The Irish in America

PREVIEW

Listen to the song Skibbereen and read the lyrics. Write down 3 reasons the father in the song gives for leaving Ireland.

1.

2.

3.

PROCESS

CAUSE & EFFECT CHART

Homework: Write a limerick that –

  1. Has a title
  2. Lists the reasons why the Irish came to America
  3. Describes their experiences upon arriving

3. Celebrates their contribution to the American national identity

Remember a limerick is a poem with five lines. Lines 1, 2, and 5 rhyme, and lines 3 and 4 rhyme. (AABBA).

______

Flight from Famine – The Irish Americans

  1. In 1845, Ireland’s potato harvest, long a ______of the Irish diet began to blacken and to ______.
  1. In Ireland, the ______caused a horrible famine that the Irish called the Great Hunger.
  1. It killed ______or more people and forced many others to leave the country.
  1. Many Irish people viewed the famine yet another devastating injustices they had been forced to endure under centuries of ______rule.
  1. Under English rule, Irish peasants were forced to farm land owned by powerful absentee ______who controlled vast estates from their homes in England.
  1. Absentee landlords didn’t demand only labor from the peasants, the Irish were also forced to pay ______.
  1. Even though most Irish were Catholics, they were also forced to pay taxes to the ______which was Protestant.
  1. Under British rule, most of Irish farmland was used to grow ______that were exported to England.
  1. The potato, introduced from ______, became the main source of ______for most poor Irish peasants.
  1. Instead of allowing the Irish to eat the barley and oat crops which were unaffected by the blight, the English landlords continued to ship these crops ______of Ireland.
  1. ______and disease spread throughout the Irish island.
  1. Those who could not pay their rent were ______from their homes and left to survive any way they could.
  1. As starvation swept the country, many were left with a frightening choice: ______Ireland and live or stay and die.
  1. With few options, approximately ______left their homes and their families for America, a land of opportunity and hope.
  1. The desperate men and women who immigrated to the United States built new lives in some of the nation’s largetst ______.
  1. Though it was difficult to start over in a new nation, the Irish immigrants and their descendents gradually overcome poverty and ______.
  1. Through patience, education, and hard work, the descendants of the men and women who migrated to America were able to win fair treatment that the Irish of the 1800s had been ______.