Immigration to America:
The
Story of an Irish Immigrant Family
During
the early to mid 1800s, hundreds of Irish families immigrated to
America to escape British rule and the potato famine. They struggled
both in Ireland and America, but considered America to be vastly the
better of the two. The McRyan family was one of the many immigrant
families during this time.
The
McRyan family included Patrick and Mary, along with their three
girls, 14-year-old Briana, 12-year-old Alice, and 6-year-old Alaina.
They were an extremely poor family living in Cork, Ireland. When the
potato famine struck, the family was disappointed, but thought that
the next year would bring another harvest. When next year did not
bring the expected harvest, the family had to start selling
belongings in order to buy food. They began to think of immigrating
before they became unable to support themselves.
Patrick
began searching the docks for a ship heading to America. He found
several, but they were all as full as they could hold. After weeks of
searching, just when their possessions were about to run out, he
found that the ship Vestlinden
was leaving for America in a week and was looking for passengers. He
returned home and told Mary about the ship. After a long discussion,
they went to the houses of their friends to ask for help to pay their
passage. The next morning, Patrick went back to the Vestlinden
and booked passage.
The
morning of departure was a flurry of last minute packing and
goodbyes. A large group of friends accompanied the McRyans to the
dock and saw them on board ship. As the ship began to move slowly
away from the dock, a final round of goodbyes was shouted, and the
McRyans watched the shore until it was out of sight. Then Mary took
the girls down to the cabins to unpack.
Once in the open sea, the ship began
to roll some, and the girls all got seasick. However, they recovered
within a day or two, and were in good health the rest of the voyage.
They had fun exploring the ship and talking to the sailors about the
new land called America. In the evenings, they shared with their
parents the new things they had learned about the country. In this
way they passed the time pleasantly, even though they had to spend
almost two months on board.
When the ship came in sight of
Boston, everyone crowded to the rails to look at their new home.
Patrick and Mary were quite elated to have reached a place where they
could start life over again and live better than they had in
Ireland. The girls were not very impressed with their first look at
the city, and said that they liked Cork better.
Upon landing at the docks, they moved
to a quiet corner of the docks to wait for the busy rush attending
the ship's arrival to be over. A few minutes later, a priest walked
over to them and asked if they were Catholics. When he heard that
they were, he took them to the nearby Catholic church, where a group
of Catholic families had gathered. A young couple offered to let the
McRyans live with them until they could find a home of their own,
which the McRyans accepted gratefully.
Patrick
spent about a month searching for a place that would accept Irish
workers. Finally, he found a textile factory that allowed Irish to
work making ribbon. He immediately applied, and was accepted the
following day. Now that he was working, Mary took up the search for
an apartment, and soon found a small one close to the factory. They
had a small celebration when they moved in, two months after arriving
in America. Even the girls, after having seen more of the city, now
admitted that they liked it better than Cork. They settled in and
praised God that they had been able to come to America and start a
new life.
Many stories similar to this have
happened all through the 1800s. Hundreds, possibly thousands of Irish
families immigrated during that time. Not all met with the same
success. In fact, many of them were not much better off than they had
been in Ireland. However, all of them were glad that they had come to
America and started a new life.
