Beyond the American Pale: The Irish in the West, 1845–1910 (review)

After reading Beyond the Pale: The Irish in the West 1845–1910, one wonders how the Irish were able to overcome the prejudice that Americans directed toward them for so many years. Emmons titles his book, Beyond the Pale, because the Irish were considered outsiders in the American West. More than just a geographic region, the West was also a mythical land where the American republic would be refashioned but no Irish need apply. As far as Americans were concerned “a Catholic Irish presence on American’s western border jeopardized the nation’s future” (459). Their Catholicism was the primary reason why the Irish were beyond the pale. Despite such intense nativist attitudes many Irish chose to settle in the West. Emmons calls them “the two-boat Irish” (1). The first boat took them to the United States, whereas the second transported them to the west.

The first half of the book is a well-written, thoughtful series of essays about the perceptions Americans had about the Irish and their place in the west. One chapter discusses the desire of Americans to exclude slavery from the west. Linked to this was a similar crusade to keep Catholics out of this mythical crucible where American democracy would be perfected. Lyman Beecher’s Plea for the West remains the classic example of such nativist fears. As Beecher put it, “the religious and political destiny of our nation is to be decided in the West” (79). Catholics would not fit since they were “adverse to liberty . . . opposed to the principles of our government . . . a dark-minded, vicious populace” (79).

The American attitude toward the Indians did not differ greatly from their opinion about the Irish. For centuries, the English described the Irish as savages. This attitude was transplanted to the United States, becoming ingrained in the popular imagination where it was soon joined with the pejorative description of Native Americans as savages. In the minds of many Americans neither one of them was fit to live in the American West.

My major criticism of this section of the book is that it is too repetitious. Time and again Emmons bemoans the anti-Irish, anti-Catholic attitude of Americans to the point that the reader is inclined to say, “enough.” Nonetheless, he knows as much about the Irish as anyone and offers the reader numerous insights into their culture and history.

The second half of the book examines the Irish settlements in the West – principally in California, Colorado, Montana, and Nevada, where they built their own colonies with schools, churches, fraternities, and neighborhoods. They travelled to where other Irish were – where they could find a friendly face and a familiar brogue. Most important for them was having a priest to minister to their needs. Equally significant, they settled in a place where they could find steady work. Mostly unskilled workingmen, the Irish helped to build the transcontinental railroad and “even greater numbers spent their time in the West blasting and digging the hard rocks of western mines” (215). To give the reader a sense of the communities the Irish established, Emmons focuses on three very different places – Melrose, Iowa – an agricultural town, Butte, Montana – a mining city, and San Francisco, California – a commercial metropolis. He concludes his study with a chapter on the Irish presence in the western labor movement. For Emmons, the heartland of the American labor movement was the west where many of its major leaders were Irish.

Emmons concludes his study with a telling summary – the Irish “had been told that they had no legitimate claims on the West, which meant no legitimate claims on the American future. So they built their own West and their own future. Only Irish needed to apply” (335).

Beyond the Pale is an original and challenging book, without a doubt the best and most complete study of the Irish in the West.