1815 to 1865: The Irish Migration

January 1, 1815

A major wave of immigration occurred from around 1815 to 1865. The majority of these newcomers hailed from Northern and Western Europe. approximately one-third came from Ireland, which experienced a massive famine in the mid-19th century in the 1840s, almost half of Americans immigrants were from Ireland alone. Typically impoverished, these Irish immigrants settled near their point of arrival in cities long the east coast. Between 1820 and 1930, some 4.5 million Irish migrated to the United States.