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The Great Hunger

Although we can't be sure 100%, we can presume with some certainty that many of our Goonan ancestors left Ireland because of the Great Famine or as a direct result of it.  There are no written documents or personal letters left behind that we know of to make an absolute determination, however, the time frames of the immigrations to the United States, Canada and Australia that we have found give us an indication that it was the generations just after the main Famine years that constitute the majority of the immigrants.  The bulk of our family immigration took place in the decades following the Famine years between the years 1850 to 1910.  Many are presumed to have left to find work other than farming, and cattle and sheep herding, which was our ancestral family's primary occupation and it was steadily loosing ground to increasingly high rents, British persecution and the dawn of the industrial age.

The Great Famine in Ireland, said by some, to be the first act of organized genocide, took place roughly between the years 1845 through 1850, give or take a year.  A million Irish peasants starved to death. Hundreds of thousands more were forced to leave Ireland in a state of destitution, hungry and broke.  The English didn't cause the blight that completely devastated the potato crops in Ireland, but instead, they did nothing.  In fact, they used it as an opportunity to further their plan to rid the world of the Irish.

There were crop failures in the past.  Some of them were serious but nothing could prepare anyone for this one.  This was a complete devastation of the potato crop across the entire country and lasted for several years.  The only choice for millions of people was either starve or leave the country.  At that time in Ireland the main food stuff and diet was potatoes for the majority of the population.  Three fourths of the population of Ireland at that time were very poor peasant farmers with only a few acres at best, to grow enough food to feed themselves and pay the sometimes very high rents.  As awful as it sounds, it's true, they ate potatoes all the time. Imagine eating potatoes for every meal, and once in awhile having a piece of meat or vegetable.  It's fortunate the potato is an extremely prolific and nutritious little tuber and you could live on them if you had to. 

I highly recommend reading the book, "The Great Hunger", by Cecil Woodham-Smith, published by Old Town Books, 1962, ISBN#0-88029-385-3, if you want to get a real clear picture of what this black time in Irish history was like.  I also recommend the following two other books, "Emigrants and Exiles", by Kerby A. Miller, published by Oxford University Press, 1985, ISBN#0-19-505187-4, and the book, "Fatal Shores", by Robert Hughes, published by Vintage Books, 1988, ISBN#0-394-75366-6.

[Check out: amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com to order if you want to.]

These books contain in-depth accounts of the lives and times of the Irish during the Great Famine and Immigration days, the last five decades of the 1800s.  They are heavy reading, but worth the effort if you really want to know what truly happen.  I guarantee you will be a changed person afterward.  You will grow to a new understanding of what it means to have Irish blood in your veins.  The hardships the Irish have endured and triumphed over through the centuries will make you proud you have those genes.

The struggle and persecution continues to this day.  Pray for peace in Northern Ireland. Pray for Peace and a united and free Ireland.  It's the least we can do for those who gave us a new start.