Ireland

Ireland enters the book through two overlapping histories: the movement of people across the Atlantic and the changing passage of whales through Irish waters. Whaling ships linked the island to distant shores, while the Irish Sea appears as a route once made dangerous for whales by intensive hunting and later used again by returning populations.

Emigration and Whaling Ships

During the Great Hunger, whale ships carried people from Ireland to America. The account places this migration within whaling’s wider influence on population movements and shifting spheres of power: vessels built for the whale fishery also transported people across the ocean. The author connects that history to his own family, noting that his great-grandfather left Ireland for England and eventually settled in Whitby. Ireland is thus presented as a place of departure in a history shaped by maritime work, migration, and displacement.

Irish Labor in the American Economy

Ireland also appears in the account of labor that built the United States. Irish navvies built its railroads, while the whale fishery relied on workers of African, Indigenous, Azorean, and Cape Verdean backgrounds. The contrast places Irish labor within a wider picture of migration and the uneven distribution of work across expanding industries. It also distinguishes the public infrastructure of railways from whaling’s less visible labor at sea.

Whales off Ireland

The Irish Sea and waters off southern Ireland belong to the geography of whale movement. Fin whales are reported in greater numbers off southern Ireland, while Blue whales pass through the Irish Sea. That passage had once made the sea a readily accessible hunting ground for British and Irish whalers; in the period described, whales were again using their long-established routes. The change makes Irish waters a site where the ecological consequences of whaling and the possibility of recovery meet.

A Shared Maritime History

Ireland’s place in this account is not confined to the shore. It is bound to the movements of people carried by whale ships and to the routes of animals that those ships once pursued. The juxtaposition gives the island a double significance: a departure point in a history of human displacement, and part of a marine corridor through which whales are returning.