Across the Atlantic Once Again: Forced Migration of the Poor from the United States to Ireland and Britain

This paper examines the deportation of Irish paupers to the British Isles by nativists in between the 1840s and the 1870s. The influx of poor Irish immigrants during the 1840s provoked an outburst of anti-Irish nativism in. Frustrated by the poverty of the immigrants, nativists started to deport pauper immigrants back to their places of origin on the other side of the. While some immigrants were sent directly to, deportation officials sent them sometimes to or more frequently to Liverpool, where many of the Irish immigrants stopped by on their way to. From Liverpool, some of the deportees were further forwarded by British poor law commissioners to or other parts of. Deportation can be regarded as a form of return migration. By tracing the forced return migration of Irish paupers, this paper illuminates a lesser-known dynamism of nineteenth-century Irish migration and modifies the dominant narrative in Irish immigration historiography that sees the as the final destination for Irish immigrants. For the deported paupers, the was only a part of their longer journey that consisted of a series of trips, across the Irish Sea and, including return trips. This paper investigates the institutional development of deportation in, examines how deportation was conducted in practice, and traces ultimate fates of Irish paupers after deportation. Through analyses of Massachusetts nativists’ policies such as entry restriction, post-entry removal, and deportation of American-born children of immigrant parents, it explores themes of fundamental importance in migration history such as borders, settlement, and citizenship. Finally, by situating the nativist project of pauper deportation within a larger framework of Irish paupers’ transatlantic movement, this paper internationalizes American nativism.