With no more food left, our only option was to leave and hope that we wouldn't be hungry wherever we were going.

My family got on the Alhambra together in 1846 going from Dublin to New York City.

I had heard that America was a place where you could practice any religion you wanted and there were loads of job opportunities. I was excited to see it!

Altogether it took us 7 weeks to get to New York. We didn't bring much with us other than the money it took to pay for the boat ride. We were very poor at the time, as were a lot of the immigrants.

I was still excited to start my new life but already missing the green Irish fields and hills. There was a lot of blue ocean for those long 7 weeks.

I can't lie though...our boat was not nice to be in. It was really crowded and not very clean. There were lots of rats and many people got sick. The boat didn't have a lot of food either so I was still hungry. I got really scared when I heard some of the older boys calling it a "coffin ship".

CASTLE GARDEN

IMMIGRANT CHECK

When we finally arrived we had to go through Castle Garden, a special place where they check people arriving in America.

The requirements were a lot looser than they will be in 50 years on Ellis Island. We just had to prove that we were healthy and ready to work.

We decided to stay in New York City. We didn't really have to money to go far and explore America.

Our home was really crowded and dirty. There was a lot of violence and disease in the tenements where all the poor immigrants lived.