ABSTRACT
The voyages that brought the dazed and starving Irish to America were a cross between the scramble of the Haitian boat people and the middle passage of African slaves. Almost in the blink of an eye, the Irish "erupted" out of allegedly permanent underclass status, pouring into the middle class and taking political control of Boston and New York. Along the way, the St. Patrick's Day parade, once a defiant show of strength against WASP power, gradually declined into a pointless march of aging suburbanites and drunken collegians in funny hats. The good news is that efforts are under way to reconnect the Irish and their parades with their roots in famine, poverty, and despised immigrant status. Seminars and conventions on the Irish famine often have surprisingly little material on Ireland and a lot on the problem of world hunger today.
