Letters On Irish Emigration

In mid-nineteenth-century Canada, the Irish outnumbered the English and Scots two to one. Yet they have been much less studied than their US counterparts, even though their experience was very different. Irish settlers arrived earlier in Canada, formed a larger proportion of the founding communities, and were largely rural-based; more than half were Protestant. The Famine provided only a rather late part of the Irish emigration to Canada, which took place principally between 1816 and 1855. The authors evaluate both emigration and settlement and present as well revealing personal documents about intense, often painful experiences of the settlers. Part I explores the geographical links – particularly the phenomenon of chain migration – that shaped decisions to leave Ireland. Part II examines patterns of settlement in the new land. Part III, with biographies of immigrants and collections of letters written home, chronicles personal and social life in the new land and the abiding interest in family and friends in Canada and back in Ireland. The documents illustrate links and patterns revealed in the earlier analysis of emigration and settlement; they also offer an additional, intimate perspective on a key phase in the cultural history of Canada and Ireland.

Born in Tipperary, Ireland at the end of the great famine, Richard T. Kennedy was the eighth child in a country family that survived the tragedies of the time. At the age of 15, he began saving letters written to him, and throughout his lifetime he stashed away a total of 52. ?These letters, as well as family records and lore, are the backbone of this book that chronicles his life story. The letters are a language of feeling; the living voice of the writer is present and transmits a certain energy. ?A story emerges from the letters which span almost 60 years. Beginning with his teenage years in Ireland, the narrative traces Richard’s path of emigration and discovery of new life in North America. ?It follows his career and home life in the San Francisco Bay Area, his travels and family events. ?The book also tracks the stories of his brothers. ?The eldest, Michael, immigrated to Australia with his young bride, opened his own retail store, survived the depression and relocated to Perth with his wife and nine children. ?The middle brother, Thomas, was an Irish farmer engaged in the extraordinary events of the late 1800s; he raised his five children on the family farm in Tipperary. ?Their letters crossed thousands of miles to keep faraway siblings up to date about family and local news, but also to give direction to life and reinforce family tradition and upbringing. ?The writers describe not just relationships to place but also relationships with each other; they tell us what they found and what they lost. ? Taking account of the political climate of their time and the particular challenges each one faced, Dear Richard shows how each brother navigated his own life course from humble beginnings to unimagined destinies. ?The character and accomplishments of each one are revealed, these sons of Eire who never lost their Irish soul, as well as the preeminence of family in Gaelic culture. ?To this day the letters nourish their descendents, connected again through this story.

Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan is a monumental and pathbreaking study of early Irish Protestant and Catholic migration to America. Through exhaustive research and sensitive analyses of the letters, memoirs, and other writings, the authors describe the variety and vitality of early Irish immigrant experiences, ranging from those of frontier farmers and seaport workers to revolutionaries and loyalists. Largely through the migrants own words, it brings to life the networks, work, and experiences of these immigrants who shaped the formative stages of American society and its Irish communities. The authors explore why Irishmen and women left home and how they adapted to colonial and revolutionary America, in the process creating modern Irish and Irish-American identities on the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan was the winner of the James S. Donnelly, Sr., Prize for Books on History and Social Sciences, American Council on Irish Studies.