Emigration

Emigration

In the 1845 the famine struck Ireland. All the potatoes, were rotten. It left people starving it was awful. Some families thought it was Better to immigrate away. Most families when to America. That is why some Irish people have American relations. They went to America on Coffin ships.There were a lot of coffin ships one of them was called The Jeanie Johnston

This is The Jeanie Johnston you can find the Jeanine Johnston in Ierland county Dubin,the town next to the liffey. No one every died on The Jeanie Johnston which is a good thing. The Jeanie Jonhston was built in 1847.There are other ships as well.

Alot of people went to America they also went to Canda uper and lower Canda

Leaving Ireland
Irish emigration to America proceeded at a modest pace in the decades before the Great Famine. It has been estimated that only 5,000 Irish immigrants per year arrived in the United States. The Great Famine increased those numbers astronomically, and documented arrivals during the Famine years are well over a half-million. It is assumed that many more arrived undocumented, such as by landing first in Canada and simply walking into the United States. By 1850 the population of New York City was said to be 26 percent Irish. An article headlined "Ireland in America" in the //New York Times// on April 2, 1852 recounted the continuing arrivals:

On Sunday last three thousand emigrants arrived at this port. On Monday there were over two thousand. On Tuesday over five thousand arrived. On Wednesday the number was over two thousand. Thus in four days **twelve thousand** persons were landed for the first time upon American shores. A population greater than that of some of the largest and most flourishing villages of this State was added to the City of New York within ninety-six hours.

Irish in a New World
The flood of Irish into the United States had a great effect, especially in urban centers where the Irish exerted political influence and often were the backbone of municipal government, most notably the police and fire departments. In the Civil War, entire regiments were composed of Irish troops, such as those of New York's famed Irish Brigade. In 1858, the Irish community in New York City had demonstrated that it was in America to stay. Led by a politically powerful immigrant,the Irish began building the largest church in New York City. They called it St. Patrick's Cathedral, and it would replace a modest cathedral, also named for Ireland's patron saint, in lower Manhattan. Construction was halted during the Civil War, but the enormous cathedral was finally finished in 1878. Thirty years after the Great Famine, the twin spires of St. Patrick's dominated the skyline of New York City. And on the docks of lower Manhattan, the Irish kept arriving.