The Irish Of Newtown

(Phil Gallagher of Bethel submitted the following.)

There is much that needs to be written about the history of the Irish in Newtown. In the middle to late 19th Century, Newtown probably had one of the highest percentages of Irish within its population of any town in Connecticut.

The history of the early Irish in Newtown greatly contradicts the widespread belief that the Irish immigrants of the postfamine years were a poverty stricken people who were prone to fighting and drinking. We have a first person account of those early years from none other than the pastor of the First Congregational Church in Newtown who, in the year 1860 wrote the following about the 506 Irish people, comprising 117 families, who lived in Newtown at that time.

“There is no class of people in this community more industrious than the Irish. Eighty-one of these families own real estate, and it is a common remark that they stand ready to buy up all the land thrown into market in the town. As fast as our American families fall into decay, and are obliged to sell their property, the Irish catch it up. They buy poor land, and by hard work improve it; and they buy good land, and keep it good. It is a constant marvel to see how fast they are getting on in the world. They drink, but not enough to detract from their pecuniary prosperity.

“I do not know one of them who can be called a low drunkard; though I presume there are some of them of that description. They are sometimes noisy on Sabbath evenings, and when returning from funerals, but seldom make any great disturbance.

“In 1855 they bought the Universalist meetinghouse in the Center… From 1855 to the fall of 1859, the Catholics had a monthly service in the church. Last fall an enterprising, intelligent and affable young Irish priest, Father Francis Lenihan, settled down here, and since that time, worship has been held every Sabbath. He has purchased a parsonage property for fifteen hundred dollars, and his influence is, by common acknowledgment, beneficial to the Irish, and as good as that of a thorough policeman for the rest of us.

“I do not know of one of these Catholic Irish who has become a Protestant, or who is leaning that way. Their house [church] was painted last fall. They have an organ and organist, and a choir of singers; and the priest told me in the fall that he should have a Sabbath School. He appears to be a thoroughgoing temperance man, and is probably doing more in that line than any other minister in town. The Catholic children attend the common schools; and, as yet, the priest has opened no separate school for them, though one has been talked of.…”

A person who was described “as a man of exact and thorough observation” wrote the words quoted above. Unfortunately, all too often, myths rather than words like these are what gets into the history books.