WHEN Ireland has hit by the Potato Famine from 1845 to 1849 hundreds of thousands of emaciated men, women and children arrived at the port of Liverpool by steamer, desperately escaping the starvation which left around a million dead.

Among the places in Lancashire which became a temporary or long-term home was Ulverston.

The 1851 census is the closest official check we have on the impact of the Irish potato famine on immigration into South Cumbria.

The tiny old Barrow village had nothing to offer new arrivals and it is unlikely that anyone in Ireland had heard of it – but Ulverston would be well known to many due to its importance as a sea trading base with its own canal.

In 1851 we find 119 people who were born in Ireland but living in Ulverston.

A total of 22 were recorded as borders or lodgers. Many of the lodgers were living in Ratten Row.

Three were in the Stanley Street Workhouse as being financially unable to support themselves – John Casson, aged 23; James Welby, aged 14 and Mary Welby, aged 11.

Where birth places are recorded, we have Irish-born people living in Ulverston from Bublin, Wexford, Wicklow, Kerry, Sligo, Waterford, Mayo, Galway, Cavan, Drogheda.

Among the arrivals by 1851 was Edward Byre who was listed as head of a household of 11.

He was a 36-year-old miner from Dublin and his wife Sarah, 32, was from Wexford.

Three of their children were born in the copper-mining district of Wicklow, one in Dublin and the youngest in Ulverston – fixing the family’s arrival in Ulverston to 1849.

The family’s four lodgers were a pair of Irish-born labourers and a Scottish stone mason and a tailor.

It was even more crowded at the Ratten Row home of Philip Cane, aged 70 and wife Mary, 59.

There were 13 living in the house, including nine people who had been born in Ireland.

Builder’s labourer Hugh Douglas, 30, was born in Ireland and lived in Soutergate with his Ulverston-born wife Betsy, 45.

Irish-born Joseph Campbell, 70, was a weaver who lived at Neville Street, Ulverston, with wife Agnes, also 70, who was born at Broughton.

The impact of the new arrivals in Lancashire is explored by a free talk on Wednesday, March 29, from 6pm at the Harris Museum, PrestonDr Lewis Darwen’s talk is called Mass migration in a time of crisis: Lancashire and the Irish Famine 1847-1848.

There was a great deal of concern in Lancashire about the sudden influx of so many people from Ireland, not least because the authorities feared they would bring disease and be a tremendous burden on the county’s welfare institutions, notably the Poor Law.

These people had often sold everything before coming to Lancashire, and had little or nothing on arrival.

In this talk, Dr Lewis Darwen looks at the response to and treatment of Potato Famine migrants in the towns and villages of Lancashire during the period 1847-48, when the movement of people fleeing Ireland was at its most intense.

Booking in advance is recommended for the talk at www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/harris-museum-amp-art-gallery-4265632867 or contact the museum shop on 01772 905414.