LIVE: The remarkable story of Irish women’s emigration to the US live from Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute

The Mission Girls exhibit at Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute tells of the Irish women who were a unique phenomenon in western European migration.

On Thursday, November 30, a new exhibit was launched in Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University, Connecticut, which will focus on the remarkable stories of the thousands of Irish women who immigrated to the US between the years 1883 and 1950.

Established in the An Gorta Mor room of the Arnold Bernhard Library in Quinnipiac, the exhibition focuses on these women who were a unique phenomenon in western European migration.  

They frequently traveled out on their own and in greater numbers than their male counterparts; they brought out their siblings, nieces, and nephews; they sent money home to finance land and stock; they sent prepaid tickets to other family members.  

Read more: Irish women’s Great Hunger immigration examined at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut

These women also helped create Irish America: its churches and schools, its parish societies and its organizations.  As Dr. Christine Kinealy, Director of the Institute has said: “These brave, pioneering women were the backbone of Irish America.”

Following the main launch, at which the exhibit’s curator Dr. Maureen Murphy will give an overview of the story of these women, IrishCentral will go live from the exhibit itself with a special tour granting a sneak peek at this incredible story of Irish America and its female immigrants.