Farmers are among those who feature in Imirce, a new digital repository that provides access to thousands of Irish-American emigrant letters and memoirs.
The first phase of the Imirce project showcases materials from the Kerby A. Miller collection, a unique record of personal correspondence and other documents from the Irish diaspora in the US.
The Kerby A. Miller collection contains approximately 7,000 letters, along with other important historical papers totalling more than 150,000 pages.
It was collected over five decades of research by Kerby A. Miller, emeritus professor of history at University of Missouri and honorary professor of history at University of Galway, who donated the material to the University of Galway library.
The collection offers an unparalleled insight into the personal reflections and lives of people as they wrote home to family and friends in Ireland.
The collection is especially rich in the post-famine period from 1850-1950.
Irish farmers are among the cast of characters who feature in the letters already released online. The letters provide details on their varied perspectives, their experiences of immigration and the homes they left behind.
John Lough, Larne town and parish, Glenarm upper barony, Co. Antrim, wrote to Thomas Moore, Baltimore, Maryland, on June 14, 1817:
“All these evils I fear must encrease until the new potatoes brings relief—the oat crops has an extremely bad appearance, owing to the long continued drought, and no doubt in part from bad seed.
“The longer I live, the more I feel my own view incline westwards, and had I only my own feelings to consult, I would instantly determine on making my departure.”
An insightful letter was sent from John Munnelly, Carrowmore, Barnatra, Ballina, Co. Mayo, to his daughter, Mary, dated September 16, 1922.
He thanked her for the three pounds she sent him, saying that his letter of gratitude could have been mislaid due to the postal strikes and “all the other trouble we have had here at present”.
The letter continued: “It is sad to see fine young men shot down in their bloom but it could not be helped, and in my humble opinion, it will be so until the cursed laws of English tyrants is wiped out in this country which is the cause of all the trouble here at present.
“We have a terrible time of it, as there is no price for cattle.
“Civil war in any country is a serious thing and any country suffering from the effects of it is bound to be in a bad way,” John told his daughter.
With a heavy heart, John gave his daughter his blessing to enter a convent, expressing his sadness at the prospect of never seeing her again.
On a happier note were the sentiments in a portion of a letter written by Padraig Cundun to Micheal O’Glasain of Lios Caoinleain in the parish of Baile Macoda, Co. Cork, dated December 27, 1834.
Padraig said in the letter that was translated from Irish, that he, his wife and their children were without want so far and in good health.
“To take care of them, I have a good farm of land, paid for. I have wheat, oats, potatoes, and hay as good as I had at home, and accordingly I think the proverb applies to me which says: ‘Don’t be hasty in complaining about fate, for in spite of what you think, things usually work out to your advantage.”
Padraig recalled how sorrowful he was the day he left Seanachoill: “Me and my big, poor family – to make our way far across the sea to an unknown land.”
He said he now had a fine farm in freehold: “And thus, I think I’m better off as I am rather than having to pay a cruel yearly rent for Seanachoill.
“You may be sure that if I could now buy Seanachoill outright and going home were merely a matter of having my ‘druthers’ (preference), I wouldn’t go, let alone take my children with me, for there can be no doubt that it’s better for them where they are, because if the whole Irish race came here, there would be land enough for them all.
“Yet if I owned America, there’s no place I know of under the sun I’d rather die than in Ireland,” he wrote.
The extensive Callaghan/O’Callaghan collection includes a reproduction of a letter from Patrick Callaghan to his sister, Bridget Callaghan, Fallow, Kilmacthomas, Co. Waterford, dated March 9, 1882.
Patrick Callaghan wrote home from Fort Warren, Boston, where he had enlisted in the American army, discouraging emigration generally, but especially by young women, because of the adversity, destitution, and vice that was, he said, evident in U.S. cities.
He was attempting to send copies of the radical Irish-American nationalist newspaper, the Irish World, home, despite British censorship of the mails.
He hoped that his uncle in Ireland who had been imprisoned, would be reinstated to his farm without anyone ‘base enough’ to grab it, but also admonished his father to treat a nearby recently arrived English farmer “with kindness and respect” as he had travelled with many of them, “the best men I’ve met except some Americans”.
Owen O’Callaghan, Philadelphia, wrote to his mother Kate O’Callaghan, Fallow, Kilmacthomas, in Co. Waterford, November 21, 1883:
“I’m sure ye had a busy harvest, men being so scarce that the work came very heavy on you. All the busy time is over now, the potatoes are all in.
“P.s. Maggie Norris desires to be remembered to [his siblings] Tom and Maggie. She often talks of the sow and the fish.”
In the Williamson letters, James Williamson, San Jose, California to John Williamson, Manchester, England, dated October 3, 1858, James described his recent visits to San Francisco.
Brother William is now ranching in the Pajaro Valley, near Watsonville, in Santa Cruz Co. while James is tired of working for others in a shop, and wants to farm or ranch for himself, the letters revealed.
The Imirce digital repository was developed by an interdisciplinary team, led by Prof. Daniel Carey, School of English, Media and Creative Arts; Cillian Joy, University of Galway library and Prof. Breandán Mac Suibhne, Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge, with the archival work managed by digital archivist Marie-Louise Rouget.
Prof. Breandán Mac Suibhne, director of the Acadamh and historian at University of Galway, said: “Letter writing was long the primary means of communication between Irish emigrants to North America and family and friends at home.
“Imirce is at once an important resource for scholars and a potent connection across time between the descendants of emigrants to North America, and the people and places around Ireland that their forebears left behind,” he continued.
Daniel Carey, professor of English at University of Galway, said: “As an Irish-American whose relations left Ireland for America during the famine, I find the Imirce collection a profound record of the experience of emigrants, recorded in their own voices.
“The challenges of settling in a new country come to life in these letters, through reflections on ordinary events and major upheavals.
“We see how they kept their relationships going across great distances and reported home on how they were faring in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and so many cities and towns across the continent.”
The university has released an initial tranche of material from the Imirce project, with more letters and memoirs to be published over the rest of the year.
The library is also seeking contributions of other emigrant letters, in particular those written in Irish in North America, and letters and memoirs produced in any language by emigrants from the Gaeltacht.