Crawford/Black in Ardstraw

You ask why your ancestors might have left Ireland. I am sure they left for the same reasons that 2 million others did. To find work. Ireland has very few natural resources (no oil, coal, iron ore etc) and so did not benefit from the industrial revolution in the 1800s, the way Scotland, England, the US, Canada & Australia did, which created hundreds of thousands of comparatively well-paid new jobs in new industries (coal mining, steel making, ship building etc). So that was a big pull factor. There had also been a huge population explosion in Ireland going up from about 3 million people in 1750 to 8 million in 1830. There simply weren?t the jobs for all those people. In much of Ireland the only employment was subsistence farming topped up in Ulster with a bit of weaving. And then the straw that broke the camel?s back, along came the famine, numerous times throughout the 1800s. The worst period was when the potato crop failed almost completely 3 years in a row in the late 1840s, and then partially several more years after that. Many farmers were very much one crop dependant, because you could grow more potatoes to the acre than any other crop, but as a consequence they had nothing else to fall back on, and because it was largely a barter economy they mostly had no spare cash to buy food. When the crop failed 3 years in a row, people ended up eating their seed potatoes, leaving them nothing to plant the next spring. It is estimated that during the years 1845 to 1850, around 800,000 people died of starvation or of a famine-related disease such as typhus, dysentery, scurvy or pellagra. A further two million people emigrated. Unlike earlier famines, in which the population recovers quickly from the catastrophe and continues to grow, the after- effects of the Great Irish Famine were such that the population of Ireland, standing at 8.2 million people in 1841, declined to 6.6 million in 1851. Fifty years later, Ireland's population was still showing a decline (down to 4.5 million), even though every other European country was showing a population increase. Ireland?s population did not return to its pre-famine heights until 1964. Approximately 8 million people left Ireland between 1801 and 1900 - the equivalent of the entire pre-Famine population. The population today is only 5.5 million.

Other factors led to the continued emigration too, eg early mechanisation on farms. With new machines to turn the soil and plant seed, farmers no longer needed an army of agricultural labourers to help on the farm. So those jobs were rapidly disappearing. Likewise mechanisation had led to linen factories being set up in places like Belfast. These made home weaving uneconomic and so also upset the labourer?s family economy. Agriculture was the biggest single employer in Ireland, but it was mostly a barter economy. Few people had any ready cash save what they could make from weaving or any government sponsored work such as building new roads. So when the opportunity arose to get jobs with a regular wage packet, as opposed to a few pence from your father each week, the decision to migrate wasn?t really all that hard to make. So it was as much about economic betterment as anything.

Thank you for your detailed reply, Ahoghill Antrim. I was aware of the social and economic contexts of the time, however I was wondering more about specific circumstances relating to Ardstraw in the mid 1860's. George appears to have had enough means to return from Canada and yet they ended up in Australia instead of returning to Canada. My question is more related to whether local Ardstraw people who left at this time had any other choice except Australia, for example, or whether there had been other couples and/or families who decided to leave for Australia at the same time as George and Sarah left. I believe that some families were able to be "sponsored" to emigrate when they had no other means however, as mentioned, it has so far been impossible to determine whether they were assisted immigrants or fare paying. Thanks again though.

All of the newspapers of the time were packed with adverts encouraging people to emigrate. There were ads on the front pages of every edition. Here?s a link to information relating to the adjacent county of Donegal for the mid 1800s which is pretty typical:

http://www.finnvalley.ie/history/emigration/index.html

Australia only attracted about 5% of Irish emigrants. I think the cost and distance was obviously a factor. The majority went to Scotland & England. After that it was the US & Canada. People were influenced by what others had done. Emigrants who had gone before wrote home and encouraged friends to join them.  So if one individual from Ardstraw went to Australia and wrote back, it wouldn?t be surprising if some others joined him/her. But I?d very much doubt that there was anything special going on in Ardstraw that made it any different from the rest of Ireland at that time. It was an agricultural area of mixed quality land, and faced the same problems of overpopulation and lack of jobs that prevailed elsewhere. Every young person in Ireland considered emigration and at least half actually went.

Quite a lot came back to Ireland for various reasons so going to Canada and returning, as your ancetsor did, wasn't that unusual.

Thank you so much - very helpful information and link gave me better insight into their choices (or lack thereof). Regards, Michelle.