Thousands of Irish peasants fled the country in the famine winter of 1847-48 to make the dangerous passage across the Atlantic. This book tells of the lives of the emigrants on each stage of their journey to New York and offers insights into the character and mentality of the immigrants.

This book is based mainly on the experience of the townland of Ballykilcline, a community of small farmers and laborers living on an obscure estate in the Irish midlands near the provincial market town of Strokestown, County Roscommon.

Professor Scally's volume is painstakingly researched and well written ... a remarkable reconstruction of an Irish hamlet and of the fate of its inhabitants as they journeyed from Roscommon to Dublin, Liverpool and New York ... It is an inmportant contribution to our knowledge of the 'Hidden Ireland' in the pre-Famine period and a most valuable addition to social history.