Westward Cork Migration by Sail 1815-1860 by John Sutton

PART I CALENDAR OF CORK EMIGRANT SHIP SAILINGS 1815-60

contractors is to give hands a certain sum of monthly wages we believe 10 dollars, and a dollar and a half for their board weekly; the men thus are at liberty to board wherever they please. The numerous houses erected, although not extensive, can accommodate the labourers. The weather has been favorable, no rain, nothing to interrupt the work’ ( The Ships List - quoting Gleaner) . . Once again, communities spring up along newly constructed transportation highways and once again many Irish labourers were employed on the canal construction. * News Response to Complaints about Increased Irish Emigrants Quebec, 4th August, 1825 Irish Emigrants ‘Thirty thousand pounds were voted by the Commons of the United Kingdom, in June, for the promoting of Emigration from Ireland to Canada. Thirty thousand pounds for this purpose, or a hundred times that amount, will do little good in Ireland. Justice is the only specific for the evils of a nation. Perhaps fifty thousand Irishmen were withdrawn annually from Ireland, during twenty years of the late war, to fight the battles of the Empire by sea and land to die on shipboard in every sea and under every climate, to leave their bones in India, Africa and America, Holland, the Peninsula, France and the Netherlands, and all the while the population went on increasing . Getting rid of a people is no new invention in the art of governing them. Somebody has profited or will profit by the past, present, and future grants; and we heartily wish that the poor Irish Emigrants may also profit by them. What surprises us, is that some of our brothers Journalists in Canada, should express some degree of alarm at the consequences of so many Irish Emigrants coming to these Provinces. We beg those gentlemen not to be alarmed. This is a large continent, with plenty of room for everybody. We believe that the greatest part of the Irish, having been so long confined, make use of their liberty, to take an extensive range ; but if they do stay in the Provinces, they will endeavour to live at peace with those amongst whom they have come to reside ; if no injustice is done them, if they are left free to enjoy the fruits of their labour, they will soon perceive that their happiness will depend on their own good conduct ; that if they go wrong, they will only have themselves to blame ; no one on whom to wreck their vengeance, and charge with the evils sometimes of their own creating. They will in a short time make good and peaceable subjects in the Canadas, and thousands of them have already proved to be in the United States. A very short time will convince them that Catholic and Protestant, Orange men and Ribbon men, and the hostile feelings perpetuated by a system of unequal Laws, are entirely misplaced in America. Peaceable industry, sobriety, obedience to the Laws, attachment to the interests of their adopted country, equal justice to all, will form a common rallying point for all Irishmen in Canada, and make them useful, and we should hope, thriving citizens of this young and rising country’ ( The Ships list : from The Old Gazette) * The Timber Trade and the Miramichi Fire of 1825 The timber trade drove the New Brunswick economy in the early 1800s, and after 1815 Irish emigrants supplied much of the labor force. Timber exports from St Andrew, St John and Miramichi were comparable by 1824-25, with Irish migrants arriving in New Brunswick on the returning ships. The summer of 1825 was very dry and on 7 October 1825 a massive forest fire took hold, one of the most massive wildfires ever in North America, and it consumed almost one quarter of New Brunswick’s vast forest lands. The fire was reputed to have been fifteen miles wide with winds of hurricane force, enabling it to travel at one mile per minute [60 mph], devouring everything in its path. Newcastle, a major town of one thousand people near the estuary of the Miramichi River, was burned to the ground in less than three hours. Out of two hundred and sixty buildings, only twelve were left standing.