Reviving the Fighting Irish: Vol. II: Part II

Reviving the Fighting Irish:

The real significance of the words "Fighting Irish" at Notre Dame

Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies

May 10, 2010

In his book surveying the history of Irish-America titled The Irish Americans, professor emeritus of history at Notre Dame Jay P. Dolan pronounces that “the history of Ireland and Irish America changed forever when famine struck in the mid-1840s.” The same can be said about Notre Dame, which was founded as a small independent Catholic university just 5 years prior to the most devastating year of the Great Famine in Ireland, during which over 1.5 million Irish emigrated to the United States.

From 1851 to 1921, a total of roughly 3.7 million Irish left their shattered homeland for the Land of Opportunity, and it is estimated that over 90% were Catholic. Not by coincidence, this overlapped with the first real period of growth at Notre Dame. Giant increases in the Catholic population within America aided the development of Notre Dame by providing ways for the university to maintain enrollment and become economically stable. Since Notre Dame was “the only Catholic boarding school between Cleveland and Chicago” at the time, Irish Catholic immigrants who came from the poor working-class but still had enough money to educate their children put Our Lady’s University at the top of their lists.

The population of Irish immigrants coming to America and sending the next generation to become educated at schools like Notre Dame was strongly Irish-nationalist, intensely Catholic, and the vast majority joined the workforce as unskilled laborers. In response to this overwhelming wave of foreigners, a torrent of anti-Catholic and anti-Irish sentiment grew rapidly throughout the Eastern United States to a level that “remained endemic in American society for a very long time.”  As the Irish struggled to gain a foothold in America, they came up against discrimination in relation to nearly every aspect of their lives. Since protestant-dominated American society associated both Catholicism and the Irish with foreign allegiance, superstition, poverty, and vice, it was commonly believed that Catholic Irish-Americans could not be truly American. As a result, the Irish in America were feared, distrusted, and forced to remain “stuck at the lower end of the occupational hierarchy.” Bigotry continued even as second generation Irish started to become educated, and “No Irish need apply” signs became famous reminders that these newcomers were not always welcome in their new land.

Powerful negative stereotypes grew out of this common perception of the Irish. Once Notre Dame became prominent enough to draw public attention towards it, the same stereotypes would eventually be employed against those who were associated with the university as well.

As Irish-Americans became more relevant, stereotypes characterizing them in negative ways followed suit. The growing presence of Irish-Americans threatened the established powers of American society, and consequently they were largely depicted by the press as “an inferior race that was innately ignorant and violent.” Thomas Nast, who enjoyed a prolific career as the most influential political cartoonist of the era, popularized the image of a “monstrous Celtic beast” that reinforced negative racial images by depicting the typical Irish-American as a less than human “Irish ape-man.” Such images would remain embedded within American public consciousness throughout the era. 

Even as widespread stereotypes were purposefully engineered to degrade them and undermine their growing influence, Irish-Americans began to turn such negative images around into positive symbols of pride. Prizefighting became wildly popular in America during the 19th century, and fighting Irishmen soon dominated the sport. Its brutal nature attracted individuals with immigrant backgrounds who were out to make names for themselves with little but their toughness to work with. For this reason, Irish-Americans headlined most major fights. As the sport grew and newspapers brought fame to its top champions, Irish-Americans such as John L. Sullivan and "Gentleman" Jim Corbett became the first American sports celebrities. Such icons had a profound effect on the Irish-American community, which came to embrace stereotypes associated with fighting and toughness.

As society increasingly associated the exceptional ability to fight with Irish-Americans, these stereotypes created a general social image that in a way became respected. In his book Shake Down the Thunder: The Creation of Notre Dame Football, sports historian Murray Sperber explains:

“The fame of these Irish-American fighters is the probable source of the Notre Dame nickname, “Fightin’ Irish,” but because nineteenth century boxing was attached to a drinking, gambling, brawling, and disreputable subculture, the priests who ran the university did not encourage or even condone the nickname until well into the twentieth century.”

To the rough-and-tumble crowd of fresh-off-the-boat Irish Immigrants, the reputations carried by celebrity Irish fighters became a tremendous source of pride for the entire Irish-American community. This newfound respect was also mixed with a sense of notoriety, however, and the “fighting Irish” culture clearly had a dark underbelly. By this point in time, the University of Notre Dame had become intimately connected to the Irish-American community through association. Though the swagger of famous fighting Irishmen did elevate toughness as an ideal throughout the Irish-American community, such roll models could not be embraced at Notre Dame because they were tied to lifestyles considered inappropriate for properly educated Catholics. Since the authorities at Notre Dame could not afford to associate the image of their fledgling university with such controversy, they made it a point to reject the “fighting Irish” culture and any images, stereotypes, or nicknames that may have portrayed it in a positive light.

Even so, the same forces that led to the commonly held notion of Irish-Americans as tough and dodgy brawlers translated onto the football field at Notre Dame, where the “Fighting Irish” nickname would eventually transform from a loose stereotype into the predominant symbol by which the entire world would recognize the university.

Negative stereotypes associated with being Irish and Catholic were applied to the Notre Dame football team from the very beginning, as recounted by Colonel Frank “Dutch” Fehr who played in the first intercollegiate football game at Notre Dame in 1887. Fehr recalled games at Northwestern that would evoke chants of “Kill those fighting Irish!” from the opponent’s fans. According to Fehr, such derogatory comments were based on religion more than any other factor:

“Although only a few of the players were of Irish descent at the time, sometimes the name became a synonym for Catholic. I think that was why the Northwestern students kept taunting us. Northwestern, you see, also was a religious school, but Protestant in those days.” 

Since Catholicism was commonly thought of in association with the Irish, any representatives of Notre Dame were automatically treated as though they were Irish. The starting 11 on Notre Dame’s football team in 1887 did include players named McNerny, Healy, Murphy, Sheehan, and Shaughnessy, though. With nearly half of its on-field representatives sporting Irish surnames, the team that would one day refer to themselves as the “Fighting Irish” did lend some truth to the reference made by Northwestern’s fans. Even so, such chants showed how stereotypes affected the common perception of Notre Dame through football. 

Such stereotypes that associated Notre Dame with Irish-America clearly had negative connotations at the time, but their implications started to shift as the Irish-American community began to embrace them as a positive part of their group identity. Irish-Americans took pride in their ability to overcome the seemingly insurmountable odds they faced as members of the lowest rungs of society, and as a result they adopted disparaging remarks made by others as symbols of pride that motivated them and bonded them closer together. For this reason, as Sperber explains, “Irish Catholics gloried in many of their nicknames, particularly the one given to the Notre Dame football team: the ‘Fighting Irish.’”

An early sign of this transformation surprisingly appeared at Notre Dame in 1905 when editors of the student magazine The Scholastic unofficially embraced the stereotype through a description of a recent football game: “The plucky fight of our boys won the applause of the crowd, who rooted for the ‘game Irishmen’ all during the game....” Even at ultra-conservative Notre Dame, identifying with Irish-Americans as rough and scrappy fighters had begun to lose its stigma.

Conveniently, Notre Dame football followed a traditionally “Irish” storyline during the early decades of the 20th century by boldly striking out to make a name for itself and the little-known Catholic school it represented. It became the first team to travel long distances in order to take on well-known opponents. As recounted by Sperber in Shake Down the Thunder, “From 1913 on, because of the team’s annual trips east and its other travels, Chicago journalists began tagging them as the ‘Ramblers’ and the ‘Nomads.’” The Notre Dame administration was not fond of such labels that failed to represent the type of educated Catholic gentlemen they strove to cultivate. These terms were generally disliked by the students as well, who preferred to be associated with toughness and determination over becoming characterized as hapless wanderers. For these reasons, the “Fighting Irish” moniker began to gain popularity as a more desirable alternative.

Even as the popular image of the fighting Irishman as a tough and strong-willed individual worthy of admiration began to gain momentum after the turn of the century, various names used by the press to describe the Notre Dame football team prove that Catholic and Irish Americans were still subjected to widespread prejudice. As the underdog Notre Dame squad gained recognition throughout the Midwestern football world, the press began to take notice and refer to these newcomers simply as the “Catholics.” Others were more blatantly prejudiced and unabashed in their dislike for Notre Dame, calling the team “Papists,” “Horrible Hibernians,” “Dumb Micks,” or even the “Dirty Irish.” Needless to say, these names were not welcomed by students or administrators at the university, who referred to their own team simply as the “Gold and Blue,” the “Notre Damers,” or “The Domers.” 

By using characteristics widely associated with Irish-Americans to praise Notre Dame’s style of play on the football field, members of the press also brought the university’s students one step closer to espousing such stereotypes as their own. An early example of this came during a game at Michigan in 1909 when a sports journalist allegedly heard Notre Dame star Pete Vaughan motivate his teammates by exclaiming “What’s the matter with you guys? You’re all Irish and you’re not even fighting!” 

Notre Dame went on to prevail 11-3 in a game the editors of the Detroit Free Press described by writing, “Eleven fighting Irishmen wrecked the Yost machine this afternoon. These sons of Erin individually and collectively representing the University of Notre Dame…” Once statements like this began to appear more often, such comparisons were no longer automatically regarded as shameful and thus slowly became more and more accepted by the Notre Dame community. In years to come, university publications would continue to elicit praise for the “traditional Irish fight” of the Notre Dame football players and students...

(Vol. II: Part III to come on Monday, July 2)

Reviving the Fighting Irish: Introducing the Series

Reviving the Fighting Irish: Part I

Reviving the Fighting Irish: Part II

Reviving the Fighting Irish: Part III

Reviving the Fighting Irish: Vol. II: Part I