Emigration – The Illustrated London News - 1850

The Illustrated London News - 1850

THE great tide of Emigration flows steadily westward.  The principle emigrants are Irish peasants and labourers.  It is calculated that at least four out of every five persons who leave the shores of the old country to try their fortunes in the new, are Irish.  Since the fatal years of the potato famine and the cholera, the annual numbers of emigrants have gone on increasing, until they have become so great as to suggest the idea, and almost justify the belief, of a graduate depopulation of Ireland.  The colonies of Great Britain offer powerful attractions to the great bulk of the English and Scottish emigrants who forsake their native land to make homes in the wilderness.  But the Irish emigration flows with full force upon the United States.  Though many of the Irish emigrants are, doubtless, persons of small means, who have been hoarding and saving for years, and living in rags and squalor, in order to amass sufficient money to carry themselves and families across the Atlantic, and to beg their way to the western states, where they may “squat” or purchase cheap lands, the great bulk appear to be people of the most destitute class, who go to join their friends and relatives, previously established in America.  Large sums of money reach this country annually from the United States.  Through Liverpool houses alone, near upon a million sterling, in small drafts, varying from £2 to £3 to £10 each, are annually forwarded from America, for poor persons in Ireland, to enable them to emigrate; and the passage-money of many thousands, in addition, is paid in New York.  Before the fatal year 1847, the emigration was very considerable, but since that time, it has very rapidly increased.  The following document, issued on the authority of her Majesty’s Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners, show the progressive increase in the numbers of British subjects who have annually quitted our shores as emigrants, from 1825 to January 1st, 1850:

EMIGRATION FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM
DURING THE TWENTY-FIVE YEARS,
FROM 1825 TO 1849 INCLUSIVE

Average Annual Emigration from the United Kingdom for the last twenty-five years:  91,407

Irish Emigration to the United States of America

These figures do not include Irishmen entering the United States from Great Britain who were normally counted as “British”, nor does it count those whoentered (legally or illegally) via Canada.

Y = YEAR                   I = IMMIGRATION

Counties of Irish Emigration

Where did they come from?  During the period 1856 through 1910, the following ten counties in Ireland had the highest rate of emigration:

1.         Kerry                                       6.         Galway
2.         Cork                                        7.         Limerick
3.         Clare                                        8.         Mayo
4.         Longford                                  9.         Tipperary
5.         Leitrim                                      10.       Cavan

The county of Dublin has had the lowest rate of emigration.

The Irish constituted 42.3% of all immigrants from 1820 through 1850, and 35.2% of all immigrants between 1851 and 1860.  Thereafter, the percentages declined continuously:

1861-1870                   18.8%
1871-1880                   15.5%
1881-1890                   12.5%
1891-1900                   10.6%

and

1971-1980                   0.3%