Series 2 - Clancy-Garry-McGowan letters (Gore Booth manuscripts)

2 sub-series

Kerby A. Miller created his transcripts of the Clancy-Garry-McGowan letters from copies published in: Third report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Colonization from Ireland : together with an appendix and an index to minutes of evidence taken in Sessions 1847 and 1847-8. [British] Parliamentary Papers, Session 1849, Vol. XI.

Materials pertaining to letters written by three 1840s emigrants from County Sligo, Bryan Clancy (Saint John, New Brunswick), Thomas Garry (Peekskill, New York), and Patt McGowan (Saint John, New Brunswick). These letters, submitted as evidence by Sir Robert Gore-Booth, 4th Baronet, to the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Colonization from Ireland, were featured in a book by Kerby A. Miller's collaborator, Gerald Moran, entitled Robert Gore Booth and Emigration from Sligo, 1814-76 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006). Gore Booth, owner of the Lissadell estate in County Sligo, was both accused of arbitrarily evicting starving tenant farmers from his land and packing them into overcrowded emigrant ships headed for North American, and credited with mortgaging the estate during the Great Famine to help feed his tenants and refusing to accept any rents for the duration; it is uncertain now much of either statement is true.
The series includes: transcripts of the letters; Miller's research on Clancy, Garry, and McGowan; excerpts from the Parliamentary papers pertaining to the Committee; and photocopies of secondary research sources.