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Originally Posted by rubber soul
There was a lot of Irish immigration to the US during the 19th century and, according to the history books anyway, much of it had to do with the potato famine.
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Ah yes the good old coffin ships. With only death from starvation awaiting them at home, thousands of Irish pinned their hopes on a life in the New World. Many died before even reaching American shores, and those that did make it, well, let's just say there may have been a severe shortage of red carpet at that time.
Even so, the Irish very much helped build America, not least the railroad system and especially the TCR.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marie Monday
Well the population is very international but historically these population groups didn't intermarry so it didn't really benefit the genepool. Many English people look inbred for sure lol
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The idea in England of course was to keep marriage within extended families, as you'll see from any Dickens novel: cousins married, sometimes even brothers married sisters. The idea being, I guess, to keep the upper class dominant and ensure there was no intermixing with the lower strata of society, hence why a commoner could not marry a rich person. That of course resulted in a lot of inbreeding, nowhere more than in the royal families.