Between 1845 and 1852, Ireland lost about a million people to famine and a million more to emigration. Emigration continued for more than a century after. Those who left built new lives on every continent, and kept a thread back home.
On 1 January 1892, a teenager from Cork named Annie Moore became the first immigrant processed at Ellis Island. Millions of Irish people had come before her, and millions more followed. They built parishes, staffed police and fire departments, and made the St Patrick’s Day parade a fixture: New York’s dates to 1762, older than the United States itself.
Irish labourers dug Britain’s canals, laid its railways and built its motorways. The word “navvy” comes from “navigator”, the name for the men who dug the canals. Irish nurses helped staff the NHS from its founding in 1948. Dance halls like the Galtymore in Cricklewood became a home from home on Saturday nights.
Tens of thousands of Irish convicts were transported to Australia between 1791 and 1868. Free settlers followed, many during the gold rushes of the 1850s. Irish priests, nuns and teachers built much of the country’s school system.
In 1847, thousands of Irish emigrants died at the quarantine station on Grosse Île in the St Lawrence River, where a memorial now stands. Smaller communities took root in Newfoundland, Argentina and New Zealand.
The night before someone emigrated, family and neighbours gathered in the house as they would for a wake, with music, food and stories. For many it really was a goodbye; they never expected to meet again.
Letters, money orders and parcels from America kept many Irish families going. The “returned Yank” coming home in a good suit became a figure of every parish.
Carry it on: Tell your family’s emigration story. It belongs in the archive.
Start with the free 1901 and 1911 census records and the civil and church records at irishgenealogy.ie. Placenames can be checked on Logainm.
Your Townland is coming soon: enter the place your people came from and see its stories, placenames and census figures in one place. Galway first.