It's Not What You Think

John Keenan
Born: 1784, Cross Keys, Country Antrim, Ireland
Died: 1871, Hogansburg, St. Lawrence County, New York, USA
Relationship to the author: 3rd great grandfather

The Keenans – the author’s maternal grandfather's line – came to America in 1821 from County Antrim in Northern Ireland. As this is 20 years before the potato famine, it begs the question as to why they made the trip when they did.

If we look at Irish history – particularly history of Ireland in the north (Ulster) – we know that much of the legal discrimination against Irish Catholics was in the past by 1821. The laws that punished Irish Catholics from the early 1700s (the Act of Settlement, the Penal Laws, and Preventing Growth of the Popery) were reversed in the late 1700s (Catholic Relief Acts). Although there was still not full political participation, things seemed to be looking up.

In addition, there was no major violence to speak of right around that time. There was violence aplenty in the 1600s as Britain fought to bring all of Ireland under control and after as Ireland tried to free itself, culminating in The Battle of the Boyne (1690), but that is well behind them. The rebellion of 1798 by Lord Edward Fitzgerald in Dublin had an parallel effort in County Antrim led by Henry Jo McCracken. Both rebellions were defeated and left 30,000 dead. But that was 20 years prior to John Keenan and family leaving Ireland.

If we accept that it wasn’t discrimination or war, then what was it?

Emigration to the United States around 1820 was light compared to what it would be during and after the potato famine. In 1821 only 1,518 Irish left for the United States. Although that number would have an annual peak in the 1820s of over 12,000 (1828), this pales in comparison to the more than 37,000 that would leave Ireland in 1841 or the 221,000 in 1851.

So what led the family to leave with such a small number of Irish that year? The best bet is the search for more farmland. Ireland was seeing rapid population growth starting in 1770 of roughly 12 percent per decade. This was putting a strain on the limited land available. For the first fifteen years of the 19th century, farmers could divide land to their heirs without losing money as the Napoleonic Wars kept demand for grains high which lead to steadily increasing prices. When the Napoleonic Wars ended, prices stagnated or fell. This meant parents could not divide their land among their children and might find it hard to survive on the land they currently had.

America on the other hand had plenty of land in 1820. It won a war of independence then survived some growing pains by enacting a new Constitution (1787), bought land from Napoleon to expand west of the Mississippi River (1803), and fought a second war with Britain (War of 1812) whereby they maintained independence and pre-war borders. In 1820, America was settling down and there was no obvious violence expected in the immediate future (and as we know nothing would happen until 1860).

With land disappearing in Ireland and opening up in America, it makes sense that some Irish decided to emigrate. It is interesting to think that our ancestors were part of that small group (50,000 total during the 1820s) that left before things would get really bad.

In future posts, we’ll spend some more time looking at life in Northern Ireland before the Keenans left. We can look more at Elizabeth’s armies conquering Ireland, King James’ actions following that, and the hated Oliver Cromwell. We’ll also look at the Keenans’ life in New York after their arrival.