IRISH HISTORY AND CONDITIONS THAT PUSHED THE IRISH TO EMIGRATION

To understand the reasons why millions of Irish people to emigrate to America, we must know the "push and pull" factors, starting from the situation of Ireland before the Great Famine. Unfortunately this factors will appears as a chain of causes and consequences, that could have been stopped at any point, but either Britain, the landlords and poor classes didn’t. Irish emigration wasn't restricted to the famine years of 1845 to 50, but it did take a dramatically sharp rise during this period. People had been leaving from the 1700's on in search of a better life but we will concentrate on the period of the Great Starvation because the greatest Irish emigration was recorded in that period.

To understand the Great Famine, one must focus on the expanding Irish population of the early 1800’s and the growing dependency on a single crop -- the potato. To realise why the famine lasted for five years one must understand the politics, cultures and economics of the time, since full crop failures did not occur every year between 1850 and 1900. In fact, while the blight provided the catalysts for the famine, the calamity was essentially man-made, a poison of blind politics, scientific ignorance, rural suppression and enforced poverty. Not only religious matters and prejudices against the poor Irish Catholics were key elements that led to the catastrophe.

CULTURE

In 1800 some four and one-half million people lived in Ireland. By autumn 1845, when the Great Famine struck Ireland, there were more than eight million. This was the largest increase of the population in Irish history. In addition, Ireland’s poorpopulation  was very high, and the number of landlords was very low.

Most Irish landlords were Protestants, simply because the law forbade Catholics from owning land. The Irish peasants themselves, who were both Protestant and Catholic, ate potatoes almost exclusively, since land was scarce and potatoes were an intensive crop.

England’s exploitation of the Irish, economically and morally, are reflected in articles published in The Times and on other important newspapers.

ECONOMICS

By 1800, the white potato, imported in Europe by Spain in 1532, had taken root in Ireland and ninety percent of Irish society was dependent on the potato as their primary means of caloric intake and as an export.

In September of 1845 a fungus called ‘Phytophthora infestant’ infected and devastated Ireland’s potato crops. A large portion of the population died from disease or starvation, while a great number of the people fled the country, usually for the New World.

Many Irish landlords sent badly needed grain to England for profit, instead of retaining it for the poorer classes. Without crops or employment, the tenants could no longer pay rent, so many lost the land they lived on.

The effect of this was multiplied by the fact that the English parliament was reluctant to send any food to Ireland. In 1846 one official declared : "there is no intention at all to import food for the use of the people of Ireland".

POLITICS

For many, the only alternative to starvation, and the only option to eviction from their tenant's lands, was emigration. The British Government was the first to believe in emigration as the only possible solution, and the first to take actions against the Irish situation.

As a consequence of conditions among the poor, landlordsalso supported emigration. New taxes imposed on landlords for poor relief encouraged them to reduce their tax bill by reducing the number of poor peasants. Sometimes this could be achieved by 'forgiving' the rent, which would then be used to buy a passage, or by the landlord buying the tenant's home, land and crop at a price that would allow the family to emigrate. The Poor Law made landlords responsible for paying rates for any tenant with land worth 4 pounds or less. With the famine, many landlords simply evicted tenants to reduce the taxes they had to pay, leaving those with no other option but to emigrate if they could afford the fare of £3 ($3.45). But some landlords subsidised or paid  the fair of tenants to the U.S.A. out of genuine pity and to give them some hope of a future, if not in their own country.

While approximately 180 landlords and philanthropists offered some form of assistance to more than 80,000 emigrants - it was cheaper to pay for passages to Canada or America than to support the paupers at home - the bulk of assisted emigration was conducted by landlords who sent out some 30,000 people. Amongst them we can quote Vere Foster, considered a real Good Samaritan for his help to the poor.

The belief that emigration was the best solution to Irish starvation, was the general consensus in different countries, not only in England. Newspapers in England and in USA were interested in the Irish disaster, and often judged it as a result of Catholic Irish incapacity to "grow" and become the subject of compassion. Canada and United States saw an opportunity for poor people in Irish emigration, but also for themselves since both countries needed laborers and settlers. They were allowed to advertise low-cost land and all the benefits to be found in the underdeveloped areas of North America. American contractors recruited Irish labor through newspapers in Dublin, Cork, and Belfast, for the vast construction of railways, canals, and roads.

An example of advertisement:

For the combined advantages of both countries, the British government favored the Emigration to the USA and Canada,  through advertisements and lowering of the passage costs.

Advertisements peppered about the quayside proclaimed the 'cheapest rates available anywhere!' and usually boasted of the amenities available on board. In reality, while all the ships were advertised as the 'fastest', the 'most comfortable' or the 'most luxurious', most of them were little better than tubs. Old ships like the 'Elizabeth & Sarah' built in 1763 were still being used in 1846, 83 years later, to carry Irish emigrants; the convict ship proved to have far better conditions for their 'passengers' than emigrant ships, governed by a series of regulations. Many ships were not designed to carry passengers. They would carry cargo such a wood on the journey into Ireland and prior to the famine would have been empty on the return journey. Now wooden bunks would be hastily erected before setting sail.

The passage over the Atlantic was everything but safe: danger, uncertainty, sickness and death reduced  the number of passengers by half. Those who finally reached the new world usually didn’t find what they had been told: an equally hard overland journey awaited the newly-Irish immigrates for reaching their destination (if they were lucky enough to be expected by relatives or friends who had immigrated earlier). The most common danger for all the others was to become thieves or prostitutes if they ended in the wrong hands.

In any case, religious prejudices, stereotypes and racism were the common welcome in the new land.

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