Compelling Reasons Why The Irish Emigrated

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Some Compelling Reasons Why The Irish Emigrated

The intolerable conditions in Ireland that forced Irish emigrants to leave the country were mostly due to the following four reasons:

Political Culture of Persecution

• Austere taxation and tithes policies
• Continual doctrine of ‘Conquer and divide’ policies for centuries seized and evicted lands from native Irish Catholics
• Cruel landlords (not all)
• Sponsorship of land price increases ('rent-racking')--allowed to unbearable levels--tossed hoards of already poor families, ‘out onto the street’
• Disallowance of land ownership for all Catholics

Economic

• British government backed England’s grain exportations—but not Ireland’s; farmers left
• New farming techniques increased output, decreasing the need for agricultural laborers
• Manufacturing industries sprang up, causing less emphasis in farming

Social and Religious

A culture of social and religious persecution by the local Protestant-led and British Crown government was manifest in—

• total distrust of Catholics’ loyalty to the Crown

Harsh Penal laws enacted by the Crown government from 1695, stripped all Catholics of their rights to—

• vote
• practice law
• enter a profession
• hold public office
• receive an education
• practice their own religion outside of the Protestant faith
• serve as officers in British armed forces
• teach in, or enroll in colleges
• defend themselves with weapons
• be employed or an employer in a trade or in commerce
• build a church or live within 5 miles of the civil parish church
• own a horse of greater value than five pounds
• purchase nor lease land
• hold a life annuity
• buy or receive a gift of land from a Protestant
• inherit land or moveables from a Protestant
• rent any land that was worth more than thirty shillings a year
• reap from his land any profit exceeding a third of the rent
• be a guardian to a child
• leave infant children under Catholic guardianship
• accept a mortgage on land in security for a loan
• attend Catholic worship
• choose between attendance in a Catholic, or a Protestant place of worship
• educate his child
• be instructed by a local Catholic teacher nor be educated abroad

Crop Failures

• Devastating crop failures—especially from 1846 to 1851 killed nearly a million people
• British government’s lack of food aid to Ireland during The Great Famine forced nearly half the surviving population to leave Ireland
• Famine brought abject poverty, severe malnutrition inducing poor health, and affected (even to some--death) to 3-4 million Irish
• Grains out of Ireland, were exported to England, while Irish were dying from the famine

Further Reading

O hEithir, Breandan, A Pocket History of Ireland, The O'Brien Press, Dublin, Ireland, 1989

MacManus, Seamus, The Story of the Irish Race, The New York Irish Publishing Co., 1921