The James Hack Tuke Emigrants - A lecture by Dr. Gerard Moran @ The ICC

200 New Boston Dr,,Canton MA 02021

03 April, 2022

Description

"Escaping Poverty and in search of Posterity: The James Hack Tuke Assisted Emigrants from the West of Ireland in New England in the 1880s" The famine of 1879-82, known as “the Forgotten Famine”, when over one million people were kept alive through the intervention of private relief organizations and international donations, resulted in a new approach being advocated to overcome the problems of the perennial subsistence crises, poverty and over population in the poorest parts of the country. The English Quaker and philanthropist, James Hack Tuke, who had witnessed death and starvation the Great Famine and the Forgotten Famine, came to the conclusion that the only panacea was to send families to North America. Between 1882 and 1884 Tuke assisted over 9,500 people from Connemara and Mayo to settle in the United States and Canada. The scheme was carefully planned and co-ordinated with only families who would succeed being sent, and only a small number of families were sent to the 218 destinations that were selected. This was to minimize local opposition. The families were sent to 26 locations in New England. Dr. GERARD MORAN is an emeritus researcher at the Social Science Research Centre at NUI Galway and has lectured in the History Department at NUI Galway and Maynooth University. His research interests include the Irish diaspora and emigration, and he has published extensively on 19th-century Ireland, including Sending Out Ireland’s Poor: Assisted Emigration to North America in the Nineteenth Century (Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2004), Fleeing from Famine in Connemara: James Hack Tuke and his Assisted Emigration Scheme in the 1880s (Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2018) and joint editor of Mayo: History and Society (Dublin, Geography Publication, 2015)and Famines in Ireland before and after the Great Hunger (Hamden: Quinnipiac University Press, 2010). Admission $10 Members Free