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After the initial passenger arrivals, the Irish continued their settlements across the American plains as far west as Virginia and, later, to the Pacific Ocean.
An essential element to observe while tracing the ancestors if the early settlement towns in Pennsylvania, such as Chester, Lancaster, etc. Notice that as the Irish moved into South Carolina and Virginia, these names were carried forward into the new colonies. Example: Chester County, South Carolina. Also, it is worth noting that many of the "Wild Irish" were compelled by law to assume English surnames, which their descendants continued to bear.
Throughout the more significant portion of the seventeenth century, a dire provocation existed. The Catholics were driven out of Ireland by persecution. Historians generally maintain that Southern Ireland (now the province of Ireland) was inhabited mainly by Catholics.
Northern Ireland was created in 1921, when Ireland was partitioned by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, making a devolved government for the six northeastern counties. As was intended by unionists and their supporters in Westminster, Northern Ireland had a unionist majority who wanted to remain in the United Kingdom. They were generally the Protestant descendants of colonists from Britain! The minority in Northern Ireland (generally Catholics) wanted a united, independent Ireland.
Southern Ireland became the Irish Free State in 1922, and its inhabitants saw themselves as British. A significant minority from all backgrounds claim Northern Ireland or Ulster.
Northern Ireland sent thousands of immigrants to America during the 18th century. In tracing the families, the counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, and Tyrone are considered Northern Ireland and were occupied mainly by Presbyterians
It was not until near the close of Charles the First's reign that the Irish people were forced to emigrate. This was the "Rebellion of 1641.”
In this movement, Charles the First of England was the active spirit, and if ever a man richly deserved his fate through retributive justice, Charles rightly suffered. His inhuman treatment of the Irish people, who had been most loyal to him, would have justified his execution if no other cause existed. No historical event, which antedates the testimony of living witnesses, can be more clearly established in all its details than the history of this forced outbreak in 1641, and this can be done notwithstanding a few instances in history that have been more distorted by falsehood.
The cattle and all available property were seized; persons in all stations of life were imprisoned without having charges preferred against them, or they were wilfully murdered without provocation; the wives and daughters of the Catholic Irish were subjected to unspeakable brutality, and it was a frequent boast that no woman was spared; the well and the sick, the young and the old were indiscriminately turned adrift, their houses were burned, and all provisions and stores which the troops could not use were wantonly destroyed.
No less than three thousand heads of families, constituting the Catholic nobility and gentry, and the owners of the land in the west of Ireland were imprisoned, charged with treason, and their property was seized.
By this one transaction, the British crown possessed some ten million acres, a little more than one-half of all the available land in Ireland.
Between five and six hundred thousand men, women, and children were slaughtered or died from starvation. Many thousands were sent to the West Indies or the American colonies and sold as slaves. A limited number escaped to the mountains, where many died from starvation, and the remainder lived for years a life in common with the wild beasts, with a price upon their heads, and were hunted as such. The entire population of this great tract of country disappeared and was wiped out.
Shortly after, Cromwell overran the south and southwestern portion of Ireland, which was also chiefly settled by Catholics, and they received as little mercy from his army as had been meted out to those of their creed in Connaught. When Cromwell had completed his work, at least two-thirds of the landed property in Ireland had been confiscated, and after the more significant portion of the Catholic Irish men, women, and children had been put to the sword or driven into exile, the whole country became resettled with his soldiers, or by persons devoted to the English interest. Over one hundred thousand young children who had been made orphans or who were taken from their Catholic parents were sent to the West Indies, to Virginia, or to New England, that they might thus lose their faith, as well as all knowledge of their nationality.
During this period, thousands of Irishmen were driven into exile to enter the armies of European nations or to emigrate and settle on the frontiers of the American colonies as a bulwark against the Indians for the protection of the more favored settlers on the coast.
In addition, a host of both men and women who were taken prisoners were sold in Virginia and New England as slaves and without respect to their former station in life.
Thus, except for some among the first settlers in Virginia and New England, the far greater portion of the English who did emigrate during the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century went to Bermuda, Barbados, Jamaica, and the other West India Islands, and did not come to this country. The American colonies were mainly settled under a grant to some proprietor or corporation, with more restrictions on business pursuits than were made by the English government for the West India Islands. Consequently the field for individual enterprise was more significant on the Islands.
Those of English birth who settled on the mainland did so largely in Virginia and Carolina, and as a rule, their business was confined to the seaport towns. I believe that a larger proportion of the English than of any other people, when successful in business, returned in the afterlife to their native country or went with their families to Barbados or Jamaica to invest their money in sugar plantations. From this circumstance, these islands have always been more English in character than any American colony now within the territory of the United States.
For an Irishman without means, there was no opening in the West India Islands but as a common laborer. In the American colonies, however, he could easily reach the frontiers, free from all restriction after he had served out the time necessary to pay for his passage, and could there establish his independence with the labor of clearing off the forest from the land selected by himself.