The grandest of all Spectacles

John Francis Maguire
1868
CHAPTER XXIX (20) start of chapter

Go where you will, in field or mine, in workshop, in factory, in store, in counting house, in hotel—at either side of the line—whether on land or water—everywhere—you behold, now absorbed in honest toil and patient industry, the men, high and low, of every rank and grade, and of every nationality too, who, a few months since, were engaged in desperate strife! This spectacle, which the Old World has never seen surpassed, is more wonderful than Niagara, more majestic than the Mississippi, more sublime than the snow-clad pinnacles of the loftiest of the Sierras.

The Irish in America, first published in 1868, provides an invaluable account of the extreme difficulties that 19th Century Irish immigrants faced in their new homeland and the progress which they had nonetheless made in the years since arriving on a foreign shore. A new edition, including additional notes and an index, has been published by Books Ulster/LibraryIreland:

Paperback: 700+ pages The Irish in America

ebook: The Irish in America