On March 2, 2009, U.S. President Obama proclaimed that March is Irish-American Month. Over 40 million Americans claim to have Irish ancestors. Many can trace their ancestry back to the 1840s and the great Irish potato famine. In the late 1840s over a million Irish immigrated to North America. It's hard to imagine the lives and times of these Irish people.
From roughly 1845 to 1850 the potato crops were decimated. It wasn't the first time that these people had seen crop failures. But it was the first time that crops had failed all over the country and it happened for five or six years in a row. The Irish farmer and the lower classes relied almost entirely on the lowly potato for food. Believe it or not, you can live a fairly healthy life on potatoes. There's lots of evidence that the Irish farmers were healthier than their English counterparts, who relied on bread as their main source of food. When the blight struck in 1845 the potato crop failed all over the country. People were literally starving to death. In fact, over a million people died in Ireland because of the famine. Over a million others risked everything to try and start a new life in North America.
I am amazed at the difficulties that these immigrants endured to get to Canada and the United States. They were herded like cattle onto merchant ships. These ships carried timber from the new world back to England and Europe and instead of loading these ships up with rocks, for ballast on the trip back to America, they loaded passengers below decks for a small fee. These people must have survived intolerable conditions: only the food they brought, no light, no heat, no fresh air, no toilets for over 2 months. It must have been dreadful. People died by the hundreds even thousands.
When they got to the United States or Canada they endured even more. Both sides of the border provided little in the way of comfort or support. Many were quarantined because of fever or illness. They endured slum conditions in the cities and were forced to do any manual labour they could for little pay. By their very nature, sticking together, not venturing out of the cities they took quite a while to assimilate into the community. But they endured.
To find out more check out the book Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850
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