Enda Delaney - Irish Migration, Networks and Ethnic Identities since 1750

This collection of essays demonstrates in vivid detail how a range of formal and informal networks shaped the Irish experience of migration, settlement and the construction of ethnic identity in a variety of geographical contexts since 1750. It examines topics as diverse as the associational culture of the Orange Order in the nineteenth century to the role of transatlantic political networks in developing and maintaining a sense of diaspora, all within the overarching theme of the role of networks. This volume represents a pioneering study that contributes to wider debates in the history of global migration, the first of its kind for any ethnic group, with conclusions of relevance far beyond the history of Irish migration and settlement. It is also expected that the volume will have resonance for scholars working in parallel fields, not least those studying different ethnic groups, and the editors contextualise the volume with this in mind in their introductory essay. This book was previously published as a special issue of Immigrants and Minorities.

This book was previously published as a special issue of Immigrants and Minorities.

Dr Enda Delaney is lecturer in British History at the University of Edinburgh.

Donald M. MacRaild is Professor of History at the University of Ulster.

Irish Migration, Networks and Ethnic Identities Since 1750

Edited by
Enda Delaney and Donald M. MacRaild

First published 2007 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, axon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

2007 Enda Delaney and Donald M. MacRaild

Typeset in Minion 10.5/13pt by the Alden Group, Oxfordshire

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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ISBN: 0-415-39053-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-39053 (hbk)

ENDA DELANEY & DONALD M. MACRAILD

ANDREA KNOX

CRAIG BAILEY

DAVID T. GLEESON & BRENDAN J. BUTTIMER

JOHN BELCHEM

LOUISE MISKELL

PAUL O'LEARY

DAVID FITZPATRICK

DONALD M. MACRAILD

ANGELA MCCARTHY

WILLIAM JENKINS

ALAN O'DAY

ENDA DELANEY

Enda Delaney & Donald M. MacRaild

The long-cherished myth of Irish migration as primarily a traumatic process that fractured existing social relations has now been replaced by a more nuanced understanding of Ireland's diasporic past.

In part, this change of emphasis is a natural outgrowth of many years of intensive scholarly activity in the field, with historians of the Irish diaspora constantly drawing on insights from scholars of other ethnic groups, particularly in the United States.

Before proceeding briefly to consider the contributors' essays, and to draw out some common themes, it is important to explain our thinking on the subject of social networks in the process of migration. What do we mean by social networks? The concept of networks, which helps us to understand the variety of social formations developed by the Irish, is not a term which all scholars use openly. Indeed, some merely reflect upon what others, particularly social scientists, have meant by the term networks, without necessarily deploying it with any precision. The introduction to this work, therefore, tries to offer a working definition of social networks; to draw out how the essence of that term relates to some of the most important studies in the field; and then to offer readers an explanation of how the present work, and its individual contributions, move us forward in our attempts to understand the importance of social networks in the history of the Irish diaspora.

The concept of the network is meant to suggest a degree of rational decision-making among the leavers. It implies that migrants often sought out well-established pathways of movement that had been shaped by particular economic and labour market conditions. In developing networks that could respond to the work made available in new places, migrants were demonstrating sensitive and rational choices. Thus, we argue, the logic conditioning migrants was one of conscious opting rather than of blind panic (with the obvious exception of the mass exodus during the Great Irish Famine). These networks evoked relationships based on the extended family and shared community origins, especially significant in a rural society where localism played a significant role in many aspects of life. These could also be extended to include impersonal elements that nevertheless were made personal through migration, settlement and interaction: while miners knew they could find work in American or Britain mines, the fact that steamers plied a trade throughout the Irish Sea and North Atlantic made it possible to take advantage of the vital knowledge that these workers had. As migrants, ever sensitive to labour market conditions, became aware of such opportunities, they often moved on: thus re-migration entered the equation of choice. As they did so, they contributed to the build up of cultural deposits - churches, clubs, societies, pubs - which shaped the character of their communities and acted as focal points for their networks.

We can also add to our organisational notions of networks the formal ties that bound people to particular institutions. Many of the networks of Irish associational life (clubs, societies, and so forth) offered work-orientated camaraderie and pub-related conviviality that constituted aspects of the migrant network. As such, these organizations were not simply about celebrating Irishness.

To preference the networks which migrants formed or utilised requires a shift in the traditional analytical framework for exploring the migrant experience from external to internal elements. Instead of explaining experiences in relation to the pressures deployed by impersonal structural factors - those outside agencies acting independently of the migrants - we now find scholars using investigations of networks and social communications to restore agency to the ordinary historical actors - the migrants - themselves. In so doing, the authors in this work share a desire to invigorate the role of the Irish whilst, at the same time, recognising that the generic category of Irishness, which is so commonly deployed, was actually a fluid typology - one that changed over time, from generation to generation, and faced renegotiation according to particular circumstances or exigencies. Such renegotiation, changing over time, can be found in the contribution by Gleeson and Buttimer, where they discuss the ethnic networks of America's southern Irish. Further discussion of the theme emerges later, in the piece by O'Day, where he assesses the reception of the international campaign tours of Irish nationalist leaders in terms of the way later generations imagined and received them. The contingent nature of Irishness is made quite apparent, in Gleeson and Buttimer's essay, in the way in which Irish nationalist organisations in July 1881 drew the Irish together to celebrate the anniversary of American Independence. It is also made clear in O'Day's study by the way nationalist politics was consumed as a theatrical public event but was not supported, materially, in anything like the way that traditionalist scholars once assumed to be the case.