Pre-Famine Irish emigration was neither uniformly poor nor uniformly English-speaking

Evidence

From 1815 to the Famine, between 800,000 and one million Irish—about twice the total for the previous two centuries—sailed for North America. Contrary to the popular stereotype, not all were poor, not all were Catholic, and not all even spoke English. … Emigrants did not represent the poorest layers of Irish society; in 1820 American port officials recorded that twenty-seven percent of Irish arriving that year were farmers, twenty-two percent artisans, ten percent tradesmen and professionals, while only twenty-one percent were laborers. As the Dublin Evening Post lamented in 1818, “Emigration is necessarily restricted to the class immediately above the labouring poor, who cannot raise the money to pay their passage.” Even in the years immediately preceding the famine, most Catholic immigrants were not destitute. — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 138

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the general question of how immigrant groups are homogenized and stereotyped before, during, and after reclassification campaigns. — connects to: America recruited displaced Irish as its unskilled labor force — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 137; A third of Famine emigrants were primarily Irish-speaking — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 141; Famine-era Irish immigrants were poorer and entered as unskilled laborers. — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 142 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• A third of Famine emigrants were primarily Irish-speaking #corroborates (0.88) — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 141
• Famine-era Irish immigrants were poorer and entered as unskilled laborers. #qualifies (0.82) — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 142