There were coal mines in Flintshire, Northern Wales, and also across the River Dee in The Wirral, Cheshire. Long before the building up of Liverpool as a major Port, there was a ferry service widely used between Parkgate in the Wirral, and the Eastern & Southern Counties of Ireland. Many Irish boys would go by ferry and work the coal mines or as agricultural laboures in the Wirral & in Cheshire or go to other places in England.& Wales. Of course some would stay permmently, most went home to Ireland at the end of the harvest season. Lonie822@aol.com Elaine Massey Caridi