March 6, 2006
THE WOGS START AT 1624:
In Immigrant Georgia, New Echoes of an Old History (LAWRENCE DOWNES, 3/06/06, NY Times)
The Coke-bottle glasses of hindsight can leave even profound historical miseries all blurry with sentimentality. That's one way to explain the Savannah Irish Festival, a two-day celebration of the Great Famine's great contribution to this lovely Southern city — the migration of thousands of starving laborers who toted barges, lifted bales, dug ditches and cellars, and put down roots here in the mid-1800's.Their descendants crowded the Savannah Civic Center for the festival, eating corned-beef sandwiches, drinking Guinness and applauding the young step dancers who thundered across the stage, tossing their auburn ringlets. Vendors sold teapots and cookbooks and those itchy, kitschy sweaters and scarves that have become the worldwide uniform of warm, fuzzy Irishness.
It is hard to imagine a tubercular immigrant, knee deep in cellar muck, dreaming that his adopted city would one day commemorate his sacrifice with a party. Unskilled Irish immigrants were abused and despised back then, chained to a life of poverty and hard labor that bonded them — at least for a little while — with enslaved African-Americans.
But this time it's totally different...... Posted by Orrin Judd at March 6, 2006 7:47 AM
Actually the Irish were put to work on jobs most slave owners weren't willing to risk their slaves (read: investment) on.
Posted by: Bartman at March 6, 2006 8:30 AMHorrible as the life of an Irish immigrant at the time was, it was obviously better than staying in Ireland. Their children kept the Irish myth alive and contributed mightily to Ireland's subsequent prosperity.
They may not have known it then, but we sure do now. America is the land where hard work pays off.
Posted by: erp at March 6, 2006 9:56 AM