What are some problems the Irish faced when they arrived in America?
Most immigrants from Ireland were Catholic and were denied some rights, so they decided to come to the United States. In 1845, Ireland's main food crop, the potato, stopped growing causing a famine. This food shortage forced about two million people to emigrate from Ireland. When they came to America, Irish men and women had no savings with little education. Men worked building railroads in very dangerous conditions where many died. Women became servants. They often had to fight for their jobs because they were competing with free African Americans. The Irish lived in cities where their ships had docked, filling up one quarter of the population in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore.
