immigrants repre- sent the most miserable, backward class of peasantry in north- em Europe; they were also Roman Catholics in an obdurately Protestant land. Perhaps as many as one-third were not fluent in English. Virtually all of them were destitute.
Unlike many Germans and most Scandinavians, the new immigrants shunned the countryside. While the vast majority of them had been farmers, they had also been ignorant farmers. The oppressive Anglo-Irish landlord system back home, under which the Irish...