Famine immigrants' desperate search for missing loved ones

Ah there he is! Aul Gearoid! Another 'Oirish American' yeah? Youre another lover of the Americanized version of Ireland are you? Nice one! Sniff sniff...

C. Dexy knows how to make an entrance. Maybe the B.S she detected was her own.

IrelandNorth, We already have a 51st state lined up, Puerto Rico. And the District of Columbia would love to be a state.Ireland is in no danger of being annexed. You are right about the grief, though, even though no one alive today lived through it.

They used to have what they called emigrants wakes, i.e. as real as a wake for a recently deceased folk. Emigration was as real a death, for which many Irish/Americans have never worked-through, or fully grieved. Sell Ireland to the Americans as the 51 st. state of the Union, thereby solving all economic, political and neutral issues in one fell swoop.

Gearoid, I can sniff out bullshit from a mile hence the reply.

@George, C Dexy right on cue.

ballyhip, So the Famine Irish (the Houlihans) quickly made it to lace curtain Irish! My grandmother arrived in Boston in 1899, age 15, orphaned, with her 11 year old brother in tow, and the next year was employed as a maid. But in 10 years, she was married to a man who came to Boston from Canada of Irish ancestry, started his own business, and helped her brother start his own business. My grandparents lived in a gracious, 5 bedroom home in Dorchester, and eventually had 7 children and over 30 grandchildren. The secret was serial immigration. One Irish person immigrated, then paid for the passage of a relative. As one became successful, he helped another. My grandfather had a couple of very successful relatives.

Do you think that people coming to Ireland from the Middle East or Africa in the back of a container on a ferry over a period of a few weeks is a lifestyle choice? If you do then you are a bigger fool than I thought Georgie. Obviously if people are starving and have no hope and fear for their lives then emigration isnt a lifestyle choice.

Just to illustrate the progress that was made by the time my Mayo mother landed in Boston in 1929, her 1st employment was as a domestic with the Houlihan family in Newton, MA.

Ha! Well Georgie, my brother is in New Zealand. That was a lifestyle choice! he left a job here to go there! Next point? You obviously dont know what the term 'Oirish' means. It refers to plastic paddys. Those who exacerbate the begorrah bejaysis stereotype of Irishness so that wouldnt refer to people from Ireland, only those with an Irish link.

@George,Saltpetre and C Dexy will be here,anon, no doubt.

You can learn more about the Irish Hunger (Famine) at the Irish Hunger Committee blog. Visit irishhungercomm.wordpress.com - also give your own input by posting comments.

Expect some of our Oirish posters like curpeter and curdexter to be on soon to tell us that emigration was a lifestyle choice of the people described above.

With all the evidence now avalable of the events leading up to the years 1845-48 and during those years those who perished did not die from a natural shortage of food.

'Missing Persons' while being very sad has been helpful for many with their Irish-American family history research.