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Okay history buffs, I'm trying to shed some light on what I've found in my genealogy research, and I needed a bigger picture then what is usually discussed in the Genealogy forum.
I have an ancestor, James, who was a Steward to Lord Crofton, a Baron in Ireland, on an estate called Mote Park, in the county of Roscommon, in the 1850s-1860s. James was originally Scottish, reportedly from Glasgow, and he was a Protestant. when he died on the estate, in 1865, he left some money in his will to his brother, who was also living in Ireland, working as a gardener in or near Dublin. James did go to Dublin a lot, as Lord Crofton was evidently in the Irish Parliament. We also found some evidence that James' father, also a Scot, was living in Dublin in the 1850s.
So what I'm trying to figure out is, what factors might have led this Scottish family to move from Scotland to Ireland? James did get a very respectable position, as steward to a Baron. He appeared in newspaper articles about the Croftons, giving toasts at their weddings, and being mentioned in terms of being highly trusted by Lord Crofton. But they must have come from humble backgrounds, since his brother was only a gardener.
So I first tried looking into Scottish migration into Ireland, but everything is about Ulster and about 100-200 years too early.
Then I looked into what was going on in Scotland. It looks like a lot of Scots emigrated to the US, England, and Australia in the 1840s-1850s. The textile industry which had thrived in the early 1800s took a dive when Scotland could no longer import American cotton as of the start of our Civil War in 1861. Industry was growing, and housing wasn't keeping up. Some religious divisions were happening in the Protestant churches in Scotland. But what would make a family choose to leave all that, and move to a place where there was a huge famine happening?
People were leaving Ireland by the droves. A lot, we know, came here to the US, but a lot also went to Scotland, since the Catholic emancipation of 1829 made living there a little better for Catholics. But this family went in the opposite direction: from Glasgow to Dublin.
I know they were Presbyterians, because in a whole separate story, James married an Irish Catholic woman, and their 4 sons were considered illegitimate, because the marriage was not recognized by either church. So James' family didn't move to Ireland because they were Catholics.
And like I said, James somehow ended up with this very respectable job, but his brother was still just a laborer. Why move there where nearly everyone except the rich are starving?
Anyone have any ideas? I'm totally open to speculation, because in genealogy, sometimes speculation leads us to look into directions we would not have otherwise thought of, and we end up then finding evidence about there our ancestors.
Because something was better than nothing. And if you had decent prospects in Ireland and none in Scotland, any hard working Scot would take the entrepreneurial opportunity. And Scotland was going through all sorts of turmoil in the 1700-1800s specific to your question (no kilt, no bagpipe, no heritage, economic transition to landowners, centralized economy from London, etc).
My Scots migrated from Dumbarton Scotland to Tyrone and Donegal Ireland in the 1600s which would be different reasons than the 1800s but all the same it was opportunity. That is because they were supporters of relatives who gained large tracts of land after the Flight of Earls. And as my ancestors were younger sons, the smaller estate in Ireland was often left to them if they lived there and worked the land supporting the crown militarily.
The "huge famine" was not the starvation across all classes that it would seem at first glance. IIRC, Catholics were not allowed to own land for a while, so many worked the land as poor tenant farmers who had the fallback of potatoes for homegrown food. When the blight took hold, their extremely tenuous existence wasn't sustainable and there was no social safety net to keep them from starvation - even as ample grains were available to feed the (English owned) horses.
The poor Catholics who had been an ongoing problem for the landowners were starved, displaced into cheap industrial labor, or forced to emigrate. While some of the hill farms were left fallow or turned to grazing, there was still a vacuum as entire families left. Someone coming in as an outsider with an assured income and ability to buy food could see that as an opportunity, much as the U.S. developed westward upon the removal of the native Americans from land.
Is it possible that James had a connection to the Crofton's prior to emigrating, and moved for the job? Or that the local Irish labor force was decimated to the point of creating a need to import labor, especially on a grand estate?
Is it possible that James had a connection to the Crofton's prior to emigrating, and moved for the job? Or that the local Irish labor force was decimated to the point of creating a need to import labor, especially on a grand estate?
Yeah, I wondered that too. One of my cousins (who I found online) seems to think James came from a poorer branch of a noble Scottish family by the same name (Stewart) and the Croftons hired him as a friend of the family. But we have no evidence of that. A lot of genealogy people long to find noble or wealthy ancestors, but I'm more likely to think someone was dirt-poor as the default until I find evidence to the contrary. Also, James' brother was only a gardener, so they weren't even on the same social level as each other. It's more likely that they were from a humble background and James somehow distinguished himself, than that they were from an esteemed background and the brother fell so low. but who knows...
Even during the famine, the English were willing to insure (at least most of the time) that settlers arriving under British auspices had access to food. This was probably done through various subsidies.
The only Scots I have in my ancestry lived on the English-Scottish border and were mercenary soldiers. They left and went to what is now northern Ireland, then came to New England during a mass migration around 1700. That's the Scots-Irish.
But since yours went to Dublin, it well could have been more about the religion since she was Catholic. Religion, of course, was much more important than it is today and people were persecuted because of it.
The wife was always in Ireland, and Catholic. James was Presbyterian and moved from Scotland to Ireland, and met his wife there in Ireland. So the Stewarts did not move to Ireland for religious reasons, at least not for Catholic Vs. Protestant reasons. But there were divisions happening in Scotland in the 1800s among Protestant groups.
They were in Victorian times that were not the gingerbread life we tend to think. If you really want to dig into the why maybe you could look more into Victorian history, government and policies. Study the prime ministers during the 1860 time period. You might find answers you seek
P.S. I am full of why questions as I search family history too
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