The life of Irish immigrants in Boston was one of poverty and discrimination. The religiously centered culture of the Irish has along with their importance on family has allowed the Irish to prosper and persevere through times of injustice. Boston's Irish immigrant population amounted to a tenth of its population. Many after arriving could not find suitable jobs and ended up living where earlier generations had resided. This attributed to the "invisibility" of the Irish.

Much of the very early migration had been heavily male, but during the famine years, migration was largely a family affair. Families were arriving serially in "chain" migration while others suffered high mortality rates in these years. The Irish were the first to practice "chain or serial migration" on a large scale. During the famine years males still outnumbered women in migration numbers but not by a large margin. However in the post...