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Investigates Investigates Money Diaries Daft.ie Property Magazine Allianz Home Magazine The 42 Sports Magazine The Journal TV Climate Crisis Cost of Living Road Safety Newsletters Temperature Check Inside the Newsroom The Journal Investigates The Explainer A deep dive into one big news story Sport meets news, current affairs, society & pop culture have your say Or create a free account to join the discussion Advertisement More Stories FactCheck: Did the New York Times say in 1854 the US was being 'overwhelmed' by Irish immigrants? “We are being overwhelmed as never before by migrants,” the quote begins, lamenting the “costs of housing and feeding them.” 4.23pm, 30 Apr 2025 Share options A QUOTE ABOUT New York being “overwhelmed” with Irish immigrants in the 1850s has spread around the internet, with many noting the parallels that it shows between discussions about immigrants both now and during the 19th Century. The quote, which is credited as being an excerpt from an issue of the New York Times in 1854, is usually written like this: We are being “overwhelmed” as never before by migrants. Their sheer numbers, and the costs of housing and feeding them, has triggered an unprecedented crisis. Everywhere one looks, it seems, “lazy” newcomers congregate on street corners, in parks, and in front of shelters. They appear to have “no plan, and no energy to form one.”Rather than support themselves, they beg or steal or seek charity and government handouts. Many say that the New York they know and love will be “destroyed” unless the border is somehow sealed or the migrants can be sent elsewhere. People sharing the quote have said that it foreshadows modern conversations on immigration, both in the United States and in Ireland. “The same old rhetoric being spewed out today by Irish people in order to suit their own agenda,” reads one Facebook post that included the quote last September. “Know your history, you don’t get to be racist and Irish.” Versions of the quote have been shared more than 800 times on Facebook, and more than 1,200 times on X. One post on X featuring the quote was viewed 875,200 times, according to the site’s statistics. The quote is said to have been published in 1854, at the end of the Great Famine which saw more than a million Irish people emigrate to America. The supposed source, the New York Times, was established in 1851, lending credence to the possibility that the quote is accurate. On the other hand, the quote itself has an unusual amount of phrases in quotation marks, and other phrases sound like they may not have been in use at that time. This is because quote is not from the New York Times in 1854. However, the sentiment that the quote expresses is historically accurate (though it would perhaps be phrased differently; the first use of “handout” as a noun was recorded in 1882.) The quote itself is lifted from an essay published in Time magazine in March, 2024. The piece by Professor Tyler Anbinder, a historian who has written extensively about Irish immigration to America in the 18th century, looks at the parallels between “New York’s first migrant crisis” and the situation in modern America. New York City, according to some of its leaders, is being “overwhelmed” as never before by migrants. Their sheer numbers, and the costs of housing and feeding them, has triggered an unprecedented crisis… Advertisement The rest of the quote is identical to the one shared on social media. Anbinder’s article goes on to describe how Americans talked about the Irish, in ways which are strikingly similar to how some anti-migrant activists talk about migrants today. They were considered poor, lazy followers of a different religion who would never be “true” Americans. By 1855, “one out of every four New Yorkers was an Irish Famine refugee”, Anbinder noted, saying that this initially caused widespread panic — panic which was soon proven to have been overblown. Anbinder also noted that none of the Irish who left during the Famine “waited in line” to immigrate, nor did they have passports or visas. “They just walked down the gangplanks and began their new lives in America,” Anbinder writes. So if the quote comes from a modern historian, where was he getting his information? “The quotes in this paragraph are from multiple sources,” Anbinder told The Journal by email. “‘No plan, and no energy to form one,’ is from the Middletown, Connecticut Constitution, Feb, 14, 1855. “The term ‘lazy’ (the full quote is ‘lazy and lounging’) is from the New York Daily News, as quoted in the New York Irish-American, Dec. 28, 1850. “The rest of the words are my paraphrasing of the general anti-immigrant world-view of the mid-1850s,” Anbinder said. A quote saying New York was being being “overwhelmed” with Irish immigrants was not published by the New York Times in 1854. However, it does accurately describe how many New Yorkers in that time period would have viewed Irish immigrants. The quote comes from a 2024 Time magazine article in which a historian outlines what people in that time period were saying, based on his reading of primary sources. Want to be your own fact-checker? Visit our brand-new FactCheck Knowledge Bank for guides and toolkits The Journal’s FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles. You can read it here. For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader’s Guide here. You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... It is vital that we surface facts from noise.Articles like this one brings you clarity, transparency and balance so you can make well-informed decisions. We set up FactCheck in 2016 to proactively expose false or misleading information, but to continue to deliver on this mission we need your support. Over 5,000 readers like you support us. If you can, please consider setting up a monthly payment or making a once-off donation to keep news free to everyone. 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