Emigration: Leaving Ireland for a New Life

Active learning engages students with the human stories behind emigration, moving beyond dates to lived experiences. Through mapping, role-play, and writing, students connect geography, history, and personal choices in ways that build lasting empathy and understanding.

• 1st Year
• The Historian\
• 4 activities
• 35 min–50 min

Learning Objectives

1. Analyze primary source documents, such as letters or diary entries, to identify the reasons Irish emigrants cited for leaving their homeland.
2. Compare the living conditions and travel experiences of emigrants during the Famine with those of emigrants during other periods of Irish history.
3. Explain the push and pull factors that influenced decisions to emigrate from Ireland to specific destinations like North America or Australia.
4. Classify the challenges faced by Irish emigrants upon arrival in their new countries, categorizing them into social, economic, or cultural difficulties.
5. Create a short narrative or visual representation depicting the journey of an Irish emigrant, incorporating details about their motivations and the hardships of travel.

⏱ 45 min·Pairs

Mapping Activity: Emigration Routes

Provide outline maps of Ireland and key destinations. Students mark routes in pairs, adding labels for push/pull factors and ship hardships using colored markers. Discuss findings as a class to highlight patterns.

Prepare & details

Why did people leave Ireland during the Famine?

Facilitation Tip: For the Mapping Activity, provide blank maps and colored pencils so students can trace routes and mark major ports like Liverpool, Boston, and Sydney with brief notes on why those locations mattered.

⏱ 50 min·Small Groups

Role-Play: Famine Decisions

Assign roles like farmer, landlord, or emigrant family. Groups debate whether to stay or leave, using evidence cards on blight and evictions. Each group presents their choice and reasons to the class.

Prepare & details

Where did Irish people go when they left?

Facilitation Tip: In the Role-Play activity, assign roles with clear stakes—some students must decide to leave while others debate the fairness of British policies or landlord actions.

⏱ 40 min·Whole Class

Timeline Build: Emigrant Journey

Students sequence events from Famine onset to arrival abroad using sticky notes on a class timeline. Add drawings of ships and letters. Review by walking the timeline and sharing insights.

Prepare & details

What was it like to travel to a new country a long time ago?

Facilitation Tip: For the Timeline Build, use large strips of paper for students to sequence key events, leaving space to add personal milestones like 'first sight of land' or 'quarantine delay' to deepen engagement.

⏱ 35 min·Individual

Letter Writing: Emigrant Voices

Students write first-person letters home describing travel conditions, drawing from primary sources. Exchange letters in pairs for peer feedback before displaying on a 'coffin ship' wall.

Prepare & details

Why did people leave Ireland during the Famine?

Teaching This Topic

Start with primary sources to ground students in reality, then layer in secondary context to avoid overwhelming them with too much information at once. Use jigsaw discussions where groups investigate different aspects like ship conditions or arrival cities, then share back with the class. Avoid presenting emigration as a simple escape from poverty, but instead frame it as a last resort with no guarantees.

What to Expect

Successful learning looks like students explaining push and pull factors clearly, debating decisions realistically, and writing letters that reflect both hope and hardship. They should also trace journeys geographically and express the emotional weight of leaving home.

Watch Out for These Misconceptions

Common Misconception

During the Mapping Activity, watch for students who label potato blight as the only cause of emigration.

What to Teach Instead

Use the map as a visual anchor to discuss evidence cards with students during the Mapping Activity, asking them to place crop failure alongside landlord policies and British export laws as interconnected causes.

Common Misconception

During the Role-Play activity, listen for assumptions that emigrants instantly found wealth in new lands.

What to Teach Instead

In the Role-Play activity, provide role cards that include realistic outcomes, such as discrimination in work or crowded tenements, to ground students’ decisions in historical realities.

Common Misconception

During the Letter Writing activity, watch for students who describe the journey as safe or comfortable.

What to Teach Instead

Have students reference the Timeline Build’s ship conditions when writing their letters, prompting them to include details about overcrowding, disease, or storms to correct this misconception.

Assessment Ideas

Exit Ticket

After the Mapping Activity, provide students with an exit ticket asking them to list one push factor, one pull factor, and one destination country they mapped.

Discussion Prompt

During the Role-Play activity, ask students to share the hardest part of their decision-making process and what they hoped to find, then facilitate a class discussion on the emotional weight of those choices.

Quick Check

After the Timeline Build, show students a world map and ask them to point to and name at least three countries where Irish emigrants settled, explaining one reason for each location.

Extensions & Scaffolding

• Challenge students to research and present on a specific emigrant group’s experience in one destination country, comparing their challenges to those faced by Irish emigrants.
• For students struggling to grasp the scale of hardship, provide a word bank with terms like 'eviction,' 'typhus,' and 'quota' to anchor their discussions during the Role-Play activity.
• Deeper exploration: Have students compare Irish emigration records to those of another famine-stricken group, such as Highland Scots during the Highland Clearances, to identify shared push factors and outcomes.

Key Vocabulary

Famine	A severe shortage of food, often caused by crop failure or natural disaster, leading to widespread hunger and death. The Great Famine in Ireland (1845-1852) was caused by potato blight.
Emigration	The act of leaving one's own country to settle permanently in another. For Ireland, this often meant leaving to find better opportunities or escape hardship.
Push Factors	Reasons that compel people to leave their home country. For Ireland, these included poverty, starvation, disease, and evictions.
Pull Factors	Reasons that attract people to a new country. These might include job opportunities, land ownership, or political freedom.
Coffin Ships	A term used to describe the overcrowded and unsanitary vessels that transported Irish emigrants, many of whom died during the voyage due to disease and starvation.