Clash of Cultures & the Discovery of Gold      123456

The Irish are the third-largest ethnic group in the United States, after the English and the Germans. Before the 1820s most Irish immigrants were artisans, teachers, or other professionals who could afford to book passage to America. These earlier immigrants generally met with good fortune in the U.S.

However, the ancestors of most Irish Americans were part of a later wave of immigrants who came to the United States between the 1820s to 1880s. This immigration wave peaked in 1845 when the Great Potato Famine forced millions of already poor and struggling Irish to leave their homeland.