In 1718, one of the largest single colonies of Irish arrived in
Boston. It consisted of one hundred families, who settled at
different places in Massachusetts. One contingent, headed by Edward
Fitzgerald, located at Worcester and another at Palmer under the
leadership of Robert Farrell, while a number went to the already
established settlement at Londonderry, N.H. About the same time a
colony of fishermen from the west coast of Ireland settled on the
Cape Cod peninsula, and I find a number of them recorded on the
marriage registers of the towns in this vicinity between 1719 and
1743. In 1720, a number of families from county Tyrone came to
Shrewsbury, and eight years later another large contingent came to
Leicester County from the same neighborhood, who gave the name of
Dublin to the section where they located. The annals of Leicester
County are rich in Irish names. On the Town Books of various places
in this vicinity and on the rosters of the troops enrolled for the
Indian war, Irishmen are recorded, and we learn from the records that
not a few of them were important and useful men, active in the
development of the settlements, and often chosen as selectmen or
representatives. On the minutes of the meetings of the selectmen of
Pelham, Spencer, Sutton, Charlestown, Canton, Scituate, Stoughton,
Salem, Amesbury, Stoneham, and other Massachusetts towns, Irish names
are recorded many years before the Revolution. In local histories
these people are usually called "Scotch-Irish," a racial misnomer
that has been very much overworked by a certain class of historical
writers who seem to be unable to understand that a non-Catholic
native of Ireland can be an Irishman. In an exhaustive study of
American history, I cannot find any other race where such a
distinction is drawn as in the case of the non-Catholic, or so-called
"Scotch," Irish. In many instances, this hybrid racial designation
obviously springs from prejudice and a desire to withhold from
Ireland any credit that may belong to her, although, in some cases,
the writers are genuinely mistaken in their belief that the Scotch as
a race are the antithesis of the Irish and that whatever commendable
qualities the non-Catholic Irish are possessed of naturally spring
from the Scotch.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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