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The Great Potato Famine was one reason so many Irish fled to America. The land was so overused that it bore nothing and many people died of starvation.

In 1917, Padraig Pierce led a disastrous rebellion in Dublin. Though it failed, the seed of Irish independence was planted and Ireland won independence, but the UK retained 6 Irish Counties in the Ulster province, turning that into Northern Ireland. It also started a huge civil war among the Irish. Religion was one factor, loyalty to the government another and it turned really ugly. Many Irishmen wanted a fresh start in America and many who came thrived and prospered. However, some did not and were treated shamefully, discriminated against and forced to live in conditions almost as bad as what they left behind.

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13y ago
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12y ago

The Great Famine (starvation, poverty, and typhus)

Many Irish people emigrated to the United States, primarily Boston and New York, and England, mostly Liverpool in "coffin ships" where the chance of surving was only 70%. The repercussions of the potato blight were devastating for Irish tenant farmers who were employed by mostly Protestant, English landlords who aside from not even being Irish themselves, were not quick to aid their starving tenants but rather evict them if their taxes were not paid. Another problem was the fact that the English did not feel as though they should have been overly supportive because they felt that if they were too soft the Irish would become entiled and lazy. Also, food was not only not being imported it was being exported out of Ireland to England. Another controversy was the fact that the Ottoman empire intended to send money to aid the Irish but Queen Victoria got them to diminish their donation from 10 thousand euros to one thousand because she herself only donated two thousand. Because of these and many other factors one to one and a half million Irish people left the country to escape the miserable conditions. In the end Ireland lost half its population (8 million to 4 million) due to starvation, disease, and emigration and still today does not have as high a population as it did pre-Famine.

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Because people thought that the Famine is not it America but the Famine came from somewhere there it came from the US and America is somewhere close to

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Q: What was the primary reason for Irish immigration to America?
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