key stage 3: what was it like to be an irish immigrant in britain in the 19th century?

What was it like to be an Irish immigrantin Britain in the 19th century?

Contents

About this unit

Lessons sources & worksheets1. Hopes & fears2. Irish immigrant experience 13. Irish immigrant experience 24. Hopes & fears revisited

Note for teachers1. Overview of the Irish in Britain2. Individual lessons

Ireland in Schools Birmingham Pilot SchemeEnglish & Irish history for secondary schools

Key Stage 3University of Birmingham BASS University of Northampton

IiS, Irish immigration - teacher booklet, 2

About this study unit

This four-lesson study unit is intended as a depth study within the Key Stage 3 HistoryCurriculum, perhaps in year 8.

The key question asks ‘What was it like to be an Irish immigrant in Britain in the 19th century?’and examines the complexity of their experiences within a range of contexts.

Students analyse a range of sources related to migrant experiences and attitudes towards themin order to explore (1) the hopes and fears of Irish migrants coming to Britain in the mid 19th

century; ( 2) how far they remained in distinct communities; and (3) how far there was a uniformresponse to them. The final lesson asks how far the immigrants’ hopes and fears were justified.

Historical linksThe unit relates the development of multicultural Britain and provides a framework forcomparison with other migrant groups at different times in the past. Discussions could involvecomparisons with other groups of people who have come to Britain from earliest times includingRomans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans as well as more recent settlers such as Huguenots andblack settlers from the 16th century, Jews in the Middle Ages and from the late 19th and mid-20th

century together with experiences migrants during and since the Second World War.

Links to other subjectsThe unit leads students to consider the experiences and attitudes of different people towardsethnic, cultural and religious diversity and the need to show mutual respect and understanding.It thus offers a stimulus for work on Citizenship (NC Objectives 1b and 3a), looking at situationswhere recent migrants have faced hostility and prejudice.

The unit particularly requires speaking and listening skills.

Prior knowledgeIt would be helpful if thestudents had

1. some understanding oft h e a n a l y s i n gperspectives shown ina range of visual andwritten sources.

2. knowledge of theexperiences otherpeople who havecome to Britain e.g.Norman invaders,Jews in the earlyMiddle Ages, Blackmigrants and slavesfrom the 16th and 17th

centuries.

National Curriculum Historical objectives - Key Stage 3 (Old)This Unit fits in with the Breadth of Study: Britain 1750-1900: A study of how expansion of trade and colonisation,industrialisation and political changes affected the United Kingdom, including the local area, particularly

7b. history from a variety of perspectives including political, religious, social, cultural, aesthetic, economic,technological and scientific 7c. aspects of the histories of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales where appropriate

In addition, pupils should be taught:2a to describe and analyse the range of ideas, beliefs and attitudes of men, women and children in the past. 2b the social, cultural, religious and ethnic diversity of the societies studied, both in Britain and the wider world 3a how and why historical events, people, situations and changes have been interpreted in different ways3b to evaluate interpretations. 4a identify, select and use a range of appropriate sources of information including oral accounts, documents, printed

sources, the media, artefacts, pictures, photographs, music, museums, buildings and sites, and ICT-based sources asa basis for independent historical enquiries

5a recall, prioritise and select historical information5c communicate their knowledge and understanding of history, using a range of techniques, including spoken

language, structured narratives, substantiated explanations and the use of ICT.

New Draft PoSC2 Diversity: Understanding the diverse experiences and the range of ideas, beliefs and attitudes of men, women and children in past societies and how

these have shaped the world.C6 Interpretations: Analysing and evaluating how and why the past has been interpreted and represented in different ways through historians' debates

and through a range of media.P7 Enquiry & P8 Making and testing new hypotheses: identify and investigate, individually and as part of a team, specific historical questions or issues,

making and testing new hypotheses (8), improve as questioning and independent learners and as critical and reflective thinkers with curious andenquiring minds.

P9 Evidence: identify, select and use a range of historical sources, including textual, visual and oral sources, artefacts and the historic environment,evaluate the sources used in order to reach reasoned conclusions.P10 Communication about the past: communicate their knowledge andunderstanding of history, using chronological conventions and historical vocabulary, in a variety of ways, present arguments about the past that arecoherent, structured and substantiated.

R&C 13 the changing relationships of the peoples' of England, Ireland, Scotland and WalesR&C 14 how movement and settlement of diverse peoples to, from and within the British Isles, have shaped the British Isles through timeR&C 16 he changes in the lives of men, women and children, including work, technology, leisure, culture, religion and environment in past societiesR&C 17 people's diverse ideas, beliefs and attitudes in past societiesR&C 20 build on their knowledge and understanding of the past from earlier key stagesR&C 23 study the ways in which the past has helped to shape identities, shared cultures, values and attitudes today R&C 24 examine history from a variety of perspectives including political, religious, social, cultural, aesthetic, economic, technological and scientific.


Lesson 1

Hopes & fears Key question Starter Activities NC

(History)

What do thesources suggestabout the Irishimmigrantexperience?

Use source a, fill in thecircles in the graphicorganiser?What do see?What is the artistsaying about theirhopes & fears?What else do you wantto ask?

1. Working in groups, look at sources B, C, D.2. If you were the people in picture and could see into the future, whichof the sources B, C, D, E & F would make them most at ease and whichwould scare your most.Come to a consensus as to where you would put sources B, C, D, E & Fon a continuum line - from most at ease to most scared.Justify the exact point where you place the sources on the continuum.3. Report back to whole class, using whiteboard of available.4. Plenary: Consider the key question and then ask what more do weneed to investigate.

2a4a, 4b

New PoSC2, C6P7, P8,P9, P10R&C13,14,16

Sources

A. The Last Hour in the Old LandMargaret Allen, c. 1877, Gorry Gallery, Dublin

B. Irish Emigrant Arriving in LiverpoolErskine Nicol, 1871, Nat. Galleries, Scotland

C. ‘The Dacent Irish Boy’The hero of this song has emigrated to Glasgow, where he has found work and is very popular.

I’m working here in Glasgow, I’ve got a decent jobI’m carrying bricks and mortar and me pay is fifteenbobI rise up in the morning, I get up with the lark,And as I’m walking down the street, you can hear thegirls remark:

‘Hello Patsy Fagan! You’re the apple of me eye.Hello Patsy Fagan! You’re the apple of me eye.You’re a dacent boy from Ireland, there’s no one candeny.You’re a rarem taren, divil may caren dacent Irishboy.’


D. Threat to Irish navvies in Scotland, 1835(?)

NOTICE is given that all the IRISH MEN on the line of railway in FifeShire MUST be off the grownd and out of the Countey on MONDAYTHE 11TH of this month or els we must by the strength of our arems anda good pick shaft put them off. You humbel servants SHOTS MEN.

E. Irish Vagrants in England, Walter Deverell, c. 1853, Johannesburg Art Gallery

F. A fictional letter from an Irish girl called Bridget, 5 January 1850.(Inspired by actual emigrant letters written by the Doorley family who settled in England.)

Dear Lilly,

I got your letter before I went to mass on Sunday and it made me very happy. Kate ,Mary Anne's daughter and her husband Sylvester have moved in. He is a blacksmith andleft Ireland 15 years ago. Work is hard, especially as I have to get up and go to work at5 o'clock. I go to the mill and make blankets. I have been very sick and short of breath.

Bridget


Centre: What do you see?Middle: What is the artist saying about thehopes & fears of the immigrants?Outer: What else do you want to ask?

Graphic organiserSource A

What do you see?


Continuum lineIf you were the people in picture and could see into the future, which of the sources B, C, D, E & F would make them most at ease and which would scare your most.Come to a consensus as to where you would put sources B, C, D, E & F on a continuum line - from most at ease to most scared.Justify the exact point where you place the sources on the continuum.

I’m working here in Glasgow,I’ve got a decent jobI’m carrying bricks and mortarand me pay is fifteen bobI rise up in the morning, I get upwith the lark,And as I’m walking down thestreet, you can hear the girlsremark:‘Hello Patsy Fagan! You’re theapple of me eye.Hello Patsy Fagan! You’re theapple of me eye.You’re a dacent boy from Ireland,there’s no one can deny.You’re a rarem taren, divil maycaren dacent Irish boy.’

NOTICE is given thatall the IRISH MEN onthe line of railway inFife Shire MUST beoff the grownd andout of the Countey onMONDAY THE 11THof this month or els wemust by the strengthof our arems and agood pick shaft putthem off. You humbelservants SHOTS MEN.

Dear Lilly,

I got your letter before Iwent to mass on Sunday andit made me very happy. Kate ,Mary Anne's daughter andher husband Sylvester havemoved in. He is a blacksmithand left Ireland 15 yearsago. Work is hard, especiallyas I have to get up and go towork at 5 o'clock. I go to themill and make blankets. Ihave been very sick andshort of breath. Bridget

Source B Source C Source D Source E Source F

Very scary Scary Happy Very happy

Fears Hopes


Lesson 2

Irish immigrant experience 1Key question Starter Activities NC

(History)

What far didthe Irish sticktogether?- settlement- worship - work.

Look at Source Ffrom Lesson 1.Highlight in theletter words orphases which showthe Irish sticktogether.We will investigateto see how typicalwas Bridget’sexperience.

1. Split the class into groups, with each group looking at the themeof settlement, religion or work.Each group will study their selection and address the question howfar did the Irish stick together in Britain.I. Settlement: how far did the Irish live together and how far didthey live in ghettoes?II. Religion: how important was religion in keeping them together?III. Work: how far did the Irish congregate in the same jobs?2. Jigsaw ideas between groups: Each person feeds back to newgroup findings of their home group, making a maximum of threepoints.Each member of the class chooses two main points from each sectionand records them on the table.3. Each new group then decides how typical Bridget’s experiencewas and agrees a common sentence to write at the bottom of thegrid.4. Plenary: Teacher asks how typical was Bridget’s story

2a, 2b, 2d4a, 4b

New PoSC2P7, P8R&C16,17,23,24


I. Settlement: your questions & sources Lesson 2: What far did the Irish stick together?A. How far did the Irish in Britain live together? B. How far did they live in ghettoes?A ghetto is a quarter in a city inhabited almost exclusively by one ethnic or religious group.

1A. The Irish-born population of England, Scotland and Wales, 1841-61

Area No. of Irish-born residents(nearest 1,000)

% of populationIrish born

1841England & WalesScotland

291,000126,000

1.84.8


520,000207,000

2.97.2


602,000204,000

3.06.6

1B. ‘Top twenty’ Irish towns in Britain, 1851-711851 1871

Town NumberIrish-born

As % total Town Number Irish-born

As % total

London 108,548 4.6 London 91,171 2.8Liverpool 83,813 22.3 Liverpool 76,761 15.6

Glasgow 59,801 18.2 Glasgow 68,330 14.3Manchester 52,504 13.1 Manchester 34,066 9.0

Dundee 14,889 18.9 Dundee 14195 11.9Edinburgh 12,514 6.5 Leeds 10,128 3.9

Birmingham 9,341 4.0 Greenock 9,462 16.6Bradford 9,279 8.9 Birmingham 9,076 2.6

Leeds 8,466 4.9 Bradford 8,318 5.8Newcastle 7,124 8.1 Edinburgh 8,031 3.3

Stockport 5,701 10.6 Newcastle 6,904 5.4Preston 5,122 7.4 Sheffield 6,082 2.5

Bristol 4,761 3.5 Bolton 5,383 6.5Sheffield 4,477 3.3 Paisley 4,703 9.8

Bolton 4,453 7.3 Preston 4,646 5.5Paisley 4,036 12.7 Sunderland 4,469 4.6

Sunderland 3,601 5.5 Plymouth 4,093 6.2Wolverhampton 3,491 7 Stockport 3,975 7.5

Merthyr Tydfil 3,051 11.3 Bristol 3,876 2.1Hull 2,983 3.5 Middlesbrough 3,621 9.2From C. Pooley, ‘Segregation or Integration? The Residential Experience of the Irish in Mid-Victorian Britain’in R. Swift and S. Gilley (eds.), The Irish in Britain, 1815-1939, 66-7


1C


1D. Streets in North Liverpool, 1851, the most ‘Irish’ area of the cityHint: How many streets were exclusively Irish?

Street Total population No of Irish-born

Irish as percentage of total

Edgar/Bow St 269 38 14

Cavendish St 860 497 58

Milton St/Back Milton St 1,240 645 52

Harrison St 520 417 80

Sawney Pope St 1,397 740 53

Addison St/Fontenoy St 947 695 73

Marybone/Bevington Bush 208 94 45

Bevington Bush/Scotland Rd 31 48 15

Comus St 639 182 28

Rosehill/Plover St 315 58 18

Scotland Place 68 6 9

Hare Place 92 45 49

Bent St/East View 495 264 53

TOTAL 7,369 3,729 50.6


Eng/Irish: ethnically English male partner, Irish female partnerIrish/Eng: ethnically Irish male partner, English female partner

All-Irish:both partners ethnically Irish

II. Religion: your question & sources Lesson 2: What far did the Irish stick together?How important was religion in keeping the Irish in Britain together?Note: The vast majority of Irish immigrants in Britain the nineteenth century were Roman Catholics.

2A. Who did the Irish marry?Irish marriages in Stafford Catholic churches: ethnic character of partners, 1838-1914Hint: are there any changes over time?

2B. Church attendance in Liverpool (on a Sunday in 1853

Denomination Seat room Average attendance Proportion of attendancedescribed as working class (%)

Church of England 63,760 35,526 45

Dissenters 54,594 28,843 60

Roman Catholic 15,300 43,380 90

2C. A London priestHenry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor (1861)

Everywhere the people ran out to meet him. He had just returned to them, I found, and the news spreadround, and women crowded to their doorsteps, and came creeping up from the cellars through thetrap-doors, merely to curtsey to him. One old crone, as he passed, cried ‘You’re a good father, Heavencomfort you’, and the boys playing about stood still to watch him. A lad, in a man’s tail coat and ashirt-collar that nearly covered in his head - like the paper round a bouquet - was fortunate enough to benoticed, and his eyes sparkled, as he touched his hair at each work he spoke in answer....He called them allby their names, and asked after their families, and once or twice the ‘father’ was taken aside and held by thebutton while some point that required his advice was whispered in his ear.


III. Work: your question & sources Lesson 2: What far did the Irish stick together?How far did the Irish in Britain congregate in the same jobs?

3A. The occupational profile of the Irish-born in Leigh, 1851Census Enumerators’ Sheets, Leigh, Lancashire, 31 March 1851

a. Irish-born malesDescripton Number Description Number Description NumberCotton Industry Labourers Grinder (factory) 1Carder 2 Agricultural 90 Joiner 1Grinder 1 Chemical works 5 Lodging house kpr 7Handloom weaver 4 General 35 Miner 4Piecer 3 Vitriol works 5 Miller 1Labourer 1 Painter 2Spinner 2 Other Jobs Rag collector 1Stripper 1 Baker 1 Shoemaker 12Tenter/Carder Brickmaker 1 Tailor 10Weaver 2 Cordwainer 1 Umbrella maker 1Worker 4 Dealer (fruit) 2 Chelsea Pens. 1

Drawer (colliery) 1 Total Jobs 224Silk Industry Factory worker 8Weaver 6 Farmer 1 No data on jobs 48Worker 6 Doctor 1 At home 3

Scholars 4Overall Total 280

b. Irish-born femalesDescription Number Description Number Description NumberDomestic &Household Services

Nurse 6 Other Jobs

Cook 1 Shoemaker 1 Labourer (agric.) 32Charwoman 2 Seamstress 1 Chemical worksDomestic duties 11 labourer 2Housemaid 1 Cotton Mills Factory worker 15Laundress 2 Bobbin winder 1 General labourer 4Servant 24 Carder 2 Nailmaker 1Washerwoman 17 Doubler 1

Hand twister 1 Jobs Total 181Other Services Piecer 2Assistant Worker 10in Beerhouse 1 No Data on JobsBookbinder 1 Silk Industry Wife 25Boot & Shoe Binder 1 Handloom weaver 1 Daughters 12Dealer 3 Weaver 10 Lodgers 41Dressmaker 3 Powerloom weaver 2 Rest 20Hawker 2 Winder 3 Scholars 7Lodging house kps 5 Worker 2 At home 4

Overall Total 290


3B. Irish occupations in Birmingham, 1851Census (1851) & C. Chinn, ‘The Irish in Early Victorian England’, The Irish in Victorian Britain. The Local Dimension editedby R. Swift & S. Gilley, Dublin, 1999, pp 68-9

Across Birmingham, 5231 Irish were recorded with 765 occupations. They ranged in economic status fromJohn Ryland, an Armagh accountant who lived in prosperous Ashted Row with his family and a servant, toJames Foy of 6, Park Street. He, his wife and their five children aged three and upwards were all beggars.Overall there were few Irish who could be regarded as middle class. Depending upon the interpretation ofjobs and without any knowledge of income, at the most they formed 2% of the total. This small groupincluded professionals, clerks, teachers and actors.

3C. Irish agricultural labourers in Lincolnshire, 1892John Denvir, The Irish in Britain (1892), 153-4

The numbers of the Irish peasantry who each year crossed the channel to reap the harvest in England andScotland had enormously increased. In Lincolnshire, in that year (1841) there were but 1244 settled nativesof Ireland. In 1851 there were 2344. They had about doubled their number –simply keeping pace with thetotal increase of Irish throughout the country; yet each year vast numbers of Irish came over for the harvest,for we find that in three or four days in August 1850, according to the Stamford Mercury, 12,000 of thempassed through Liverpool from Ireland, on their way to the Fens of Lincolnshire. The census figures showhow few must have remained each year.

The Fen country is in Lincolnshire, where there are places almost as well known, and spoken of asfamiliarly by the firesides of Mayo, as if they were in Ireland itself.

3D. Irish street-sellers in mid-Victorian LondonHenry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, London, 1864, vol II, p. 130

It is curious to observe that the most assiduous and hitherto the most successful of street traders, [the Jews],were supplanted not by a more persevering or more skilful body of street-sellers, but simply by a morestarving body .... An Irish boy of fourteen, having to support himself by street-trade, as was often the case,owing to the death of parents and to diverse casualties, would undersell the Jew boy similarlycircumstanced. The Irish boy could live harder than the Jew .... Thus he could sell at a smaller profit, anddid so sell, until gradually the Hebrew youths were displaced by the Irish in the street orange trade.

3E. Court case reported in the Coventry Standard, 9 March1849

Bridget Voil, another Irish woman, was charged with loitering about the barrack-gates, for the purpose ofasking alms, and being a great annoyance to the Soldiers; on being asked what she had to say for suchconduct, she answered in her native Irish, that no one person could understand a word she said andpretended she could not speak English, but then she was told she would be discharged this time, and if shewas brought up again on such a charge she would be committed as a rogue and a vagabond, she replied invery good English ‘Thank you, Sir, I will take care of myself’, and then left the office.


Lesson 2 PlenaryKey question: How far did the Irish stick together?

Groups Sub-question Bullet points from class feedback

Settlement A. How far did theIrish in Britainlive together?

B. How far did theylive in ghettoes?

Religion How important wasreligion in keepingthe Irish in Britaintogether?

Jobs How far did the Irishin Britain congregatein the same jobs?

Conclusion:how typical was Bridget’s story?


Lesson 3Irish immigrant experience 2

Key question Starter Activities NC(History)

How far wasthere a uniformEnglish, Welshand Scottishresponse to Irishimmigrants?

Look at Source D from Lesson 1 andproduce a quicknews report.

1. In pairs, look at all the sources and divide them into positiveand negative, giving a score for each - 1 for most negative, 10 formost positive.Justify your decision.2. If you were producing a radio broadcast to answer the keyquestion, which two people from the sources would you interview.Justify your choice.3. Produce a storyboard to your broadcast, highlighting fourpoints you would like to make about English, Scottish and Welshattitudes to the Irish.4. Plenary: Put all the story boards on a wall and in groups of threepairs justify their sources and story boards to each other.

3a, 3b4a, 4b

New PoSC2, C6P7, P9, P10R&C 13, 14: 16, 17,23,24


SourcesI. SETTLEMENT

A. A view of Irish immigrants by Thomas Carlyle (1840)

He is the sorest evil this country has to strive with. In his rags and laughing savagery, he is there toundertake all work that can be done by mere strength of hand and back - for wages that will purchase himpotatoes. He needs only salt for condiment, he lodges to his mind in any pig-hutch or dog-hutch, roosts inouthouses, and wears a suit of tatters, the getting on and off of which is said to be a difficult operation,transacted only in festivals and the high tides of the calendar. The Saxon-man, if he cannot work on theseterms, finds no work. The uncivilised Irishman, not by his strength, but by the opposite of strength, drivesthe Saxon native out, takes possession in his room.

B. The Times, 2 April 1847 The newspaper was no great friend of Ireland.

Ireland is pouring into the cities, and even the villages of this island, a disgusting mass of famine, nakednessand dirt and fever. Liverpool, whose closeness to Ireland has already made it the most unhealthy town inthis island, seems destined to become one mass of disease.

C. Registrar General 1847, reported in Liverpool Mail, 6 November 1847

. . . Liverpool, created in haste by commerce - by men too intent on immediate gains - reared without anytender regard for flesh and blood, and flourishing while the working population was rotting in cellars, hasbeen severely taught a lesson that a portion of the population - whether in cellars or on distant shores -cannot suffer without involving the whole community in calamity. In itself, one of the unhealthiest townsin the Kingdom, Liverpool has for a year, been the hospital and cemetery of Ireland.

III. RELIGION

D. Two views on responsibility for the sectarian violence that accompanied Orange marches inLiverpool, 14 July 1851

Some 3,00 Orangemen were met by a crowd of between 500 and 1,00 Irish labourers and 150 policemen guarded theprocession. One Irish labourer was shot dead and a 14-year-old boy and three policemen wounded by gunshot, amongmany other injuries. Seventy people were arrested and taken into custody, all Irish.

1. Manchester Examiner, July 1851, holding Orangemen responsible for promoting the violence

The Loyal Protestants of Liverpool as they style themselves par excellence, must be either besottedly fondof self-exultation, or else callously indifferent to the woes of human kind, if they can regard with anycomplacency their achievement of last Monday. A street procession with ever so many banners and trumpetsis a poor set-off against a hundred shattered limbs and a thousand embittered hearts . .. and how can thefiery declaimers of the pulpit and platform who have been stimulating the fanatical fury of half taught zealotsagainst the disciples of a different faith, acquit themselves of some share in this calamitous result? We donot know that the Rev Dr McNeile or the Rev Canon Stowell or any other renown Boanerges of theProtestant Ascendancy, directly sanctioned the vexatious parade that tempted the Irish and Catholiclabourers to this lamentable outrage. But sure we are, that the spirit which induced the members of theOrange Lodges, in spite of all reason, prudence and charity, to blazon their religious animosities before theeyes of the world, was learnt of such teachers. It is the practical fruit of those frantic paroxysms ofexcitement into which, by the influence of example, sympathy and oratorical mesmerism, multitudes of theiraudiences have been goaded.

2. Liverpool Mail, 19 July 1851, blaming Irish Catholics for the violence

It appears that scenes which formerly distinguished Ireland have been translated to the streets of Liverpooland that peaceable and well behaved men of sober and industrious habit, cannot hold a holiday or walk inprocession from clubroom to clubroom in the sight of their families and friends, without running the risk


of having their brains knocked out by ferocious Papists, who, as lumpers or barrow men, work in the docks. . . Popery has so completely polluted their mental faculties, and debased the physical and moral habits ofthe Irish peasant that it is impossible to ameliorate his condition as a social animal. He does not think as theEnglishman, or Scotsman and Welshman does, because he is so saturated with traditional falsehoods . . .a parcel of besotted and ignorant Irishmen must not be allowed to interfere with the liberty of the Englishsubject.

E. Concert on St Patrick’s Day, 1885The Barrow Herald, 21 March 1885

On Tuesday evening last, being St Patrick’s Day, a grand Irish ballad concert took place at the Town Hall;most of the performers being connected with the Catholic Church in this town. The Rev. Father Caffreypresided, and amongst those present were the Revs. Father Gordon, Father Collinson, and FatherMonaghan; Mr Palmer, and others. There was also a large attendance.

The following was the programme:– Selection of Irish airs, St Mary’s Band; quartette, ‘The young Maymoon’, Mdles Logan and Craven, and Messrs Ennis and Wyer; original ballad (written for the occasion),‘Pat’s Boys’, Mr G.B. Harcourt; song, ‘Farewell’, with flute obligato, Mr L. Wyer and Mr P. Coyne; oldmelody, ‘Soggarth Aroon’, Miss M. Craven; harp solo, ‘Sounds from the Emerald Isle’, Mr Fred Haslam;ballad, ‘Dear little shamrock’, Mrs Harcourt; song, ‘Thinking of home’, Mr J.F. Ennis; serio–comicsong,‘The gap in the hedge at Kilmare’, Miss Logan; impersonation ditty, ‘Bridget Muldoon’, Mr T.R. Clithero;song with harp, ‘The Wolf’, Mr Fred Haslam; quartet, ‘Let Erin remember’, Mdles Logan and Craven, andMessrs Ennis and Wyer; comic song, ‘Molly, I can’t say ye’re honest’, Mr G.B. Harcourt; song, ‘Themeeting of the Waters’, Miss M. Craven; duet (selected), Messrs Ennis and Wyer; Irish air, ‘Colleen dhasCruthen na moe’, Mrs Harcourt; harp solo, ‘Beauties of Irish melody’, Mr Fred Haslam; new ballad,‘Barney’, Miss M. Logan; song, ‘Dublin Bay’, Mr J.L. Wyer; character song, ‘Brave Captain Magann’, MrT.R. Clitheroe; melody, ‘The minstrel boy’, Mr J.F. Ennis; humorous sketch, ‘I’m a married man myself’,Mr and Mrs Harcourt; Irish selection, ‘St Patrick’s Day’, St Mary’s Band.

The Rev. Father Caffrey briefly addressed the meeting. As a rule he remarked he had plenty to say onoccasions such as that, but unfortunately for him Father Gordon had covered the whole ground at his talkto them in the morning. He had pointed out to them the advantages of education, and he (the speaker),suffering as he was from bronchitis, would not trouble them further. They were celebrating that night theday dedicated to their patron saint. Just at the present time the Irish were the most envied and admired raceon the face of the globe, and the further they went from home the more they were admired. Irishmeneverywhere were assembled to celebrate St Patrick’s Day - in America, Australia, India, and England, aswell as in Ireland. Wherever they went the Irish always got themselves into good positions – from the Mayorof New York to the shoeblacks of Brooklyn. (Laughter) They looked round that night, and they couldsympathise with their race throughout the world; with Lord Wolseley, Lord Charles Beresford, and othersfighting in Egypt; with the Mayors of Sydney and New York, and hosts of others. (Cheers) He hoped thatthey were well pleased with the entertainment that night, and that they would come to church on Sundayevening next, and hear a little more about St Patrick’s Day.

F. Catholic piety in LondonM.C. Bishop, ‘The Social Methods of Roman Catholicism in England’, Contemporary Review, 39, 1887, p. 612

A priest belonging to the order bearing the ‘un-English’ name, ‘Oblates of Mary Immaculate’, gottogether some fifty labourers of Whitechapel [London] and preached to them under a railway arch. Thefifty increased to five hundred before long, and the congregation migrated from the railway arch to agarret, and then to a temporary iron church. Meantime by much begging, by the help of a fewbenefactors of the upper world, but chiefly by the pence and farthings of the Romish roughs thereabouts,schools were built.


III. WORK

G. The impact of Irish labourers in West Cheshire, 1834Report on the State of the Irish Poor in Great Britain (Cornewall Lewis Report), Appendix, p. 41. Parliamentary Papers (1836),Evidence of Henry Potts, Clerk of the Peace in Chester, February 1834

[Q] Would it be advantageous for this town and neighbourhood if the Irish immigration could of a suddenbe completely stopped?

[A] The city of Chester and its immediate neighbourhood would no doubt be benefitted by stopping theimmigration of Irish labourers; but many persons who have occasion for much manual labour wouldgive an opposite opinion.

[Q] Could the work in the town be done, or could the harvest in the country be got in, without Irishlabourers?

[A] The population of Chester and its immediate neighbourhood is considered abundantly sufficient for thework of the town and country, without the Irish; but I am informed, that in the less populous districtsof the county their assistance is important to the harvest, and the expense of getting it in would perhapsbe doubled; for the benefit, nevertheless, of the English labourer.

[Q] Has the Irish competition lowered the general rate of wages in this town and neighbourhood; and if so,in what departments of industry, and to what extent?

[A] Certainly; more particularly in harvesting hay, corn and potatoes, and in road-making to a considerableextent, and to some extent in other departments.

[Q] Has the Irish immigration increased the amount of the poor-rates in this town and neighbourhood?[A] Yes, indirectly, in as much as the English labourer used to make his rent during harvest-time, for which

he now frequently applies to the parish, and in case of refusal probably finds his way to the poor-house.

H. Irish sugar-workers in Greenock, 1836Report on the State of the Irish Poor in Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers (1836) xxiv—xxvii

Mr Thomas Fairrie, sugar manufacturer, of Greenock [stated] ‘If it was not for the Irish, we should beobliged to import Germans, as is done in London. The Scotch will not work in sugar-houses; the heat drivesthem away in the first fortnight. If it was not for the Irish, we should be forced to give up trade; and thesame applies to every sugar-house in town. This is a well-known fact. Germans would be our only resource,and we could not readily get them. Highlanders would not do the work’.

I. Liverpool Mail, 6 November 1847

The people that come here are not labourers ... they are beggars and paupers. They never were labourers.They never did an honest day’s work in their lives. They live by begging ... and when they arrive here,begging is their profession ...


Lesson 4Hopes & fears revisited

Key question Starter Activities NC(History)

What were thepros and consof being anIrish immigrantin Britain in the19th century?

Look again atBridget’s letter,Source F in Lesson1, and highlight intwo different coloursthe advantages anddisadvantages ofbeing an Irish personliving in Britain.

1. Assume she stayed in the country, write a letter she might havewritten later describing pros and cons of being an Irish personliving in Britain in the nineteenth century.Base your letter on between three and five pieces of evidence fromthe previous lessons.2. Plenary: Class secret ballot (Yes, No, Don’t know) on thequestion:Would you have liked to have been an Irish person living inBritain in the nineteenth century?3.Optional poll: How far does anything you have learned aboutIrish immigrants apply to immigrants in Britain today?

2a, 2b5a, 5c

New PoSC2, C6 P10R&C 13,14,16, 17,23, 24

Lesson 1, Source FA fictional letter from an Irish girl called Bridget, 5 January 1850.(Inspired by actual emigrant letters written by the Doorley family who settledin England.)

Liverpool,England,

5 January 1850Dear Lilly,

I got your letter before I went to mass on Sundayand it made me very happy. Kate , Mary Anne'sdaughter and her husband Sylvester have movedin. He is a blacksmith and left Ireland 15 yearsago. Work is hard, especially as I have to get upand go to work at 5 o'clock. I go to the mill andmake blankets. I have been very sick and short ofbreath.

Bridget


Lesson plans

Lesson Key question Starter Activities NC (History)

1Hopes&fears

What do thesources suggestabout the Irishimmigrantexperience?

Use source a, fill in thecircles in the graphicorganiser?What do see?What is the artist sayingabout their hopes & fears?What else do you want toask?

1. Working in groups, look at sources B, C, D.2. If you were the people in picture and could see into the future, which of the sources B, C, D,E & F would make them most at ease and which would scare you most.Come to a consensus as to where you would put sources B, C, D, E & F on a continuum line -from most at ease to most scared.Justify the exact point where you place the sources on the continuum.3. Report back to whole class, using whiteboard of available.4. Plenary: Consider the key question and then ask what more do we need to investigate.

2a4a, 4b

New PoSC2, C6P7, P8, P9, P10R&C 13,14,16

2Irishimmigrantexperience1

What far did theIrish sticktogether?- settlement- worship - work.

Look at Source F fromLesson 1.Highlight in the letterwords or phases whichshow the Irish sticktogether.We will investigate to seehow typical was Bridget’sexperience.

1. Split the class into groups, with each group looking at the theme of settlement, religion or work.Each group will study their selection and address the question how far did the Irish stick togetherin Britain.I. Settlement: how far did the Irish live together and how far did they live in ghettoes?II. Religion: how important was religion in keeping them together?III. Work: how far did the Irish congregate in the same jobs?2. Jigsaw ideas between groups: Each person feeds back to new group findings of their homegroup, making a maximum of three points.Each member of the class chooses two main points from each section and records them on thetable.3. Each new group then decides how typical Bridget’s experience was and agrees a commonsentence to write at the bottom of the grid.4. Plenary: Teacher asks how typical was Bridget’s story.

2a, 2b, 2d4a, 4b

New PoSC2P7, P8R&C 16,17,23,24

3Irishimmigrantexperience2

How far wasthere a uniformEnglish, Welshand Scottishresponse to Irish immigrants- settlement,religion, work?

Look at Source D fromLesson 1 and produce a quick news report.

1. In pairs, look at all the sources and divide them into positive and negative, giving a score foreach - 1 for most negative, 10 for most positive. Justify your decision.2. If you were producing a radio broadcast to answer the key question, which two people from thesources would you interview. Justify your choice.3. Produce a storyboard to your broadcast, highlighting four points you would like to make aboutEnglish, Scottish and Welsh attitudes to the Irish.4. Plenary: Put all the story boards on a wall and in groups of three pairs justify their sources andstory boards to each other.

3a, 3b4a, 4b

New PoSC2, C6P7, P9, P10R&C 13, 14: 16,17, 23,24

4Hopes& fearsrevisited

What were thepros and cons ofbeing an Irishimmigrant inBritain in the19th century?

Look again at Bridget’sletter, source f in lesson 1,and highlight in twodifferent colours theadvantages anddisadvantages of being anIrish person living inBritain.

1. Assume she stayed in the country, write a letter she might have written later describing pros andcons of being an Irish person living in Britain in the nineteenth century.Base your letter on between three and five pieces of evidence from the previous lessons.2. Plenary: Class secret ballot (Yes, No, Don’t know) on the question:Would you have liked to have been an Irish person living in Britain in the nineteenth century.3.Optional poll: How far does anything you have learned about Irish immigrants apply toimmigrants in Britain today?

2a, 2b5a, 5c

New PoSC2, C6 P10R&C 13, 14,16,17, 23, 24


Note for teachers

1. Overview of the Irish in Britain

Until the advent of ‘New Commonwealth’ migration after World War II, the Irish were by far the largest ethnic groupin Britain. However, this prominence was not unique to the modern period. Irish sojourners were finding their way toBritain as early as the Middle Ages and had begun to form permanent settlements in London by the Elizabethan period.The eighteenth century saw further developments of this type, with Irish migration mirroring the wider growth of urbanand industrial centres. The emergence of the northern towns, and the establishment of the great commercial and industrialcities, prompted the appearance of much larger and more closely observed Irish settlements.

The first half of the nineteenth century witnessed a substantial increase in the pace and scale of Irish migration to Britain.The 1841 Census enumerated the Irish-born population of England, Wales and Scotland at 419,000 . By 1851, inconsequence of the massive exodus during the Great Famine, this figure had risen to 727,000.

In 1861, the Irish-born population peaked at 806,000, when it comprised 3.5% of the total population. Thereafter, asmigration from Ireland to Britain declined, the number of Irish-born migrants in Britain also progressively fell, decliningto 550,000 (or 1.3% of the population) in 1911. lodges

The Irish presence was generally unpopular. Even before the Famine, British social investigators and commentatorsvariously perceived Irish migration as little short of a social disaster which, it was argued, exacerbated urban squalor,constituted a health hazard, increased the burden on the Poor Rates and was a threat to law and order in British citiesIn the 1840s, the impact of the Famine and a pattern of long-lived cultural antagonisms conspired to make the Irish inBritain the ‘largest unassimilable section of society’; ‘a people set apart and everywhere rejected and despised.’

Irish immigration ‘involved the positive movement of people in search of better economic opportunities in Britain’.Accordingly, the Irish presence was concentrated overwhelmingly in the towns and cities of ‘the workshop of the world’.As late as World War I, a continuing migration meant that even less fashionable Irish centres, such as Whitehaven inCumberland and Hebburn on Tyneside, ‘bore the cultural and political hallmarks of their long-established Irishcommunities, whether in the form of thriving Catholic churches or Orange’.

These migrants, many of whom subsequently re-emigrated, were by no means an homogeneous group. Their rankscontained both rich and poor, middle class and working class, skilled and unskilled, Catholics and Protestants (as wellas unbelievers), Nationalists and Loyalists, and men and women from a variety of distinctive provincial rural and urbancultures in Ireland.

The majority were young, single people, disproportionately male. They were also notoriously transient, and the urbandistricts they inhabited experienced continual in- and out-migration, with only a relatively small number of migrantsestablishing permanent settlements. However, the vast majority of these Irish people were poor and they were RomanCatholics, and it is their story - a story, in many cases, ‘of triumph over adversity - that looms large in the history of theIrish in Britain.


Note for teachers

2. Individual lessons

Lesson 1: Hopes & fears Source B: Irish Emigrant Arriving in Liverpool, Erskine Nicol, 1871Since most Irish peasants had not previously travelled far from home, migration was a disorienting experience. Thispicture conveys some of this dislocation. Once in Liverpool, emigrants sought lodgings and passages. Swindlers,‘runners’ and ‘mancatchers’ preyed on them, often robbing them of baggage and carefully hoarded cash.

Source E: Irish Vagrants in England by Walter Deverell, c. 1853Much of the Irish population in Britain was mobile, taking casual employment where available. In general the Irishsuffered from a widespread British prejudice that they were disloyal, stupid and improvident and were the butt ofmalicious humour and discrimination.

Lesson 2: Irish immigrant experience 1Settlement, Little Irelands’/ghettoes? Much contemporary qualitative evidence, which referred specifically to ‘the lowest Irish’ - the very poorest Irish - ratherthan to all Irish migrants, suggested that during the 1830s and 1840s in particular the newcomers were located in sociallyimmobile and unintegrated ghettos or ‘Little Irelands’, isolated in particular streets and courts from the surroundingpopulations. The image of these districts, including St Giles in London, or Manchester’s ‘Little Ireland’, observed byFrederick Engels in 1844, was popularly perceived to be a reality of Irish urban settlement.

Many towns did, indeed, possess so-called ‘Irish quarters’ populated by extended families, including Goit Side inBradford, Rock Row in Stockport, Sandygate in Newcastle, Bedern in York, and Caribee Island in Wolverhampton. Thetendency of the Irish poor to cluster in such districts was influenced by the availability of cheap accommodation,including lodging-houses, the existence of familial and kinship networks, proximity to available employment, and thedevelopment of Irish social, cultural and religious organizations.

Yet Irish did not congregate in ‘ghettos’ to the exclusion of other ethnic groups. For example, St Giles was not inhabitedexclusively by the Irish poor and was, as a criminal rookery, atypical of Irish districts in London. Similarly, while therewere areas of concentrated Irish settlement in Liverpool, Blackburn and Bolton, they were not wholly isolated from thehost community. Even where Irish immigrants dominated particular streets, courts and squares they were seldom shutoff from the native population.

Indeed, in Liverpool almost half the Irish lived in enumeration districts with low or medium concentrations of Irishpeople, and this also appears to have been the case in London and York, where the Irish lived cheek by jowl besidenatives of the same social class. This was also true of Irish settlement in smaller English towns such as Stafford andChester, where the Irish-born population was geographically dispersed and where the formation of an identifiable Irishcommunity was inhibited by a high level of out-migration. In short, the poor Irish lived among the English poor, and theupwardly mobile among the English upper-working or middle class.

In sum, the pattern of Irish settlement was determined largely by economic considerations, and if there was an ‘Irishcommunity’ it did not rest on a pattern of rigid residential segregation.

ReligionThe majority of Irish people who settled in Victorian Britain were Roman Catholics, and the survival of an Irish identitywas crucially bound up with the survival of Catholicism, as the Roman Catholic Church in England, Scotland and Waleswas the only native institution with a fundamental claim on Irish loyalties. This relationship was reflected in the uniquerole and status of the Roman Catholic priest within Irish communities in British towns and cities, as Henry Mayhewobserved in mid-Victorian London.

The rise of an expatriate Irish Catholicism was part of the transformation of nineteenth-century Irish religion from a faithbased chiefly on the home and on family prayers, and Gaelic devotion and pilgrimage or ‘patterns’ in a sacred rurallandscape, to a much more chapel-orientated religion of weekly attendance at Mass. This transformation, which can bedated from Archbishop Paul Cullen’s remaking of the Irish church in the Roman mould in the 1850s, has been describedas a ‘Devotional Revolution’, and by the end of the century the Irish had become the most practising Catholics in theworld.


WorkOverall, among the country immigrants to British towns and cities, the Irish were generally the least prepared to succeedin their new environment. The great majority of Irish-born, largely illiterate and unskilled, entered the lowliest and leasthealthy of urban occupations, unless they enlisted in the army, which was 30 per cent Irish in the mid-Victorian period.Most of those with limited or no skills were concentrated in unskilled occupations in mines, ironworks, textile mills andmanufactories; in construction industries, notably as railway ‘navvies’, and in casual dock labour and street-selling.

These were occupations for which a highly sophisticated city like London, with a highly specialised labour force, heldvery few rewards and the Irish could only enter the metropolitan economy with difficulty. Although a minority of skilledworkers entered sweated industries like cobbling and tailoring , street-selling was, as Henry Mayhew observed, the mostcommon occupation among the Irish in London’s East End. By contrast, in Liverpool, which was a trading andcommercial rather than an industrial centre, employment opportunities, housing and sanitation were overwhelmed by thesheer magnitude of Irish immigration during the 1840s, and the demand for labour lay largely in unskilled occupationsfor which Catholics and Protestants were in active competition.

Similarly, although the Glasgow Irish were able to find employment in mills and mines, they were excluded fromengineering by virtue of their lack of skill, from shipbuilding by the Orange Order and from skilled trades by the craftunions. In Edinburgh, a city of legal, literary and ecclesiastical institutions, the Irish were confined to such menialoccupations as general labouring in building, domestic service, portering, street-cleaning and street-lighting

Yet it is both easy and dangerous to generalize. In the first place, not all Irish immigrants, whether Catholic or Protestant,were poor. Even by mid-century there was a small middle-class world of professional men - doctors, lawyers, soldiers,shopkeepers, merchants and journalists!

Irish women also formed an important sector of the migrant labour force in textile mills, laundry work, street-selling and,most notably, domestic service, and in the longer term made notable contributions to a range of low-paid professionaloccupations, including social work and nursing.

Moreover, the economic position of the Irish was far less static than many contemporaries believed and there was adegree of differentiation in Irish occupational patterns. The survey of the Irish in Britain conducted by Hugh Heinrickin 1872 for The Nation argued that in relative terms the economic position of the Irish depended less on the structure ofthe Irish community in a given locality than on the economic infrastructure of the area where they worked. In developingthis argument, the survey pointed to the emergence of a substantial Irish middle-class in London, to the presence of skilledworkers in the Midlands and to the variable experience of the Irish in South Lancashire, where an Irish middle-class hademerged in Manchester whilst in neighbouring Wigan and St. Helens the Irish were almost wholly labourers of onedescription or another.

Lesson 3: Irish immigrant experience 2Victorian stereotypesThe Victorians were less ready to accept such diversity among the Irish in Britain. The Victorians themselves areresponsible for the persistence of a negative Irish migrant stereotype, for most contemporary writings exaggerated Irishpoverty, immorality, drunkenness and Catholicism.

Even the briefest reading of Carlyle’s or Kay’s outpourings reveals how the image of the Irish has crowded out any notionof their lived reality. The Irish were portrayed as the greatest nuisance of the new industrial and urban world; they werethe scapegoats for a host of problems that their arrival did not manufacture and scarcely worsened. The Irish scapegoatwas meant to explain the negative features of the Victorian city and perhaps to assuage those who feared them.

Yet the image of the Irish as a negative and alien presence had more to do with the urban world in which they lived thanwith the character of the Irish themselves. For Victorians, the words ‘Irish’ and ‘slum’ were virtually interchangeable,each epitomising middle-class attitudes towards working-class lifestyles.

ReligionIrish Catholic identity in Victorian Britain was reinforced by manifestations of anti-Catholicism, both covert and overt.The English, Scots and Welsh were overwhelmingly Protestant by tradition and there had been a distrust of RomanCatholicism in Britain since the Reformation. Anti-Catholic feeling in England was rooted in an historic hatred of Franceand Spain, Catholic powers and England’s traditional enemies; in scriptural and theological arguments against RomanCatholicism; in the Settlement of 1688, which ensured the Protestant Succession of William and Mary; in the fact thatthe Church of England imparted a religious dimension into political life and had therefore to be protected; and in the belief

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that Roman Catholicism, with its legacy of the Inquisition, was a persecuting sect.

Thus, by the end of the eighteenth century, English Protestants held that the Roman Catholic Church was boththeologically unsound and politically subversive; that it was intolerant and persecuting; that it was a hindrance to themoral, intellectual and economic development of its flock; and that it should be excluded from political power. In thiscontext, Irish Catholics were particularly vulnerable because their allegiance was to a foreigner rather than to the Crown(the head of the Protestant Church and State), hence they were also regarded as potentially, if not actually, politicallysubversive, a perception which Irish nationalist activity consequent upon the Act of Union of 1800 appeared to confirm.The strength of popular Protestantism was greatly reinforced by the Evangelical Revival.

Thus religious issues provided a vital ingredient in determining Anglo-Irish relations on a local level during the Victorianperiod, although Victorian ‘No Popery’ was much more than simply anti-Irishness. Nevertheless, the terms ‘Irish’ and‘Catholic’ were virtually synonymous in British eyes and the Irish Anti-Catholic feeling was exacerbated by the presenceof Irish Protestants, largely from Ulster, in those British towns and cities also populated by Irish Catholic migrants,particularly on Clydeside and Merseyside.

Indeed, such was the depth of anti-Catholic feeling that it contributed to the most serious clashes between the Englishand the Irish in the nineteenth century - at Stockport n 1852, Oldham in 1861, London in 1862 and during the morewidespread Murphy riots in 1867-71.

WorkSuch clashes were not, however, solely due to religious differences. There were deeper tensions, including competitionfor jobs. The Irish were seen as willing to work for lower wages and thus deprive the English, Scots and Welsh of jobs.At the same tine, Irish immigrants were willing to do jobs that nobody else would do.

The Irish were also said to have helped to undermine working-class trades union activity through their use by employersas strike -breakers. Yet, while it is true that Irish immigrants were sometimes used to break strikes, individual Irishmen -first and second generation - did become prominent trade unionists. For instance, John Doherty, founder of the NationalAssociation for the Protection of Labour, editor of the visionary Voice of the People, and one of the greatest trade unionpioneers, was born and bred in Donegal.

Lesson 4: Hopes & fears revisitedAn additional activity, which underlines the often ambivalent attitude of Irish immigrants to their experience in Britain,would be singing and analysing the famous Irish ballad ‘The Mountains of Mourne’.

THE MOUNTAINS OF MOURNEThis song is a love letter from an Irish immigrant in London to Mary, his wife or sweetheart, whom he has left behindin County Down. He tells her what he has done, the people he has seen and some of the differences between life inLondon and Ireland.

Oh, Mary this London’s a wonderful sight,With the people here working by day and by night. They don’t sow potatoes nor barley nor wheat,But there’s gangs of them digging for gold in the street;At least, when I asked them that’s what I was told, So I just took a hand at this digging for gold,But for all that I found there I might as well be,Where the mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.

I believe that when writing a wish you expressedAs to how the fine ladies of London were dressed.Well if you believe me, when asked to a ball,They don’t wear a top to their dresses at all.Oh, I’ve seen them myself, and you could not in truthSay if they were bound for a ball or a bath.Don’t be starting those fashions now, Mary Macree,Where the mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.

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key stage 3: what was it like to be an irish immigrant in britain in the 19th century?

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