How many Irish people immigrated to the United States during the potato famine ?

Question

Where did most of them settle ?

Answer 1

Starving families that could not pay landlords faced no alternative but to leave the country in hopes of a better future. And thus the steadily scaling number of Irish who entered the U.S. between 1820 and 1830 skyrocketed in the 1840s, nearly 2 million came in that decade. The flow persisted increasingly for another five years, as the first immigrants began to earn the means of sending for relatives and friends. The decade after 1855 showed a subside in the movement, but smaller numbers continued to arrive after the Civil War. Altogether, almost 3.5 million Irishmen entered the U.S. between 1820 and 1880.

Answer 2

The numbers vary accordidng to who did the study.

One fact is that there were aobut eight million people before the potato famin and it was not very long until there were less than four million. The population has never reached that level since.

I doubt if any one knows just how many Irish went to the USA. I am descended from them and I know a great number that are. The irish settled in newengland at first and then scattered all ofer the nation. Three million would be very plausable and possibly more. Not just because of the famon though.

It is so surprising that a nation would become so dependent on one crop in so short a time. Potatoes came from south america so could not have been a food there until at least in the fifteen hundreds.

Answer 3

It's hard to make a guess how many came how many ways to USA from Ireland due to the famine and Brit cruelty of not allowing (blockading) food shipments. Over the several decades my guess would be somewhere near 4 million.

Some were shipped to Canada which country quickly discriminated, class and wealth mattered. I think you'd find that many were dumped out of Canada across the border into the US New England states. Some were shipped to Australia, especially poor women for the crime of being poor - no more, no less - and apparently on the streets sometimes due to mental illness, who ahem found husbands among Australia's male convict colony.

Many died enroute on the coffin ships (barely fit for sailing service), many others died in Canada's quarantine islands. Irish were shipped in the holds as a bonus to the ship captain or owner's profit margin. Sometimes even landlords paid to ship out starving families, any way at all to get rid of them, off the land. Any way you can imagine was employed to bail Irish off the island.

*I'm not even Irish!

Where did they settle? Everywhere! Early on you'll find many in New York, but any or all of the eastern ports. Beginning about 1850 NY children were being picked up off the streets as urchins and put onto the Orphan Trains, orphans or not, and shipped to midwest farmers.

Many of these new American men fought in the Civil War, which again offered opportunities to disperse across the US. Irish built railroads &c, became the new slaves in certain ways BUT had the organizational skills to network and cause things to be different.

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Answer 4

Last Saturday on the History Channel, on the program The history of the Irish in America, said 1/2 million Irish imigrated to America. In fact the Irish are the first immigrants to America. They settled everywhere.

Answer 5

I think it was 1/3 of the population, like a million people

mostly New York and Boston I think

many went other places too, Australia

In the US, Irish people are everywhere now

Answer 6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States#Immigration_1790_to_1849

That should help with statistics.

While we commonly think of Ellis Island as the gate through which most Irish passed, many settled all along the Eastern U.S. and even as far South as Louisiana.

The number of immigrants would have been much greater, but the journey on the open sea was long and rough. Many, already dying of starvation, never lived to see their new homeland.

Answer 7

You exceedingly plenty replied your very own question in spite of the indisputable fact that the English invasion grew to become into sometime in the previous the 1840s. under Elizabeth one million's rule, Essex tried to triumph over eire and did poorly. Cromwell did a extra ideal activity and William purely approximately finished it off.

Answer 8

All but two and they all settled in New York City, except for the two who stayed and raised snakes.