Internal ethnic friction: Orange and green in nineteenth‐century New York, 1868–1872

The presence of large numbers of Protestants within the nineteenth century Irish exodus to the USA ensured that the integrity of the Orange/Green dispute continued in the adopted homeland. The Catholic majority amongst Irish immigrants was nevertheless a minority within Protestant American society. The struggle between Orange and Green in New York thus gave each faction both a majority and a minority status. Fear of Catholicism within America meant that the commonality between Irish Orangemen and native born Protestants was a classic example of an internal ethnic dispute having a relevance to the whole society. This common Protestantism was able to straddle, to an extent, the ethnic barrier. The clash between Fenians and Orangemen in New York thus gained an inflated significance for both state and national politics.