text: "Kiss me, I'm Irish" is a phrase many St. Patrick's Day revelers use on the holiday. But Irish people have <a href="http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/irish_am_solidarity.cfm" target="_blank" target="_blank">not always had such a loving reception in this country</a>. When Catholic Irish fled the famine in their country in the mid-1800s and came to the U.S., they were seen by some as poor, uneducated drains on the economy who had the wrong religion. But Catholic Irish immigrants soon became a powerful social group in urban centers, and <a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/is-the-irish-american-vote-still-important-662013-Nov2012/" target="_blank" target="_blank">politicians often sought the support</a> of the "Green machine."