Irish Emigration and Immigration
The Irish Citizens, for the most part, emigrated to four places: Canada (British North America), The United States of America, Great Britain, or Australia. The majority of the Irish people who emigrated moved to Great Britain in hopes of finding a job and earning some money to pay for the fare to travel. However, about one-third or 300,000 of the people who moved to Great Britain never ended up emigrating. The British were extremely upset by the massive amount of Irish that had moved to their country; meeting were held and about £4,000 were raised to deport the Irish back to Ireland The majority of people who did emigrate moved to Canada as it was a British Colony and the fare to travel there was cheap. However, one-half of the people who traveled to Canada crossed the border to the United States, only about 360,000 people remained in Canada. Others who were somewhat more fortunate could afford the fare to travel directly to the United States. By the end of The Famine, about 800,000 people had moved to The United States. The last, and least popular destination, that people traveled to was Australia. Australia was a British colony that was used as a prison. So, the peasants that couldn't pay their taxes or those that broke the law in order to get money or food were sent to Australia as a form of punishment. Throughout The Famine, crime increased three-fold. Frequently, families would get together and pool their money and send one member of the family over to America, that member would then find work in America and send the money back to help pay for another family members fare.
Landlords and Evictions
During the Famine, landlords often evicted most if not all of their tenants. The reason for this mass eviction was the fact that the landlords would have to pay taxes for each person that lived on their land. Because the crops had failed, the tenants had nothing to sell and, therefore, could not pay their rent. Therefore, the landlords had a decision to make, pay the taxes for their tenants in hopes that the crop would come back in the next and the tenants could pay them back then or evict the tenants and save money by not having to pay extra taxes.
The landlords would pay the fare for their tenants to travel to Canada, often times promising a job, home, money, or other necessities when they arrived. The landlords did this to make emigration appealing to the tenants and ensure that they would, in fact, leave the landlords land; and by the time that their tenant had reached Canada and realized that there was nothing there for them, they wouldn't do anything to the landlord.
The landlords would pay the fare for their tenants to travel to Canada, often times promising a job, home, money, or other necessities when they arrived. The landlords did this to make emigration appealing to the tenants and ensure that they would, in fact, leave the landlords land; and by the time that their tenant had reached Canada and realized that there was nothing there for them, they wouldn't do anything to the landlord.
Horror Stories The ships that the Irish traveled upon quickly became known as "Coffin Ships". This nickname arose from the staggering number of deaths that occurred during voyages across the sea. An estimated one in three would die on the voyage. Often times these deaths were caused by diseases that quickly spread in the close quarters that the emigrants slept in. However, some of these deaths were caused by abuse or neglect from the ship's crew and captain.
Often times the ships that the Irish traveled upon were not made to be making long and dangerous voyages, like the one across the Atlantic Ocean. Other times the ships were overcrowded. Many of the Irish also starved to death during their voyage across the sea. At that time, laws mandated that ships had 1 lb. of food per person per day of the voyage, it was expected that the Irish would bring their own food for the voyage (even though the whole reason that the were emigrating was because of lack of food). Even if the Irish were lucky enough to actually be fed their rations, 1lb a day of food still amounted to starvation sized rations. The food would often ties be prepared haphazardly and undercooked, which caused even more sickness. Frequently, the water would become contaminated during the voyage and become undrinkable leading to dehydration and more sickness. Here are a few examples of the horrors that occurred upon the seas:
The journey across the Atlantic Ocean was very dangerous as one in three people died. The majority of the people who emigrated went to Canada. Canada had an island, Grosse Island, that it used for quarantining immigrants. Grosse Island was very small and was very quickly overrun by massive amounts of Irish Immigrants as there were only 150 beds on the entire island. At one point, the line of ships waiting to empty their passengers onto the island stretched as long as 2 miles. After Grosse Isle was overrun, Canada enacted a mandatory 15-day waiting period in which many people who had remained healthy became sick. Eventually, the quarantine efforts were abandoned. This led to an increase of typhus and other diseases in Canada. A memorial was erected on Grosse Isle and it reads: “ In this secluded spot lie the mortal remains of 5,294 persons, who, flying from pestilence and famine in Ireland in the year of 1847, found America but a grave. In 1847, an estimated 110,000 people embarked on a ship heading for Canada. Of that, approximately 17,000 people died during the voyage and another 20,000 died while in Canada. |
Stereotypes The Irish were not welcomed with open arms, instead they were met with animosity and awful stereotypes. Political cartoons and stereotypes. Many of these stereotypes erupted from Religious differences and general dislike of immigrants.
The Following are some of the stereotypes, some of which still exist today:
The Irish immigrants had little or no skills. Many had no money, clothes, education or religious training. Because of this many of the Irish were forced into dangerous jobs such as railroad builders, miners, policemen, and firemen while others were forced to fight in wars, such as the Civil War. |