Irish Migrants Research Articles

Irish migration, networks and ethnic identities since 1750 Edited by Enda Delaney and Donald M. MacRaild

Irish migration, networks and ethnic identities since 1750 Edited by Enda Delaney and Donald M. MacRaild

‘The only place worth thinking about’: personal testimony and Irish and Scottish migrants in Australasia, 1921–61

Compared with scholarship relating to nineteenth-century migration, the historiography of Irish and Scottish migration in the twentieth century is comparatively thin, though the extant works provid...

Revisiting contemporary Irish migration: new geographies of mobility and belonging

Though immigration has become one of the key issues facing Irish society, geographers in Ireland have been slow to respond. This is despite a long tradition of studying migration, particularly emigration, within Irish geography. This is even more surprising given recent developments within the discipline, as geography moves to assert its centrality to the study of international migration. This paper outlines the ways in which geographers in Ireland could contribute to broader debates about migration, both empirically and theoretically. It also introduces the five papers in this special issue of the journal, which provide a comprehensive overview of research on Irish migration, as well as detailed discussions of Irish migration to the UK, return migration and migration to Ireland from Poland, China and Nigeria.

When is a change not a change? A case study on the dialect origins of New Zealand English

ABSTRACTIn studying language change, variationists are, naturally perhaps, more interested in the new, innovative form than in the old conservative one, and because of the actuation problem, investigations of changes in progress very rarely are able to shed light on the change in its very earliest stages. In this article, I suggest that we should perhaps pay more attention than we have at present to the origins of the change (in addition to its route and destination) and the nature of the conservative form if we are to chart ongoing changes in an accurate way. Here, I highlight an example of a feature of New Zealand English (NZE) (realizations of themouthdiphthong with front mid-open onsets) that has, until recently, been assumed to have resulted from a change of the Southern Shift-kind—a raising and fronting to [εʊ~εƏ]—but which, as I demonstrate using contemporary and past dialectological, as well as sociodemographic evidence, did not undergo this change in this way. Indeed, the supposedly conservative [aʊ] form has barely been used at all as a conversational vernacular variant in NZE. I argue here that the present-day NZE realization is far more likely to be the outcome of a process of dialect leveling operating on the mixture of forms brought to New Zealand by British and Irish migrants in the 19th century. The moral of the story is that if we think we observe a change in progress from A to B, we need to provide evidence not just of the existence of B, but also of the prior existence of A.

From ‘flood’ to ‘trickle’: Irish migration to Britain 1987–2006

A dramatic change in the size and direction of emigration from Ireland has taken place over the past 20 years. The most striking feature is the sharp decline in movement to Britain from the Republic of Ireland, a traditional supplier of labour for well over 200 years. By contrast there has been a small increase in emigration from Northern Ireland, an important element of which is higher education students from Protestant backgrounds, who may be permanent migrants. Detailed statistics available from the Central Statistics Office of the Republic of Ireland show that proportionately more women have left as gross numbers have declined. This reflects the persistence of social, rather than predominantly economic, causes of emigration, also evident in the range of socially excluded people for whom Britain represents a ‘safety valve’. Two groups now characterise the Irish population in Britain; the ageing 1950s cohort and their children and grandchildren, the large second and third generations.

‘Emigrants’ and ‘Exiles’: migration in the early Irish and Scottish church

A central theme in both Irish and Scottish migration studies is the distinction between voluntary and forced migration, which is highlighted in the titles of major books in the field by the contrasting terms ‘emigrants’, or ‘adventurers’, and ‘exiles’.1 However, it has received relatively little attention with regard to the medieval period.2 Migration was central to the process by which the early Irish Church established itself in Scotland, most notably on Iona, in the sixth century. This article is concerned mainly with migration between Ireland and Scotland as evidenced by Adomnán's Life of Columba – ‘a source of the first importance for the early history of Ireland and Scotland’.3 In particular it is concerned with how the distinction between ‘emigrants’ and ‘exiles’ was understood, in both secular and sacred contexts, and it finds that in the early medieval period, c.300–800, as distinct from later periods, Irish migrants to Scotland and Irish and Scottish migrants further afield were thought of less as ‘exiles’ than as ‘emigrants’ or ‘adventurers’

The End Of the Affair: Irish Migration, 9/11 and the Evolution of Irish-America

This article examines the changing relationship between Ireland and the United States in the 21st Century and argues that the new security climate within the US following the 9/11 attacks (combined with long-term social changes in both countries) is having a major impact on the relationship between Ireland and the US. The central argument is that Irish-America is undergoing a period of fundamental change, caused by a combination of short-term political factors linked to the attacks of 11 September 2001 and their aftermath, together with longer-term economic and social trends taking place in Ireland which has greatly reduced the flow of migrants from Ireland to the US.

Uncontested space

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to reveal insights into the relationship between migrant communities and the hospitality industry by examining the case study of Irish migrants into nineteenth century Victoria in Australia.Design/methodology/approachThe paper provides examples of the pattern of engagement with the hospitality industry as well as individual and family stories that highlight how hotel‐keeping and the service of alcohol in Melbourne and regional Victoria in the mid‐to‐late 1800s, was a key element in social improvement and mobility of Irish migrants at that time.FindingsAlthough the relationship between the English and the Irish in the nineteenth century could be classified as difficult, the tensions that characterised Anglo‐Irish relations in a European context were remarkably absent in colonial Australia. This paper describes how conditions in the colonies when the majority of Irish migrants arrived allowed them to use the hospitality industry to improve their social standing and to consolidate their position in Australian society.Research limitations/implicationsMigration presents an interesting interface between host communities and guest migrants, which go to the heart of hospitality. In addition, this case study suggests there are some interesting avenues to be followed by exploring cases of other migrant communities both in their relationships with hosts, but also in the opportunities offered by the hospitality industry for opportunities denied to migrants in wider community.Practical implicationsThe opportunities offered to migrants in the hospitality industry can provide a useful means of engagement for migrants into host communities through employment, and more importantly through the cultural interface allowed through hospitality enterprises whereby the migrant as guest acts as host to host community members in hospitality entrepreneurship.Originality/valueThe paper has value to both practitioners and academics because it provides an example of migrant experiences and the opportunities presented by the hospitality industry for employment, entrepreneurship and ultimately community integration.

Becoming Irlandés: Hurling and Irish Identity in Argentina [1

It is unsurprising to note that Gaelic games have been and continue to be played in those locales around the world that have traditionally been recipients of large numbers of Irish immigrants. Indeed, some of the essays in this collection reveal this to be the case. However, it is perhaps more unusual to observe these sports being played in destinations around the globe that welcomed relatively small numbers of Irish migrants. This essay deals with one particular example of this by detailing the history of hurling in Argentina and more specifically, Buenos Aires. In doing so, the essay reveals that in much the same way as it did in Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia, involvement in Gaelic games allowed the Irish in Argentina to construct and give expression to an important aspect of their Irishness. As is shown, this was a crucial element in a broader strategy, initiated by the Catholic Church in Ireland, to encourage Irish immigrants to view and express themselves as being ethnically Irish (Irlandés) rather than merely part of the broader ingleses (English-speaking settler community).

Explanations of depression among Irish migrants in Britain

Irish geographical and cultural propinquity to the UK might be considered as an advantage to migrants. However, research over 40 years shows Irish migrants to have consistent high vulnerability to mental disorders. Only recently have researchers begun to explore the reasons for this morbidity. Taking a previous epidemiological study on depression and Irish migrants as a point of departure, we explored the reasons for this morbidity—we hypothesised that depression may be related to unprepared or spontaneous migration. We report on a qualitative study in order to clarify how, from the migrant's perspective, migration might be related to depression. These perspectives were obtained through in-depth interviews with Irish-born migrants aged 18 and over living in London in order to explore psychological distress through a contextualised ‘insiders’ account. The interviews were completed with men and women who experienced depression and others who had not. We found that previous theories on Irish migrant psychiatric disorder such as racial discrimination were not supported by the narratives of Irish migrant experience. For many participants, the origins of distress are located in Ireland or in difficult life events and circumstances without a direct relationship to migration. This paper examines the causal attributes to depression among Irish migrants in the UK in the context of pre- and post-migration experiences with particular focus on gender and age.

Who do you think you are? Irish nurses encountering ethnicity and constructing identity in Britain

This article draws upon interviews with twenty-six Irish nurses in Britain, who mostly migrated in the 1950s–1970s. It aims to contribute to understandings of the processes involved in constructions and negotiations of Irish identity in Britain. As a predominantly white ethnic group, Irish migrants in Britain occupy an ambiguous position as white, European insiders, but cultural outsiders. Focusing on a number of ‘construction sites’, such as hospitals, nurses’ homes and social venues, the article examines not only how the women experienced and expressed their identities as Irish migrants but also how they encountered ‘other’ ethnicities. Rather than a simple, one-dimensional notion of Irish ethnic identity, the study analyses the complex, multi-layered and shifting dynamics within these ‘construction sites’ and how intersections of gender, location and occupational status impacted on both ascriptions and experiences of Irishness.

The Quantitative Analysis of Family Names: Historic Migration and the Present Day Neighborhood Structure of Middlesbrough, United Kingdom

This article describes the way in which a unique new quantitative data resource and evidence base has been used to relate historic measures of U.K. migration flows to the contemporary socioeconomic patterning of neighborhoods. The resource enables generalized analysis of the regional origins of British and Irish people from their family names, and makes it possible to relate the current regional distribution of names in the United States, Great Britain, and other English-speaking countries to equivalent information from the Great Britain Census of 1881. Illustrative applications may be viewed at http://www.spatial-literacy.org. In this article we develop a number of indices of the historic origins of English and Irish family names, as a prelude to detailed microscale analysis of late twentieth century surname patterns. We illustrate the usefulness of these various indices through case study analysis of Middlesbrough and East Cleveland, an area of the United Kingdom that attracted large numbers of economic migrants during its rapid nineteenth century industrialization. We use our quantitative evidence of the historical distributions of different family names in order to characterize the social mobility of descendants of Scottish, Irish, and Cornish migrants, and to evaluate the practice of ascribing family names to particular localities in historical GIS. The case study thus illustrates the ways in which our data resource may be used to substantiate existing thinking about historic migration and residential structure, as well as to generate and investigate new hypotheses that might guide future work.

The Vanished Kingdoms of Patrick O’Farrell: Religion, Memory and Migration in Religious History

This article considers the place of religion and memory in the history of religious immigration to Australia. It begins with a discussion of the work of Patrick O’Farrell and his family memoir, Vanished Kingdoms and its evocation of family, place, and religion in New Zealand and Australia. It reviews recent writing on collective memory by the religious sociologist Danièle Hervieu‐Léger, theologian Paul Ricoeur, and the Australian historian Peter Read, raising possibilities for the analysis of sources relating to the memory cultures of migrants to Australia in the nineteenth century. This article takes a small sample of testimonies from the letters of Irish migrants, including those edited by Patrick O’Farrell, and the speeches and correspondence of some members of the higher clergy and concludes with some speculation about the way in which migrants to Australia forged the chains of memory that constitute their religious communities.

'Emigrants' and 'Exiles': migration in the early Irish and Scottish church

'Emigrants' and 'Exiles':migration in the early Irish and Scottish church Brian Lambkin, Director of the Centre for Migration Studies A central theme in both Irish and Scottish migration studies is the distinction between voluntary and forced migration, which is highlighted in the titles of major books in the field by the contrasting terms 'emigrants', or 'adventurers', and 'exiles'.1 However, it has received relatively little attention with regard to the medieval period.2 Migration was central to the process by which the early Irish Church established itself in Scotland, most notably on Iona, in the sixth century. This article is concerned mainly with migration between Ireland and Scotland as evidenced by Adomnán's Life of Columba – 'a source of the first importance for the early history of Ireland and Scotland'.3 In particular it is concerned with how the distinction between 'emigrants' and 'exiles' was understood, in both secular and sacred contexts, and it finds that in the early medieval period, c.300–800, as distinct from later periods, Irish migrants to Scotland and Irish and Scottish migrants further afield were thought of less as 'exiles' than as 'emigrants' or 'adventurers'. At the heart of Adomnán's Life of Columba is the migration of the saint from Ireland to Scotland.4 Alan and Marjorie Anderson, the editors of the Latin text Vita Columbae, translate each of the following migration terms by 'departure': exitus, egresus, transitus and emigratio. [End Page 133] However, close examination of the contexts in which these four terms are used reveals that they do not function simply as synonyms for 'departure'. It turns out that exitus and egresus are restricted in meaning to the 'departure' or 'leaving' stage of the three-stage process of migration (departure, crossing, arrival). As might be expected, transitus and emigratio are closer in meaning to modern English 'transition' and 'emigration' than to 'exile': transitus is restricted in meaning to the intermediate stage of 'crossing' between 'old world' and 'new world'; and emigratio refers to the whole three-stage process of 'emigration'. Exitus (departure) is used to refer particularly to the moment or 'hour' of death at which the soul 'exits' from the body. Thus, Adomnán refers to the tunic which Columba wore 'in the hour of his exitus from the flesh',5 and Lugaid reports having a vision of Iona 'in the hour of his [Columba's] blessed exitus'.6 When Columba says 'you could by no means know anything of my exitus except what I myself have even now disclosed to you', he is referring specifically to the time of his death, which he had previously predicted would be 'at midnight of this following venerated Lord's-day'.7 The focus of the exitus is on a 'point of exit', fixed in both time and space. This is exemplified by Columba's report of an angel that 'has returned through the roof-courses of the church, leaving no trace of that exitus'.8 The 'exit' of the soul from the body at the point of death is thus seen as analogous to the angel's 'exit' (departure) from the body of the church through the roof. Egresus (departure) refers to that of the soul from the body at death, as in: 'after the holy man's egresus from the body';9 'I have a few secret words concerning my egresus';10 'a thing [giving a blessing by moving his hand] that in the egresus of his soul he could not do by voice';11 'after the egresus of the holy soul, when the matin hymns were ended, the sacred body was carried back from the church';12 and 'even after the egresus of his most gentle soul from the tabernacle of the body'.13 As these references make clear, the egresus of the soul is thought of as beginning while the dying person is still alive: Columba is still able to move his hand in benediction while his egresus is underway. It continues for some time after the exitus, the moment when his soul 'exits' his body – for at least as long as the matin hymns are sung. [End Page 134] There are four incidents where egresus...

BOOK REVIEW:Faith, Fraternity and Fighting: the Orange Order and Irish Migrants in Northern England, c. 1850-1920, by Donald M. MacRaild

BOOK REVIEW:<i>Faith, Fraternity and Fighting: the Orange Order and Irish Migrants in Northern England, c. 1850-1920</i>, by Donald M. MacRaild

Angela McCarthy. Irish Migrants in New Zealand, 1840–1937: “The Desired Haven.” Irish Historical Monographs. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2005. Pp. 328. $85.00 (cloth).

Angela McCarthy. Irish Migrants in New Zealand, 1840–1937: “The Desired Haven.” Irish Historical Monographs. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2005. Pp. 328. $85.00 (cloth).

Donald M. MacRiald. Faith, Fraternity, and Fighting: The Orange Order and Irish Migrants in Northern England, c. 1850–1920. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005. Pp. 353. $85.00 (cloth).

Donald M. MacRiald. Faith, Fraternity, and Fighting: The Orange Order and Irish Migrants in Northern England, c. 1850–1920. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005. Pp. 353. $85.00 (cloth). - Volume 45 Issue 4

Book Review: Irish and Polish Migration in Comparative Perspective

Book Review: Irish and Polish Migration in Comparative Perspective

Diaspora and Irish Migration History

Diaspora and Irish Migration History

Depression in Irish migrants living in London: case-control study

There is evidence that Irish migrants in Britain have higher rates of depression and suicide than other minority ethnic groups. To examine the association between poorly planned migration and depression in Irish-born people living in London. A sample of 360 Irish-born people was recruited from 11 general practices into a case-control study. Participants were interviewed using standardised measures, including the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). We calculated the odds ratio for any association between depression and eight questions on preparation for migration. Poorly planned migration was associated with subsequent depression in Irish-born people living in London (OR=1.20, 95% CI1.06-1.35). The odds of depression were increased by a factor of 20% for each additional negative answer to eight questions on preparation for migration. Positive post-migration influences such as adequate social support protected some against depression. Depression in Irish-born people living in London is associated with poorly planned migration. However, this effect can be modified by experiences following migration.