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Irish Diaspora Museum - Thematic Displays Economic Migration
Sub Themes: Building Countries and Cultures. Visitor Goal: Visitors understand that economics and the dream of a better life were the primary engine driving Irish emigrants and appreciate the wide spectrum of experience that is their legacy and achievement. Focus Personalities: Ned Kelly, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, John F. Kennedy. Content: The great waves of emigrants who left Ireland for Britain, America, Canada and Australia in search of a better life. People have been leaving Ireland in search of jobs and economic advancement since the 1500s. A century later they left as servants indentured to British colonists in the Americas. By the 18th century those emigrating were numbered in tens of thousands. Between 1820 and 1840 300,000 people left. During this pre-famine period these emigrants were 75% Protestant. The Famine of 1845 to 1851 was a watershed and thereafter the flow of emigrants became a flood, topping 1.7 million by 1860. In the case of Britain every ten year census since1841 has recorded 0.5 million new Irish arrivals. North America: The United States has the largest Irish ethnic community in the world. It's a narrative that encompasses everything from the struggle of slum living to putting a dozen presidents in the White House. The large number of single women who went there have a unique story, they were the maids and servants of rich families whose remittances back to Ireland may have amounted to one third of the monies circulating in late 19th-century Ireland. In America they combined experiences of powerlessness with achievements as shapers of the very fabric of Irish-American life. The Irish in America developed an identity that presented itself as being essentially Catholic despite the fact that the majority of Irish Americans are Protestant. It evolved a vision of Ireland that was idealistic, looking backward to a past golden age of rural comfort. Australia: The Irish made up around 20% of the Australian population. In the second half of the 19th and into the 20th century they fitted into Australian society like a hand in a glove, never becoming ghettoised, average in almost every way. Their role as loyal opposition, niggling and ridiculing the dominant English colonial culture was however a defining element in the shaping of Australian Society and the Australian character. Their identity was Australian first and Irish second. Great Britain: Since the early 19th century the great cities of England and Scotland have been a magnet for Irish emigrants. In the 20th century it was the primary destination for those leaving Ireland in search of another life. As recently as 1991 the numbers of Irish born in the UK was one sixth of the population of Ireland. In contrast to America men dominated and their role as builders of the infrastructure, the great civil engineering works of Victorian and modern Britain has become legendary. The reputation of the Irish Navvies, the discrimination suffered, the hardness of the life lived are the bedrock of this storyline. Traditionally British society has not encouraged the celebration of Irish culture. Irishness was kept out of the public eye; it tended to be home based or focused on Irish centres. In more recent decades the question of identity has created challenges and ambivalence amongst second and third generation Irish. |
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