Finding Bad Bridget: the lives and crimes of Irish immigrant women in America

Historian article

By Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick, published 25th July 2025

Irish immigrant women in nineteenth and early twentieth-century America

From the early nineteenth century until the First World War, millions of Irish women emigrated to North America in search of better lives. Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick, co-leads for the AHRC-funded Bad Bridget research project, tell us how poverty, discrimination, isolation from family as well as greed and opportunism could lead many Irish migrants into a life of crime...

This resource is FREE for All HA Members.

Non HA Members can get instant access for £2.49

Add to Basket Join the HA