Editing Great Famine (Ireland) (section)

==Emigration==

{{main|Irish diaspora|Typhus epidemic of 1847}}
[[File:Emigrants Leave Ireland by Henry Doyle 1868.jpg|thumb|upright|''The Emigrants' Farewell'', engraving by [[Henry Doyle]] (1827–1893), from [[Mary Frances Cusack]]'s ''Illustrated History of Ireland'', 1868]]

At least a million people are thought to have emigrated as a result of the famine.{{sfn|Ross|2002|p=226}} There were about 1&nbsp;million long-distance emigrants between 1846 and 1851, mainly to North America. The total given in the 1851 census is 967,952.<ref>{{citation |title=The Census of Ireland for the Year 1851: Part VI General Report |contribution=Table XXXVI |year=1856 |page=lv |url=http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/AssociatedPageBrowser?path=Browse&active=yes&mno=409&tocstate=expandnew&display=sections&display=tables&display=pagetitles&pageseq=55&assoctitle=Census%20of%20Ireland,%201851 |access-date=27 June 2015 |archive-date=12 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200712162341/http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/AssociatedPageBrowser?path=Browse&active=yes&mno=409&tocstate=expandnew&display=sections&display=tables&display=pagetitles&pageseq=55&assoctitle=Census%20of%20Ireland,%201851 |url-status=live}}</ref> Short-distance emigrants, mainly to Britain, may have numbered 200,000 or more.{{sfn|Boyle|Ó Gráda|1986|p=560}}

While the famine was responsible for a significant increase in emigration from Ireland, of anywhere from 45% to nearly 85% depending on the year and the county, it was not the sole cause. The beginning of mass emigration from Ireland can be traced to the mid-18th century, when some 250,000 people left Ireland over a period of 50 years to settle in the [[New World]]. Irish economist Cormac Ó Gráda estimates that between 1&nbsp;million and 1.5&nbsp;million people emigrated during the 30 years between 1815 (when [[Napoleon]] was defeated in [[Battle of Waterloo|Waterloo]]) and 1845 (when the Great Famine began).{{sfn|Ó Gráda|1975|p = }} However, during the worst of the famine, emigration reached somewhere around 250,000 in one year alone, with western Ireland seeing the most emigrants.{{sfn|Library of Congress|2007}}

Families did not migrate ''en masse'', but younger members of families did, so much so that emigration almost became a [[rite of passage]], as evidenced by the data that show that, unlike similar emigrations throughout world history, women emigrated just as often, just as early, and in the same numbers as men. The emigrants would send remittances (reaching a total of £1,404,000 by 1851) back to family in Ireland, which, in turn, allowed another member of their family to leave.{{sfn|Foster|1988|p=371}}

Emigration during the famine years of 1845–1850 was primarily to England, Scotland, South Wales, North America, and Australia. Many of those fleeing to the Americas used the [[McCorkell Line]].{{sfn|McCorkell|2010|p = }} One city that experienced a particularly strong influx of Irish immigrants was [[Liverpool]], with at least one-quarter of the city's population being Irish-born by 1851.{{sfn|Foster|1988|p=268}} This would heavily influence the city's [[Culture of Liverpool|identity and culture]] in the coming years, earning it the nickname of "Ireland's second capital".<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.visitliverpool.com/blog/read/2017/10/irish-roots-b209 |title=Irish Roots |date=6 October 2017 |access-date=28 March 2021 |archive-date=15 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415004929/https://www.visitliverpool.com/blog/read/2017/10/irish-roots-b209 |url-status=live}}</ref> Liverpool became the only place outside of Ireland to elect an [[Irish nationalist]] to parliament when it elected [[T. P. O'Connor]] in 1885, and continuously re-elected him unopposed until his death in 1929.<ref>{{cite book |last=Miller |first=David W. |title=Church, State and Nation in Ireland 1898–1921 |page=142 |publisher=Gill & Macmillan |date=1973 |isbn=0-7171-0645-4}}</ref> As of 2020, it is estimated that three quarters of people from the city have Irish ancestry.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.ft.com/content/b362aa48-6875-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221210/https://www.ft.com/content/b362aa48-6875-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75 |archive-date=10 December 2022 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription |title=Liverpool holds fast to its Irish identity through Brexit and beyond |work=[[Financial Times]] |date=19 March 2020 |last1=Bounds |first1=Andy}}</ref>

[[File:Population (Irish emigration).jpg|thumb|left|Irish population in the United States, 1880]]
Of the more than 100,000 Irish that sailed to [[Canada]] in 1847, an estimated one out of five died from disease and malnutrition, including over 5,000 at [[Grosse Isle, Quebec]], an island in the [[Saint Lawrence River]] used to quarantine ships near [[Quebec City]].{{sfn|Woodham-Smith|1991|p=238}} Overcrowded, poorly maintained, and badly provisioned vessels known as [[coffin ship]]s sailed from small, unregulated harbours in the West of Ireland in contravention of British safety requirements, and mortality rates were high.{{sfn|Woodham-Smith|1991|pp=216–217}} The 1851 census reported that more than half the inhabitants of [[Toronto]] were Irish, and, in 1847 alone, 38,000 Irish flooded a city with fewer than 20,000 citizens. Other Canadian cities such as Quebec City, [[Montreal]], [[Ottawa]], [[Kingston, Ontario|Kingston]], [[Hamilton, Ontario|Hamilton]], and [[Saint John, New Brunswick|Saint John]] also received large numbers. By 1871, 55% of Saint John residents were Irish natives or children of Irish-born parents.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Winder |first1=Gordon M. |title=Trouble in the North End: The Geography of Social Violence in Saint John 1840–1860 |journal=Acadiensis |date=2000 |volume=XXIX |issue=2 Spring |page=27 |url=https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/acadiensis/article/view/10782/11551 |access-date=14 April 2017 |archive-date=9 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200709155842/https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/acadiensis/article/view/10782/11551 |url-status=live}}</ref> Unlike the United States, Canada could not close its ports to Irish ships because it was part of the [[British Empire]], so emigrants could obtain cheap passage in returning empty lumber holds.

In America, most Irish became city-dwellers; with little money, many had to settle in the cities that the ships they came on landed in.{{sfn|Woodham-Smith|1991|p=267}} By 1850, the Irish made up a quarter of the population in [[Boston]], New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.
[[File:Population of Ireland since 1600.png|thumb|upright=1.5|Irish population 1600–2010. Note the decrease beginning in 1845, which did not recover until the 21st century.]]
The famine marked the beginning of the depopulation of Ireland in the 19th century. The population had increased by 13–14% in the first three decades of the 19th century; between 1831 and 1841, the population grew by 5%. Application of [[Thomas Malthus]]'s idea of population expanding geometrically while resources increase arithmetically was popular during the famines of 1817 and 1822. By the 1830s, they were seen as overly simplistic, and Ireland's problems were seen "less as an excess of population than as a lack of [[capital investment]]".{{sfn|Gray|1995|p = }} The population of Ireland was increasing no faster than that of England, which suffered no equivalent catastrophe. By 1854, between 1.5 and 2&nbsp;million Irish left their country due to evictions, starvation, and harsh living conditions.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Great Irish Famine 1845-1851 – A Brief Overview – The Irish Story |url=https://www.theirishstory.com/2016/10/18/the-great-irish-famine-1845-1851-a-brief-overview/ |website=The Irish History |access-date=7 October 2021 |language=en-GB}}</ref>