Anonn ’an Oileáin Úir … 

Grianghraf: Fir de bhunadh na Rosann i Philadelphia sna 1920í—ina seasamh: John Sharkey agus Michael McFadden; ina suí: John Gallagher agus James McBride. Ó bhailiúhcán Frankie Gallagher, Mullach Dubh, le caoinchead Jimmy Duffy, Dúchas Thír Chonaill / Donegal Heritage 

Image: John Sharkey and Michael McFadden; seated: John Gallagher and James McBride, all natives of the Rosses, west Donegal, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1920s. From the collection of the late Frankie Gallagher, Mullach Dubh, courtesy of Jimmy Duffy, Dúchas Thír Chonaill / Donegal Heritage 

Dear father and mother, I hope this letter finds you in the condition that it leaves me in at present …

In aois mhór na himirce, sa darna leath den naoiú haois déag, ba ghnách le páistí ar fud na hÉireann abairtí den chineál sina fhoghlaim ar an scoil bheag agus blianta fada i ndiaidh dóibh an scoil a fhágáil bhí na habairtí céanna ag tús na litreacha a chuir siad ’na bhaile as Méiriceá.  

Coinníodh go leor de na litreacha sin mar chuimhneacháin ar an mhuintir a scríobh iad agus gan philleadh ar an tseanbhaile i ndán don chuid is mó acu. Foinse ar leith atá anois sna scríbinní sin do stair na hÉireann agus do stair Mhéiriceá mar tá léargas iontu ar thaithí agus ar thuairimí na cosmhuintire—mianadóirí agus oibrithe monarchan, na fir a thóg na bealtaí iarainn agus na mná a ghlan na tithe móra.

Bhí Arnold Bhí B.Schrier, staraí de bhunadh Nua Eabhrac, ar dhuine den mhuintir is luaithe a d’aithin tábhacht an ábhair sin. Sna 1950í, nuair a bhí sé ag gabháil do dhoctúireacht ar imirce as Éirinn go dtí na Stáit Aontaithe, thosaigh sé ag cruinniú litreacha a cuireadh ar ais go hÉirinn agus bhain sé úsáid ar leith astu ina leabhar, Ireland and the American Emigration, 1850–1900 (University of Minnesota Press, 1958).

Glúin ina dhiaidh sin, sna 1970í, thosaigh Kerby A. Miller, mac léinn dochtúireachta in UC Berkeley, ag déanamh taighde ar imirce as Éirinn ó na 1600í agus, dalta Schrier, thug sé faoi litreacha i gcartlanna agus i leabharlanna a léamh le tuigbheáil níos fearr a fháil ar dhearcadh mhuintir na hÉireann i Méiriceá i leith an tseanbhaile agus i leith an tsaoil san ‘Oileán Úr’. Lena chois sin, chuir sé fógraí i nuachtáin de chuid na hÉireann ag iarraidh ar dhaoine litreacha ar bith a bhí acu a sheoladh chuige.  

Chuaigh daoine ar fud na tíre ag rúscadh i bpriosanna agus i gcófra agus roimh i bhfad bhí moll litreacha ag an staraí óg: rinne seisean iad a thras-scríobh agus chuir sé na bun-litreacha—seoda luachmara teaghlaigh—ar ais chuig na daoine ar leo iad. Fén am a foilsíodh a mhór-shaothar Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (Oxford University Press, 1985), mheas Miller go raibh níos mó ná cúig mhíle litir léite aige. Agus lean sé leis ag cruinniú agus ag tras-scríobh, rud a d’fhág bailiúchán ollmhór aige de chomhfhreagras agus cuimhní cinn a scríobh daoine de bhunadh na hÉireann i Méiriceá Thuaidh, ó dheireadh na 1600í go lár na 1900í. 

In 2020 bhronn Miller agus a bhean Patricia an cnuasach seo ar Ollscoil na hÉireann, Gaillimh; fé thús 2021, bhí an t-ábhar i Leabharlann Uí Argadáin, áit a roinneadh é in 150 bocsa cartlainne.  

Tá obair ar bun anois ag an Acadamh, Institiúid Uí Mhórdha, agus Leabharlann Uí Argadáin leis an oll-bhailiúchán sin a chur ar líne. Le cuidiú ó Chiste Straitéiseach na hOllscoile, tá catalogú á dhéanamh air fé láthair, agus ansin tá na tras-scríbhinní le digitiú. Nuair atá sé sin déanta, cuirfear bunachar sonraí measartha simplí ar líne: beidh taighdeoirí ábalta litreacha a aimsiú tré ainmneacha agus áiteacha cónaí na ndaoine a sheoil agus a fuair iad agus na dátaí a seoladh iad a chur isteach i mbosca cuardaigh. Tá sé i gceist ansin an bunachar a ‘dhoimhniú’ tré innéacsú a dhéanamh ar a bhfuil sna litreacha. Amach anseo, beidh taighdeoirí ábalta litreacha a luann ilchineál ábhar—mar shampla, cineálácha áirithe oibre, pearsaí móra staire, cumha i ndiaidh an bhaile nó tuairimí polaitíochta—a aimsiú go furast. Déanfar an obair sin in ionaid na hOllscoile i gCarna agus i nGaoth Dobhair. Beidh deiseanna fosta ag scoláirí uirlisí digiteacha a úsáid le h-ábhair faoi leith a iniúchadh; mar shampla, b’fhéidir go bhfuil scoláirí ann ar mhaith leo úsáid a bhaint as uirlísí Próiseála Teanga Nadúrtha le ceisteanna a fhreagairt fán dóigh a d’athraigh mothúcháin thar tréimhse ná an dearcadh i leith airgead a chur ’na bhaile go hÉirinn. 

Beidh an bunachar sonraí seo ina áis ar leith ní hamháin ag taighdeoirí ollscoile ach ag lucht ginealachais fosta. Sna blianta amach romhainn, duine ar bith de bhunadh na hÉireann atá ag tabhairt faoi stair a mhuintire, tabharfaidh sé cuairt fhíorúil ar an bhunachar sin i Leabharlann Uí Argadáin. Ag caint fá chnuasach Kerby Miller, mhaígh Daniel Carey, Institiúid Uí Mhórdha, go bhfuil sé ina cheangal ní hamháin idir an am i láthair agus an t-am atá thart, ach idir muintir na hÉireann agus sliocht a muintire i gcéin: is cnuasach lán cumha é d’Éireannaigh, a dúirt sé, ach is cnuasach fosta é atá ina chuidiú againn agus muid ag iarraidh tuigbheáil níos fearr a fháil ar ghnóthaí imirce sa lá atá inniu ann.

I nDeireadh Fómhair 2021, i bpáirt leis an Mellon Centre for Migration Studies, ar an Ómaigh, d’eagraigh an tAcadamh, Institiúid Uí Mhórdha, agus an Leabharlann, comhdháil trí lá i nDoire le comhghleacaithe in institiúidí eile a chur ar an eolas fán togra seo. Méara Dhoire Graham Warke (Democratic Unionist Party) a d’oscail an chomhdháil sa Guildhall ar 22 Deireadh Fómhair agus mar chuid di, sheoil Patrick Griffin, Stiúrthóir Léann na hÉireann sa University of Notre Dame, The First Irish Cities (Yale University Press, 2021) le David Dickson, Coláiste na Tríonóide. I measc na scoláirí eile a bhí páirteach sa chomhdháil, bhí Angela Byrne, Ollscoil Uladh; Angelique Day, eagarthóir Ordnance Survey Memoirs; Kerby A. Miller, University of Missouri; Brendan O’Leary, University of Pennsylvania; Mike O’Malley, George Mason University, agus William Roulston, Ulster Historical Foundation; agus ó Ollscoil na hÉireann, Gaillimh, bhí Daniel Carey, Institiúid Uí Mhórdha, Mícheál Ó Dómhnaill, Acadamh, agus Lillis Ó Laoire, Gaeilge. Phléigh Ó Laoire amhráin a cruinníodh, i nGaeilge agus i mBéarla, ó dhaoine de bhunadh Thír Chonaill, i gceantar an ghuail chrua in oirthear Pennsylvania, c. 1880–1930. Tá an tAcadamh ag iarraidh tuilleadh taighde a bhíogadh fá imirce ó iarthar Thír Chonaill go dtí an réigiún sin agus é ag súil le ceangail a chothú le sliocht na ndaoine a d’fhág iarthar an chontae san am atá thart. Agus déanfaidh sé a mhacasamhail fá imirce ó Chonamara go Massachusetts.  

An staraí Kerby A. Miller agus a bhean Patricia, Missouri, 1978. Historian Kerby A. Miller and his wife Patricia, Missouri, 1978.

Dear father and mother, I hope this letter finds you in the condition that it leaves me in at present … In the latter half of the nineteenth century, an age of great migration, children on wooden benches in national schools across Ireland learned such mantras by rote, and decades later those phrases would open letters sent home across the broad Atlantic.

Many thousands of those emigrant letters have survived the wreck of time, treasured mementoes of loved ones never destined to return to Ireland. Penned by miners and domestic servants, the men who built the railroads and the women who cleaned the big houses, they express the attitudes of generations of ordinary people to both the New World and the homes that they left behind and they tell too the most moving stories of loss and loneliness, desire and disappointment, success and failure.

In the 1970s, the historian Kerby A. Miller, then a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, commenced transcribing emigrant letters in archives and libraries as he worked on a dissertation on Irish migration to America. He also placed adverts in Irish newspapers asking people to send him any old letters from America which he promised to transcribe and return to their owners. By the time he turned his dissertation into his monumental Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (Oxford University Press, 1988), Miller estimated that he had read over five thousand emigrant letters. And he continued transcribing in the decades that followed, assembling, in the process, a collection of extraordinary value to historians of Ireland, the United States, and Canada. In 2020 Kerby and his wife Patricia donated this collection to the National University of Ireland, Galway; the material fills some 150 archive boxes in the Hardiman Library. Now, Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge, the Moore Institute for the Humanities and Social Studies, and the Hardiman Library are working to catalogue and digitize the material with a view to making it available in an online database.  

The initial digitization, which is supported by the University’s Strategic Fund, will produce a simple database, searchable by date and the names and locations of senders and recipients of letters. Geographic Information Systems will be employed in the visualization of the data. Thereafter, the transcripts will be thoroughly indexed, allowing researchers to identify material on a disparate range of topics, including political events and pay rates, homesickness and religious practice. Sophisticated digital research tools, some involving artificial intelligence, can be applied by scholars to subsets of the material. For instance, Natural Language Processing tools could facilitate an analysis of sentiment over time or changing attitudes to remittances. 

Work on the database will be undertaken in the University’s Gaeltacht centres in Gaoth Dobhair and Carna. Speaking of this great gift to the University, Daniel Carey, Director of the Moore Institute, said, “The Kerby A. Miller Collection offers an amazing window into the lived experience of the hundreds of thousands of Irish people who made the journey to North America. These are evocative documents, emotional in the voice and connections they preserve across time.” 

To introduce the project to colleagues in other institutions, Acadamh, the Moore Institute and the Library convened a small conference in Derry in October in association with the Mellon Centre for Migration Studies, Omagh. Opened in the Guildhall by the Mayor of Derry Graham Warke (Democratic Unionist Party), the conference included the launch of David Dickson’s The First Irish Cities (Yale University Press, 2021), by Patrick Griffin, Director of the Keough Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Other participants included Angela Byrne, Ulster University; Angelique Day, editor of the Ordnance Survey Memoirs; Kerby A. Miller, University of Missouri; Brendan O’Leary, University of Pennsylvania; Mike O’Malley, George Mason University, and William Roulston, Ulster Historical Foundation; and from NUI Galway, Daniel Carey, Mícheál Ó Dómhnaill, and Lillis Ó Laoire. Songs, in Irish and English, collected c. 1880–1930 from emigrants from west Ulster in the ‘hard coal’ (anthracite) region of North-eastern Pennsylvania was the focus of Ó Laoire’s contribution. Acadamh hopes to stimulate additional research on migration from Irish-speaking districts in the north-west to this particular region of Pennsylvania. Likewise, it plans to promote research on the migration of Connemara people to Massachusetts. 

Foireann an Togra / Project Team 

Acadamh—Breandán Mac Suibhne; Séamas Ó Briain 

Institiúid Uí Mhórdha—Daniel Carey; David Kelly 

Leabharlann Uí Argadáin—Peter Corrigan; John Cox; Kieran Hoare; Cillian Joy; Aisling Keane 

Main Image:

Fir de bhunadh na Rosann i Philadelphia sna 1920í—ina seasamh: John Sharkey agus Michael McFadden; ina suí: John Gallagher agus James McBride. Ó bhailiúhcán Frankie Gallagher, Mullach Dubh, le caoinchead Jimmy Duffy, Dúchas Thír Chonaill / Donegal Heritage https://donegalheritage.wordpress.com/ 

John Sharkey and Michael McFadden; seated: John Gallagher and James McBride, all natives of the Rosses, west Donegal, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1920s. From the collection of the late Frankie Gallagher, Mullach Dubh, courtesy of Jimmy Duffy, Dúchas Thír Chonaill / Donegal Heritage https://donegalheritage.wordpress.com/