County Antrim

Contae Aontroma

"The geological marvel of Giant’s Causeway and the shipyards of Belfast."

Estimated Emigrants 360,000+

Peak Migration Eras 18th Century (Scots-Irish) & 1845–1910 (Industrial)

Primary US Destinations Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, New York, Michigan

County Antrim Historical Heritage & Diaspora

County Antrim occupies the northeastern corner of Ulster, famous for the basalt hexagonal columns of the Giant’s Causeway and the glens of Antrim. Its southern anchor, Belfast, grew in the nineteenth century into one of the industrial titans of the British Empire, renowned for the Harland & Wolff shipyards where the Titanic was built.

Antrim was a central launchpad for two distinct waves of migration: the eighteenth-century Ulster-Scots (Scots-Irish) pioneers who settled the Appalachian frontier and produced numerous US presidents, and the post-1845 Catholic and Protestant working-class diaspora to Philadelphia, New York, and Detroit.

Notable Antrim family names include Johnston, MacQuillan, O’Neill, Campbell, Boyd, and Stewart.

Historical Migration Journey

County Antrim Emigration Timeline (1845 – 1920)

1845 – 1852 · The Great Hunger (An Gorta Mór)

Catastrophic Potato Blight & Transatlantic Coffin Ships

Successive failures of the potato crop decimated tenant farming communities. Facing ruthless landlord clearances and starvation, over one million people fled across the Atlantic. Families boarded cramped wooden sailing barques from ports like Cobh, Derry, and Galway, arriving at Boston Harbor and Castle Garden, New York.

1880 – 1900 · The Industrial & Mining Surge

Chain Migration, Coal Valleys, and Urban Labor Solidarity

Younger siblings and children emigrated through prepaid tickets and diaspora remittances sent home from America. Immigrants fueled the industrial expansion of the United States—mining anthracite in Pennsylvania, digging copper in Butte, Montana, and operating textile mills across New England while establishing the first labor unions.

1920s · Independence, Irish Free State & Civic Leadership

War of Independence Remittances and Second-Generation Rise

American diaspora communities raised millions of dollars (via Éamon de Valera's 1919 US tour) to support Irish independence. Second and third-generation Irish-Americans ascended into the heights of US jurisprudence, municipal leadership, journalism, and cultural institutions.