Irish Americans

Irish Americans. Seneca Village Community. , Irish-American families were scattered throughout Seneca Village, accounting for roughly one third of the population during the 1850s. In the vicinity of this sign, the western side of the village, was a cluster of at least three Irish-American households headed by John Gallagher, Mike Barlow, and Jane Allen. Gallagher and his family occupied a one-and-a-half story house with a stable nearby, while Mike Barlow and his wife lived in a much smaller shanty. Jane Allen and her daughter are thought to have lived in another shanty owned by Mike Riely., Irish immigrants began to settle in Seneca Village beginning in the 1840s. They most likely came to the United States as part of a wave of immigration that began in the 1820s and peaked during the late 1840s in response to the Irish Potato Famine. Many rural Irish families, fleeing desperate living conditions in their homeland, poured into the major port cities of the eastern United States. Over a million refugees left Ireland for North America during the period, with approximately three-quarters of the entering through New York City. Irish immigrants lived in other parts of the future park site including a smaller settlement further south between 68th and 72nd Streets, which one newspaper called “Pigtown”.