Emigration to North America after the famine

Over the next ten years (1846-1856), more than 750,000 Irish died and another 2 million left their homeland for Canada, and the United States. Within five years, the Irish population was reduced by a quarter.

Immigration was not new. Since the beginning of the 18th century, there had been a solid trickle of immigrants from Ireland to Britain and America. After the winter of 1845, there was an explosion. By 1850, 26 percent of the residents of New York were Irish - there were more Irish-born citizens there than in Ireland's capital city, Dublin

Thousands of passengers, already damaged by the famine, became sick. Many died while at sea. Of the 100,000 or so emigrants the old ships carried in 1847 over 16,000 died either at sea or soon after landing.

The American Reaction

There was large unpleasant respond to the arrival of the Irish. Colonia Ameicans had received various foreign groups as was the case of the early Republic. But the Irish were different. Most of the Irish who arrived were poor, unskilled farmers. Even more of a shock was they were Catholic. America until the 1840s was largely a Protestant country.

While Americans during the Colonial era had become more and more tolerant of other Protestant sects, the same tolerance did not generally expand to Catholics. The Irish Catholics were a shock to many Americans, giving rise to the first nativism movement and in large measure the Know Nothing Party. Signs appeared in shop windows, "No Irish need apply."