TEXT 4

Read the text below, ignoring the missing statements first. Match the gaps (1—8) with the statements (A—J). There are two sentences you do not need to use.

A diggers of gold and silver

B who went to Ireland

C to earn for living

D more than ten million dollars

E to settle in America

F who built the railroads

G like a quarter of a million

H who usually settled

I because of their families J ultimately produced

THE IRISH AND AMERICA

Such enormous numbers of Irish men and women made their way to the New World for so many different reasons that nobody is quite sure of the actual numbers involved. It is estimated that in the period between 1717 and 1775 something 1)_________ Irish people settled in the North American continent and, between 1820 and 1920, something like four-and-a-quarter million people emigrated from Ireland 2)_________ in the United States.

Millions did it 3)___________  in Ireland. They crossed the Atlantic Ocean under fearful conditions and they died by thousands because of cholera on arrival. They were unskilled labourers 4)___________in the cities of the eastern coast, and they were the men 5) of America and, in the main, were the hewers of wood. They were also the builders of roads and houses, and 6)__________    , they began to build San Francisco and Virginia City. As a result, the Irish labourers of the 1840s sent about a million dollars back to their homeland, and by the 1870s, 7)__________ were flowing back to Ireland.

The Irish gave America at least ten Presidents, if not a round dozen, and southern Ireland 8)__________ John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.