Westward Cork Migration by Sail 1815-1860 by John Sutton

PART II EMIGRANT PERSPECTIVE

John Mitchel , maybe influenced somehow by aborigine genocide in Van Diemen’s Land, declared his support for slavery in 1854, to the chagrin of the Young Irelanders and dismay of Confederates back home, disrupting his role in Irish militant nationalism (Huddie, 2015, 40). Mitchel moved south to a Tennessee farm and later lived in Richmond Virginia during the 1861-65 American Civil War. His sons would fight and die for the Confederacy: William in Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg in 1863 and John commanding at Fort Sumter in 1864. Terence Bellew McManus , on escaping to San Francisco from Van Diemen’s Land in 1851, dropped out of politics and led an unremarkable life until his death in January 1861. Local Fenians negotiated unearthing of his body for a more illustrious burial in Ireland. A bold publicity stunt to attract resources to the cause of militant nationalism. The body was dug up in August and after a church ceremony shipped to New York, where Thomas Meagher persuaded Irish American Archbishop John Hughes to allow a Requiem Mass in St Patrick’s Cathedral on 15 September. Hughes turned a blind eye to the Fenians, and after the Mass thousands followed the casket to the steamer Glasgow which carried McManus to Cork, where the Catholic Church refused the Fenians access to the cathedral. Thousands accompanied the coffin through Cork to the railway station. In Dublin the Hierarchy again denied entry to their churches and McManus’s body remained in the Lecture Hall of the Mechanic’s Institute until a final huge procession on 10 November 1861 through Dublin to Glasnevin Cemetery. Thomas Francis Meagher , who arrived in New York during May 1852, after escaping from Van Diemen’s Land, studied law, worked as a journalist and travelled the country on the lecture circuit. He denounced slavery in his earlier life but was more muted on the topic as the Civil War approached and he was active in recruiting Irishmen to join Union forces. He had been a good friend to Mitchel, and to many in the upper echelon of American politics He attained the position of Brigadier General during the War and received more praise than reproach for his conduct – he had detractors. After the War he became the acting Governor of Montana, dying under unclear circumstance in 1867 on a river steamboat. (Two Irish friends, amazing for the lives they led, were Brigadier General James Shields and Archbishop “Dagger John” Hughes). Why did the Irish turn from Canada after Black 1847? Perhaps Irish perception of British government culpability for the Famine and the incessant hostility toward Irish Catholics in a Protestant British North America spawned the rejection of all things British. Never forget that half of the Irish emigrants were women, possibly in search of better workplace and social opportunity in the US. Québécois too, for the same reasons and economics, were at this time evacuating BNA and establishing French-speaking enclaves (future ‘little Canadas’) in Vermont, Maine and other US border states south of the St Lawrence and Great Lakes. Summation: Totals for all emigrants (mostly Irish Catholics) from Britain and Ireland to the USA and BNA 1846-60 was documented in the ‘British Emigration Commissioners Report’ of 1861: 1846. 1847. 1848. 1849. 1850. 1851. 1852. USA – 82,239. 142,154. 188,233. 219,450. 223,078. 267,357. 244,261. BNA– 43,439. 109,080. 31,065. 41,367. 32,961. 42,605. 32,873. 1853. 1854. 1855. 1856. 1857. 1858. 1859. 1860. USA - 230,885. 193,065. 103,414. 111,837. 126,905. 59,716. 70.303. 87,500. BNA - 34,522. 43,761. 17,966. 16,378. 21,001. 9,704. 6,680. 9,780.

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