Immigration Stories: The World Comes to Lowell

About 33 million people—10.1 percent of the total population — living in the U.S. self-identify as being of Irish ancestry. From 1717 to 1775, though estimates vary, the most common approximation is that 250,000 immigrants from Ireland emigrated to the Thirteen Colonies. By 1790, approximately 400,000 people of Irish birth or ancestry lived in the U.S., and from 1814 to 1845, 500,000 more immigrants came from Ireland to the United States, primarily driven out by potato blight and resultant starvation.