A rapidly increased population in Ireland at the end of the 18th century led to the exploitation of land and the increasing of rents followed by forced evictions by the landlords. For the victims of eviction there were only two alternatives – begging or emigration.
The usual road taken by the emigrants bound to America ended in Dublin. From there the emigrant crossed to Liverpool, and took a ship sailing to New York, Boston or Philadelphia. ‘Men, women and children were scrambling up the sides of the ship. One could see hundreds of people confused, screaming. Luggage and boxes were flung aboard, followed by the passengers.
When they or their luggage missed the ship and fell into the water there was usually a man in a rowing boat ready to rescue and get his reward. But sadly there was not always someone there to rescue and consequently a few people drowned.
This sad scene of the departure was described in the Illustrated London News in 1850: As the ship is towed out, hats are raised, handkerchiefs are waved, and a loud and long-continued shout of farewell is raised from the shore, and cordially responded to from the ship. It is then, if at any time, that the eyes of the emigrants begin to moisten’
Occasionally, the ports of Dublin and Cork were used to sail directly to North America when ships were chartered to this purpose.
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that after 1840 and until the 1880s the vast majority of emigrants used Liverpool as their port of departure due to the greater availability of shipping lines, frequencies, fares and accommodations. T
There is also circumstantial evidence that some of them have gone from the port of Southampton, but Liverpool was the preferred port of emigration during the nineteenth century. ‘The annals of the modern world offer no such record as that presented in the history of Ireland, since the memorable and deplorable years of the potato famine, and of the pestilence that followed in its track.
There are some forty million Irish Americans in the United States of America, descendants of those who, over the past four centuries, crossed the Atlantic in successive waves of emigrations.
Life in America was rarely easy and many of the new immigrants fell by the wayside; but eventually they achieved a standard of living unimaginable in the world they had left behind.
Over the generations they have risen to the highest positions in politics, the labour movement, the professions, industry, commerce and the arts, and their very numbers made them a powerful political force.
Next P7.
Page 6.
Liverpool's Historic Connections to America.
Discover the connections between the City of Liverpool and America, which have existed from the sixteenth century, right up to the present time.