issioner of Public Works were authorized to advance money for this
purpose. In 1884 and 1885 over sixteen thousand persons were thus
assisted from Galway and Mayo counties.

Long before the great Irish famine of 1846-47 America appeared like a
mirage, and wondering peasants in their dire distress exaggerated its
opulence and opportunities. They braved the perils of the sea and
trusted to luck in the great new world. The journey in itself was no
small adventure. There were some sailings directly from Ireland; but
most of the Irish immigrants were collected at Liverpool by agents not
always scrupulous in their dealings. A hurried inspection at Liverpool
gained them the required medical certificates, and they were packed
into the ships. Of the voyage one passenger who made the journey from
Belfast in 1795 said: "The slaves who are carried from the coast of
Africa have much more room allowed them than the immigrants who pass
from Ireland to America, for the avarice of captains in that trade is
such that they think they can never load their vessels sufficiently,
and they trouble their heads in general no more about the
accommodation and storage of their passengers than of any other lumber
aboard." When the great immigrant invasion of America began, there
were not half enough ships for the passengers, all were cruelly
overcrowded, and many were so filthy that even American port officials
refused a landing before cleansing. Under such conditions sickness was
a matter of course, and of the hordes who started for the promised
land thousands perished on the way.[22]

Hope sustained the voyagers. But what must have been the
disappointment of thousands when they landed! No ardent welcome
awaited them, nor even jobs for the majority. Alas for the rosy dreams
of opulence! Here was a prosaic place where toil and sweat were the
condition of mere existence. As the poor creatures had no means of
moving on, they huddled in the ports of arrival. Almshouses were
filled, beggars wandered in every street, and these peasants
accustomed to the soil and the open country were congested in the
cities, unhappy misfits in an entirely new economic environment.
Unskilled in the handicrafts, they were forced to accept the lot of
the common laborer. Fortunately, the great influx came at the time of
rapid turnpike, canal, and railroad expansion. Thousands found their
way westward with contractors' gangs. The free lands, however, did not
lure them. They