Irish fishermen from Gull Island, Mackinac Island and various port cities of mainland Michigan, and also emigrants from County Donegal, Ireland, rapidly replaced the Strangites in Beaver Island. Their community, which more Irish immigration increased, developed a unique identity that the isolation of the Island from the mainland fostered. Church liturgy and even quotidian conversations were in Gaelic for many years. By the middle of the 1880s the Island became the largest supplier of freshwater fish consumed in the USA, yet overfishing and technological change ended this dominance by 1900.