My search-fu is not cooperating this week, so I need a little assist. I’m putting together a list of sources for a paper on conditions faced by Irish emigrants during the Great Famine. I’ve got several journal articles to look at, but it’s been hard to find books dealing specifically with the process of emigrating itself. Any recommendations? Primary sources on the period in general would be appreciated too - I’m finding a lot of secondary stuff but haven’t gone through their bibliographies and reference lists. I’d list what I’ve already chosen to look into, but I didn’t write down titles, just call numbers.
You may want to look into histories of Ellis Island, which may have bits that correspond to what you’re looking for.
That, I am afraid, is all I can think of. I myself am a history geek, but not a pro by any stretch of the imagination.
How about Emigration To North America In 1847? Lots of information & a bunch of links.
One thing: Nowadays, some of the people complaining about “Illegal immigrants” like to emphasize that their ancestors came here legally. Sure. Back then, if you were white, you just had to show up at Immigration & pass the health tests*. Welcome to America! Ignore those “No Irish Need Apply” signs–there’s plenty of work. Nobody had to hire immigration lawyers to help them jump through the legal hoops. (Many of the poorest immigrants had their passage paid by their landlords, eager to get the starving peasants off their land so they could raise sheep & hunt foxes where people had once lived.)
- The link explains that many of the Famine Era immigrants arrived on disease-laden ships. Many of* them* were sent to Canada.
Thanks for the link,** Bridget** - perfect place for me to start.
I also have O’Grada’s Black '47 and Beyond, Keneally’s The Great Shame, Scally’s The End of Hidden Ireland, Woodham-Smith’s The Great Famine, and The Great Irish Famine edited by Poirteir. Checked them out today… a nice little pile of holiday reading, that.
Nice, but hardly cheerful.
Some of those Famine-era immigrants went to fight down in Mexico & ended up fighting for Mexico. (Along with a fair number of Germans & some foreign nationals already residing there.) It ended badly, but San Patricio–by the Chieftains, Ry Cooder & an eclectic mix of other musicians, keeps the story from excessive grimness. NPR lets you listen to the whole album–right here.
(And that particular story involves a whole other pile of books.)
I was just listening to bits of San Patricio the other day. Interesting sound to that album, and a whole bit of history that I know bugger-all about. It’s like a double treat that way.
Here’s some more likely-looking sources. They’re all taken from the Library of Congress catalog, but your university or local library could have some of them, and you can probably also get them through interlibrary loan:
Main Title: Fleeing the famine : North America and Irish refugees,
1845-1851 / edited by Margaret M. Mulrooney.
Published/Created: Westport, Conn. : Praeger, 2003.
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Main Title: The great famine and the Irish diaspora in America / edited
by Arthur Gribben ; introduction by Ruth-Ann M. Harris.
Published/Created: Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, c1999.
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Main Title: The Irish in Victorian Britain : the local dimension /
Roger Swift & Sheridan Gilley, editors.
Published/Created: Dublin, Ireland : Four Courts Press, c1999.
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Main Title: Irish migrants in Britain, 1815-1914 : a documentary
history / edited by Roger Swift.
Published/Created: Cork, Ireland : Cork University Press, 2002.
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Main Title: Irish women and Irish migration / edited by Patrick
O'Sullivan.
Published/Created: London ; New York : Leicester University Press, 1995.
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Main Title: The meaning of the famine / edited by Patrick O'Sullivan.
Published/Created: London ; New York : Leicester University Press, 1997.
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Main Title: Historical archaeology of the Irish diaspora : a
transnational approach / Stephen A. Brighton.
Published/Created: Knoxville : University of Tennessee Press, 2009.
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Main Title: Passage to America: a history of emigrants from Great
Britain and Ireland to America in the mid-nineteenth
century.
Published/Created: London, Hutchinson and Co. (Publishers) Ltd, 1972.
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Main Title: Ballykilcline rising : from famine Ireland to immigrant
America / Mary Lee Dunn.
Published/Created: Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, c2008.
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Main Title: Antebellum Irish immigration and emerging ideologies of
"America" : a Protestant backlash / Robert Dunne.
Published/Created: Lewiston, N.Y. : Edwin Mellen Press, c2002.
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Main Title: Irish migrants in the Canadas : a new approach / Bruce S.
Elliott.
Published/Created: Kingston : McGill-Queen's University Press ; Belfast,
Northern Ireland : Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's
University of Belfast, 1988.
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Main Title: Receiving Erin's children : Philadelphia, Liverpool, and
the Irish famine migration, 1845-1855 / J. Matthew
Gallman.
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Main Title: Passage to the New World : packet ships and Irish famine
emigrants, 1845-1851 / David Hollett.
Published/Created: Abergavenny, Gwent : P.M. Heaton Pub., c1995.
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Main Title: Irish emigration and Canadian settlement : patterns, links,
and letters / Cecil J. Houston, William J. Smyth.
Published/Created: Toronto ; Buffalo : University of Toronto Press ; Belfast :
Ulster Historical Foundation, c1990.
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Main Title: Irish emigration to New England through the port of Saint
John, New Brunswick, Canada, 1841 to 1849 / by Daniel F.
Johnson.
Published/Created: Baltimore, Md. : Clearfield, 1997.
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Personal Name: Laxton, Edward.
Main Title: The famine ships : the Irish exodus to America, 1846-51 /
Edward Laxton.
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Main Title: Exiles of Erin : Irish migrants in Victorian London / Lynn
Hollen Lees.
Published/Created: Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1979.
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Personal Name: MacKay, Donald, 1925-
Main Title: Flight from famine : the coming of the Irish to Canada /
Donald MacKay.
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Personal Name: McBride, Terence.
Main Title: The experience of Irish migrants to Glasgow, Scotland,
1863-1891 : a new way of being Irish / Terence McBride ;
with a preface by W. Hamish Fraser.
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Personal Name: McClaughlin, Trevor, 1944-
Main Title: Barefoot and pregnant? : Irish famine orphans in Australia
: documents and register / compiled by Trevor
McClaughlin.
Published/Created: Melbourne : Genealogical Society of Victoria, c1991-<[2001
>
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Main Title: Sending out Ireland's poor : assisted emigration to North
America in the nineteenth century / Gerard Moran.
Published/Created: Dublin ; Portland, OR : Four Courts Press, c2004.
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Main Title: Black '47 : Britain and the famine Irish / Frank Neal.
Published/Created: Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire : MacMillan ; New York :
St. Martin's Press, 1998.
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Main Title: Ireland and the American emigration, 1850-1900 / Arnold
Schrier.
Published/Created: Chester Springs, PA : Dufour Editions, 1997.
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Main Title: Robert Whyte's 1847 famine ship diary : the journey of an
Irish coffin ship / edited by James J. Mangan.
Published/Created: Cork, Ireland : Mercier Press, c1994.
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Main Title: The great hunger: Ireland 1845-1849.
Edition Information:
[1st ed.]
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I should add that one of the most useful skills to have as a researcher is a decent understanding of how to search by Library of Congress subject categories. If you get a sense of what sort of terms are used, and how the subjects are arranged, it can make a search like this far easier.
The subject for all the above-listed texts was:
Ireland–Emigration and immigration–History–19th century.
The LoC also has some other, more specific subject areas that would fit your assignment.
Ellis Island didn’t open until 1892 so only much later Irish would have been processed there.
The Irish Famine: A Comparison of Irish and English Perspectives through Primary Sources
Irish National Archives Primary Sources
Links to 1850s ti-Catholic literature from the Irish wave at LoC
Several anti-Irish/anti-Catholic cartoons of the period (cartoons count as primary sources)
An 1854 “No Irish Need Apply” advertisement.
An 1852 on the Irish in America- bookmarked to the chapter on the recent floods of immigration due to the Famine
British newspapers of the Famine era
While this website wouldn’t qualify as primary the Census data on it would
Wow, Thanks for the link. My Fathers Irish relatives settled in Quebec and I hope it was not via Grosse Island. How unbelievably sad their plight was. My Grandmothers family had a farm in McReynoldsville in Ottowa. My Grandfathers family helped build the Canadian railroad. It was very hard work laying the tracks and clearing the land before modern machinery. Some took squaws as wives because they were away more then they were home and the Indian women were very self sufficient. After my Grandparents married they immigrated across the St. Lawrence river to NY. My grandfather opened a store and lost it during the great depression. It was hard times back then but I had no idea how hard it was for the immigrants themselves.