"In
1834 a mostly
Irish mob in Philadelphia rampaged through the black district. By the time they subsided, two black people were killed and many beaten. Two churches and upwards of 20 homes were laid waste, their contents looted or destroyed. A committee appointed to investigate the riot identified as a principal cause the belief that some employers were hiring black workers over whites."
"During the strike of
1852 and again in
1855,
1862 and
1863,
Irish longshoremen battled black workers who had been brought in to take their places. The underlying cause of the
New York Riot of 1863, misnamed the Draft Riot, was the employment of black workers on the docks. According to one historian, in Philadelphia, as in New York, "Irish gangs not only drove blacks out of jobs, they also served as surrogate unions." There, the race riot of
1849 and the longshore strike of
1851 were simply different tactical phases of the same struggle."
"In August 1862, a largely Irish mob in Brooklyn attacked the black employees, chiefly women and children, who were working in a tobacco factory. The mob, having driven the black employees to the upper stories of the building, then set fire to the first floor. The factory was allowed to reopen only when the employer promised to dismiss the Negroes and hire Irish."
"
Irish attitudes toward the free Negro in the North led them to oppose abolition. In
1838 an Irish mob burned just-completed Pennsylvania Hall, built by subscription to serve as a center for abolitionist meetings. It was not that the
Irish supported slavery: They would have been happy to see slavery abolished, provided all the black folk could have been kept on the plantations or shipped out of the country altogether. Since such an outcome could not be guaranteed, throughout the 19th century they were solid supporters of the Democratic Party, which before the Civil War protected slavery in the South and after the War sought to restrict the rights of the freed people."
Bottom Line: Stop romanticizing people who hate you.