What brought thousands of Irish immigrants to America?

The Great Famine, caused by Ireland’s potato crop failure, brought thousands—and ultimately millions—of Irish immigrants to America.

A potato blight began devastating Ireland’s crops in 1845, and repeated failures caused widespread hunger, disease, poverty, and displacement. The crisis is often called the Great Famine or the Great Hunger. For many Irish families, emigration became a desperate escape from starvation and the loss of their homes.

Between 1846 and 1851, more than one million Irish people immigrated to the United States. Many arrived in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, where they found work in construction, canal building, factories, domestic service, and other low-wage occupations. The dangerous voyage earned some famine-era vessels the name “coffin ships.”

Irish immigration had begun before the famine, including migration by Protestant workers and farmers. The famine transformed that movement into a mass exodus and helped create enduring Irish American communities in major U.S. cities.