In these times, when immigration is very much in the news and immigrants and descendants of immigrants often badly thought of by many of the general public, it is worth remembering that many British people today are themselves the descendants of immigrants. This is especially true in Scotland for those people who claim Irish ancestry.
Although there has been immigration from Ireland to Scotland for thousands of years, it reached its peak in the 1800s and was at its highest following the Great Famine (1845-1852). In the years leading up to this disaster, there had been many other years of crop failure too and there is no doubt that this was a factor in the flood of Irish immigrants who came over to Scotland.
James The Illustrated London News, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
I have an Irish great great grandmother on my maternal side and an Irish 3 x great grandmother on my paternal side. Although no immigration records exist for this time, from their marriage records in Scotlend and from details given on censuses, both women came over to Scotland before the great famine and married Scots. My gggm Jane Chambers, born in County Monaghan, a member of the Church of Ireland, married a weaver here in 1826. She herself may have come from a family of weavers as there are other Irish 'Chambers' in the Lanark area at this time who are all involved in cotton loom weaving.
My 3 x ggm Sarah Diamond, who was an Irish Catholic, most likely from County Carlow in the south of Ireland, arrived in Scotland as a young girl or teenager and married around the age of 16. Her Scottish husband was a cottonspinner. Their marriage was conducted in Glasgow in 1819 by an independent minister, given the difference in their faiths. Their children were all baptised into their mother's faith.
These two women with their Irish roots are still quite a mystery to me despite years of research. I would love to know more about them, as they are the only two people I have come across that contribute to the 'Irishness' in my basically all Scottish ethnicity.
My husband, Martin on the other hand, has a much richer ethnic background. His father was Polish and his mother a descendant of Irish immigrants. These Irish ancestors all arrived in south-east Scotland in the 1800s. Three out of four of his 2 x great grandfathers and one great grandfather made the decision to leave Ireland for Scotland in search of a better life. His 2 x ggf Daniel Murphy came over from County Wicklow with a wife and child between 1845-48, part of the wave of immigration of the Great Famine. A second 2 x ggf Patrick Gallacher arrived from County Tyrone in Scotland between 1846-51 with his wife and two children. Another 2 x ggf John Raycroft from Fermanagh, arrived in Scotland as a young man sometime before 1851. The last of these Irish immigrants was Michael Pyne from Donegal who came over in the 1870s. All of these ancestors found jobs in mining here in Scotland - iron, lead, shale, coal - and all raised their families here.
Most of us cannot understand what would cause these people to make the decision to leave the life they had known and search for a better life in a different country. They must have been both desperate and brave individuals.
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