Irish Emigration to America Review

Irish Emigration to America is an eight lesson course written and taught by Michael Durkin. Durkin has been researching the causes behind the various waves of emigration from Ireland to the Americas and elsewhere in the world for twenty years. Moreover, for the last few years, he has presented a one man show about the Great Hunger (Irish Potato Famine) and the periods of Irish Emigration at various Irish festivals throughout Ireland and the United States.

Lessons in this course include a General Introduction to the Period; Seeds of Discontent; 100 Years that Changed the World; What Famine?; How the Irish Fled; The Political Situation; What Did Happen; and Famine Amnesia. Each lesson contains from four to seventeen chapters, a list of footnotes, and a short lesson test. Lessons progress chronologically, detailing several waves of Irish emigration occurring throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

Lesson one introduces the student to the multitude of Irish Emigrations to the Americas and elsewhere in the world. In this lesson, students learn that waves of Irish emigration have been recorded since the 5th century and continue through to the modern day. Nonetheless, the largest mass of emigrations from Ireland occurred between the 17th and 19th centuries, specifically the Ulster-Scots Emigration and during the Great Hunger (Irish Potato Famine). Today, the Country of Ireland, with a population of about six million people, boasts over 70 million Irish descendents worldwide.

Lesson two and three of this course discusses the political background of Ireland that proceeded and accompanied mass Irish emigration in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. In these lessons, students will gain a good background in the Protestant/ Catholic based political issues as well as how these issues and the accompanying British laws affected those of both religions and those of the various social classes.

Lesson four describes a bit of the background of the Irish Potato Famine, or the Great Hunger as researchers commonly call it. In this lesson, students will learn that previous failed crops and blights had affected Irish farmers several times before the Irish Potato Famine without mass hunger and emigration. However, it was during this period that economic, political, and social policies contributed to the agriculture disaster to create mass hunger, emigration, and death.

Lesson five details how people fled Ireland during these trying times. In this lesson, students will learn what conditions were like on the coffin ships that took these people to the Americas. Students will also learn what happened to these emigrants when they reached the New World.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic