Book Two: New Beginnings, 1859 to 1870

The years, 1859 to 1870

Brigid dies early in 1859, and her daughter Nora, Seán's younger sister, takes up the pen from Ballycastle. She writes to a brother who is now raising his own family in a country tearing itself apart.

Chain migration and the remittance economy. Emigration was rarely a single leaving. One person went, found work, and sent home the fare for the next, so whole families and townlands slowly crossed. American money orders became a lifeline that kept small Mayo farms afloat.

The US Civil War, 1861 to 1865. Tens of thousands of Irishmen enlisted, many in units like the Irish Brigade, and the casualty lists that came home turned pride into dread. In July 1863 the New York Draft Riots set the Irish quarters of the city alight, and the news reached Ballycastle as a frightened letter, fear for a brother in the middle of it.

The transatlantic cable. In July 1866 a cable was finally laid along the ocean floor, and news that had taken weeks by ship could cross in a single day. For a family who measured distance in the wait between letters, it changed the shape of the world.

The family in these years

Nora writes through the war years with her heart in New York, following Seán's marriage, his growing household, and the dangers around them. At home, the Fenian movement stirs and is put down, and a rare political win, the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, is turned over at the fireside. The letters carry a family learning to live an ocean apart, and to trust the thin thread of the post to hold them together.

Moments from the twelve letters

• February 1859. Brigid's death, and Nora lifting the pen her mother laid down.
• September 1862. A Ballycastle man serving with the Irish Brigade, and the casualty lists read aloud in fear.
• July 1863. The New York Draft Riots, and a letter written not knowing whether Seán's household is safe.
• July 1866. The transatlantic cable completed, and the strange new speed of news from America.

Your county in Book Two

The O'Donnells are the Mayo edition. Each county has its own family living these years, its own chain of neighbours crossing to America and its own remittance trail home, because emigration shaped every county differently. See how the county personalisation works.