The Emigration of Irish People during the Great Famine (1845-1851)
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Great Famine, Ireland, Irish society, historiography, Irish diaspora, emigration
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Abstract
The Great Famine, a severe crisis that happened in Ireland between 1845 and 1851, is seen by historians and many other people - such as politicians - as the biggest drama known by Europe, besides the two World Wars. The Great Famine is also described as the "dramatic turning point" in the history of Ireland, meaning that it created a rupture between a before and an after the crisis - it is thus compared by L. Kennedy to events such as the 1789 Revolution in France, the 1917 Revolution in Russia or the industrial revolution in England. According to this analysis, the Great Famine has dramatically changed all of the components of Ireland and Irish society. The Great Hunger is even described as "a unique historical event", having caused "a failure of the principal food of one third of the population" of Ireland. It is significant to observe that H. E. Rory Montgomery, a representative from the Irish Embassy in Paris, even called the Great Famine "the single greatest tragedy in Irish history", marking a "caesura in Irish history". Being true or not, all these expressions used to describe the Great Famine show how strong an impact this crisis had on collective memory.
Extract
[...] We will also use some primary sources, such as literature from this era and testimonies from emigrants or any other actor concerned by the Irish emigration during the Great Famine. Indeed, it is very interesting to confront the interpretations made by historians to the representations of the Great Famine by the ones who suffered from it. However, this is not so easy since it must be noted by few emigrants could leave written testimonies, since a great majority of them was uneducated. [...]
[...] The destinations of emigration for Irish people running away from the Famine - Main places of departure from Ireland: L. Kennedy's analysis in the chapter "Shrinking Ireland: Emigrants and Exiles" from Mapping the Great Irish Famine. A Survey of the Famine Decades) - K. A. Miller's number and maps will also be very useful for this part. For example: his three figures showing the "Distribution of Irish emigrants across the United States in and 1870"32 - Coming back to Ireland? [...]
[...] Around Irish people settled in England and Wales between 1841 and 1851. It must also be noted that around Irish emigrated to Australia and New Zealand13. Between 1800 and 1921, more than 8 million people emigrated from Ireland, and a great majority of them left Ireland after the Great Famine, and not before14. Thus, counting all of the emigrants, the Great Famine had the most unbelievable consequence of emptying Ireland of around one-fourth of its population. Then, studying emigration during the Great Famine allows us to think more broadly about the impact of this crisis on the dynamics of Ireland and the Irish society. [...]
[...] Rory Montgomery, from the Embassy of Ireland in Paris, "in recent decades scholars have shown how it (the Great Famine) can and indeed must be seen from a wide array of perspectives: biological, demographic, geographical, political, economic, anthropological, administrative, cultural, literary, and no doubt many others. Comparisons are made with previous and later Irish famines; with hunger elsewhere in Europe in the nineteenth century; and with great Asian and African famines of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries."22 The historiography of the Great Famine is also marked by a debate between scholars about the impact of the famine on the Irish society. Did this crisis really change the country's dynamics? Kevin O'Rourke's essay Did the Great Irish Famine Matter? [...]
[...] Kennedy's analysis and maps in the chapter "Shrinking Ireland: Emigrants and Exiles" from Mapping the Great Irish Famine. A Survey of the Famine Decades) II) Emigrating to escape the Great Famine: an aggravating factor of the crisis? K. A. Miller: "Weakened by malnutrition and disease, at least a third of the Irish who sailed to British North America, and nearly a tenth of those who went directly to the US, perished on the 'coffin ships' or shortly after debarkation"35. A. [...]
