Ireland and Panama: The Building of the Panama Railroad, 1850-1855.

Little is known about Irish migration to Central America in the nineteenth century. This paper sheds light on a forgotten episode of Ireland's history which has hitherto been overlooked by students of the country's nineteenth-century diaspora. It has two main objectives. Firstly, to show that there was substantial Irish involvement in building the world's first interoceanic railroad across Panama in the 1850s. My research, using primary and secondary sources, has brought to light the participation of approximately 3,700 Irish labourers in this pioneering project. Most were immigrants in the United States, but a minority was recruited directly in Cork. Secondly, by using a methodology adapted from the French attempt to build a canal across Panama in the 1880s, I challenge the myth that virtually all of the Irish workers who went to Panama died there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]