It is somewhat difficult to gauge the public opinion of the American populace towards the Rising due to the extremely complex and multifaceted nature of the global scene at the time. In order to understand how the American public as a whole reacted to the Uprising, one must first have some context.
The Irish in America
In the period between 1851 and 1921, around 4.5 million Irish citizens emigrated from their country, of which about 3.8 million settled in America alone. Most fled due to lack of stability, as hundreds of thousands starved during the potato famine. As the potato was a staple Irish crop, failed crop yields led to a mass panic, and millions of Irish men and women journeyed to America to seek a new life. They constituted one of the largest population blocks in the United States, settling mostly on the Eastern Coast in major urban centers. New York City, Boston, and Chicago became major centers of Irish-American communities due to the abundance of cheap labor and housing. Their mass exodus and subsequent arrival on American shores was the subject of a great deal of controversy. Many Americans in the north were intrinsically linked to Britain through commercial trade, and were mostly pro-British. As such, a good deal of them adopted the same stereotypes of the Irish that their British bretheren did, viewing them as nothing more than drunk, subhuman beings existed merely to take their jobs. Even in a period when slavery was still alive and well, Irish Americans were in the similar rungs to the . A conservative backlash to the influx of immigrants arose, and a new secretive political party known as the “Know Nothings” worked actively to undermine the status of Irish citizens throughout the country.
Irish Americans often held a great deal of loyalty for their mother country, and many continued to hold their conservative Catholic values. These traditionalist Irish Americans’ views tended to align with the Democratic party, who in turn became heavily reliant upon their strong turnouts in Urban centers. The victory of Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States, was assured due in large part to these communities. Find more about Wilson’s complicated relationship with Ireland and Irish Americans here.
The Rising
By the time of the actual Uprising in 1916, Americans as a whole were largely indifferent (when not factoring in Irish Americans). Ultimately, the question of whether to get involved in World War I or not was a much more pressing matter to the American public. Woodrow Wilson, who himself was of Northern Irish descent, tried to avoid addressing the situation altogether, preferring to remain in a position of neutrality. Find out more about how exactly Irish Americans affected the uprising directly here.
British Americans were extremely negative towards the news of the Uprising, seeing this as merely the Irish people turning against their own country in its time of need. Irish Americans tended to be generally conflicted, with many sharing the views that the Rebels were traitors, though many more still supported their bretheren back at home. Many who still had family members back in Ireland expressed worry or concern for their safety, especially after the pictures of the bombardment of Dublin were revealed in Newspapers. They joined in dissent with German Americans, who also saw their countrymen as being opposed by the American government. The Wilson administration as a whole tended to be pro-British, and while it officially remained neutral, so much of America’s economy depended on trade with Britain that they did tend to skew towards the British in their sympathies.
This created even greater friction in the American government, which was starting to lean towards supporting the Allies, especially after the continuing raiding of their commercial vessels by German u-boats. Their economic success in trading with Britain also helped to steer their pro-Ally skew. However, most of the rest of the American populace was undeterred by the news, seeing the Irish Rebellion as a distraction from the war at hand. At a time when Nationalist sentiments were running extremely high in nations all over the globe, they saw them nothing more as traitors to their country. The Irish rebels had inadvertently supported Germany by choosing to fight against its country, and that was seen as unacceptable.
To find out how the Executions changed the public’s reaction to the Rising, visit the page below.