Episode 21: From Mayo to Newburgh and the Angle

A series of bad weather and bad growing years in the late 1870s and early 1880s caused what historians now call the "Forgotten Famine" in the west of Ireland. James Hack Tuke, an English banker and Quaker who had been involved in relief efforts during the Great Famine, decided to do something to alleviate the hunger and civil unrest. He raised funds to offer "assisted emigration" to needy families in communities surrounding Blacksod Bay, including townlands on the Belmullet peninsula, townlands such as Ballycroy and Mulranny along the western edge of the bay, and the townlands of Achill Parish, along the southern edge. With steelmaking surging, Cleveland was one of the country’s fastest growing industrial centers at the time and drew a significant number of Tuke immigrants.  They were drawn to the two neighborhoods most connected with steel--Newburgh, where the steel mills were located, and the Angle, where the raw materials were unloaded.