The Butte Irish

In this pioneering study, David Emmons tells the story of Butte's large and assertive population of Irish immigrants. He traces their backgrounds in Ireland, the building of an ethnic community in Butte, the nature and hazards of their work in the copper mines, and the complex interplay between Irish nationalism and worker consciousness. From a treasure trove of "Irish stuff," the reports, minutes, and correspondence of the major Irish-American organizations in Butte, Emmons shows how the stalwart supporters of the RELA and the Ancient Order of Hiberians marched and drilled for Irish freedom---and how, as they ran the town, the miners' union, and the largest mining companies, they used this tradition of ethnic cooperation to ensure safe and steady work, Irish mines taking care of Irish miners. Butte was new, overwhelmingly Irish, and extraordinarily dangerous---the ideal place to test the seam between class and ethnicity.

Summoned by the call of the copper mines in Butte, Montana, Irish immigrants left a struggling Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century in search of a better life. Around the mines peppering the hills of the mining city, these determined sons and daughters of Eire built strong Irish neighborhoods that engendered the best of Irish culture and influence. Faith, family, a strong work ethic, and a sense of humor would see these immigrants through the decades. Celebrations like St. Patrick’s Day and An Ri Ra, Irish language workshops, and a new generation of Irish artisans acknowledge the contributions of this influential group.

Convention has it that Irish immigrants in the nineteenth century confined themselves mainly to industrial cities of the East and Midwest. The truth is that Irish Catholics went everywhere in America and often had as much of a presence in the West as in the East. In Beyond the American Pale, David M. Emmons examines this multifaceted experience of westering Irish and, in doing so, offers a fresh and discerning account of America's westward expansion. "Irish in the West" is not a historical contradiction, but it is — and was — a historical problem. Irish Catholics were not supposed to be in the West—that was where Protestant Americans went to reinvent themselves. For many of the same reasons that the spread of southern slavery was thought to profane the West, a Catholic presence there was thought to contradict it — to contradict America's Protestant individualism and freedom. The Catholic Irish were condemned as the clannish, backward remnants of an old cultural world that Americans self-consciously sought to leave behind. The sons and daughters of Erin were not assimilated, and because they were not assimilable, they should be kept beyond the American pale. As Emmons amply demonstrates, however, western reality was far more complicated. Irish Catholicism may have outraged Protestant-inspired American republicanism, but Irish Catholics were a necessary component of America's equally Protestant-inspired foray into industrial capitalism. They were also necessary to the successive conquests of the "frontier," wherever it might be found. It was the Irish who helped build the railroads, dig the hard rocks, man the army posts, and do the other arduous, dangerous, and unattractive toiling required by an industrializing society. With vigor and panache, Emmons describes how the West was not so much won as continually contested and reshaped. He probes the self-fulfilling mythology of the American West, along with the far different mythology of the Irish pioneers. The product of three decades of research and thought, Beyond the American Pale is a masterful yet accessible recasting of American history, the culminating work of a singular thinker willing to take a wholly new perspective on the past.

Follows the Irish from their first arrival in the American colonies through the bleak days of the potato famine, the decades of ethnic prejudice and nativist discrimination, the rise of Irish political power, and on to the historic moment when John F. Kennedy was elected to the highest office in the land.

B&W family photos with explanatory text about Irish neighborhood's in Butte, early 1900s.

Part 1. The making of a bonanza king, 1840-1909 -- The remarkable Murray boys-a tall tale -- Trail to the Rockies -- Pirate in the wilderness -- Killing the competition -- Riding the rails -- The liveliest town in America -- Part 2. Wealth and leisure -- The richest men in the west -- Irish rebel -- John Maguire's opera house -- Hot springs and grand resorts -- Murray's Monterey -- End games, 1910-1921 -- Betting on San Diego -- Trouble in Butte -- The final push to free Ireland -- Ring down the drop -- Dead man's chest -- Epilogue -- Appendix -- Pioneer tributes (Murray, Maguire, Fat Jack) -- Private loans uncollected by James A. Murray -- Why the humming birds nest at Monterey -- The passing of an oak -- Comparing wealth and economic power -- Murray family tree

A series of case studies and theoretical chapters to continue the exploration of major themes within Irish migration studies. The emphasis is the migrant Irish relationship with the great cities of Britain, America and Australia. Includes a chapter about Butte, Montana, which had an Irish population of 8,000, out of a total of 30,000, in 1900.

First published in 1981, The Battle for Butte has remained the best treatment of the influence of copper in the political history of Montana. "Fine history: rich in detail, full of finely drawn people, masterfully clear where the subject matter is most complex, constructed to preserve something of the tone and atmosphere of the age."-American Historical Review