Firemen and Irish Clash in Boston Riot
On this day in 1837, an Irish funeral procession and a company of Yankee volunteer firefighters came face-to-face in the streets of Boston. Over the next few hours, the two groups and their supporters fought each other in one of the most violent confrontations in the city's history. It ended only when the mayor called out the state militia. Amazingly, no one was killed, but many people on both sides were seriously injured, and property damage was extensive. What caused such enmity between the Irish mourners and the firemen? Different religious traditions, fear born of ignorance, but above all, intense competition for jobs as unskilled laborers. The competition — and the antagonism — would only grow worse when famine sent huge numbers of impoverished Irish to Boston in the 1840s.
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