Replacement Theory Debate: Falling Fertility Rates Real Threat to Posterity

There was a time when Boston was a jewel of Protestant cities, nearly on par with Geneva and London. Not only had the Puritans settled in New England, but they also were followed by the Scots-Irish Presbyterians. This is why New England is overflowing with the names of Northern Ireland: Londonderry, Vt., and Belfast, Maine. Boston was a center of both Protestant devotion and intellectual innovation.

When, in the 1840s, Irish Catholics began immigrating into the Northeast, Boston became the epicenter of the Know Nothing movement. In the 1850s, Boston elected nearly a full slate of the anti-Catholic immigration America party in 1854. The Know Nothing movement was conspiratorial in its behavior and itself a spreader of conspiracy theories. It had a violent and radical edge. The Irish Catholic tide was opposed both by conservative Protestants and by a more modernizing sentiment that would later inform the Liberal Leagues of the 19th century. But these forces of resistance were overwhelmed, and eventually replaced. By 1855, 42.5 percent of the population of Boston was Irish.

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Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review Online.

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There was a time when Boston was a jewel of Protestant cities, nearly on par with Geneva and London. Not only had the Puritans settled in New England, but they also were followed by the Scots-Irish Presbyterians. This is why New England is overflowing with the names of Northern Ireland: Londonderry, Vt., and Belfast, Maine. Boston was a center of both Protestant devotion and intellectual innovation.

When, in the 1840s, Irish Catholics began immigrating into the Northeast, Boston became the epicenter of the Know Nothing movement. In the 1850s, Boston elected nearly a full slate of the anti-Catholic immigration America party in 1854. The Know Nothing movement was conspiratorial in its behavior and itself a spreader of conspiracy theories. It had a violent and radical edge. The Irish Catholic tide was opposed both by conservative Protestants and by a more modernizing sentiment that would later inform the Liberal Leagues of the 19th century. But these forces of resistance were overwhelmed, and eventually replaced. By 1855, 42.5 percent of the population of Boston was Irish.