What did Irish immigrants travel to America on?

Answer 1

Until commercial aviation became widely available to the internationally traveling public in the late-1940s after the end of World War II, all immigrants from other continents traveled to America on ships.

While steam began to propel passenger ships in the mid-19th century, sail-driven ships continued to be used until the end of the 1800s because (1) they existed in large numbers, and (2) were considerably cheaper to operate. For traveling passengers there was a very considerable difference in fares between steam and sail. Thus, during the 19th century, steam ships were primarily used by the wealthy, while sailing ships were used by the destitute. Ships sailing westward across the north Atlantic had to tack against the prevailing winds on voyages that could take up to three months from England to America, but could use those same winds to return to the British Isles in just three or four weeks. To get to America with a sailing ship it was usually more efficient to first travel south from England all the way past Portugal and the Canary Islands to western Africa, catch the westerly winds across the South Atlantic to the Caribbean, and then follow the Gulf Stream north along the American coastline to Charleston, New York or Boston, with an average voyage time of 9 to 12 weeks.

Irish immigrants had traveled to America (and Canada) on sailing ships in steady but small numbers since colonies began being established in the early 1500s, and 250 years later their descendants fought in the American Revolutionary War against the British monarchy, participated in writing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and were elected to the First Continental Congress.

However, during the mid-19th century, impoverished Irish immigrants came to America in really large numbers, the greatest such ethnic migration to America until that of modern day Latin American Hispanics. Today, most people share an interest in this great 1840-1870 flood of Irish immigrants - one that peaked just before the very deadly American Civil War.

Prior to the opening of Ellis Island at the end of that century, Irish immigrants, sickly, uneducated and improvised after four centuries of oppressive British crown rule, which included assorted efforts at systematic ethnic cleansing, property confiscation, disenfranchisement, usury, population seeding ("plantings"), excessive taxation, etc., came to America mostly on super low-fare slave ships they called "coffin ships" because so many passengers died en route. The ships were usually European three-masted sailing cargo ships with small crews especially converted for the purpose of transporting slaves. Starting in Liverpool, the voyage usually took an average of ten awful weeks.

During the great Ireland Famine years of the mid-19th century, over 2,000,000 starving Irish left their homeland for America crammed like sardines into these coffin ships. Since their penniless "white n-g-er" passengers had no sale value upon arrival, there was no need to care for them with adequate food, sanitation or medical attention. The ships had mortality rates of around 30%. It is estimated that in one single decade from 1844 to 1854, over 300,000 of their Irish passengers -- men, women and children - died of diseases such as malnutrition, dehydration, dysentery and scurvy before arriving in America, their bodies simply dumped overboard at sea. Those who made that treacherous voyage had almost zero hope of ever returning home, so, if they survived, they put everything they had into making life in America work. The whole experience was one long one-way "do or die" journey.

The millions of Irish who braved such a perilous voyage during the mid-19th century were not so different from those of other cultures of the time also trying to reach North America. They just faced an urgent decision whether to die ignominiously of starvation under British crown oppression in their homeland or die trying to reach a better chance of life elsewhere, and many who left believed that their death or banishment had always been the British objective since the time of Henry VIII.

One of those who managed to survive the journey was a 25 year old young lady named Bridget from County Wexford in southern Ireland who arrived alone in Boston at the height of the famine in 1849. She soon married a poor Irish immigrant she had known back home named Patrick and settled into the filthy and violent slums near the Boston harbor. She soon lost her first born son and her husband to cholera, but managed to gradually build, on her own, a small retail business while caring for and raising her remaining four children. Her name was Bridget Kennedy, and just three generations later, her great grandson, John, overcoming four centuries of virulent anti-Catholic Irish bigotry in the British Isles and America and using the family fortune his great grandmother had established in the Boston slums, returned to Ireland in first class as President of the United States. There was, of course, some great irony in Great Britain that the leader of the "American Camelot" was Irish -- one of those despised "sub-human undesirables".

The Irish were still coming to America on converted cargo ships forty years after Bridget when Ellis Island opened in 1892. Although millions of Irish immigrants had preceded her for a half century of far harsher circumstances, the very first immigrant to step off a ship onto Ellis Island was Annie Moore of County Cork, Ireland, who was either 15 or 17. She settled in New York's 4th Ward, in a rough and tumble seaport slum, and soon married a German baker. They had ten (or 11) children, five of whom survived to adulthood. She died in 1923 at 47 (or 49) and is buried in Queens next to five of her children. Her story is very common for Irish-Americans. Her age and the fact that she was traveling alone was also not uncommon; many such immigrants lost relatives on the very dangerous journey throughout the 19th century. Today Annie Moore has the very remarkable distinction of having her likeness cast in bronze in two different life-size statues, one on Ellis Island New York and one in Cobh Ireland.

Until it became possible to ride in a very comfortable jet airliner for several hours in order to get from Europe or Asia to New York or San Francisco (roughly around 1950), those who left for North America during the 400 years from 1550 to 1950 were the bravest of the brave, those who survived the toughest of the tough, of their native cultures. They were the people who struck out on their own, leaped from the comfortably familiar to the dangerously unknown, to risk a very treacherous voyage and face certain great adversity at their destination. Upon arrival they all - man, woman and child - would discover that their arduous journey had only just begun. They had to make a life commitment to succeed against great odds as free souls in a new world, or die trying. There was no turning back, no second chances if things didn't work out so well. Such were the special people who made America, and then defended it repeatedly in deadly wars.

Those who succeeded gradually built in a huge wilderness a great nation with a truly vibrant culture - something of truly great and real value - a rich society that made its mark on the world as a place where free people without interference from rulers could thrive, could create and defend a special place that would then attract people from all over the world seeking an enormously easier path to freedom and success than those who went before them. Everyone who showed up in the magic that was America after World War II could simply demand as their birthright all that America's ancestors had given their blood, sweat and tears to build and defend for their children.

But the Irish who left Ireland during the 18th century, and all their many millions of American descendents, always kept a special place in their hearts for their Emerald Isle. Ellis and Ireland - Isle Of Hope, Isle Of Tears.

Answer 2

Ireland has, until recent years, always produced huge numbers of emigrants and that has started again with the current economic problems. In the nid 1800's there were several bad summers in Europe that caused crop failure - in Ireland huge numbers of people died or emigrated to avoid starvation due to near total failure of the potato crop.