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Perilous Crossings And Ominous Beginnings.
Amanda Senior
Civil War Historian and SBW member, Tonya Graham McQuade, delivered an engaging yet heartbreaking insight into the Irish ballad, Paddy’s Lament, at the South Bay Civil War Round Table Speaker Series.
Tonya shared how the Great Potato Famine (1845-1855), an agonizing experience of starvation and disease, forced app. 2 million Irish across the Atlantic in search of a better live. Instead of pastures green, immigrants arrived in heavy spirits to docks burdened with the Union’s fallen and where the men were incentivized to enlist in the Union army with promises of bonuses and pensions.
Now I’d think meself in luck to be fed upon Indian buck
In old Ireland, the country I delight in;
And with the devil I do say, “Curse Americay,”
For I’ve sure I’ve got enough of their hard fighting.
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