The Irish made up the largest number and were the most desperate of the immigrants. The potato was the basic crop or staple food of poor Irish farmers. It required little attention when growing, but did not store well and was vulnerable to diseases. In 1845-1846, a blight turned the potato crop into a mushy waste. The results were disastrous and deadly for teh starving population. A relief worker wrote in a letter:"The population were like walking skeletons, the men stamped with the livid mark of hunger, the children crying with pain, the women were simply to weak to stand. All the sheep were gone, all the cows and chickens killed."
The Potato famine and diseases like cholera and typhus turned villiges into ghost towns. Facing starvation and disease, the Irish who could raise the cost of the passage emigrated to North America. Many boarded shanty built ships and often over 500 people cramed themselves into these crummy ships for 9 weeks across the ocean. A government inquiry reported:
"There was only a passage of just less than a meter between their berth. The passengers were thus obliged to eat in their berths. In one were a man, his wife, his sister, and five children. In another were six full grown young women, whilst that abve them contained five men and the next eight men."
One journalist wrote:
"Hundreds of poor people, men, women and children huddled together, without light, without air,wallowing in filth, sick in body, dispirited in heart. Wasing was impossible and the voyage took three months."
After a long voyage, every ship had to stop at a quarantine station where passengers were checked for sickness. Immigrants who entered at Quebec City or Montreal had to stop at Grosse Ile near the mouth of the St. Lawrence. In may 1847 alone 36 ships with 13,000 passengers waited to be inspected by health inspectors. Of the 89,738 people that entered Quebec city in 1847, 5293 died in the passage and almost 5000 died waiting to be inspected by doctors.
