[ilbegone]

Back to the Irish:

This is generalized and simplified to my best belief as to fact...

I believe that there has been more blood shed over the centuries in the name of Jesus, Prince of Peace, than perhaps any other single cause. Quite a large percentage of this was between the Catholic and protestant faiths from the Reformation split on.

The Spanish conquest of Latin America has been characterized as the last Catholic Crusade, English colonization of and much of subsequent Northern European immigration to North America had protestant "chosen people" overtones as well.

There had been credible threat of invasion of Anglican/protestant England from Catholic Ireland from Tudor times on, and at least one rebellion was instigated and aided by the Catholic French. Catholic Spain had some designs for Ireland against England as well, but it didn't come to fruition.

As there were political and other dangers to England from Ireland, England tried but failed with the same coercive subjugation which was more successful in the Celtic areas of Britain, such as Scotland. In fact, while all the royalty and regal linage are inter-related in the most confusing manner (to me, at least - inbreeding wasn't limited to isolated mountain communities and it seems all European royalty were at least cousins. Example: German Speaking English King George I of the House of Hanover. Born in and Elector of the German State of Hanover, related to every other person who has ever ascended the English throne - I believe he was the closest male relative to Queen Anne and was imported from Germany to ascend the throne after she died) the House of Tudor originated in Celtic Wales.

Failing coercion, there was a 17th century push to send (essentially exile) Irish to other places in the empire where there was no Catholicism, the faith and Irish nationalism would erode in the exiles and the population within Ireland was diminished.

By the 1840's there was a international protestant expression of millinnialism, a revival of sorts with an expectancy of the return of Jesus and his Kingdom, of which American protestants saw themselves as the chosen people - a belief inherited from 17th century English Puritans. There was apparently a revival of some sort as well among Irish Catholics (in Ireland) as to their own beliefs.

Irish who came to America from the 1820's through the American Civil War were stubborn concerning their faith and resentful of anything relating to England and Puritanism (New England was founded by Puritans), which was extremely destructive in Ireland during the middle 17th century (Cromwell). Irish immigrants of this period to America tended to give blind assistance to corrupt political machines such as Tammany Hall (which gained power by catering to immigrants, exchanging benefits for immigrant votes), remained Irish nationalistic, and were supportive of the American south and slavery.

While there were Irish civil war draft riots in the north during the Civil war, many Irish came to America at that time for several reasons: An enlistment bonus equal to at least ten years of wages as an Irish farmhand or to get military training with which to rebel against Britain upon return to Ireland, as well as some related others. In fact, there were several Irish raids into British Canada from America during and after the American Civil war by a secret Irish society in America which had a membership of something like 50,000. They generally had no loyalties to America and generally no interest in becoming American due to Irish nationalism.

They generally had no qualms about deserting and switching sides from Union Blue, whether it was to the Mexican Army in the 1840's or the Confederate Army in the 1860's.

There were long memories on both sides which went back at least two hundred years, and neither side was very accepting of the other - suspicion and prejudicial hatred were mutual. It was about old history, nationalism, and religion. Those things are conveniently forgotten in modern propagandistic accusations attempting to use the distant past to corroborate the notion of universal white racism against people with Latin America origins.