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The Peter Robinson assisted emigration scheme was one of many such schemes during the nineteenth century, where emigrants from Ireland to overseas were ‘assisted’ with funding or other facilities in order to set up life in a new country.

It has been estimated that as many as 300,000 emigrants availed of such schemes.

In this instance, the scheme was funded by the British Government and under the direction of its employee, Peter Robinson, involved a total of eleven ships taking emigrants from Queenstown (Cobh) to Ontario, Canada in the years 1823 and 1825.

The stimulus for this scheme came from a number of factors. The depression following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 saw the agricultural economy falter while at the same time the introduction of the Corn Laws that same year kept food prices artificially high. Both factors operated against a background of a steep rise in population assisted by the new ‘super-food’, the potato.

...read more here

2023 will mark the 200^th anniversary of the first ship departing Queenstown, Cobh today. In anticipation, there is a project ongoing to find out more about the families that left Ireland to embark on a new life in Canada. Family descendants can get in touch with Ballyhoura for further information or indeed for advice about connections to the home of their forefathers

...find out more about the surnames associated by Ballyhoura community to this scheme.

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