The history of Derry emigration to the US and Canada

Brian Mitchell

Derry City and Strabane genealogist Brian Mitchell shares the fascinating history of emigration from Derry to the US and Canada.

Mitchell, a genealogist with Derry City and Strabane District Council, has spent more than 40 years researching family, local, and emigration history in Derry and has compiled a fascinating account of emigration to the US from the late 17th century onward.

Emigration from Derry

From the late 1600s, in the age of the sailing ships, to the onset of the Second World War in 1939, when the last transatlantic steamer sailed from the port, Derry was one of the principal emigration ports in Ireland.

Minnehaha, the flagship of William McCorkell & Company, grain and emigration merchants of Derry. The McCorkell family commissioned oil paintings of many, but not all, ships that sailed under the McCorkell flag from 1834 to 1897. Marine artist, Joseph Joshua Sempill painted the Minnehaha - which between 1860-1873 crossed the Atlantic 55 times and carried 7,000 immigrants to New York - in its full glory as a passenger-carrying clipper, with three sets of full sails. Courtesy: John McCorkell Prior to the 1860s, and the establishment of a railway network in Ireland, the port of Derry served as the emigration port for Counties Derry, Donegal, and Tyrone. By the 1870s sailing ships could no longer compete with the speed, comfort, and reliability of the transatlantic passenger steamers. In 1873 the Minnehaha made the last passenger voyage by a Derryowned ship to New York. 3

Party of emigrants arrive in Derry by train. Courtesy: Bigger and McDonald Collection, RLY 2-6, Libraries NI

The railway had a vital role to play in the development of transatlantic passenger services as the railway was the usual form of transport by which emigrants reached Derry. Every town and village in Ireland had an emigration agent who took