Letters Home: Emigrant Voices from the Creggan Diaspora
Across the 19th and early 20th centuries, countless men and women left the Creggan region in search of opportunity, escape, or survival. Some travelled alone; others in groups of siblings or neighbours. They boarded ships for Liverpool, Glasgow, Boston, New York, Quebec, or Melbourne — often with little certainty about what awaited them on the other side. For those left behind, the greatest link to these absent sons and daughters was the letter: carefully written, posted across oceans, and often read aloud around kitchen tables or firesides.
These letters were more than personal messages. They were records of struggle and adaptation, of longing and hope, of small family updates that carried enormous emotional weight. A mention of improved health, a promise to send money, news of a wedding or job — all were savoured. Even the arrival of the letter itself, with its foreign stamp and unfamiliar paper, was an event. These documents were rarely discarded. Many were kept in family Bibles or boxes, folded and re-folded over decades. In this post, we reflect on what these letters reveal about the emigrant experience, and the continuing emotional ties between the diaspora and the Creggan homeland.