if ireland was so great why so many emmigrated?

Answer 1

Here is the answer that you seek..
Due to the Potato famine in 1845, my fellow Irish where left with no option, my ancestors had no choice but to leave or starve to death, over 3 million perished while close to 2.5 emigrated to England, USA, Canada and Australia on the well known 'coffin ships' as they where called as many died on the way.

The british where the cause of the famine which had a detrimental effect on the Irish people until 1851.

The Famine was at least fifty years in the making, and due to the disastrous interaction of British economic policy, destructive farming methods by british land policy, and the unfortunate appearance of "the Blight" – the potato fungus that almost instantly destroyed the primary food source for the majority population.
The immediate effect on Ireland was devastating, and its long-term effects proved immense, permanently changing Irish culture and tradition.
The Irish Potato Famine was the culmination of a social, biological, political and economic catastrophe, caused by British factors who chose to neglect and ignore the humanitarian crisis in its own common wealth yet G.Britian of its age was a thriving victorian industrial Country.
The British policies during the Famine, particularly those applied under Lord John Russell, were misguided, ill-informed, and disastrous. Becasue of British Rule the Irish suffered needlessly and where not helped in any degree by the British.

During the winter of 1845–1846 Sir Robert Peel's government spent £100,000 on American maize which was sold to the destitute.
Eventually the government also initiated relief schemes such as canal-building and road building to provide employment. The workers were paid at the end of the week and often men, women and children had died of starvation before their wages arrived. Even worse, many of the schemes were of little use: men filled in valleys and flattened hills just so the government could justify the cash payments. There where 9 milion Irish as a result from census's done in 1844 by the end of the famine and its eventual struggle over 3-3.5 million had perished and and 2.5 million had emigrated between 1845 to 1851. leaving a population of 4.4 million.
The british Govt basicly commited an act of Genocide upon the Irish regardless of its small intervention in the famine.
And I am still waiting for an Apology...as are the souls of my Irish brethern who died for nothing but the simple racisim and hatred the British Govt had for the Irish.

Answer 2

Firstly, I would like to pint out that you are correct in saying emmigrate. Emmigration has been the way in Ireland since the famine and continued on until the late 80's. But in the late 90's it completely reversed. Speaking from personal knowledge, Ireland prior to 1990 was a complete dump. There were no Jobs, no infrastructure, the unions had the country in strong hold.
Todays Ireland is a very different place. We are now the second richest country in the world, we are one of the worlds largest exporter of software, and manufacturer most of the worlds pharamceuitcals. But it is all down to 2 key issue. We have one of the lowest corporation tax rates in the world. 12.5%, and we speak english as a first language.

Answer 3

The Great Famine or the Great Hunger (Irish: An Gorta Mór or An Drochshaol), known more commonly outside of Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, is the name given to a famine in Ireland between 1845 and 1851. The Famine was at least fifty years in the making, and due to the disastrous interaction of British economic policy, destructive farming methods, and the unfortunate appearance of "the Blight" – the potato fungus that almost instantly destroyed the primary food source for the majority population. The immediate after-effects of The Famine continued until 1851. The number of deaths is unrecorded, and various estimates suggest totals between 500,000 and more than one million in the five years from 1846. 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

Answer 4

That was years ago, the economy was bad, unemployment was high and people had nothing to do.Britian was killing all the locals and the time of the highest emmigration was during the famine, when the potato crop failed, and instead of helping us, England took whatever good food was left for themselves. So starvation is something that forced millions to emigrate. Today we have the fastest growing economy in Europe and life is great.

Answer 5

Irish emigration was initially triggered by the Great Famine of around 1850. This is sometimes seen as being caused by potato blight, but it also has to be remembered that at the time, there were plenty of other sources of carbohydrate (eg. wheat) being grown in Ireland at the time, but the landowners (the British) continued to export the cash crop, and left the Irish to starve. There is also a theory presented by Bill Bryson (in the excellent A Short History of Nearly Everything) that a massive volcano eruption may also have affected global climates at the time, and also affected crop production.

Since then, Ireland has been economically and socially disrupted by political unrest and a generally (until recently) high levels of economic deprivation. In America (the largest part of Irish diaspora), the Irish population became relatively economically successful, and provided an obvious place to go for people wanting to leave.

NOTE: you emigrate from one country; you immigrate into another

Answer 6

The 19th century saw the Great Famine of the 1840's, during which one million Irish people died and over a million emigrated. Mass emigration became entrenched as a result of the famine and population continued to decline until late in the 20th century. The pre-famine peak was over 8 million recorded in the 1841 census. The population has never reached this level since then.

Answer 7

Ireland was not always great as a country but the spirit of its people and culture is what makes a country great people had to find work that was a long time ago it has come far since those days and if people choose to leave then they have their own reason

Answer 8

Have never regarded anything being great about it. It's all in the blarney. Are we to take it then, and I'm going from many of the answers, that the Irish can't even grow potatoes and have blamed the British for this ever since??!!

heavenlyhaggis

Answer 9

i'm no longer constructive yet from what I understand they were from Northern eire and/or Irish Protestants (for sure all of eire grow to be British till about 1920 or so) In u . s . a . of america there grow to be an rather good type of prejudice adversarial to Catholics and everyone with an Irish call grow to be assumed to be Catholic. So the time period grow to be a fashion to maintain away from anti-Catholic wondering adversarial to the Irish. i have also heard that Elizabeth I or perhaps Henry VIII moved Protestants from Scotland into Ulster to target to outnumber the Irish. that could want to were some hundred years formerly they were coming to u . s . a . of america. different Scotch-Irish might want to have actually been a mix.

Answer 10

I enjoy the Yanks who think that you are asking about all the paddies who emigrated to the states - therefore became immigrants - The Irish people emigrated from Ireland all over the world not just to USA - America is not the only country on the planet.