Canal Labor and the Irish Experience: Challenging Historical Biases

My Uncle was a city guy. He worked in concrete and always lived surrounded by it. His concrete boss took him out on the lake one weekend for his first experience in the natural world, outside of the Metro Parks. He was no Santiago, but Lake Erie is devoid of marlin. To the surprise of all, my uncle did land a walleye or two, salao for the fish and all those present for the exponentially embellished recountings.

He became fond of including what he believed to be familiar and primarily nature-based colloquialisms. Jobu could not help him with analogies any more than curveballs. “It only rains because it’s too cold for snow.” He would then pause like he just completed a homily, so we could have a moment to ponder.

Gerald of Wales

There was no harm intended and no one would accuse him of plagiarism: he was just reciting what he thought to be true. Historical narratives can also be repetitively reiterated devoid of a factual or data-based foundation. These generational historical colloquialisms may be flawed as a primary source and a reference.

In the history of the Irish people, it could be argued that Gerald of Wales was a historian whose biased narrative still is embedded in our understanding of our history. Gerald was born in the 12th Century to a prominent Norman-Welsh family. His father was a Norman knight and his mother was the offspring of a Norman lord and a Welsh princess. Gerald was a priest and a historian. He served King Henry II of England as a clerk and chaplain. He was well traveled and made detailed accounts of what he witnessed.

It was Henry who invaded Ireland in 1171. The Treaty of Windsor (1175) established shared control with Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair, a treaty that did not last. Henry declared his ten-year-old son John as “Lord of Ireland” in 1177. The Irish were not consulted. Gerald was John’s tutor and also accompanied him to Ireland in 1185. Topographia Hibernica (Topography of Ireland) and Expugnatio Hibernica (Conquest of Ireland) were products of Gerald’s travels in Ireland. Topographia Hibernica is divided into three parts; the third is what we reference today. It focused on the people and their culture. We will also glance at similar statements that are to be found in Expugnatio Hibernica.

Gerald only traveled to Leinster, Meath, and parts of Munster and Ulster. He relied on discussion with those of a similar English lens and paradigm. “They (Irish) are a wild and inhospitable people.” In Topographia, Gerald states, “They live on beasts only, and live like beasts,” and that the Irish “are so barbarous that they cannot be said to have any culture,” from Topographia. Gerald also notes that the Irish are extremely lazy and practice treachery. In Expugnatio, he states the Irish are a hostile race and that the British have a rightful claim to Ireland.

Canal Labor

In general, this is not news to the Irish or any other culture that has been marginalized to justify empire. As my uncle would say, “Second verse, all over again.” That was a few Henrys later. Yet, the accounts of the Irish on the canals maintain the same themes as old Gerald.

Eileen McMahon’s Canal Diggers, Church Builders: Dispelling Stereotypes of the Irish on the Illinois & Michigan Canal Corridor cites British author James Silk Buckingham’s travel accounts. “The large majority (Irish) are ignorant and poor…but they are drunken, dirty, indolent and riotous,” Buckingham explains and concludes the Irish are “objects of dislike and fear.” Those opinions, only 250 years or so after Gerald, gained Buckingham an English government pension.

Gerald and Buckingham were too early in the historical record to have read, The Mind of Primitive Man (1911), by Franz Boas. He utilizes the concept of cultural relativity to dismiss the claims of superiority of a group of humans vis à vis another group of humans, there is no such thing as a primitive man. However, when canal labor is discussed, we contextually hear the same opinions of Gerald toward the Irish. It is most often expressed as “unskilled labor” on what historian Dennis Clark called, “this great Irish dig.” That connection is not so subtle. Historians often make it part of a singular narrative, repeating a centuries-old bias, “Unskilled labor” that was performed by those who had no real skills, just their labor. It is not a descriptive statement of their labor. It was a descriptive statement of the people who performed that labor. Beasts who are no more than beasts of burden, to paraphrase Gerald.

We do not often hear the stories of William Byrne, who immigrated from Ireland in 1812 and, after a brief time as a canal worker, became “a good mechanic” and was known as a “mentally superior man,” as the Byrnes are known to this day. Michael O’Conner, who immigrated in 1838, was a canal worker, and when he died in 1866, he gave each of his four sons 80 acres of land. David Weber, a Pennsylvania canal contractor, claimed an Irishman could outwork “three raw Hollanders (Germans).” Yet, to offer these retorts is, in part, an internalization of that same bias.

Last month, I offered the Irish names who were canal contractors to illustrate we were not just laborers. Although accurate, in doing so, the biased belief towards “unskilled labor” is unchallenged. It is essentially stipulated to and reinforced. That is often the opinion of those who have never dug a ditch. American canaling was not easy work, but it was available work. Those who worked the canals were initially locals near canal construction. The Irish soon replaced that labor force and were then augmented by German immigrants.

Canal Skilled Labor

Despite the numbers of Germans on the canals, history depicts them as skilled labor. Same shovel, same pick, but a separate cultural appraisal. German immigration analysis focuses on the period following the canals. As ushistory.org states, “Unlike the Irish, many had enough money to journey to the Midwest in search of farmland and work.” Apparently, the Germans who worked on the canals in Ohio and settled in Cleveland did not get that memo, nor did Michael O’Conner.

Next month we shall continue to discuss canal immigration and migration. We will focus on the innovations made on the canal and by the canal workers. It is these contributions that are part of the reevaluation of the immigrant labor dichotomy. That, I submit, will show there is no such thing as unskilled labor.

● Francis McGarry holds undergraduate degrees from Indiana University in Anthropology, Education, and History and a Master’s in Social Science from the University of Chicago. He is the founder of Bluestone Hibernian Charities. Francis is a past president of the Irish American Club East Side. He is the founder and past president of the Bluestone Division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and a Member of the Board for the Irish American Archives Society and a member of the Planning Committee for the St. Malachi Run.