Maybe you might want to know a bit more of your Irish background. If so, I can recommend this video link.
I have read several accounts of early Irish history regarding the Potato Famine and the treatment of the calamity by the English rule of the time and this video tends to give a very good example in 45 minutes of just what our ancestors may or may not have experienced. However, the general conditions that prevailed throughout the land had to have impact to some degree on the absolute majority of the citizens that were not major landowners, It had to have affected all in some way. The farmers, the laborers and the shop keepers were all affected certainly.
The video follows a specific family line and the ship disaster they encountered does not apply to us but it is a typical example of what many immigrants did experience. The video really is well done and thru some re-enactment gives a good overall picture in one presentation. I am impressed with it.
The English defeated the Irish some two or three hundred years earlier and that defeat was a disaster for the Irish beyond all current practices of war, at least to the extent that the English introduced. Their eventual total victory gave them the opportunity to actually seize ownership of land and they were merciless. Eventually the Irish became tenants to English landowners on their very own land and this only helped to bring about wide spread poverty with so many of the Irish natives in the years proceeding the 1845 famine only able to lease very small plots of land. These small plots barely provided enough food for a family. Of course this is a worst case scenario but as the film states it may have involved one in three Irish families.
The film presents one families story and just what our ancestors experienced can only be guessed at but due to the millions that immigrated to North America for various reasons, surely some of the same motivations applied to our lines as well. The failure of the potato crops beginning in 1845 seemingly did not affect the McGinnis's since large numbers of the Irish began to immigrate much earlier. The famine was the crowning blow so to speak. Before that due to wide spread poverty, disease, persecution of Catholics and constant contentious English rule there were many reasons to leave long before the major famine period.
If you watch the video keep in mind what is known today of our lines. John McGinnis, from County Monaghan, and two of his sisters immigrated in the 1830's. One or more of the sisters may have came alone, or with friends and not family. A list of passengers of one ship, the Britannia, that is available on the internet, lists one Catherine McGinnis as a passenger to St. John’s, New Brunswick in 1834. On that same ship was a Buchannan family. The first wife of John McGinnis was Mary Buchannan. The name of one Margaret Buchannan on the ships manifest is different but close, and the year of immigration for Catherine later listed in the 1851 census as 1836, the same year for her brother, is also different. I only mention the similarities here as a future reference to be explored in more depth if and when better records ever do surface. But the similarities are such that makes me really wonder of the accuracy of the later census data for sister Catherine. The families the sisters eventually married into also immigrated during this same period or just before. For what reasons we do not know but as stated here there were other reasons besides the famine for there were earlier but smaller famine periods.
John McGinnis married Margaret McCarron, his second wife, in about 1846. Margaret had immigrated in 1843. Her immigration year was closer to the famine period which spread gradually beginning before 1845 and she may have left during the early period of the disaster. We don't know. She did leave a father and a sister behind, perhaps other family members as well, that eventually joined her in Canada sometime between 1860 and 1870. What the McCarron's that were left behind in Ireland eventually experienced may have been related to the major famine but that is but speculation. Since the father and sister did survive in Ireland during the major famine they may have been much better off than the really poor and destitute families. Maybe we will find out some day, at least that is my hope.
As for the Donahue’s, that story comes closer to the major outbreak of the famine years for Thomas Donahue immigrated in 1845, or just before. This is based on the fact that he joined the U.S. Army in 1845. The famine did come on gradually so being from Galway he may have been in search of better times. Again we don’t know. He did leave a daughter behind that he also brought to the U.S. in the early 1850’s not very long after his marriage to Mary McKeough and his discharge from the army in 1850, That portion of Ireland where Galway is situated was not considered the most productive land and sometime during early English rule those Irish that wanted were permitted to migrate to this area of the north coast of the island. This leads me to believe that the Donahue’s may have had hard times through the years and perhaps poverty was a factor that motivated Thomas to seek a better life in North America. Just when and where Thomas landed on the continent is not known exactly but I have found a record of his possible landing in Boston. The record needs more thought so I am unable to really state it as fact at this time. Time will tell perhaps.
The Irish literally scattered to the four winds, to Australia, North America and even South America where small enclaves of Irish descendants can be found in Brazil and Argentina even today just as in Boston or Savannah.
Anyway I do recommend the video for it paints a picture of the Irish diaspora in a brief presentation and is very well done.
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