Irish American By Dr William P Kelly, University of Ulster
The story of the Ulster Catholics in North America, like their Scots-Irish compatriots is a story of four centuries of phenomenal success and failure, born of various political, religious, cultural, geographical, and economic considerations.
Countless thousands of Irishmen served as labourers, fishermen, carters and miners in the burgeoning industrial meat-grinder of the American Industrial Revolution.
Ulster Catholics manned the canal networks, they sifted coal, copper, anthracite, and steel in the Vulcan forges of Birmingham, Alabama, and in the infernal shafts of the Annaconda Mining Company in Butte, Montana.