During the 19th and early 20th centuries, millions of people emigrated from the island of Ireland. Most of them travelled to the United States. Every one of those people left someone behind as they went to find a better life in a new land. The only way to stay in touch with family and friends was through a letter home and millions were written and sent back and forth over time. Even if you couldn’t write and your family couldn’t read, someone else could write or read your letter and the bond with home could be maintained.
Although most of these letters are long gone some had been kept by families and handed down in memory of their loved ones. They were and remain valued keepsakes. A project at the University of Galway has now been set up to preserve a collection of these letters started by US academic Kerby Miller forty years ago. The thousands of letters he transcribed and preserved are being developed into Imirce, an online searchable archive which will continue to gather the stories of Irish emigrants going back over the centuries.
The RTÉ Documentary On One : A Letter Home explores the archive and meets the people working to build up this digital resource. We hear the letters themselves and their stories of work and life, sadness and longing and travel to and around North America….from the silver mines of Colorado to Jazz age Hollywood….and head-hunters in the Amazon forest.
RTÉ Documentary On One: A Letter Home RTÉ Radio1 2pm Saturday 2nd November 2024.
