Chapter 4
The Emigrant’s Farewell

As soon as it became clear there was somewhere else for them to go, they left in their thousands. From the first major wave of 1715 until the final phase in 1775 around a quarter of a million people left the British Isles for America. Through this period, one hundred and fifty thousand people boarded ships leaving from the ports of Belfast, Derry, Newry, Larne and Portrush, the majority of them Ulster Scots. Reflecting on their grandparents’ story, as community they must have believed that if they could have survived in a new, unknown country they themselves could do it again in another.