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The Invincible Irish

Introduction

"When Ireland shall take her place among the nations of the earth then, and not "til" then let my epitaph be written."

Robert Emmet
"Speech From The Dock"

Moments later, a hangman's noose...and to this day Robert Emmett lies in his grey grave in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, Eire, Sans epitaph. Would Mr. Emmet, a young Protestant lawyer who, until his untimely demise, defended his fellow countryman from cruel injustices, change his mind today? In the last two decades alone we have witnessed the placement of not just one, but two Irishmen in the most powerful Presidential Office in the world; John F. Kennedy, a Catholic and the recently elected Ronald Reagan, like Emmet, a Protestant.

There is an old Irish song which says:
"Oh my Father he was Orange
And my Mother she was Green."

In the case of President Reagan, the opposite was true, since his Father was a "Green" Catholic and his Mother an "Orange" Protestant. In America our founding Fathers and Mothers saw the wisdom of separation of Church and State and the right of every citizen to make a free choice. Thus Ronald Reagan was raised a Protestant and his brother a Catholic.

St. Patrick, who in 432 A.D. brought Christianity to a pagan country, heralded a new era in Ireland. The Golden Age, when Irishmen set out to renew a crumbling world. Today, President Reagan offers inspiration to all of us to work faithfully for a new Golden Age.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God." And so it went with Irish history, poetry, music and tradition taught, not from books, (for centuries forbidden) but verbally, o'nglun go nglun, (English translation, from knee to knee). To find the beginnings of the Reagan clan Patricia Meade White has spent over 40 years researching sources seldom, if ever, used in connecting the fine threads to weave the true story of Irish Genealogical heritage. During the few short months since President Reagan's election, various publications have printed fragments of information which are just a microscopic portion of the whole picture of the Reagan Irish Ancestry, e.g. Ballyporeen, a small town in County Tipperary, is being touted as where it all began. Ms. White's diligent research, presented in this book, uncovers information dating back to the 5th Century, long before the existence of the town of Ballyporeen. In the Gaelic language Ballyporeen means "the town of the small potatoes." I believe that after you have read Ms. White's book you will see that the 0 Regan clan are "no small potatoes."

Mise, Le Meas
P 0 Faolain

Few know that the first Irish in America arrived a dozen years before the Mayflower. From the very beginning, the Irish have been the warp and woof of American life. Irish im- migration has been divided mistakenly into two waves-the Scotch Presbyterians in 1730, and the later wave, usually Catholic, migrating after the terrible famine and criminal evictions of the 1840s.

America's birth is inextricably intertwined with Ireland's Rebellion of 1596 to 1603, led by Hugh 0 Neill and Red Hugh O'Donnell. These two, for the first time, welded the Irish clans into a formidable fighting force that kept the Engilish at bay for nine long years. A series of mistakes for which O'Neill was not responsible caused his defeat at Kin- sale in 1601.

With the Flight of the Earls in 1607, James I confiscated the great Gaelic estates in Ulster, amounting to hundreds of thousands of acres, and began a systematic program to destroy the Irish language and nationality. Driving the native Irish into the bogs and mountains, he brought English and lowland Scots to settle the fertile valleys. Nor would James permit the dispossessed Irish to emigrate to Virginia, fearing they would nurture another rebellion in that 'nest of sedi- tion' as he termed Virginia.

But come they did-by one means or another, signing on as crew, jumping ship at the first port, or smuggled out by Irish Captains who owned their own ships. Among these were Patrick Kennedy, Donal O'Sullivan and Dennis O'Connor. Dennis Donagh.. a branch of the McDermotts, had a fleet of ships in the West Indies trade. The course of this earliest Irish migration has never been charted; you won't find them on any ship's lists, but old Gaelic names appear on land pa- tents scattered across the colonies. One way or another, they

acquired land, bringing with them the ancient Irish tradition that a man's status in society depended upon his ownership of land.

Irish were on the very first expedition to Jamestown in 1607, Francis Maguire, an Irish priest disguised as a common seaman, was on Ratcliff's Discovery. He was also an agent for the King of Spain and for Hugh O'Neill, exiled in Rome. His report on the oceanography, navigation, and metallurgy of Virginia was written in 1610 after eight months in Virginia. A century later it was found in the University of Salamanca, Spain, showing him to be a man of extensive education. With him on the same boat was William White of County Down, Ireland, who returned there in 1617 to bring the first cattle from Ireland to Virginia.

It is an historical fact that before England blasted Ireland's trade, Ireland had a merchant marine of her own. Irish fisher- men from Galway, Waterford and other ports, frequently visited American shores. When Lord Baltimore founded his colony of Avalon in Newfoundland before coming to Maryland, he brought Irish families with him. The Sullivans and O'Connors had their own vessels and brought many an Irish- man whose arrival is noted only in early land grants and colonial records of births, marriages, probate, and administration books.

Two months after the arrival of the Mayflower, Daniel Gookin and Sir Thomas Newce of Newce's Town, County Cork, arrived on the Flying Hart, at Jamestown, Virginia with 140 Irish, the first contingent of 800 Sir Thomas said were to follow. Among these were 300 Irish Catholics, who, in order to obtain a license to emigrate, had to abjure their Catholic faith and take an English surname. An Act of Parliament forced the Irish to abandon their Gaelic surnames for an English translation, or take the name of a town, a color, an art, science or office, "and that his issue shall use this name under payne of forfetying of his goods yearly till the premises be done."

It may be correctly assumed, therefore, that an English name, and sailing from an English port, does not necessarily prove English ancestry. There must be hundreds of thousands of Americans who descend from these first Irish who, losing the very ground under their feet, even, their name, carved out a life of independence and liberty on the raw frontier where the English colonist refused to take up land. Despised as Irish papists, they were welcomed as the first line of defense against the Indians.

The Irish were the first to develop the Indian trade, set up outposts in mountain valleys, secure tomahawk homesteads on lands on which Indians had not lived, penetrated the mountain walls of Pittsburgh and made that city the first capital of the transmountain West. From the rich land they opened, supplies were carried by creaking ox carts to the urban eastern seaboard. Then as land sharks moved in on their tomahawk claims, they moved on to the next convenient unclaimed land.

In 1618 it was difficult to find willing emigrants to the New World because of the great loss of life among the early emigrants. Only 350 survived in Virginia of the more than 3,000 who had arrived in the ten years since the founding of Jamestown. Lack of labor kept down the size of plantations for the Indian had proved to be of no use as a slave. Astute businessmen perceived that there was an untapped source of labor in the destitute Irish women and children left behind by soldier husbands, who had been expatriated to enlist in the armies of England's allies as a condition of surrender. This was the only emigration King James allowed.

British merchants and sea captains saw a new and highly organized source of profit in transporting these so-called indentured servants to the West Indian sugar plantations as cargo for 5 pounds each. As early as 1620, ship's captains began calling at Irish ports. Not only children, but women also, were hunted in the seaport towns of Cork, Youghall, Kinsale, Waterford, and Wexford. Priests, too, were hunted down and

shipped off to die in the steaming jungles of the West Indies, clearing land for sugar cane.

The stream grew to a torrent after Cromwell crushed the Rebellion of 1641 in 1649. William Petty, Physician General in Cromwell's army in Ireland recorded that "about 504,000 Irish perished by the sword, famine or banishment between 1641 and 1651."

No records were kept of their names. These must be searched for in the early records of the American colonies and the West Indies. Wiliamsburg, a parish in South Carolina, was settled by Irish who escaped 'from the West Indies. Henry Morgan was a kidnapped child sent to Barbados, later to be- come a pirate leader, then the Governor of Jamaica., Few survived the vicious treatment on West Indian plantations they were literally worked or starved to death at the end of their seven years of servitude. All contemporary writers record that the Irish were treated far worse than the black man, who was an investment for the length of his life.

Out of the thousands, some survived, some escaped. Their names are to be found for the searching, for this is untapped history of colonial America. In a forthcoming book, "Instruct My Sorrows to be Proud, The Life and Times of Grace O' Neill, Ireland 1603-1618, Virginia 1618-1682," the author will publish a list of more than 1500 names of Irish sent to the West Indies.

The national pastime of ancestor hunting can lead to some amazing discoveries in this neglected time of our past.

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