The largest concentration of Irish immigrants in Victorian England was found in Liverpool, Manchester and neighboring towns of industrial Lancashire. This book uses local sources, from census book data to police reports, to reconstruct a comprehensive social history of this important working-class community. The Irish became prominent in Lancashire town life when thousands arrived as fugitives from the great famine of the 1840s. Over a quarter-century they used their Irish cultural heritage and experience to form themselves into a distinctive and mature community. Detailed analyses of how they lived and worked and their relationships with their English neighbors create the social context for the development of a sophisticated co mmunity life and identity that produced a uniquely Lancashire brand of Irish nationalism.

First published in 1985, this book explores the social history of the Irish in Britain across a variety of cities, including Bristol, York, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stockport. With contributions from foremost scholars in the field, it provides a thorough critical study of Irish immigration, in its social, political, cultural and religious dimensions. This book will be of interested to students of Victorian history, Irish history and the history of minorities.

This book illustrates the diversity of the Irish experience by reference to studies of specific towns and regions which have hitherto received little attention from historians of the Irish in Britain during the Victorian period.

This work is a sequel to The Irish Victorian City. As a collection of national and regional studies, it reflected the consensus view of the subject by describing both the degree of the demoralization of the Irish immigrants into Britain for the early and mid-Victorian period, when they figured so largely in the official parliamentary and social reportage of the day; and then, in spite of every obvious difficulty posed by poverty, crime, disease, and prejudice, the positive aspect of the Irish Catholic achievement in the creation of enduring religious and political communities towards the end of the nineteenth century.

"Controversial, entertaining and alarmingly topical ... a delight to read."Philip Ziegler, Daily Telegraph