The trip that the Irish had to endure in order to immigrate to America was long and hard. Because of the poor state of crops due to the potato famine, Irish were fleeing their homes with basically nothing to look back to, searching for a better life in America. First, one had to save up enough money to support their trip. This usually took a few years, but once money was saved up, the journey began. Those who did not live in towns by the coast had to travel great distances either by foot or cart, in order to arrive at a sea port. Once they were at the port, one of the most popular ones being Cork, they would take a boat to Liverpool, England. At Liverpool, merchants were there with their ships, dropping of exports from the US and Canada. These large ships would pick up the masses of Irish, bringing them to America. Because of the poor status of Irish, those fleeing were often taken advantage of by ship owners. The goal of the ship company was to get as much money from the passengers, giving them the bare necessities in return. Also, “Passage-brokers” sold illegitimate tickets to families, leaving them without a place on the ship. These scams occurred very often, and about 100,000 helpless Irish families were left to suffer in the streets of English ports, by 1847.

Those who were lucky enough to get a ticket were then brought to the steerage which was below deck. The cargo ships that immigrants traveled on were not intended for the use of carrying passengers, so the bare necessities were not accessible. About 1,000 immigrants would be crammed into a space about 75 feet long by 25 feet wide. They slept on horrible cots, and they had to bring their own food for the trip. Because the trip could sometimes last up to 60 days, they often ran out of food quickly. Also there was’t enough water to go around, leaving the passengers in a weak state of health. The result was the spread of diseases such as Typhoid, also known as Cabin fever. Also, those who ran the ship were very careless of safety precautions, causing the sinking on 17 immigrant ships in 1834.

On the ships, Irish were placed in the steerage, which was in the bottom of the boat.

There, they were crammed together, with no air source, little food, and

not much space. Due to these horrible conditions, disease spread, and

once people arrived into Ellis Island, many were turned away

due to their poor medical state.

Luckily, by 1870, steamships replaced the slow sailing ships, allowing the trip to be shortened to a time period of two weeks. Also, laws in England and US were passed, monitoring the treatment of immigrants, setting up guidelines as to how they should be treated. Later, in 1924, immigration laws restricted the amount of Irish who could enter the US. Though the journey was long, and involved many risky steps, during the period from 1830 to 1930, about four million Irish endured the hard journey to America. Once the immigrants arrived in the US, they were grateful of surviving the long journey, and as one immigrant, David S. Lawlor thinks, "We could see the people going to mass so we united our prayers with theirs and thanked God for bringing us safely across the deep." But all of them knew that the end of the trip across the ocean was only the beginning of their long journey in America.

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Irish arrived into Ellis Island after enduring the long journey. There, they went

through may medical examinations, their papers were checked, and finally

if all was correct, they were excepted into the US.

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