Points of Departure
Points of Departure
Up to the 1830s the favoured route was to Canada and from there to the United States. The majority of departures were from Irish ports mainly Belfast, Dublin and Derry. After the 1830s, as trade increased between Britain and the US, the cost of the journey from England dropped and increasing numbers of Irish first crossed to Liverpool and from there made their way to New York, Philadelphia and Boston. By the 1840s this had become the established route – cheap and routine. Large numbers also left from ports such as Limerick and Sligo and from small little used ports such as Westport, Killala and Kinsale reflecting desperation as the famine took hold. After 1858 it was possible to travel to America directly from Belfast, Cobh, and Galway.
Thousands of Irish emigrants lost touch with their families during the nineteenth century. Personal advertisements in newspapers were used as bulletin boards in an effort to reunite families. Many papers carried a lost friends column through which readers could attempt to trace missing relatives. For example, the Weekly Freeman which circulated among Irish communities abroad carried advertisements from families in Ireland seeking emigrants who had left many years before and disappeared. Many advertisers appear to have been aging parents anxious for news of their emigrant sons and daughters:
"Hayes, Charles; left Ballynew, Castlebar in 180?, last heard of 15 years ago, he was then in Chicago.. Sought for by his mother"
Sometimes newspapers carried advertisements from those who had emigrated, or their children, endeavouring to trace their families who had stayed in Ireland. The Weekly Freeman claimed to have made 75 discoveries in 1899, but this figure represents only a very tiny percentage of the numbers of people being sought. Many thousands must have lost contact never to be found.
Conditions on the crossing from Ireland to Britain were appalling. Deck passengers had lower priority than livestock or baggage and up to 2000 could be crowded on to an open deck in all weathers clinging to each other to avoid being washed overboard. Prices ranged from £4 to £10 per person. The emigrants usually arrived at the dock cold, poor, half-starved and often sick. Here they found board in lodging-houses which were often little more than filthy overcrowded slums. The lodging houses at Liverpool dock in the 1840s were particularly notorious. Hundreds of immigrants would be crammed into dens with men, women and children bedded down together often on a cold floor without blankets. Emigrants could be robbed, cheated and ran the risk of contracting a variety of contagious diseases. They were subject to racketeers and agents for the shipping companies. Among the most common scams was the selling of dollars at exorbitant exchange rates, selling inferior quality clothes and overcharging for boarding. A more sophisticated fraud was to sell American land to emigrants, land which was worthless or which the seller did not even own. It was also known for emigrants to be offered hiding places on ships such as in boxes for a small fee.
Of course newspaper advertisements were also used to try to separate emigrants from their money. The New York Herald of June 1, 1848, ran this ad:
"Emigrants! - The Miseries and troubles of sickness from change of climate can, in a great degree, be saved you if you procure and keep by you the Brandeth Pills to be immediately resorted to should your health become affected. Days, months, nay years of sickness may be thus prevented".
Select the links below to view a photograph of the dreadful conditions on board a ship leaving Liverpool and also a leaflet from the 'Anchor Line' advertising fares etc. for a direct passage from Killala Bay to New York.
Emigrant ship leaving LiverpoolAnchor Line Advertisement