Genealogy Chat

Sorry if I am being a bit thick but why did so many people come to England from Ireland. I know about the potatoe famine but can,t remember dates. Did they all come over for work or was there another reason? I have relatives who were from Ireland but I don,t know why they came to England

Hi Sandi, I thought work would be a probable reason.

Jack just a bit of info on the potato famin..... The Great Famine or the Great Hunger (Irish: An Gorta Mór or An Drochshaol) is the name given to the famine in Ireland between 1845 and 1849. The Famine was due to the appearance of 'the (potato) Blight' (also known as phytophthora)– the oomycete that almost instantly destroyed the primary food source for the majority of the island's population.[citation needed] The immediate after-effects of The Famine continued until 1851. Much is unrecorded, and various estimates suggest that between 500,000 and more than one million people died in the three years from 1846 to 1849 as a result of hunger or disease, which was about 12% of the population.[citation needed] Some two million refugees are attributed to the Great Hunger (estimates vary), and much the same number of people emigrated to Great Britain, the United States, Canada, and Australia. Georgina.

The usual answer was work. In the 19th century agricultural labourers moved backwards and forwards between Ireland and England for seasonal work. It wasn't that far away that the idea of going back home one day was an impossiblity as opposed to emigrating to America etc. Basically the Irish did what most immigrant groups do/have done - they took on the jobs no one else wanted. And the practice of the Irish coming to England for work goes back to well before the potato famine.

Depends on the dates they came really - certainly for work, but depending on the era would tell you likely sort of work. Lot of building going on in the Victorian era, new towns, canal systems,railways etc. There was a fair bit of bad feeling about the Irish labourers as they took lower wages than their English counterparts would and you often find that names are anglicised in the census - so dont be thrown when looking for a Patrick or Sean to find a John or Peter!

In the 19th Century, the UK (not just England) was the economic and industrial powerhouse of the world and was a magnet to all those looking for a better life. It should also be remembered that large tracts of Europe were poor agrarian societies where most people lived very hand-to mouth existances. Emigration was the name of the game and not just to Britain. Large numbers of Irish, Italians, Germans and jews left their homes for better lives, often in North America. It is estimated that 2 million jews fled pogroms and poverty in eastern Europe and about 300,000 of them settled in the UK. My home town, Glasgow, has been enriched not just by the Irish but by our Italian (we have the best ice cream in the UK) and jewish communities. All were a result of 19th century migration (although many Italians fled poverty in the 1930s).

At one point there were so many Irish arriving in Liverpool there wasn't enough room to accommodate them or money to pay them out under the poor law system . As a result many of them walked to Preston and Manchester sleeping on the roadsides along the way Bren

In earlier days, the Irish often made for Scotland rather than England, because Scotland did not have any settlement laws and they could not be moved on, or sent home from there. OC

Bren Interested in your comments about them walking to Manchester/Preston. If they were really poor as I assume mine were and settled in Wolverhampton area would they have walked all the way or do you know the cheapest form of transport in 1840's Thanks Chris

Christine Rail travel was very cheap in the 1800s, as was travel by canal. I have hearsay evidence, from several different sources, that an ancestor of mine 'regularly walked 25 miles to attend chapel'. The mind boggles - what time did he set off in the morning?! OC

People walked much more than we do today although 25 miles seems a lot. Walking 5 miles was no uncommon however.

many thanks to you all. Very interesting, I am gald I asked.

Even in the late 1950s my dad would regularly walk the 6 miles to work.