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Emigration History

Emigration from Ireland to America

A Brief Historical Background

Large-scale emigration from Ireland to North America began in the 1720s and throughout the remainder of the 18th century involved many thousands of settlers, mainly from Ulster, who sought land and a new way of life on the Appalachian frontier. These early pioneers were predominantly Presbyterian and became known in their adopted country as the Scotch Irish.

Interrupted only by the American War of Independence (1775-83) and the Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815), the great tide of emigration continued into the 19th century as America began to attract immigrants from all parts of Ireland. Historians have estimated that on the eve of the Great Famine (1845-9) there were as many as half a million Irish in the New World.

The Great Famine, as is well known, resulted in a mass exodus from Ireland, as starving and destitute people sought refuge in the ever-expanding industrial cities of the eastern United States. The exact numbers will never be known, but it is believed they may have been in excess of 1.5 million.

The Ulster American Folk Park tells the story of these emigrants and their everyday lives through the reconstruction of original and replica buildings.

Some of the emigrants' greatest achievements lay in the field of commerce. Particularly successful were the Mellon family of Pittsburgh, who came originally from Camphill in County Tyrone. Judge Thomas Mellon, founder of a vast industrial empire, emigrated as a five-year-old boy with his parents in 1818. Much of the early development of the Folk Park was based on the detailed accounts contained in his autobiography, which vividly describes life in rural Tyrone and frontier Pennsylvania in the early years of the 19th century. His experiences are typical of many emigrants and it is fitting that his boyhood home should provide the centrepiece of the Ulster American Folk Park.

Over the past twenty years the Park has grown rapidly and is now the largest museum of emigration in Europe. It stands as a permanent symbol of the many links which have been forged down the centuries between Ireland and America.

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ULSTER AMERICANFOLK PARK

Emigration History

ULSTER AMERICAN
FOLK PARK