Irish Immigration:
Tradition and Culture Displaced
Irish Immigration trend has eased since the early 1970’s. Every Irish family has known the pain of forced immigration since the times of the great famine just to earn a living. Many cities around the world have pockets of culture and tradition from Ireland brought there as a result of Irish immigration.
Irish immigration has been a feature of our history since the middle ages. It increased after the time of Oliver Cromwell (c.1650s) when he displaced the Irish landowners east of the Shannon River in to the west of the Ireland in his political tirade “to hell or to Connaught" The Penal Laws were introduced in 1695 to further erode the fabric and lifestyle of the Irish Catholic population. The political atmosphere encouraged the trend of immigration among those who could leave. These laws were very severe and virtually set to decimate the native Irish Catholic. This was the setting for the whole of the 1700’s up until the 1845 when disaster truly hit with the blight on the potato crop. Immigration of the impoverished people was the only way out if they could reach a port.
Mass immigration was the response to the trickle of news that reached back here in the homeland: “There was freedom and space and jobs!!!” But the scene changed as the immigration escalated into America. Another factor was the immigration of people from Africa. At the height of the immigration many died on the ships crossing the Atlantic and the ships were named “coffin ships”. When many actually arrived at the ports they were very weak, malnourished and penniless. The immigration authorities were put to the pin of their collar to deal with the mass influx. In America the Irish looked for jobs in gangs. They worked very hard building railroads and canals. In general they did not tend to take on farming though there was plenty of scope for it there. Perhaps they felt well and truly scalded by their experience with the potato blight. (But this is not so with Irish immigration into Canada. The Irish moved inland and settled to farm the land there.) Religious and racial opposition rose in the face of immigration of such magnitude. Before the Irish arrived America was populated with Protestants who had come from mainland Europe looking for religious freedom. With over a million Irish Catholic immigrants within a decade having arrived to stay, there was opposition.
About 26,500 Irish men, mostly, were transported to Australia and more were sent to Tasmania in the years 1791-1853. This was imposed immigration for many minor offences and also there were political prisoners among them. Consequently there is quite an Irish population in both the mainland and the island of Tasmania today. These Irish immigrants provided the work force in preparation for the gold rush of the 1850’s.
