Friday, March 13, 2020

Irish Immigration essays

Irish Immigration essays I joined the trip to America with much trepidation. I was barely 16, when my parents decided to move the family to America to seek our fortune. I knew that the trip would not be happy, but became even more nervous when my father Eugene called our trip the American Wake. When I asked him why, he simply said, "Molly, we shall never see Ireland again." Mother just stood by him, watching silently as the ship carried us away from the shore. Like many other Irish during the time, our family moved to America for work, to find a better life. We had been told that America was a welcoming and bountiful country, but this was not always true. I was only 16 the first time I saw a sign that said, "No Irish need apply." I had just arrived in America with my parents and my brother, along with many others of my countrymen from Ireland, England and other parts of northern Europe. My brother Malachy became angry about the sign, since he was young and all he wanted to do was work. But no one would hire him, because of his accent and because his last name was O'Connor ("Irish Immigrants in America But father told him to let it be. Father said we would move somewhere else to begin our new life, somewhere where people would respect us for our hard work, even though we were Irish. The country was just emerging from its own war when we arrived here in 1876. Though the hostilities were officially over, there was still much unrest, particularly in the countryside. In many ways, the situation reminded me of Ireland and the reasons we left. Farmers were reeling from the effects of an economic downturn in the 1870s, which caused the prices of crops to drop. As a result, many farmers around America faced the loss This was a situation we knew well, but there was also an important difference. While the Irish farmers back home faced famine and the loss of their land, the f...