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The Lost Tribes of the Irish
in the South
AN ADDRESS
BY
IRVIN S. COBB
AT THE
ANNUAL DINNER OF THE AMERICAN IRISH HISTORICAL
SOCIETY, WALDORF-ASTORIA HOTEL,
JANUARY 6, 1917.
Office of Edward H. Daly, Secretary-General, 52 Wall Street.
NEW YORK
1917
THE LOST TRIBES OF THE IRISH IN THE SOUTH.
The after-dinner address of Mr. Irvin S. Cobb of Kentucky—so well knownthroughout the length and breadth of the land as an American of Americans andwriter of vivid stories of American life, throbbing with pathos, alive with infectioushumor, keen observation and dramatic force; as a war correspondent andpicturer of the naked horrors of war; as a lecturer and general publicist—will behailed with interest and pleasure everywhere. The American Irish Historical Societydoes itself the honor of issuing the address in this form in advance of itsappearance in the Quarterly Review of the Society, that it may be more widelyknown and the facts it sets forth more widely grasped. It treats its subject—theIrish share in the early upbuilding of the Southern States-in a masterly way,in direct line with the Society’s motto, “To make better known the Irish chapterin American history.”
Editors are cordially invited to reproduce the address in whole or in part.
JOSEPH I. C. CLARKE,
President-General,
American-Irish Historical Society.
New York, January, 1917.
MR. COBB’S ADDRESS.
Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen:I am speaking but the plaintruth when I tell you that I would ratherbe here to-night facing an assemblageof men and women of Irish blood andIrish breeding than in any other banquethall on earth. For I am one who isIrish and didn’t know it; but now thatI do know it, I am prouder of that factthan of any other thing on earth exceptthat I am an American citizen.
I wonder if it ever occurred to you,what differences are to be found in manya country and in almost any country,between the temperaments and the spiritsand the customs of those who livein the north of it and those who livein the south of it? To the north, toPrussia, the German Empire has alwayslooked for its great scientists and itsgreat mathematicians and its propoundersand expounders of a certain cool andanaly