Irish Immigration to America

By Stephen Szabados

This is a fantastic resource and a must-have when writing your Irish family history. When did your Irish ancestors immigrate, where did they leave, why did they leave, how did they get here? The author hopes you find the answer to some of these questions. The book will give insight into the immigration of your ancestors. Irish immigration had many factors, and the Great Potato Famine only magnified the main causes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Szabados
• Release date: Jun 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201836573

Stephen Szabados

Steve Szabados grew up in Central Illinois and is a retired project manager living in the Chicago Suburbs. He received a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and a Masters in Business Administration from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. Steve Szabados is an author and lecturer on genealogy. He has been researching his ancestors since 2000 and has traced ancestors back to the 1600s in New England, Virgina, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and the 1730’s in Poland, Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Slovenia. He has given numerous presentations to genealogical groups and libraries in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. His mission is to share his passion for Family History with as many people as he can. He is a former board member of Polish Genealogical Society of America, and he is a genealogy volunteer at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library. Steve also is the genealogy columnist for the Polish American Journal.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1: The Decision to Leave

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Why did your Irish ancestors emigrate, where did they leave their homeland, how did they get to America?

The answers to these questions differ depending upon when they left. The sharp religious divisions between Irish Catholics, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, and the Anglican English seem to be the cause for much of the Irish emigration in the 1700s and 1800s. I believe these tensions were the underlying cause for emigration in the 1700s, and then magnified the well-known effects of the Irish Famine in the mid-1800s.

The reasons for Irish emigration passed down in family stories were diverse and varied over the generations because most emigrants had multiple reasons for leaving.  Religious and political freedom were among the early reasons. However, poverty, especially during and after the Great Famine, was also high on the list of reasons to leave. Also remember, the effects of chain migration as the early Irish immigrants encouraged their friends and relatives to join them with promises of a better life somewhere other than Ireland.

The religious divisions and tensions in Ireland go back to the conflicts between Catholic Ireland and their Protestant English rulers. The aftermath of the Nine Years War in 1603 caused the two Catholic Ulster earls to flee to France. King James confiscated their lands, which included the counties of Armagh, Cavan, Londonderry, Donegal, Fermanagh, and Tyrone. He then made these lands available for resettlement by Protestant Scots and Englishmen, whom he recruited.[1] The resettlement of these non-Irish added another factor to the tensions that caused later emigration.  

In 1609, King James began the systematic resettlement of Ireland's northern province of Ulster with recruited English and Scottish Protestant settlers. King James believed the relocation of these Protestant families into the Plantation of Ulster would bring peace to the northern Irish counties. He also wanted to provide fighting men who could suppress the native Catholic Irish in Ireland if another rebellion occurred.

However, tensions grew from the English distribution of these lands and their steps to control Ireland. English officials renamed the confiscated lands as the Plantation of Ulster and granted ownership to three levels of men loyal to the English Crown. Men of high rank, military men, and government officials received between 1000 to 3000 acres, which they rented to English and Scottish settlers. They could also rent to native Irish tenants. Some native Irish received grants of 100 to 200 acres that they could rent to Irish tenants. King James also gave control of county Coleraine to the City of London and changed these lands to County Londonderry.[2] Large numbers of Scots and small numbers of English settlers became new tenants in the new Plantation of Ulster.

The land-hungry Scots saw Ulster as similar to their Scottish homeland, where they could still use their traditional farming resources and practices. They saw that they could continue to graze their livestock year-round. During the summer, they moved the livestock into the hills and planted crops such as oats, barley, and wheat in the tillable fields. After the harvest, they moved the animals to graze on the stalks left in the fields. The Scots supplemented their diets with the milk and butter from their livestock.[3]

The Scots were eager to claim their new land but found their native Irish neighbors resented them. The native Irish were angry that the Presbyterian Scots now populated the land confiscated from their defeated Irish lords and deprived the Irish of work on these lands. The Scots were further upset when they realized the Anglican English did not regard the Scots as their equals and would not grant them full rights in governing their new lands.

In the late 1600s, the English enacted Penal Laws that deepened the tensions more. The Penal Laws were in force from 1691 to 1778. The new laws restricted land ownership to the Anglican Church members and negatively affected both the Irish Catholics and non-Anglican Protestants, such as the Presbyterian Scots. Non-Anglicans could only lease the land but not own it. Although the leases were usually long-term, this situation did not provide for the families' security or wealth. Limiting land ownership to members of the Anglican Church led to total control of Irish lands, economy, politics, and daily life by English-born or descendants of English-born landlords. The Penal Laws restrictions became the heart of the Scotch-Irish and the Irish Catholics' miseries in the 1700s and 1800s.

The English enacted these laws to uphold the Church of England's status against Protestant nonconformists and Catholics. The rules required municipal officials to take Anglican communion. All ministers must read from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer at their services. The new laws also forbade attending unauthorized worship and banned nonconformist ministers from within five miles of incorporated towns. However, the banned ministers held services in private homes or secluded outdoor locations.[4] Both Protestant nonconformists and Catholics had to pay tithes to support the Anglican Church, which burdened the family.

English officials imposed various civil penalties upon dissenters. These requirements were oppressive to both the Scottish Presbyterians and Irish Catholics. The principal victims were members of the Catholic Church, who made up over three-fourths of the population. However, the Presbyterian Scots also felt the same level of discrimination. These restrictions caused the Scotch Presbyterians to take action and emigrate sooner than the Irish Catholics. The Scots had been in Ireland for only a few generations and had less to lose by leaving their new land.

Members of the Irish Anglican Church made up about ten percent of the Irish population in the early 1800s. Most were born in England or were descendants of English-born. However, they dominated the Irish economy, social life, and politics.

The Penal Laws created a society throughout Ireland where a small landholding elite enjoyed economic and political supremacy over a large body of tenants and laborers. This social structure was typical throughout Britain and Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.[5] In Ireland, Anglicans owned or controlled all the lands in Ireland and were the only group allowed to hold public office. They were the business leaders because of their wealth, social status, and business connections in England. Catholics and other Protestants could gain entry into the upper classes only by becoming members of the Anglican Church. The dominance of the English landlords and the Anglican Church helped trigger Ireland's emigration in the 1700s and 1800s.[6]

Immigration during the 1700s

The first Irish immigrants began arriving in America about 1713 when the Scotch-Irish (many say Scots-Irish) landed in Pennsylvania. At first, American colonists called them Irish but eventually began calling them Scotch-Irish when the new immigrants insisted they were Scottish. The new immigrants had left Ireland, but their ancestors were Scottish and had left Scotland a few generations earlier. The Scotch-Irish began their migration from the Ulster ports of Londonderry, Portrush, Larne, Belfast, and Newry, primarily for Philadelphia. They came to Pennsylvania due to its religious tolerance and the vast new lands it offered. They were farmers and weavers.

The Scots moved quickly to the backcountry of Pennsylvania. Because Germans who had come earlier already owned the prime farmlands close to Philadelphia. The land they settled was in the hills and forests in western Pennsylvania and was suitable land to support their families. As more immigrants came, the Scotch-Irish were drawn to migrate by descriptions of virgin land further west into the Appalachian regions and south into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and Carolina. After the Revolutionary War, many migrated westward from Virginia and Carolina into Tennessee and Kentucky.

Small groups of Catholic Irish also immigrated to America in the 1700s. They saw the advertisements from colonial governors seeking European workers. Among those accepting the invitations were Irish Catholics from Ireland's southern counties, who left to start a new life in Massachusetts, Virginia, and Maryland. The Irish Catholics left from the ports of Cork and Kinsale along the southern Irish coast.

Most of the Irish Catholics leaving were middle-class Catholic farmers who could afford the passage. The group also included skilled tradespeople seeking better opportunities. Other Irish Catholics leaving were impoverished farmers and cottagers who could not afford the passage but left Ireland as indentured servants to America. All felt there would be limited future opportunities for their children and grandchildren in Ireland. These laborers, farmers, and tradesmen decided to risk emigration for the possibility of a better life in America.

The British colonies in America needed immigrant labor. They required farmhands to clear the land and establish farms. They needed skilled workers such as millers, coopers, blacksmiths, carpenters, and others to produce goods and services required by the colony to survive and export. The various colonies sometimes competed for labor and devised multiple methods to get the workforce needed to succeed. Some immigrants could pay for the voyage, and those who did not have the money became indentured servants.

At the end of the Revolutionary war, the United States had over three million people. About 500,000 of this population were of Irish ancestry. About 300,000 of these Irish were Scotch-Irish and had left from Ulster ports.

Ireland in the 1800s

The pace of Irish Catholic immigration to America increased after the United States gained independence from England. More than one million Irish immigrants arrived between 1783 and 1844. Most were Catholic and fleeing the discrimination of the English penal laws. The early immigrants in this wave were artisans or professionals and quickly assimilated into their new land. They were lucky because they could afford to pay for their passage. Some were Catholic farmers who hoped for a better life for their children by owning their farms in America instead of leasing from their English landlords.

In 1801, the Irish thought the British government gave them hope when they enacted the Acts of Union. This law established the combined nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. There would be Irish representation in Parliament. However, Irish life did not change because Great Britain continued to govern Ireland as a colony until 1921.

The Catholic population continued to suffer under the Union legislation because the bulk of the elected representatives from Ireland were Protestant landowners of British origin. Irish Catholics could not own land, vote, or hold elected office under the Penal Laws. Most Irish Catholics worked as tenant farmers and paid rent to the landowners.[7] Although the Penal Laws were repealed by 1829, the Catholic population still felt their impact from many generations of discrimination. The Acts of Union did not change the effect of the Penal Laws. The pollical power was still with British or British-born men.

Ireland was one of the poorest countries in Europe in the 1800s. Over half of its families lived in a single-room, mud cottage with thatched roofs. The cottages usually housed more than a dozen people who slept on straw beds on the bare ground. Many also shared the inside with the family's pig and chickens. Most could not read or write.

According to the 1841 census, about 45 percent of the Irish farmers cultivated small parcels of land of no more than five acres.[8] They did not own their farm but were tenants of landlords who were English lords or Anglican middlemen. Most of what they grew went to the landlord as rent, so they had to use as much of their land as possible to have some surplus available to feed themselves. They grew marketable commodities such as flax, wheat and used only a small portion of their land to grow crops for their use, which was typically potatoes. One or two acres of potatoes could provide the small farmer enough food to feed his family for the year. Hopefully, their efforts produced enough saleable goods to pay their rent and have some surplus to sell at the market. The surplus would allow them to have the cash to buy other things they needed. Some could earn extra income by selling milk, eggs, and young livestock or doing seasonable work on the larger farms. Many wives and daughters had cottage industries such as spinning yarn and weaving linen their homespun clothing and sale. The men tilled the soil with hand tools because they could not afford to buy implements, horses, or mules. If they owned any livestock, they did not build outbuildings to house them. If the livestock needed shelter, the farmers brought them temporarily in the house with the family. The farmer had to devote as much land as possible to grow crops and not outbuildings.[9]

Another group of tenant farmers leased between 10 and 30 acres and were frequently better off than the small farmer. This group constituted about a third of the farmers in Ireland. They probably owned a draft animal, raised surplus crops to sell at the market, added meat to their potato diet, and occasionally hired laborers to help with the crops. Their houses were still humble but were more extensive and more comfortable. Their clothes might be store-bought but were worn and ragged before the wearer discarded them. Their standard of living was higher than the small farmer, but their lives were also insecure. They still had to risk the possibility of rent increases and crop failures.[10]

The third level of Irish tenant farm held between 30 and sometimes over 100 acres. Their lands may also include pastures for grazing livestock. This group had the majority of land in Ireland. However, if they were Presbyterian or Catholic, they were still tenant farmers. Their leases were customarily longer-term than the smaller farmers, and many sublet portions of their holdings to the smaller farmer at a higher rent than what they paid.[11] The larger farmers could afford to buy implements and draft animals from their earnings from their surplus crops. They usually lived in large two-story homes with slate roofs.[12]

Fewer than 10,000 families owned the farmland in Ireland. These were the elite of the country's agrarian society, and all tenant farmers were obligated to them.[13] They were genuine English gentry and frequently preferred the social life surrounding their townhouses in Dublin or London. All were members of the Anglican Church. Many neglected the upkeep and improvements of their country estates and left their management to agents. Absentee landlords were a constant source of landlord-tenant