A proposal to establish a centre for emigration studies in Co Mayo was mooted by council cathaoirleach Henry Kenny (FG) at the weekend.
Cllr Kenny, a brother of the Fine Gael leader, was officiating at the launch in Castlebar of Emile - a Culture 2000 project involving Sweden, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic and Ireland.
The US ambassador to Ireland, James C Kenny, whose grandparents emigrated from Mayo in 1907, was a special guest. The project was simultaneously launched in the five participating countries. Emile has redressed a serious vacuum in the Republic's knowledge-base of emigration to America, and also informs contemporary issues around immigration and integration, according to Irish co-ordinator Austin Vaughan, who is Mayo county librarian.
To date, the main collections of emigrant letters have been held in the Public Records Office, Northern Ireland and the Centre for Migration Studies, Omagh.
The five Emile participants experienced the highest European emigration rates throughout the study period, 1840-1920. A sub-project, Young Emile, compares the experiences of contemporary immigrants to Europe with those described in old letters
"It has been estimated that round €260 million was sent home to Ireland by our 19th century emigrants. These letters and parcels were also accompanied by liner-tickets, clothes and photos of life in the new world. Not surprisingly, it was mainly women who sent home the remittances," said Mr Vaughan.
Some 50 per cent of these emigrants were young, single women, the majority of whom went into domestic service.
Citing a particular example, Mr Vaughan said the Titanic had collected 1,385 bags of letters at Cobh as it set off on its doomed maiden voyage.
According to historian James Charles Roy, the process was effectively "chain-letters" leading to "chain emigration".
"The written letter was an indispensable tool for the entire emigrative process: it informed the ignorant, reassured the hesitant and often contained the ultimate inducement to seal a person's resolve - passage money."
One 19th century middle-class emigrant observed the harsh realities of life: "How often do we see such paragraphs in the papers as an Irishman drowned - an Irishman suffocated in a pit - an Irishman blown to atoms by a steam engine - ten, 20 Irishmen buried alive in the sinking of a bank - and other like casualties and perils to which Pat is constantly exposed, in the hard toils for his daily bread".
Letters were also dominated by the search for romance. One girl, who had broken off her courtship and left for Philadelphia, later wrote to her former lover: "Over in Ireland people marry for riches [ dowries], but here in America we marry for love and work for riches."
"In Ireland's case, it was mainly single people and it was a life sentence . . . Whereas In Sweden, for example, entire families emigrated and then returned as soon as they had accumulated enough money to re-establish a better quality of life at home," Mr Vaughan said.