When waves of Irish settlers arrived on the American shores, they quickly became an unsettling presence. The largely Protestant population was appalled by the potential impact of this new influx of “papists” on their recently established way of life. “Idolatrous” Irish Catholics were persecuted and their property destroyed, all of which has surely contributed to a strong sense of Irish community in areas such as Boston. Today Irish culture is one of the most widely celebrated in the USA, and in other lands far from the ports from which those first emigrants set sail.