Heritage, Diaspora and the Consumption of Culture: Movements in Irish Landscapes 9781472425096, 147242509X

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Heritage, Diaspora and the Consumption of Culture

Studies in Migration and Diaspora Series Editor: Anne J. Kershen, Queen Mary, University of London, UK Studies in Migration and Diaspora is a series designed to showcase the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary nature of research in this important field. Volumes in the series cover local, national and global issues and engage with both historical and contemporary events. The books will appeal to scholars, students and all those engaged in the study of migration and diaspora. Amongst the topics covered are minority ethnic relations, transnational movements and the cultural, social and political implications of moving from ‘over there’, to ‘over here’. Also in the series: Second-Generation Transnationalism and Roots Migration Cross-Border Lives Susanne Wessendorf ISBN 978-1-4094-4015-4 Cultures in Refuge Seeking Sanctuary in Modern Australia Edited by Anna Hayes and Robert Mason ISBN 978-1-4094-3475-7 Whiteness and Postcolonialism in the Nordic Region Exceptionalism, Migrant Others and National Identities Edited by Kristín Loftsdóttir and Lars Jensen ISBN 978-1-4094-4481-7 European Identity and Culture Narratives of Transnational Belonging Edited by Rebecca Friedman and Markus Thiel ISBN 978-1-4094-3714-7 Inhabiting Borders, Routes Home Youth, Gender, Asylum Ala Sirriyeh ISBN 978-1-4094-4495-4

Heritage, Diaspora and the Consumption of Culture Movements in Irish Landscapes

Edited by Diane Sabenacio Nititham National Louis University, USA Rebecca Boyd University College Cork, Ireland

First published 2014 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2014 Diane Sabenacio Nititham and Rebecca Boyd. Diane Sabenacio Nititham and Rebecca Boyd have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. 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. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Heritage, diaspora and the consumption of culture : movements in Irish landscapes / [edited] by Diane Sabenacio Nititham and Rebecca Boyd. pages cm. -- (Studies in migration and diaspora) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4724-2509-6 (hardback) -- ISBN 978-1-4724-2510-2 (ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-4724-2511-9 (epub) 1. Ireland--Historical geography. 2. Ireland--Emigration and immigration--History. 3. Irish--Foreign countries. 4. Human settlements--Ireland-History. 5. National characteristics, Irish--History. 6. Social structure--Ireland--History. I. Nititham, Diane Sabenacio. II. Boyd, Rebecca. DA969.H47 2014 909’.049162--dc23 2014015811 isBn: 978-1-472-42509-6 (hbk)

Contents List of Figures List of Tables Notes on Contributors   Acknowledgements   Series Editor’s Preface   Introduction: Movements in Irish Landscapes   Diane Sabenacio Nititham and Rebecca Boyd Section I 1 2 3 4

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1

Rethinking Place and Location

Building Fences in Viking Dublin: Exploring Ireland’s First Urban Community   Rebecca Boyd

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Wilderness, Suffering and Civilization: Representations of Erris, County Mayo   Shane McCorristine

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The Creation of the ‘Irish Loop’: Ethnicity, Collective Historical Memory, and Place   Willeen Keough

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Neoliberal Landscapes of Migration in Ireland: The Space, Management and Experiences of Asylum Seekers   Angèle Smith

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Section II 5

vii ix xi xv xvii

Memory and Mobility

How the Irish Became American: Reflections on the History of the Irish in the United States   William H. Mulligan, Jr. Contemporary ‘Irish’ Identity on the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean: St. Patrick’s Day on Montserrat and the Invention of Tradition   Laura McAtackney, Krysta Ryzewski and John F. Cherry

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Migrancy, Mobility and Memory: Visualising Belonging and Displacement in Jaki Irvine’s The Silver Bridge (2003)   Kate Antosik-Parsons

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Section III Global Culture and Consumption 8

Langue Sans Frontières: Finding The Irish Language in Canada   159 Sarah McMonagle

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‘What Use Is It Here?’: Sociability and Benevolence in Wellington’s Orange Order 1870–1930   G.E. Horn

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‘We Cannot Gather Without Eating’: Food, Authenticity and Socialisation for Filipinos in Ireland    Diane Sabenacio Nititham

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Movement, Consumption and Choice in Neoliberal Reproductive Health Discourses: An Irish Case Study   Tanya Saroj Bakhru

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Index  

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List of Figures 1.1 2.1 2.2 2.3 3.1 3.2 3.3 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 9.1 9.2 9.3

Map of Dublin showing main sites mentioned in chapter   14 Erris, Co. Mayo   28 Elly Bay Castle, Binghamstown   38 “The Absentee. Scene Naples. Enter the Ghosts of starv’d Irish Peasentry!!!” [sic]   42 Stone Island, home to Irish settlers in Caplin Bay at the turn of the nineteenth century   51 A distant view of the Butter Pots, the hideout of the Masterless Men  68 Annie Sullivan O’Toole telling stories in Calvert, 1999   70 Map of the Caribbean situating Montserrat in the Lesser Antilles   114 Montserrat Passport stamp from 2011    117 Montserrat’s flag with “The Lady with the Harp” hanging from a bar wall on the island   117 Image of a smoking Soufrière Hills volcano taken from the water  129 Jaki Irvine, The Silver Bridge (2003), Eight Screen Video Installation, Video Still, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art   144 Jaki Irvine, The Silver Bridge (2003), Eight Screen Video Installation, Video Still, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art   145 Jaki Irvine, The Silver Bridge (2003), Eight Screen Video Installation, Video Still, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art   146 Jaki Irvine, The Silver Bridge (2003), Eight Screen Video Installation, Video Still, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art   146 Jaki Irvine, The Silver Bridge (2003), Eight Screen Video Installation, Video Still, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art   148 Jaki Irvine, The Silver Bridge (2003), Eight Screen Video Installation, Video Still, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art    149 Jaki Irvine, The Silver Bridge (2003), Eight Screen Video Installation, Video Still, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art   151 Thomas Mawhinney’s Castledawson network   188 Intersecting networks from Castledawson and Ballymena   190 An Orange community   191

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List of Tables 3.1 3.2 3.3

Ethnic Origins – British Isles as Percentage of Total Population of Newfoundland, 1951 and 1961   56 Ethnic Origins – British Isles, Canadian and Newfoundlander as Proportion of Total Population of Province, 1996, 2001 and 2006   58 Ethnic Origins – British Isles, Canadian and Newfoundlander as Proportion of Population of the Irish Loop, 1996, 2001, and 2006   59

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Notes on Contributors Kate Antosik-Parsons holds a PhD in Art History from University College Dublin where she was a scholar in the Graduate Research and Education Programme in Gender, Culture and Identity. Her dissertation entitled “Remembering and Forgetting: Memory and Gender in Contemporary Irish Time-Based Art” examined gendered memory in Irish performance, installation and video art. Her recent publications include articles on feminism and Irish performance art; masculinity in the work of Northern Irish Willie Doherty; and Modernist painter Elizabeth Rivers. She is a contributor to the forthcoming Volume III: Sculptors and Sculpture, 1600–2000, Art and Architecture of Ireland (Royal Irish Academy and Yale University Press, 2014). Kate was an editor of Artefact: The Journal of the Irish Association of Art Historians from 2010–2013. She currently lectures in Irish Studies at UCD where she previously lectured in Art History and Women’s Studies. Kate is a research associate of the UCD Humanities Institute. Tanya Saroj Bakhru, PhD is Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies at San Jose State University. Tanya completed her PhD in Women‘s Studies in 2007 from the Women‘s Education, Research, and Resource Centre at University College Dublin. Her dissertation, Reproductive Health and Globalization-A Cross Cultural Study examines the impact of mechanisms of globalization on reproductive health non-governmental organizations and their policy formation in Ireland and the United States. Tanya’s research interests include reproductive health and justice movements, feminist critiques of globalization and transnational feminist organizing. Her publications include “Immigration, Development, and Reproductive Health: The Case of a Globalizing Ireland” in Gender and Development: Reproductive Rights (July 2008); “Negotiating and Navigating the Rough Terrain of Transnational Feminist Research” in Journal of International Women‘s Studies (November 2008); and “State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2011: Reproductive Rights and Maternal Mortality” in Hoare, J. (Ed.), State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples: Minority Women’s Rights (2011). Rebecca Boyd’s primary research interest is the archaeology of the Viking Age and the experiences of ordinary people at that time – how everyday people lived and died. Prior to returning to academia, Dr. Boyd worked as a professional archaeologist on private and publicly funded projects. Dr. Boyd was awarded her PhD in 2012 for her thesis entitled “Viking Houses in Ireland and Western Britain, AD850–1100: A Social Archaeology of Dwellings, Households, and Cultural Identities”. This work pioneered the exploration of these houses as

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household expressions of identity. Other strands of Dr. Boyd’s work investigated migration, gender, and ethnicity in the Viking Age, household economies and structures, cultural identities and experimental archaeology. John F. Cherry is Joukowsky Family Professor of Archaeology, Professor of Classics, and (by courtesy) Professor of Anthropology at Brown University. His fieldwork has focused on landscape archaeology and survey in Greece, but he has also worked in Great Britain, the United States, Yugoslav Macedonia, Italy, Armenia, and (currently) Montserrat. He is co-author or co-editor of 12 books and is as present writing a book entitled Cretan Transformations, on sociopolitical change on Crete at the turn of the third millennium BC. He has been co-editor of the Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology for almost 25 years and is the General Series Editor for Joukowsky Institute Publications. G.E. Horn is a graduate of the National University of Ireland Maynooth and Victoria University of Wellington. His research interests include the Irish diaspora, nineteenth-century New Zealand, religious conflict and the development of national and communal identities. His prize-winning 2010 PhD examined Irish Protestant migration to the Wellington provincial district and he has published articles on Irish migration, the Orange Order and Irish settlement in rural New Zealand. Gerard is currently a visiting lecturer at the Church of Ireland College of Education in Dublin. Willeen Keough is the Chair of the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies and an Associate Professor of History at Simon Fraser University. Her research interests include gender, migration, ethnicity, communal violence, and oral history. She has disseminated her research extensively in published articles and books, at national and international conferences, in public lectures and workshops, and in radio interviews and documentaries. Her 2006 monograph, The Slender Thread: Irish Women on the Southern Avalon, 1750–1860 (Columbia University Press) received a Gutenberg-e Prize from the Arthur Mellon Foundation. She has also co-authored a textbook/reader, Gender and History: Canadian Perspectives, published by Oxford University Press (imprint 2014). She is currently working on a book-length project entitled Seal Wars: Conflicting Masculinities at the Labrador Front, for which she has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Laura McAtackney is an archaeologist researching on an Irish Research Council postdoctoral research fellowship at the School of Social Justice, University College Dublin (2012–2014). Her current research involves a multi-scalar approach to materialisations of female imprisonment at Kilmainham Gaol during the Irish Civil War (with a concentration on extant institutional graffiti) and the historic Irish presence on Montserrat with the SLAM project. She has previously been a Research Fellow at the John Hume Institute for Global Irish Studies, University

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College Dublin (January 2010–2012), where she researched politics, memory and identity in Irish and diaspora contexts. She continues to publish on materialisations of the Northern Irish Troubles that endure into the peace process and is publishing a monograph on the subject – An Archaeology of the Troubles: the dark heritage of Long Kesh / Maze prison – in early 2014 with Oxford University Press. Shane McCorristine is a Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Leicester where he is working on the “Harnessing the Power of the Criminal Corpse” project. McCorristine is an interdisciplinary geographer and historian with interests in cultural studies and the environmental humanities. He received his PhD in History from University College Dublin in 2008 and following this worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich, and the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge. He is currently a College Lecturer in Geography at Downing College, Cambridge, and his latest book is entitled William Corder and the Red Barn Murder: Journeys of the Criminal Body (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Dr. Sarah McMonagle is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for International Comparative and Intercultural Education at the University of Hamburg, Germany. Her current research focusses on multilingualism in urban and virtual spaces. She obtained her PhD from the University of Ulster in 2010 for her thesis entitled “The Irish language in post-Agreement in Northern Ireland: moving out of conflict?” In 2008 she was awarded the Dr Patrick Hillery Scholarship from the Ireland Canada University Foundation to undertake field research in Canada. William H. Mulligan, Jr. is Professor of History at Murray State University in Kentucky. He teaches a variety of courses in early American history and the history of Ireland and its diaspora. His current research focuses on the Irish in the nineteenth-century Michigan Copper Country and the varieties of Irish identity in the diaspora. Diane Sabenacio Nititham is Assistant Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Co-Director of the MA in Public Policy at National Louis University, Chicago. She completed her MA in Social and Cultural Foundations in Education in 2006 at DePaul University and her PhD in Sociology from University College Dublin in 2010. Her research areas include the intersections of diaspora, race/ ethnicity, migration; transnational social practices, and feminist critiques of home and belonging. Some of her work has appeared in international publications such as Translocations: The Irish Migration, Race and Social Transformation Review, Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies and Immigration and the Irish Experience of European and Global Transformation (2011), The “Myth of Return” in Transnational Migration: Issues of Leaving Home, Return, and the Way Its Imagined Amongst Asian Migrants (forthcoming 2013). Her current work explores how notions of identity and diaspora for Filipino and Irish communuties

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in Chicago are created, sustained and enacted through the consumption of food, drink and celebratory activities. Krysta Ryzewski is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. She is a historical archaeologist with fieldwork experience in the United States, Great Britain, and the Caribbean. She currently directs archaeological and archaeometric research projects in Detroit, Montserrat, and at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Her publications appear in a wide variety of academic venues, including the Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, Historical Archaeology, Journal of Field Archaeology, Physics Procedia, and Historical Metallurgy. Angèle Smith, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Northern British Columbia, Canada, is co-editor of Landscapes of Clearance: Anthropological and Archaeological Perspectives (2008) and has published on landscapes, place, citizenship, globalization, immigration, identity and belonging in Ireland and Canada. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Partnership award, she has undertaken a longitudinal research study of the process and experiences of asylum seekers in Ireland. As part of the internationally-based SSHRC Partnership award, her new research project focuses on young adult mobile tourism workers in Banff National Park, Canada.

Acknowledgements As with any collaborative project, there are many who are involved at different stages of the research, from ideas at their inception, to the collection of materials, speaking with participants, analysing data, seeking of permissions, and all the way through periods of writing. We are thankful for the efforts of our contributors, to Neil Jordan, Anne J. Kershen, our team at Ashgate, and our family and friends who have supported us along the way. We especially extend our gratitude to Simon Cronin and Kevin Tunney who not only provided constant support but also put up with many a night of tea, pizza and ice cream runs during the completion of this collection.

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Series Editor’s Preface The binary of Ireland and migration is almost a given in any discourse about the island, both before and after the separation of north and south. The movement of people features large in the history, yet tends to be restricted to those escaping the famines of the mid-nineteenth century, post-World War Two emigrants seeking economic opportunity and, more recently, the phenomenon of the Celtic Tiger which acted as a reverse magnet, drawing economic immigrants, and asylum seekers from all corners of the globe – the reception and treatment of the latter highlighted in a chapter in this volume. Yet, there is much more to the migration story of Ireland, than these popular points on the compass of history. The editors of this book have enabled their readers to travel back in time, to the arrival of the some of the earliest transnational migrants, the Vikings. Through the lens of an archaeological approach to migration we learn how the internal and external movement and settlement of people within, and to, the island, resulted in the creation of Ireland’s first urban cluster, one which evolved into the city of Dublin. We can also travel temporally and spatially to a modern day Caribbean and learn how an ‘Emerald Isle’ has been established on the island of Montserrat. In compiling this fascinating and scholarly collection on what the editors label, ‘Ireland’s migration story’, they have managed to fulfil one of the Studies in Migration and Diaspora series’ main raisons d’être: to present volumes which reflect the diversity of interests and disciplines engaged in migration and diasporic studies in the twenty-first century. Under one roof in this book we find specialists in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, art history, cultural studies, gender studies, health, history, language and religion. However, these disciplines are not found operating in isolation but, in many instances, interact and interrelate in order to enhance our awareness of the complexity of the way in which fundamental themes and theories of migration coalesce. In learning how past and present migrants within and beyond Ireland have set out to forget and remember, recreate and build anew, secure transnational links and eschew the same – globally as well as locally – we come away with a greater understanding of the Irish migrant experience over time. The lessons learnt provide a template for future studies of places and peoples whose migrant histories have been too simplistically logged. This is a book that has a relevance, not just for people interested in the island of Ireland, but for all engaged in the intricate study of migration and diaspora. Anne J. Kershen Queen Mary University of London Spring 2014

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Introduction: Movements in Irish Landscapes Diane Sabenacio Nititham and Rebecca Boyd

The sheer scale of mass emigration from Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has dominated the focus of research and public expression of the Irish diaspora. The significance of this mass emigration, mostly as a result of famine and labour exportation, can be seen globally in scholarship, arts and literature, memorials and other forms of popular culture in multiple genres. Conversations about emigrants are personalised and focus on the spirit of Irish migrants and their descendants, on memories associated with family separation, discrimination and adaptation in new landscapes. The processes of migration are reduced to discussions about modes of transport: the coffin ships of the 1840s; the mail boats to England of the mid-twentieth century; and the Ryanair effect of the twenty-first century. While these conversations are incredibly important, particularly because of the potential for personal and familial links from the present day to these parts of Ireland’s migration story, this focus on famine and labour migration overshadows the many other diverse migration relationships both within Ireland and connecting Ireland to the rest of the world. In this volume, we have tried to explore some of the lesser known facets of Ireland’s migration history, including the development of Viking settlements into urban dwellings, the presence of Ulster Protestants in New Zealand, the celebrations of St. Patrick’s Day in Montserrat and the challenges faced by immigrants to Ireland today. These case-studies reveal how very different historical, social and political dynamics of movements into and out of Ireland have been ignored by focussing on these twin peaks of recent historical migration from Ireland. A growing number of publications analyse contemporary diaspora, identity, and globalization in relation to Ireland. However, we embrace a transdisiplinary and transhistorical framework to address movements across the past 1,300 years of Ireland’s history. The authors in this volume explore different uses of social space, their relationships with and memories of the landscape, as well as their symbolic expressions of diasporic identity. The book provides a series of case studies that not only periodize diaspora and globalization, but also contribute to contemporary debates on home, heritage, foreignness and consumption. We approach diaspora not as a historical process, but rather as an on-going and contemporary dynamic. While our book recognises that historical trends foreground contemporary

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diasporic movements, we frame migration as something natural and evolutionary, and as something which becomes highly politicised within particular contexts. The authors in this volume consider how people have moved into, around, and out of Ireland from the Viking era right up to the present day. The chapters offer a fresh lens regarding narratives of movement, allowing a deeper analysis of Ireland’s migration relationships. By exploring these alternative movements, we complicate what constitutes Irish society by including other significant population movements to and from Ireland. This is particularly important because increasing anti-immigrant rhetoric in Ireland remains disconnected from Ireland’s diasporic history. The relationship between the Irish diaspora and anti-immigrant rhetoric is not always explicit. But, in more subtle and covert ways, the vilifying of migrants not only is a reproduction of internalized oppression and persecution, but also draws on existing discourse in popular culture, sensationalized media representations and the Irish diasporic experience. While much of public discourse in Ireland argues that the quick shift from a country of emigration to immigration is the reason for the emergence of discrimination, this over-simplification erases Ireland’s diasporic history. Quite simply, Ireland has always been a country of migration, both emigration and immigration. Our transhistorical and global examination of movements into and out of Ireland provides a thorough understanding of the cultural linkages involved with movement throughout the centuries. Each chapter in this anthology reveals how the processes of movement affect the ways in which people negotiate and contest concepts of identity, the local and the global. The research draws on theories grounded in multiple disciplines, engaging the intersections of home, location, identity and choice. Contextualizing globalization and diasporic formations throughout Ireland’s history and different settlements in one interdisciplinary forum places a new emphasis on understanding these movements. In consciously choosing to include work from different disciplines, we are not suggesting that disciplines are necessarily separate and distinct. We are aware that disciplinary boundaries are mutable, often overlap and that, in reality, the distinctions between disciplines can be less than they appear. Our goal is to put theoretical frameworks in conversation with each other, given the varying approaches to gathering and analysing data. The chapters demonstrate how Irish diasporic subjects negotiate racial, ethnic, religious, cultural and gendered lines, but all are connected by their consideration of movement. This is validated by the occurrence of key themes and concepts across the chapters, such as place and belonging, agency and choice and home and mobility. We believe that in bringing different disciplines together, we provide a platform for readers to use this work as a springboard to stimulate further discussion between the humanities and social sciences. The chapters are arranged around three themes: expressions of home and location; memory, identity and material culture; and global culture and consumption. By no means do we argue that these three themes cover all formations of Ireland and its relationship to diaspora, especially given that our stated aim is to expand discussions of the Irish diaspora beyond simplistic categories like famine

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migration. Rather, we focus on these three areas to make explicit the complex dynamics of globalization and diasporic formations throughout Ireland’s history. The first section, Rethinking Place and Location, contains contributions from archaeology, history, socio-cultural geography and anthropology. The chapters explore how populations, consciously or sub-consciously, frame and negotiate their own relationships via considerations of place and location. The significance of place and location emerges through the shaping of social relationships and subjectivity and reveals that Ireland’s populations and their relationships with the landscape are multidirectional. We open with Boyd’s discussion of life in Viking Age Dublin. Through examining the archaeological evidence for boundaries in ninth to twelfth century Dublin, she re-frames the establishment of Ireland’s first town, Dublin, as a major moment within Ireland’s migration history. People moved from the countryside to live in the town, thus creating a new cycle of movement of people around what had previously been a very confined society. The creation and maintenance of household boundaries allowed the townspeople to create private spaces within a complex urban world where new social networks and relationships had to be constantly negotiated. Moving closer to modern times, McCorristine’s chapter adds to understandings of the Irish diaspora through reframing the Famine in the context of contemporary events in Doolough in Mayo, specifically the Shell to Sea controversy and Famine memorial walks. McCorristine argues that the Famine is not simply a historical event; its legacies remain ongoing, maintained and re-created in commemoration, in representations of the landscape, in heritage events and symbolic and material contestations of belonging. Further, its legacies play a role in collective memory and relationships with Ireland and its diaspora around the world. In engaging a social and cultural geographical framework, McCorristine’s examination of the Doolough tragedy shows the power and strength embedded in nineteenth-century perceptions of wild places such as Mayo as liminal spaces. The chapter also shows that the sense of suffering continues over geographic, temporal and spatial boundaries, as famines and migrations cannot be, as McCorristine says, ‘neatly bookended’. Widening our scope, Keough focuses on Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula where she explores how heritage and the landscape serve as modalities for both remembering and forgetting. In looking at cultural tourism in this part of Newfoundland, Keough argues that cultural tourism is more complex than just commodification of ethnicity. She suggests that it is also a response to economic survival, in the face of the disastrous cod-fishing moratorium which affected thousands of ‘Newfies’ and their families. In response to this disaster, the communities of the Avalon Peninsula and the Newfoundland government actively chose to recast themselves as an ‘Irish’ diasporic destination, deliberately manipulating this image to re-establish some social and economic continuity and stability.

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Returning again to Ireland, the section concludes with Smith’s valuable contribution to the ethnographic account of asylum seekers and refugees, a topic which has largely been overlooked. Smith’s chapter, points to the complex intersections of the neoliberal landscape of ‘integration’ and migration status. Unlike other migrants, asylum seekers and refugees are not often able to choose their destination country, nor do they have the same means or attitudes towards participation in everyday life. Instead, Smith argues that they are cast as consumers in an asylum-seeker market which controls their accommodation options, and their access to an industry of support services. Indeed, their own movements are confined by this system, which keeps them under close surveillance and leaves them in a contradictory and liminal space. They are at once excluded socially and spatially from Irish daily life, yet fully part of a market system that benefits from their exclusion. Smith explores how asylum seekers seek to move beyond these confines by participating in large scale community events which allow them to express and display their own cultural heritages. Contributions to Section II, Memory and Mobility, come from history, anthropology, art history and feminist frameworks. These authors address how memories of belonging, displacement and the denial of belonging are narrated in Ireland, the US and the Caribbean. The timeframe and location of these case studies – pre-Famine and contemporary New World and Ireland – expands the discussion of the movements of Irish population groups beyond the traditionally accepted dimensions of the Irish diaspora and into the less recognised terrains of Michigan and Montserrat. Writing on the history of the Irish diaspora in the US, Mulligan remarks that the diaspora is quite diverse, despite the image of being heavily Roman Catholic. Although academic literature and popular culture have long supported the Irish Catholic view, pre-1830 arrivals were from the north of Ireland and mostly Protestant, while post-1830 arrivals were from the south and west and predominantly Catholic and poor. In discussing Irish mining communities in Upper Michigan, Mulligan challenges a common perception that the Irish were able to ‘make it’ in the US because they were able to speak English. He further argues that the process of becoming American was different for Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics, revealing that even within the diversity of the Irish in the US, as well as a shared experience of discrimination, social positioning is a crucial dynamic in being accepted in the destination country. McAtackney, Ryzewski and Cherry examine the process of becoming in their discussion of the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean – Montserrat. Although the Carribbean is not traditionally thought of as being part of the Irish diaspora, their work has shown a significant Irish population on Montserrat from the seventeenth century. As with McCorristine, Keough and Smith’s contributions, McAtackney, Ryzewski and Cherry discuss the active choice in commemoration of a national heritage, this time regarding Irish heritage on Montserrat. While the island officially adopted St. Patrick’s Day as a national holiday, the authors’ exploration of newspaper articles from the mid-twentieth century onwards reveal a complex

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and conflicting internal discussion within Montserrat on how, and indeed, whether or not, this Irish heritage should be celebrated. Antosik-Parsons’s analysis of migration in the work of contemporary Irish artists neatly ties together migration, memory and displacement. This analysis not only adds to Mulligan’s and McAtackney, Ryzewski and Cherry’s discussions of becoming, but also speaks well to McCorristine’s and Smith’s discussions of liminality and place. In looking at time-based art, Antosik-Parsons examines how Jaki Irvine’s The Silver Bridge (2003), an eight screen video installation, negotiates the liminality of migration through deliberate manipulations of time including looping and skipping. She argues that the installation also references the return migration of Irish emigrants to Ireland during the Celtic Tiger period, a phenomenon that produces its own challenges with integration, resettlement and belonging. Antosik-Parsons contends that The Silver Bridge engages with these contemporary challenges, but instead of focusing on human relationships, it uses human and animal relationships, positioning men and women against wild animals in different locations around Dublin. The complications and contradictions of return to Ireland through the lens of time-based art provide a visual engagement of the in-between spaces of contemporary migration, memory and place. The final section, Global Culture and Consumption, addresses how diasporic movements intersect with globalization, commemoration and consumer culture. The research, situated in linguistics, history, sociology and women’s studies, contributes to conversations on how larger social institutions affect individual choice and are inseparable from the construction of Irish identity. Further, this section also addresses the impact of transnational networks on community discourses. Given that Irish emigration remains iconic, the authors problematize how understandings of Irishness and migrant identity are disconnected from Ireland’s political realities and global positioning in the diaspora. Returning again to Canada, McMonagle explores how the study of the Irish language has been instrumental in Irishness in Canada. It provides an opportunity to examine the meaning-making processes of emigrants from Ireland and the significance of learning Irish in the contemporary diaspora. Contrary to assumptions that Irish was not spoken among Irish emigrants due to assimilation to English or French, McMonagle contends that this is not the case. The chapter points to evidence that Irish was not only spoken, but also remains significant among members of the contemporary diaspora. Taught in Canadian universities and dedicated spaces, the Irish language is embedded in discourses of Irishness within a multicultural and multilingual Canada. These discourses, connected to real and imagined memories of Ireland, provide insight into language as a signifier of belonging and relationships with the diasporic homeland, as well as a tool to examine space, time and community. Moving to the antipodes of Ireland, Horn considers how an ‘unquestionably ... political and religious organisation’ like the Orange Order was vital to the creation and maintenance of social networks in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century New Zealand. Social networks, he argues, are important in one’s home country, but

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even more so when one leaves home. These social networks also serve as a space to meet the needs of new migrants, such as a place for new migrants to connect to existing relationships and create new ones. His examination of the archives of the Order in Wellington show that, although it existed as a political organisation, the activities its members most often engaged in were socialising, charity and mutual aid. He suggests that not everyone involved in Orange Order lodge activities may have been part of or sympathised with the Orange Order, but the lodges served a place to connect, interact and create/maintain social networks – an important part of migrant life. The ways in which migrants use social networks to connect with other migrants takes shape in many forms. In a discussion on social practices and belonging, Nititham’s ethnography examines how Filipino migrants in contemporary Ireland orient themselves towards food. Drawing on a multi-sited study involving participant observation and interviews, Nititham argues that the importance placed on gathering around food provides opportunities to examine the ways in which migrants organise themselves within the political and social landscape of Ireland. Further, because people react and respond in a myriad of ways to the dynamics of diaspora, looking at the ways in which people enact a sense of belonging in Ireland is more useful than presuming that Filipinas developed relationships with other Filipinos simply because they shared a common origin. The chapter also provides insight into the ways that diasporic subjects organise, wherein experiences of othering is often a motivating factor underpinning socialisation. In the final chapter, Bakhru investigates notions of reproductive choice and how those choices are informed by global capitalism. Bakhru highlights key issues for individuals and communities living in Ireland that lack the power and resources that are necessary to carry out reproductive health issues that they may want to make. Adding to Smith’s discussion of living among restrictions and exclusions, Bakhru examines how women’s lives and bodies sit at the intersections of movement, consumption and choice. Bakhru urges that the narratives of those whose movement to and within Ireland is restricted (such as refugee and asylum seeking women, poor women or women who are under the care of the State) sit at the crossroads of the debate around health as a human right versus health as a product one can consume. This volume points to the wide geography of ‘Irish’ experiences, widening the time frame of discussion over the centuries. It examines social spaces and the development of Ireland in the imagination alongside the social costs that migration often brings. Whilst the content of each chapter may appear disparate, and we have placed chapters in three thematic sections, there are several key concepts which run through the works. The importance of social networks is one such theme. To this end, the concept of ‘connecting sites’ in Nititham’s chapter provides a framework to see how place and space can be utilised to connect diverse groups. These ‘connecting sites’ can also be seen in the contemporary time-based Irish art; the meaning-making practices of asylum seekers and refugees and the liminal roles they are forced to play; in socialisation patterns among Michigan miners,

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in Orange Order lodges, and food gatherings; and in public display and heritage. The significance of public displays and heritage also appears in each section, with Boyd’s suggestion of commemoration through the repeated building of physical boundaries in Dublin, working through the Famine, and also through St. Patrick’s Day and international celebrations both in Ireland and abroad. Taken together, the essays suggest a provocation of traditional notions of the Irish diaspora, its heritage and relationship with migration around the world. The diverse disciplinary training of the authors brings new rigor, angles and conversations, given the variety of methodologies, which include archival work, ethnography, participant observation and content analysis. By examining these key issues, we are not attempting to minimize the other important conversations in the dominant work in Irish studies. Instead, we specifically seek a reframing in order to show the underrepresented movements and relationships with Ireland over the centuries. Purposefully or not, people engage the Irish diaspora as they make place. We argue that multiple landscapes of the Irish diaspora emerge and are sustained at the nexus of migration, consumption, local and national forces. This volume, by closely examining these narratives, sheds new light on Ireland as a diaspora nation.

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Section I Rethinking Place and Location

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Chapter 1

Building Fences in Viking Dublin: Exploring Ireland’s First Urban Community Rebecca Boyd

The world of early medieval Ireland, (c.400–1200AD), was, by and large, one in which people stayed close to home. Society was essentially tribal, arranged around the túath, the tribe or kin-group (Kelly, 1988, p. 3). The survival of contemporary legal texts shows that only a limited number of persons were permitted to travel around the country: royalty or professionals such as poets, lawyers, and clergy. These were nemed, ‘privileged’, either because of their inherited rights, or their professional standing (Kelly, 1988, chs 1 and 2). Ordinary people who left their own túath ran the risk of losing all their legal rights, becoming ambue (a nonperson), while mention is made of cu glas (literally ‘grey dogs’), exiles from overseas, who also had no honour price or legal standing (Kelly, 1988, pp. 5–6). Early medieval Ireland was not a society which welcomed migration or mobility, outside its own clearly defined set of rules. The arrival in the late ninth century of Viking raiders heralded major changes for Irish society. The very nature of Viking raiding is based on movement and mobility, attacking quickly and leaving again with plunder and slaves. The early raids conformed to this pattern, but by the mid-ninth century, the Vikings were staying for months at a time, launching raids from longphorts (shipcamps or bases), acting as mercenaries for hire, and marrying into Irish society (Valante, 2008). This coincided with the establishment of Ireland’s first real town: Dublin. The role of the Scandinavians in the development of urbanism is, as yet, something of a chicken-and-egg scenario: did the Vikings introduce towns to Ireland from northern Europe, or did these emerging markets attract the raiders? Either way, the creation of this new way of life introduced a new narrative within Irish society – that of movement to and from the towns. This narrative became a complex one, with dialogues of movements emerging on local, regional and national scales, supplying the towns with labour, raw materials, foodstuffs, building supplies and a ready market for the items made and imported by the townspeople. The Scandinavian involvement (through their shipping capabilities) added a further international dimension, transporting both raw materials and finished goods into and out of Ireland to Scandinavia, the North Atlantic, Russia and the East, as well as to England and the continent. Limited exchanges of goods and people from Europe and Britain are evidenced throughout prehistoric and early medieval Ireland (indeed St. Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint, was British, not Irish), but in

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the Viking Age, the scale of these exchanges intensified dramatically, from the occasional trade of luxury, portable items (Valante, 2008, p. 36), to bulky, lowvalue commodities such as slaves and agricultural produce like butter, cheese and wheat (Valante, 2008, p. 134). Ireland, and in particular, her towns, was a very different place by the end of the twelfth century than it had been before the Vikings arrived. Towns are not traditionally viewed as immigrant communities, but that is essentially what they were. Throughout Europe, medieval urban populations, under threat from disease and high infant mortality, engaged in a continuous cycle of recruiting new townspeople from the countryside (Hanawalt, 1993, p. 23); as individuals and households died out, they were replaced by new members of the community. The first towns were composed of migrant households moving from the countryside (perhaps from just a few miles distant, or from much further afield) into this new type of settlement. As towns developed and grew, the numbers of people moving into them also grew, as did the relationships between the town and its hinterlands. These relationships also extended much further than the local hinterland, creating regional, national and international links between Dublin and the rest of Ireland, as well as Britain, Scandinavia, the North Atlantic, continental Europe and Asia. These relationships were multi-directional; not only did people and goods move into the town from the countryside, but ideas and influences spread from the towns back to the countryside. It is this process of exchange and movement of people which lends itself to viewing urban-rural networks of movement as part of Ireland’s diaspora. The hinterland supplied daily essentials for the town, as well as a necessary and ready market. The most important resource in this relationship, however, was the people who not only facilitated these exchanges and networks, but carried them out by walking, riding, or sailing into and out of the towns. A Sense of Place Place is a very influential concept within human geography, anthropology, ethnology and other social sciences, and has become more widespread in social archaeology (Meskell and Preucel, 2007, p. 215). Space and place are two very different concepts – space is the physical setting around us, while place is the result of the “social process of valuing space” (Meskell and Preucel, 2007, p. 215). The creation of ‘place’ is the result of a person acknowledging a connection to a physical space and placing value upon that connection (Rodman, 2003). Hazel Easthope defines place as somewhere which ‘can be a very influential force in one’s life’ and provides one with ‘a sense of belonging and comfort’ (2004, pp. 131–2). Easthope distinguishes between a conscious awareness of place – a sense of place – and an unselfconscious feeling of being comfortable in your place – rootedness (2004, p. 130).

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In everyday life, people in early medieval Ireland typically moved around a very limited world, encompassing their own homesteads and families, and a small social and geographical network of neighbours, local lords and kings, and their households. This resulted in a deep connection to the birthplace and home, with settlement sites demonstrating occupation over centuries (O’Sullivan, 2008, O’Sullivan and Nicholl, 2011). Special deposits on the floors of abandoned houses indicate important events in the lifespans of the houses and their households, perhaps the death of a matriarch figure (O’Sullivan, 2008, p. 238). Individual houses were demolished and rebuilt, but homesteads were occupied over decades and even centuries, indicating a long-term connection to place. This connection would have been missing in the early years of Dublin’s establishment, before the town had acquired its own sense of place. Households and communities work on many different scales, from the local to the global (Souvatzi, 2008, pp. 1–4), and, in an urban context, the property within which the household is situated becomes an important locale in the negotiation of those scales. Properties are not simply important because they were defined pieces of land in the town, but also because they were the location for the household – they were the places where people lived and worked. As such, the properties hold the key to understanding how the household viewed itself in relation to the wider world. In 989AD, the annalistic entry in the Chronicon Scotorum records that an ounce of gold was to be levied from each garrda (garden or garth) (Wallace, 2000, p. 264). This further emphasises the role that these divisions between households played, not only in terms of bounding movements, but also in regulating the economic and administrative functions of the town. Wallace rightly identifies these boundaries as ‘the very essence of town life’ (Wallace, 2000, p. 263) and argues that understanding the boundaries is crucial to understanding how the people of the Viking towns related to each other. Viking Dublin – Ireland’s First Town Excavations show that people were present in Dublin from the Mesolithic period onwards (Moriarty, 2011) but it is in 841–842AD that an annalist comments that “the heathens [are] still at Duiblinn” (Anon. 842). This brief line denotes the first over-wintering of Scandinavian Vikings in Dublin and is traditionally taken as the first reference to the town of Dublin. From these small beginnings, the city of Dublin emerged, growing from this simple settlement through the medieval period to become the British Empire’s second city in the seventeenth and eighteenth century and the global centre of today. Dublin represents Ireland’s first successful experiment in urbanism, and as such, it is uniquely positioned to pose, and answer, questions about the growth of urbanism in Ireland and about how people adopted and adapted to an urban life. Viking Dublin’s archaeology is now well-known, thanks to half a century of intensive excavations (Simpson, 2011 provides an extensive survey of these

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excavations). Within the Viking and medieval town, a constant cycle of rubbish dumping, construction and demolition of buildings and the replacement of pathways and floors led to a steady rise in contemporary ground-level, resulting in the preservation of metres of archaeological deposits underneath our feet. Thanks to water-logged soils in these deposits, which provide excellent archaeological preservation, the quality of Dublin’s Viking-Age remains is exceptional, allowing the recovery of many thousands of artefacts, from rubbish and craft debris to uniquely ornamented pieces of jewellery, to entire buildings, properties and streetscapes.

Figure 1.1

Map of Dublin showing main sites mentioned in chapter

Source: Rebecca Boyd

In brief, Dublin was founded around the banks of the rivers Poddle and Liffey and the Black Pool (under modern-day Dublin Castle). From the beginning, individual properties and households were enclosed by simple wooden fences. The earliest urban settlement evidence dates to the mid to late ninth century, approximately the same historical date given in the Annals for the Viking presence in Dublin. Settlement expanded westwards and southwards and by the mideleventh century, estimates suggest that approximately 4500 people lived within Dublin’s stone walls (Geraghty, 1996, p. 58). The early town was enclosed by a series of clay banks, which were slowly enlarged and expanded, culminating in the stone wall of the twelfth century. The main streets of the town ran east-west (along

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modern Dame St and High St), with smaller streets and lanes criss-crossing the town. Modern placenames hint at the presence of specific industries at particular places, e.g. Fishamble Street denoting medieval fish markets, while the surviving network of parish churches indicates a strong religious presence from the medieval period (Clarke, 2002). There must also have been market and assembly places in the early town, although the evidence for these has mostly disappeared. Individual properties were set at right angles to the streets, creating long, thin slices of land, again, bounded by fences. Excavations of thirteenth-century levels show that, some four hundred years after that first over-wintering, the inhabitants of the city still lived within the narrow, long property plots (Coughlan, 2000). It is possible to re-trace the lines of boundaries back through twenty-first century satellite imagery, nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ordnance Survey maps, fifteenth- to seventeenth-century maps, and through excavation plans to demonstrate boundary continuity right up to the modern day (Simpson, 2006, Wallace, 2004). These properties, containing buildings, yards, animal pens, rubbish dumps, storage pits and so on, are a key component in the social world of Viking Dublin, and also an important piece of evidence for understanding how individual households related to the wider, urban society. The Appearance of the Boundary Fence The boundaries of Viking Dublin are one of the most continuous and obvious features of its archaeology – lines of fences built and rebuilt over generations and centuries dividing houses from their neighbours. The fences themselves are quite simple constructions and usually consist of several stretches of post-and-wattle fences linked together to form a continuous boundary. They are set at a right angle to the street, forming long and narrow properties. Post-and-wattle is a wooden building technique whereby thin lengths of a flexible wood (usually hazel) are woven in between upright stakes (most commonly ash). The resulting panel looks somewhat like a lattice panel and is a very common woodwork technique in prehistoric and early medieval Ireland, found in house construction, fences and pathways. The fences could be augmented by topping them with thorns, presumably in an attempt to stop trespassing across the top of the fence (Ó Corráin, 2005, p. 555). In addition, at High Street and Winetavern Street, blackthorn branches (a native Irish thorny tree) were woven into the bases of several fences (Murray, 1983, p. 20, Murray, 1979, p. 84), again presumably to deter trespassing under the fences. Buildings were often built up against boundary fences, and in many cases, the fences were themselves incorporated into the structure walls. At other times, the walls of the buildings themselves appear to have acted as boundaries. In some properties, no fences have survived, but the archaeological deposits respect some now invisible line and so the original boundaries can be inferred. As far as can be determined, from the location of excavation trenches, these boundaries extended along most of the length of the properties to the front and

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back. While the boundaries may consist of different stretches of fencing, they form a continuous line and the boundaries between different properties are almost never breached by gaps. There are only three examples of access from one yard to the next. Wallace (2005, p. 824) cites one example in Castle Street, Dublin, where a wattle panel, left in a gap in the boundary fence, was interpreted as a gate. Two further examples come from a late tenth to early eleventh century level in Temple Bar West; there was a gap in the fence between properties two and three and a formal pathway between properties three and four (Simpson, 2002, p. 438, p. 449). These are the only known occasions of access between properties and it seems that the overwhelming preference was to maintain the divisions between properties and restrict access to either the front or back of the property. The height of the fences is also important as this would have helped to maintain a degree of visual separation between the properties. Wallace maintains that the fences were relatively low, and his reconstruction drawings depict the fences as waist height.1 At least one fence at Fishamble Street survived to a height of 0.9m,2 but other fences may have been higher or lower (particularly given the 1.8m height of the nochtaile in the Bretha Comaithchesa, see below). Certainly, in terms of acting as a barrier to the movement of cows or sheep across fields and neighbouring farms, a low fence is not very effective. However, cows and sheep were not reared within the towns, being driven in ‘on-the-hoof’ for butchery when ready to be slaughtered. Instead, the townspeople mostly kept chickens and pigs as food animals within the town, while dogs, cats, rats and mice were also common sights (Poole, 2013, pp. 151–2). Fences lower than 1.8m in height would have been quite sufficient to deter these urban animals from leaving their homes. The boundaries performed a very practical function – they were barriers restricting movement and separating spaces, animals and people. The existence of these boundaries from the very earliest occupation levels indicates that this practical function was a necessity from the establishment of the town. These fences acted as physical, visual and mental deterrents and it may have been that the social message displayed by erecting and maintaining the boundary fences was the important message, and any function as animal fences was a secondary (though still vital) function. Fences in Early Medieval Ireland and Ninth Century Dublin A late seventh-century law text – the Bretha Comaithchesa or the Judgements of Neighbourhood – considers the question of boundaries in early medieval Ireland, dealing especially with the question of trespass by domestic animals (Kelly, 1988,

1 For example, the sketch by Michael Heffernan appearing in Larsen, 2001, p. 136. 2 Although found in a collapsed state, this fence (E190:F1569 – A. Corless, pers. comm.) would have stood 0.9m high. This does not however take into account the depth to which this fence would have been sunken into the ground.

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p. 273).3 The text sets out the four different types of fences used to mark out lands and prevent trespass (Ó Corráin, 1983). These fences are: the ditch (clas); the stone fence (cora); the oak fence (dairime); and the post-and-wattle fence, known as a felmed or nochtaile or ‘bare fence’. The text describes the nochtaile as follows: it is effective against damscuithit (both full-grown and small animals); a small animal cannot go through it because of its closeness, an ox cannot go through it because of its height and its firmness. It is twelve fists high. There are three courses of wickerwork in it: one at the bottom, one in the middle and one at the top. Each paling post is levelled (smoothed) at the top. They (the paling posts) are pushed down by hand as far as possible and each paling post is given three blows of a mallet. A foot to the joint of the big toe is the distance between each two paling posts. The paling post extends three fists above the wickerwork and there is a crest of blackthorn on it. If that is on it, it is impassable to stock. (Ó Corráin, 1983, p. 248)4

Ó Corráin interprets this as a description of a fence which was 1.8m in height and was primarily intended to inhibit the movement (in or out) of animals. The nochtaile was noted by the glossator as being used on the tilled pastureland, but must have been used more widely than this. Although the Bretha Comaithchesa is a seventh-century text, Ó Corráin believes that “it can be reasonably assumed that the fencing methods described predate the text by a generous period, and remained in use long after the 7th century” (Ó Corráin, 1983, p. 247). The text implies that there was a clear difference in status between the different types of fences. The nochtaile is the least important of the fences and Ó Corráin suggests that it may have acted as a temporary or seasonal fence. Thus, it is not surprising to see that the fences marking out initial landholdings (at Temple Bar West) are post-and-wattle, as this would be a suitable fence type to use to mark out new property lines. What is surprising is that the post-and-wattle fence remained in use in the town from this point onwards, as this fence was primarily intended as a short-lived fence in pastureland. Ditches and stone fences are much more permanent boundary markers. However, these fences are physically much bigger and are less practical where land is at a premium, as both stone fences and ditches had to measure three feet in width. In contrast, a post-and-wattle fence need only have measured a few inches wide and would take up much less space. It was also relatively easy and cheap to repair or replace, an important consideration given the constantly rising ground levels of the town.

3 This text is found in the Ancient Laws of Ireland, Volume IV, pp. 69–159. 4 Ó Corráin equates two fists to one foot (30 centimetres), therefore a fence of twelve fists is six feet or 1.8m high (Ó Corráin, 1983, p. 251).

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Who Built the First Fences? Those constantly rising ground levels ensured that the fences had to be replaced, as they were slowly buried underneath the rising ground level. It is unclear how many years a fence may have survived, but houses probably had to be replaced every 20–25 years (Bourke, 1995, Geraghty, 1996) and the pathways within properties, whilst needing periodic re-laying, were maintained across two to three levels of housing (up to 70 years or so). Individual sections of fences may have had a longer or shorter lifespan, but the lines of the boundaries are maintained across centuries. Fishamble St is the type site for Hiberno-Norse Dublin, and there, the exact property boundaries are maintained over fourteen levels of housing – up to three centuries (as in Fishamble St., see fig. 48.3, Wallace, 2010). However, who was the first to erect a boundary fence in what would become Dublin? The earliest fences excavated are from the Temple Bar West site where, in the ninth century, a series of three individual properties were established (Simpson, 1999, Simpson, 2002). Wallace suggests that understanding the reasons for the establishment of property boundaries is key to understanding the development of urbanism and urban networks. However, most of Wallace’s coverage of the properties has been in relation to what the existence of these boundaries means in terms of authority and administration (Wallace, 2005, Wallace, 2000, Wallace, 2004, Wallace, 1987b, Wallace, 1987a). Wallace initially suggested that the static nature of the property boundaries may have been as a result of “the forces of tradition and practice” (Wallace, 1987b, p. 273). Since then, he has maintained that the boundaries are not evidence of day-to-day life, but witnesses to questions of civil administration and authority (2000, p. 265). The existence of such an authority in Viking Age Dublin is unclear. While a Dublin mint (a traditional symbol of civic or royal authority) was established by the late tenth century (Kenny, 2005, p. 846), new research suggests that this mint was established by the mercantile community to regulate their trades, rather than an imposition by a ruler (Woods, 2013). The use of a nochtaile may also hint at the mindset of those who first enclosed their houses. The nochtaile was primarily a temporary fence, not intended to last for longer than a season or two. This may reflect a certain mentality amongst the early settlers – that of a migrant marking out their own space with no clear idea of how long they would stay in that space. Rather than investing in a stone fence or a ditch, the simple wooden fence made the necessary statement of ownership for these urban migrants. The first boundaries at Temple Bar West are associated with a settlement which does not have any obvious signs of hierarchy, wealth or exceptional status as would be associated with the emergence of an elite or socially superior class. Indeed, Simpson has recently noted ‘a significant level of communal organisation’ in the construction of a roadway in addition to property plots (Simpson, 2011, p. 32). There is nothing at Temple Bar West to suggest the presence of an over-ruling ‘authority’ or an administration intent on imposing order on this new settlement. Indeed, the identification of elite warrior graves

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and a potential ceremonial structure at South Great Georges St, north of Temple Bar West (Simpson, 2005, Simpson, 2010), would seem to suggest that any such presence in ninth-century Dublin was removed both spatially and socially from the everyday settlement as found at Temple Bar West. Instead, it seems more likely that the fences were erected at a community level, built by the people themselves, thus favouring Wallace’s original suggestion of ‘tradition and practice’. The repair and replacement of the fences is expected, given the short-term nature of post-and-wattle fencing, but the maintenance of the exact lines (give or take a few inches) is not. An importance is attached to these lines which transcends their practicality. This importance is emphasised later, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when a new type of architecture (sill-beam construction) arrives in both Waterford and York (Hall, 1994, p. 64, Hurley et al., 1997, p. 897). The new sill-beam houses were constricted to remain within the lines of each property, strongly suggesting that maintaining the boundaries was more important than the introduction of new construction skills. The lines of the boundaries can be traced over several centuries at sites with deep stratigraphies and even into modern times (Simpson, 2006, p. 113). These boundaries are almost religiously curated and one gets the impression that changing boundary lines was not ‘allowed’. Simpson (2006, p. 113) suggests that there is nothing special about the fixed nature of these boundaries – boundaries are, by definition, limits to movement and change – but it is exactly this unchanging nature which makes these boundaries remarkable. The fact that these boundary ‘rules’ are almost never breached implies that the whole of society accepted and agreed upon them. There must have been a clear societal expectation of what was ‘done’ and expected in order to allow the boundaries to endure, again providing further support for the argument that the boundaries were a communal endeavour, as opposed to an imposition. Viewing the creation and maintenance of boundaries as a communal endeavour also opens up the possibility that they may have helped the community to establish their own connections to this new settlement. The act of bounding land into individual properties not only established land ownership and rights, but also may have enabled each household to begin to create their own sense of place and of belonging within the new town. The fences marked the connection of a property with the land and the history of the town, and so also denoted the connections of the household of that property with the town. A Question of Privacy? Hand in hand with the development of urbanism came the realities of living in towns. Prior to the emergence of towns, every household lived at a remove from their neighbours, set within larger or smaller farmsteads, and they were largely self-sufficient. Each domestic residence was surrounded by field systems, yards and often substantial earthen boundary ditches, providing a sense of isolation and seclusion for the residents. A similarly dispersed pattern of settlement is evident

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in pre-Viking and Viking-Age Scandinavia. A survey of the literary sources from Ireland, Scandinavia and Iceland show some clear similarities between these societies, particularly in terms of the proprieties involved in entering another’s property. The Crith Gabhlach, an early eighth-century Irish law text, details the fines payable for damaging another’s land or holdings, suggesting that there was an acceptable code of behaviour in relation to other people’s property. Privacy in and around the home was also heavily protected with a series of fines assigned for breaches of privacy. These breaches ranged from simply looking into the farmyard, right up to entering the house without permission (Kelly, 1988, p. 110). Similar concerns for privacy and correct behaviours are also hinted at in the Icelandic sagas. Orri Vésteinnson (2006) tells the story of a visitor arriving at an Icelandic longhouse and makes the visitor circumnavigate the house to enter via the main door, based on saga evidence. As always, the dating of these documentary sources must be borne in mind; the Crith Gablach and the Bretha Comaithchesa are both seventh-century documents, while sagas such as the Íslendingasögur (Sagas of the Icelanders) were first transcribed in the thirteenth century (Ólason, 1998, p. 19). The critical question of how far these texts, some legal, some historical, some fantastical, can be used to reflect upon tenth- and eleventh-century realities must be borne in mind. Regardless of this caveat, these texts do imply that household privacy was a matter of some concern in contemporary Ireland, Scandinavia and Iceland – the most likely places of origin for the new townspeople. In the towns, the houses are divided only by these light wooden boundary fences and, perhaps, a few metres of open ground. Each property was surrounded by other properties on both sides and with roads, lanes and alleys to the front and back. The new townspeople found themselves living cheek by jowl, able to see into their neighbours’ properties and overhear their conversations, in contrast to the isolation of the farmstead. At the same time, they would have become aware that the neighbours could also see and hear them and their families. In the compact urban landscape, it may have been more difficult to maintain a sensation of privacy within and around the home, with neighbours on all sides. In addition, the world outside the property would also have impinged on those within its boundaries. The towns were filled with the strange and the exotic: traders, sailors, warriors, visitors, products, materials and ideas, literally passing outside one’s door. The private and public domains of the household engage at the front of the property, at the juncture between the private home and the public world, as represented by the street right outside the house. It is in the street and through the street that new ideas, trends, and thoughts are brought literally to the door of the house and the household. The Viking-Age town was a fast-paced environment, especially in comparison to the rural farmsteads, in which its occupants had to negotiate their way through a collision of old and new, familiar and strange, known and unknown. In this environment, the fences were not simply barriers to movement: they were also a means of separating the household – the private sphere – from the rest of the world – the public sphere. The act of bounding a

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household’s space was the key to creating a feeling of household privacy and place in that rapidly-changing townscape. Property Boundaries and Property Lifecycles Anthropological work has established that the lifespan of a house has an important role to play in how the groups which build, use and abandon that house regard the building (Carsten and Hugh-Jones, 1995, Waterson, 1997). The house is viewed as a ‘living’ entity with a lifecycle of its own, often linked to prestigious members of society or life events such as birth, marriage or death. Houses in prehistoric and early medieval Ireland also have been linked to the lifecycles of the families which occupied them (Smyth, 2006, Brück, 2008, O’Sullivan, 2008, O’Sullivan and Nicholl, 2011), as have individual houses in Scandinavia and the North Atlantic (Munch et al., 2003, p. 295, Gerritsen, 2003). These buildings and settlements represent ancestral homes, occupied over centuries and, although some of their structures may have changed, their long-term existence within a settlement area legitimated the household’s existence and control over the land. Allison (1999, p. 4) argues that the majority of people do not dwell in houses which they have designed, instead living either in ancestral homes (Viking longhouses) or in the style of building preferred by the dominant social grouping. Unfortunately for their occupants, the post-and-wattle houses of Viking Dublin were simply not built to last and the ancestral homes argument does not hold true as there are no multi-generational ancestral homes. This does not appear to have been a matter of choice on the part of the occupants; environmental factors such as decay of building materials and rising ground levels meant that houses had to be rebuilt. A post-and-wattle townhouse may have lasted as little as ten years, but most estimates put the lifespan around twenty to twenty-five years (Bourke, 1995, p. 34, Geraghty, 1996, p. 63, Hall et al., 1983, p. 190). The longest period of occupation for a multi-phase building is four phases (this is house A9, Werburgh Street, Dublin, see Hayden, 2002). This is exceptional and it is more likely that a building would be reused over two phases, potentially a period as short as 25 or 30 years, if conservative estimates of house lifespans are used. In this environment, the ancestral home is not represented by a structure, but instead by the property. Easthope (2004, p. 130) defined a sense of place as a conscious awareness of place: knowing, acknowledging and valuing one’s connection to a physical space in the landscape. The urban properties were occupied by familial groups over subsequent generations. The social world which those households occupied valued their personal histories and their own connections to each other and to their place, as exemplified by the maintenance of the property boundaries. The houses provided a short-term link to the sense of place, but simply did not stay standing for long enough to act as generational markers. In addition, the houses were in a state of almost-constant repair, with the need to re-lay floors, support or replace roofposts and doorjambs, repair walls and benchframes and so

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on. Similarly out in the yard, cess and storage pits were cut and re-cut, animal pens and workshops were built, abandoned and destroyed and, less frequently but still regularly, pathways were replaced as they sank into the mud. The constant in the property was its boundaries, defining and delimiting the extent of the property to all four sides, and also defining the personal and private space of the household. Digging pits, re-building pens, repairing houses and maintaining pathways and boundaries constantly re-affirmed the connections to the past of the household. The boundaries contained the social world of the household and the existence of these limits allowed the household to form a mental link to the physical spaces which they enclosed. In forming that connection, the property becomes the link into the social and familial history of the household and provides the household with a sense of place, a past, present and future and a permanence in a way that the houses cannot do in this transitory urban environment. Creating an Urban Identity? At this point, it is worth re-iterating one of the points made at the start of this chapter – that the towns are essentially migrant communities whose population is constantly reinforced by new arrivals from outside the town. With this in mind, we can turn to migration studies to shed some new light on the question of how Viking Dublin may have operated. Stefan Burmeister (2000, p. 541) argues that when groups of culturally disparate people migrate to a new land, the traits which are maintained are those that are either highly functional and practical or those of the dominant social group. In order to survive, the settlers must adopt practices suitable to their new environment and be flexible enough to abandon any practices that were not economically and socially viable. This results in the creation of hybrid identities, incorporating a mix of social and cultural traits and practices. In this, people actively choose which traits to adopt, making this an instrumental, rather than primordial, expression of identity (see Jones, 1997 for a discussion of primordial and instrumentalist viewpoints in archaeology). Burmeister also argues that habitus is crucial in the construction of new ways of living in a community composed of migrants (Burmeister, 2000, p. 542). He makes a distinction between an internal and external domain and argues that, whilst the external domain – in this case, the outside appearance of the building and property – will match closely the status quo of the community, the internal domain will display the traditional cultural traits of the ‘home’ community. He argues that, in the external domain, individual households will quickly adapt to the new environment, changing their habitus as necessary to react to the social, economic and environmental climate within which the migrant households find themselves. In response, the household will maintain the habitus of home within the internal domain faithfully recreating the routines and settings of daily life at home in the new land.

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Specifically in relation to the Viking-Age towns of Ireland, this resulted in the rapid adoption of a standardised house form (the Hiberno-Norse Type 1 house, see Boyd, 2014) and property layout in which each household presents basically the same face to the world. Bounded by upright post-and-wattle fences, the houses are set at right angles to the street within a defined property. They are approached by a short pathway through the front yard which may have contained a few pits. This external panorama is one which is accepted by the community. Moving inside the property boundaries takes us into Burmeister’s internal domain where much more variation becomes apparent from property to property. The layout of the rear yards changes from one household to the next, with structures moving around the yard, pits opening and closing and pathways snaking in different directions. Inside the houses is different again, with contemporary houses of comparable size exhibiting quite different layouts. This is the most private space which the household occupies and it is here where the household expresses its individual identity through their choice of internal layout and furnishings. While individual houses are built, altered, demolished and rebuilt, the streetfront panorama stays the same. The boundaries of each property are fixed, as is the placement of the main house set at a right angle to the street. Judith Flanders’ study of the Victorian house notes a similar architectural stagnation in the mid-nineteenth century and she suggests that this desire for a stable and unchanging home environment was a reaction to the ‘dynamism … [and] … rapid technological change’ of the world outside the home (Flanders, 2004, p. xxi). This description could equally be applied to the world of the Viking-Age towns and may be related to the development of coping mechanisms for life in the town. As I have discussed, life in the towns was fast-paced and dynamic, with a greater number of people, influences and ideas on offer than in the smaller worlds in the countryside. Additionally, people were living very close to each other, with just a few metres separating households from each other. This closeness was mediated in one way by the creation and curation of property boundaries, but the boundaries on their own were not enough to reconcile the private world of the household with the public world of the town. The creation and replication of this somewhat standardised ‘streetfront panorama’ across the town allowed the townspeople to separate their private lives from their public worlds and become Ireland’s first urban dwellers. List of References Allison, P.M., ed. 1999. The archaeology of household activities. London: Routledge. Anonymous, 842. The Annals of Ulster. [online] (15 August 2012). Available at: http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T100001A/index.html Accessed 18 December 2013.

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Bourke, E., 1995. Viking and medieval Wexford. Archaeology Ireland, 33, pp. 33–36. Boyd, R., 2014. Where are the longhouses? Reviewing Ireland’s Viking-age buildings. In Clarke, H. B. & Johnson, R. eds. 2014. Before and after the battle of Clontarf: The Vikings in Ireland and beyond. Dublin: Four Courts Press. Brück, J., 2008. The architecture of routine life. In Pollard, J. ed. 2008. Prehistoric Britain. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 248–267. Burmeister, S., 2000. Archaeology and migration: approaches to an archaeological proof of migration. Current Anthropology, 41(4), pp. 539–567. Carsten, J. & Hugh-Jones, S., 1995. About the house: Lévi-Strauss and beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clarke, H.B., 2002. Dublin c.840 to c.1540, the medieval town in the modern city. 2nd ed. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. Coughlan, T., 2000. The Anglo-Norman houses of Dublin: evidence from Back Lane. In Duffy, S. ed. 2000. Medieval Dublin I. Dublin: Four Courts Press. pp. 203–234. Easthope, H., 2004. A place called home. Housing, Theory and Society. 21(3), pp. 128–138. Geraghty, S., 1996. Viking Dublin, botanical evidence from Fishamble St. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. Gerritsen, F., 2003. Local identities: landscape and community in the late prehistoric Meuse-Demer-Scheldt region. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Hall, A.R., Kenward, H.K., Williams, D. & Greig, J.R.A., 1983. Environment and living conditions at two Anglo-Scandinavian sites AY14/4. York: York Archaeological Trust. Hall, R., 1994. Viking age York. London: B.T. Batsford. Hanawalt, B.A., 1993. Growing up in medieval London. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hayden, A., 2002. The excavation of pre-Norman defences and houses at Werburgh St., Dublin: a summary. In Duffy, S. ed. 2002. Medieval Dublin III. Dublin: Four Courts Press. pp. 44–68. Hurley, M.F., Scully, O.M.B. & McCutcheon, S.W.J., eds. 1997. Late Viking age and medieval Waterford: Excavations 1986–1992. Waterford: Waterford Corporation. Jones, S., 1997. The archaeology of ethnicity, constructing identities in the past and present. London: Routledge. Kelly, F., 1988. A guide to early Irish law Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Kenny, M., 2005. Coins and coinage in pre-Norman Ireland. In Ó Cróinín, D. ed. 2005. A new history of Ireland 1, prehistoric and early Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 842–51.

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Larsen, A-C., 2001. The exhibition – the Vikings in Ireland. In Larsen, A-C. ed. 2001. The Vikings in Ireland. Roskilde: The Viking Ship Museum. pp. 127– 148. Meskell, L. & Preucel, R.W., 2007. Places. In Meskell, L. & Preucel, R. W. eds. 2007. A companion to social archaeology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 215–29. Moriarty, C., 2011. Dublin, the prehistoric city. www.irisharchaeology.ie [blog] May 18 2011. Available at: http://irisharchaeology.ie/2011/05/dublin-theprehistoric-city/ Accessed 28 December 2013. Munch, G.S., Johansen, O.S. & Roesdahl, E., 2003. Borg in Lofoten : A chieftain’s farm in north Norway. Trondheim: Tapir Academic Press. Murray, H., 1979. Documentary evidence for domestic buildings in Ireland c.400– 1200 A.D. in the light of archaeology. Medieval Archaeology, pp. 81–97. Murray, H., 1983. Viking and early medieval buildings in Dublin. (BAR British Series vol. 119) Oxford: ArchaeoPress. O’Sullivan, A., 2008. Early medieval houses in Ireland: social identity and dwelling spaces. Peritia, pp. 225–256. O’Sullivan, A. & Nicholl, T., 2011. Early medieval settlement enclosures in Ireland: Social identity, dwelling practices and domestic life. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 111C, pp. 55–90. Ó Corráin, D., 1983. Some legal references to fences and fencing in early historic Ireland. In Reeves-Smyth, T. & Hamond, F. eds. 1983. Landscape archaeology in Ireland (BAR British Series 116). Oxford: ArchaeoPress. pp. 247–51. Ó Corráin, D., 2005. Ireland c.800: Aspects of society. In Ó Cróinín, D. ed. 2005. A new history of Ireland 1, prehistoric and early Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 549–607. Ólason, V., 1998. Dialogues with the Viking age, narration and representation in the sagas of the Icelanders. Reyjkavík: Heimskringla. Poole, K., 2013. More than just meat: animals in Viking-age towns. In Hadley, D. M. & ten Harkel, L. eds. 2013. Everyday life in Viking-age towns: social approaches to towns in England and Ireland, c.800–1100. Oxford: Oxbow. pp. 144–56. Rodman, M.C., 2003. Empowering place: multilocality and multivocality. In Low, S. M. & Lawrence-Zúñiga, D. eds. 2003. The anthropology of space and place, locating culture. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 204–23. Simpson, L., 1999. Directors first findings, Temple Bar West. Dublin: Temple Bar Properties. Simpson, L., 2002. 96E245, excavations at Essex St. West/Temple Bar West. Dublin: Margaret Gowen & Co. Simpson, L., 2005. Viking warrior burials in Dublin: Is this the longphort? In Duffy, S. ed. 2005. Medieval Dublin VI. Dublin: Four Courts Press. pp. 11–62. Simpson, L., 2006. John Rocque’s map of Dublin (1756): A modern source for medieval historians. In Duffy, S. ed. 2006. Medieval Dublin VII. Dublin: Four Courts Press. pp. 113–51.

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Simpson, L., 2010. The first phase of Viking activity in Ireland: archaeological evidence from Dublin. In Sheehan, J. & Ó Corráin, D. eds. 2010. The Viking age: Ireland and the west, papers from the proceedings of the fifteenth Viking congress, Cork, 18–27 August 2005. Dublin: Four Courts Press. pp. 418–29. Simpson, L., 2011. Fifty years a-digging: A synthesis of medieval archaeological investigations in Dublin city and suburbs. In Duffy, S. ed. 2011. Medieval Dublin XI. Dublin: Four Courts. pp. 9–112. Smyth, J., 2006. The role of the house in early Neolithic Ireland. European Journal of Archaeology, pp. 229–257. Souvatzi, S.G., 2008. A social archaeology of households in Neolithic Greece: An anthropological approach. New York: Cambridge University Press. Valante, M.A., 2008. The Vikings in Ireland, settlement, trade and urbanization. Dublin: Four Courts Press. Vésteinnson, O., 2006. A visitor arrives. In Sverrisdóttir, B. ed. 2006. Reykjavík 871+/-2 landnámssýninging. Rejkavík: Rejkavík City Museum. pp. 110–115. Wallace, P.F., 1987a. The economy and commerce of Viking age Dublin. In Düwel, K., Jankuhn, H., Siems, H. & Timpe, D. eds. 1987a. Unterschungen zu handel und verkehr der vor- und frühgeschichtlichen zeit in mittel- und nordeuropa 4. Gottingen. pp. 200–45. Wallace, P.F., 1987b. The layout of later Viking age Dublin: Indications of its regulation and problems of continuity. In Knirk, J. ed. 1987b. Proceedings of the tenth Viking congress, Larkollen, Norway, 1985. Oslo. pp. 271–85. Wallace, P.F., 2000. Garrda and airbeada: The plot thickens in medieval Dublin. In Smyth, A. P. ed. 2000. Seanchas: Studies in early medieval and Irish archaeology, history and literature in honour of Francis J. Byrne. Dublin: Four Courts Press. pp. 261–74. Wallace, P.F., 2004. The big picture: mapping Hiberno-Norse Dublin. In Clarke, H. B., Prunty, J. & Hennessy, M. eds. 2004. Surveying Ireland’s past: Multidisciplinary essays in honour of Anngret Simms. Dublin: Geography Publications. pp. 13–40. Wallace, P.F., 2005. The archaeology of Ireland’s Viking age towns. In Ó Cróinín, D. ed. 2005. Prehistoric and early Ireland, a new history of Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 814–42. Wallace, P.F., 2010. Plot-use and access in an eleventh-century Dublin building level. In Ó Corráin, D. & Sheehan, J. eds. 2010. The Viking age: Ireland and the west, papers from the proceedings of the fifteenth Viking congress, Cork, 18–27 August 2005. Dublin: Four Courts Press. pp. 525–44. Waterson, R., 1997. The living house, an anthropology of architecture in southeast Asia. London: Thames and Hudson. Woods, A., 2013. Economy and authority: A study of the coinage of HibernoScandinavian Dublin and Ireland. PhD. University of Cambridge.

Chapter 2

Wilderness, Suffering and Civilization: Representations of Erris, County Mayo1 Shane McCorristine

Introduction The recent popular remembering of a tragedy which occurred on 30 and 31 March 1849 challenges the perception that the Irish Famine ended in the 1840s. Actually, by looking at the Irish diaspora and the notion that trauma, like people, can move through space and time, it is possible to come to the very different conception of history as an open-ended and contested process. On those dates, a few hundred paupers in an emaciated state gathered to be inspected by the Board of Guardians at Louisburgh, a town in south-west County Mayo. After following the inspectors to the Delphi hunting lodge near Doolough Lake, these paupers were refused grain and on the return journey at least nine, and possibly many more, perished: some, according to tradition, were simply blown into the lake by the wind. Since 1988 the tragedy has been commemorated by Afri (Action from Ireland), a humanitarian NGO, with an annual ten mile ‘Famine Walk’ from the shores of the lake at Doolough to Louisburgh. This commemoration now acts as a medium with which to think through contemporary debates on human rights and corporate power. This medium seeks to articulate the inter-connectedness of disaster, but also of solidarity in the face of intergenerational trauma. The west and south-west of Ireland have traditionally been the poorest, least developed, and most ‘Irish’ regions in the ‘imagined community’ of modern Ireland. They were also the regions that suffered the most cases of death by starvation and illness during the Famine (1845–49), and the highest rates of emigration and deepest cultural effects after. In this essay, I use the Doolough tragedy as a point of departure for exploring the trans-historical power of suffering and how it comes to be inscribed in landscape. Famines and migrations cannot be neatly bookended, nor can their legacies be adequately ‘worked through’. Rather they can cause a time-space compression in national imaginaries, a spreading out of suffering onto a global terrain that may impact on local senses of place. With this in mind I ask,

1 I want to acknowledge the generous support of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and the Irish Research Council CARA Postdoctoral Mobility Fellowship in conducting this research.

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how did perceptions of Mayo as a Famine wilderness reflect the conventions of the time, and how might these relate to contemporary events? Narrowing this geographical focus, I take the Erris region of north-west area Mayo as a case-study in nineteenth-century thinking about place. From the eighteenth-century, descriptions of Erris as a boggy wasteland were particularly consistent, leading to a colonial triangulation between the ‘savagery’ of its inhabitants, the ‘wilderness’ of its landscape and the perception that the environment was underdeveloped and wasted on the (Catholic) peasantry. In travel writings, Erris was imagined to be a paradox at the periphery of Empire: a location which was wild and sublime in parts, but also occasionally picturesque and eminently suitable for colonial development and immigration. This essay examines these tensions by gesturing towards links between a past of suffering with a present (as articulated by Afri at the Doolough commemorations) of energy exploitation and state violence at the Corrib gas project.

Figure 2.1

Erris, Co. Mayo

Source: From M’Parlan, J., 1802. Statistical survey of the county of Mayo etc. Dublin: Graisberry and Campbell. Frontispiece.

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Commemorating the Irish Famine: Doolough, Co. Mayo Two main themes dominate the annual Doolough commemorations: the interconnectedness of disaster; and solidarity in the face of intergenerational trauma. In 1991 the South African activist and cleric Desmond Tutu participated in the walk, later drawing parallels between the Doolough commemoration and the process of walking ‘the road to freedom’ in South Africa. Organisers have also gestured towards the tragedy of the Choctaw Indians, forced on their own ‘trail of tears’ from Mississippi to Oklahoma in 1831, but who managed to make a sizeable donation for famine relief in Ireland in 1847. Following visits from Choctaw representatives to the Doolough commemorations in 1995 Mary Robinson, President of Ireland, visited the Choctaw Nation to give thanks for their historic act of charity and empathy through a shared experience of suffering. As an extension of the sense of diasporic affect that characterised her presidency (Nash, 2008, p. 32), Robinson sought to use the particulars of the Irish Famine to create awareness of contemporary famines in Third World regions, as well as other economic and social injustices: For every lesson our children learn about the Famine Relief of 1847 they should learn an equal one about the debt burden of 1995. For every piece of economic knowledge they gain about the crops exported from Ireland during the famine years, let them come to understand the harsh realities of today’s markets, which reinforce the poverty and helplessness of those who already experience hunger. (Robinson, 1995)

I suggest that the symbolism of the walk is threefold: it commemorates a trauma of the past; draws moral equivalence with international issues of current concern; and seeks to re-enchant a very specific landscape and region through an awareness of the parallels and continuities between past and present. There is a ritual aspect to a journey that takes the walker back to Louisburgh on the twisty valley road from the secluded lake, alongside bogland and over soft hills, past a plaque bearing a quote from Mahatma Gandhi and Desmond Tutu. This movement through particular sacred spaces demonstrates the power of localities of suffering to extend their geographical and historical focus outwards for commemoration, comparison and blame. As Afri put it: ‘We walk the famine road to remember...the causes of hunger and poverty in our world – political, economic and environmental – and our failure to learn the lessons of our own history’ (Afri, n.d.). In the past decade the overlap between the political and the environmental has increasingly come to the fore during the commemorations, a situation sparked by a controversy taking place in the nearby Erris area of Co. Mayo. In 1996 a natural gas field was discovered off Erris Head and has since been developed by Shell Oil and Statoil, availing of significantly attractive State licensing terms. Erris is a sparsely-populated coastal area of north-west Mayo supported by farming, fishing, and tourism. Its ecosystem is characterised by wild blanket bog and a rich

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marine culture featuring seals, basking sharks and occasional whales. Controversy began when planning commenced to build an onshore gas terminal at Bellanaboy. This became a source of safety concerns for local residents, environmentalists and some politicians. Following a protracted period of lobbying and successive planning appeals, Shell were cleared to commence building operations in 2005, sparking a bitter series of protests along with low-level physical intimidation as well as riots and criminal assaults. The whole episode divided local communities and led to the establishment of a plethora of campaign groups, for and against the terminal and overall development of the Corrib gas field. The Doolough commemoration typically advocates a leftist-dissident stance in opposition to neo-liberal economic models, and the theme of the 2007 event was ‘Voices in the Wilderness: Erris, Gas, and Global Warming’. This commemoration intervened directly in support of the ‘Shell to Sea’ group (which argues that the gas should be refined offshore, at a safe distance from residents and the local environment) (Storey, 2009). On the 2009 walk, Willie Corduff, a local farmer and member of the ‘Rossport Five’ – one of several local men imprisoned for ninety-four days for refusing to obey a court order restricting their interference in Shell operations on their land – gave a speech in which he claimed he had been assaulted by hired security at the Corrib gas terminal site. Furthermore, as a winner of the Goldman Environmental Award in 2007, Corduff outlined his deep sense of belonging to the land and of an environment under threat by corporate forces. Place is of deep concern to many of the Corrib protestors, both as a repository (of pristine nature, social memory) and as a force of dissent. As outspoken protestor Maura Harrington put it: ‘This is about a sense of place and its people. We may not qualify as indigenous people, but we have our land and culture, to which we belong. All those people who emigrated from Erris through history, Erris never left them’ (cited in Vulliamy, 2011). Mayo, as an historic landscape of suffering and emigration, is therefore mobilised in this context into challenging the forces of neo-liberal power. Understandings of place and placelessness have long been shown to be ontological categories, which are historically variable and ideologically potent (Mitchell, 2000, p. 57; Motloch, 2001, p. 10). The Doolough commemoration can be thought of as what Pierre Nora termed a lieux de mémoire, a site of memory which ‘originate[s] with the sense that there is no spontaneous memory, that we must deliberately create archives, maintain anniversaries, organize celebrations, pronounce eulogies, and notarize bills because such activities no longer occur naturally’ (1989, p. 12). The fact that the Doolough commemorations now create awareness of the Corrib gas controversy as well as other contemporary humanitarian issues shows the extent to which the landscapes (mental and physical) of the Irish Famine have become internationalised following the outpouring of national and local commemorations after 1994. Touching on this, Stuart McLean has argued that

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The one hundred fiftieth anniversary thus assumed an increasingly deterritorialized scope...In the process, the famine came to be recast not only as an event of national significance, but also as an episode in an emergent narrative of globalization, in which Ireland, by virtue of the worldwide dispersal of its emigrant population, was assigned a place. (2004, p. 152)

By the end of the twentieth century the ghosts of the Famine, in the form of its dead, displaced, and diaspora, were mobilised as part of a larger global narrative of suffering, but one which still ached for the rhythms of local places of memory and suffering. Tapping into this, the Doolough commemorations avoid an introverted and static (‘Irish’) sense of place by harnessing the spirits of the Irish who are absent by death or immigration, alongside their fellows who in different places and times also suffered due to the decisions of the powerful in society. By linking the Doolough tragedy with contemporary political and environmental struggles, Afri proposes an understanding of disaster as a man-made occurrence as well as highlighting the ‘never again’ value of history. However, with its resistance to the triumphalist narrative of Ireland’s emergence as a prosperous nation, Afri’s commemoration of the Famine in Doolough valley operates on a more activist level than other, especially centralised, Famine commemorations. The Famine landscape of Mayo, it seems, cuts through teleological accounts of history, instead puncturing notions of ‘Celtic Tiger’ progress with the spectres of past and present injustices. Pre-Famine Colonial Landscapes Reading William Smyth’s rich study, Map-making, Landscapes and Memory: A Geography of Colonial and Early Modern Ireland, c.1530–1750 (2006), one can unearth a geographical unconscious which tells us much about the interrelations between religion, place and the sense of enchantment that comes from the human encounter with certain valued locations. It is well known that the tortured pathway of modern Ireland emerged through the ‘Scylla’ of the land issue and the ‘Charybdis’ of religious sectarianism: Smyth demonstrates the power of mapmaking and topographical warfare in this nexus of formation. Following the New English defeat of successive Gaelic Irish rebellions during the early modern period, Smyth argues that Ireland … saw the commodification of its lands – valued places were transformed into geometric chess pieces to be traded like stocks and shares. It too saw the erosion of existing complex ecologies, not least in the destruction and assetstripping of its extensive woodlands; and the growth of vulnerable forms of monoculture. (2006, p. 455)

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Commencing in 1565, the Elizabethan plantations in Ireland attempted to reassert English control over territory which had been lost in the late medieval period, a process that can be placed in the context of wider European expansion into new environments (Canny, 1973, p. 575). As actors resistant to the path of colonial civilisation, native populations embedded in peripheral, mountainous, boggy, or otherwise undeveloped terrain, also stood for an ecosystem that was perceived as savage. The aggressive military operations carried out by Walter Devereux, earl of Essex, in Ulster in the 1570s were commended by Queen Elizabeth who congratulated him for ‘“[bringing] in that rude and barbarous nation to civility and acknowledging of their duty to God and to us”’ (Canny, 1973, p. 581). Nation as place and nation as people are here interchangeable definitions; landscape and identity become intertwined. From the emplaced spirits, satyrs, and sileni that populate Edmund Spenser’s epic poem The Faerie Queene (1590–96) to the spectral ‘wild Irish’ cannibals that haunt his political dialogue A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande (c.1596), the Elizabethan colonial imagination was fixated with the poetics of place and displacement. As a representative of the New English Protestant mentality that was carving up vast tracts of pacified Irish land, Spenser advertised The Faerie Queene to his contemporaries as the ‘wilde fruit’ of a ‘salvage soyl’ and thereby demonstrated a sense of place that was predicated on English conquest, reenchantment, and regeneration of wild territories. Writing of the areas controlled by his contemporary, the Earl of Ormond, Spenser noted: There in deede dwel faire Graces many one. And gentle Nymphes, delights of learned wits; And in thy person without Paragone All goodly bountie and true honour sits, Such therefore, as that wasted soyl doth yield, Recieue dear Lord in worth, the fruit of barren field. (cited in Hadfield 1997, p. 5)

In A Vewe Spenser articulated a rhetoric of place familiar to scholars of postcolonialism, with the added feature of Reformation politics. Undeveloped landscapes, a reading of Spenser suggests, can become fertilised by the culture of the colonial actor who displaces native inhabitants into an ideological zone of savagery. Referring in A Vewe to the danger that the native Irish ‘would quickly consume themselves and devour each other’ during the famine that followed in the aftermath of the Desmond Rebellion (1579–83), Spenser wrote of starving natives coming ‘[o]ut of euerie Corner of the woods and glinnes … Crepinge forthe … they loked like Anotomies of deathe, they spake like ghostes Cryinge

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out of theire graues, they did eate the dead Carrions …’ (cited in Hadfield, 1997, p. 66). According to the ideology of A Vewe, the Irish woodlands, which blanketed much of the island until the early modern period, represented the haunt of the savage (Catholic) cannibal, and their destruction became part of the scorchedearth policy that turned much of Munster into a wasteland in the late sixteenth century. Engravings of the period attest to the settler’s fear of the Irish wood-kern emerging from the fastness to destroy the domestic order and economic prosperity of the English Pale region. The dominant system of settlement that came out of this process in early modern Gaelic Ireland, the clachan, was still paramount in Mayo in the Victorian period (Somerville, 1994, p. 109). The clachan system (or rundale) was an adaptation to peripheral land which meant a tenant’s share of a lease could be spread over multiple locations (Evans, 1992, pp. 60–61). In tight-knit communities along the Atlantic seaboard, the inhabitants survived by diversified and flexible labour (fishing; weaving; seasonal migration) and some communal work, or ‘duty days’ (Ó Gráda, 1994, p. 34). Most peasants had a few acres of arable land for potatoes, and a larger acreage of mountain or poor land for cattle. The grazing system of transhumance, or ‘booleying’, was held in abhorrence by English observers – the nomad as being taken as a barbarian, rootless and unsuited to industry. Such practices of moving with the livestock to wild places were seen as both signs of indolence and subversion (Butlin, 1991, p. 153). The survival of clachan in Mayo was due to demographics (the large population movements west following the Cromwellian settlement of the mid-seventeenth century and the population explosion from the late-eighteenth century, which put pressure on arable land), the particular problem of absentee landlordism in this region (which subdivided tenancies into smaller and smaller units, forcing peasants to travel elsewhere for cash markets), and the value of the potato as the central component of a subsistence diet (Taylor, 1980; Jordan, 1994). Cultural identity has always been linked to particular diets. As Alan Bewell suggests, ‘You become what you eat in more than a biological sense, for foods are ingestible signs: through eating, people assimilate culture into themselves and in turn become part of a culture’ (1999, p. 131). Potato plots – the ‘lazy beds’ of common parlance – were easily grown on middling to poor land, and capable of sustaining large families. Potatoes thus became for many visitors to the west of Ireland a symbol of native savagery and intransigence. Where the association between beef and British liberty gave sustenance to the image of imperial strength and embodied virtue, the Irish dependence on the potato was symbolic of the status of their lowly ‘national body’. As one contemporary letter-writer wrote: ‘When the Celts once cease to be potatophagi, they must become carnivorous...With this will come steadiness, regularity, and perseverance; unless, indeed, the growth of these qualities be impeded by the blindness of Irish patriotism’ (Anon., 1880, p. 36). The covalence of Irish political savagery (nationalism) with the potato reached its peak at the outset of the Famine when Daniel O’Connell, still raising funds to repeal the Act of Union, was imagined in Punch, indolent on a lazy bed, as ‘The

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Real Potato Blight of Ireland’ (Leech, 1845). It is significant therefore that, as part of the 2012 Doolough commemoration, blight-resistant potatoes were sown along the route of the walk: this act can be envisaged as resisting the power of natural disaster, but it also symbolically feeds the ghosts who died as a consequence of political decision-making. When turning to look at nineteenth-century travel narratives in Mayo, what we have, therefore, is more than a geographical unconscious of Ireland, but Ireland existing as the cultural unconscious of an equally imaginary English polity. Declan Kiberd has written: If Ireland had never existed, the English would have invented it; and since it never existed in English eyes as anything more than a patchwork-quilt of warring fiefdoms, their leaders occupied the neighbouring island and called it Ireland [...] Ireland was soon patented as not-England, a place where peoples were, in many important ways, the very antitheses of their new rulers from overseas. (1996, p. 9)

The particular physical, religious, and moral landscapes of Ireland played a role in the construction or ‘inventing’ of Ireland. In the case of Mayo and Galway, counties known for their poor land, communications, and majority Catholic population, the perspectives of travellers were crucial in the presentation of the west as a landscape of suffering/landscape of development long before the Famine. Religious projects like the Protestant colony on Achill Island (‘a little oasis, where the wilderness had been converted into a fruitful field’, Nicholson, 1847, p. 430) could initiate visions of migrating ideologies (capitalist development and personal cleanliness) along with migrating bodies. With this moral revolution bogland could be transformed into picturesque landscapes which ‘smile under good management’ (Howard, 1855, p. 176). In this topographical unconscious, the historical dimension was hidden beneath internal repetition and the region of Erris in particular became an uncanny emblem of savagery, the end-point in suffering, and by extension, the region most amenable to the radiation of colonial progress and change. Erris as a Wilderness Travel literature was a booming genre in the Victorian literary market and Ireland, part of Great Britain since the Acts of Union of 1801, represented a desirable choice of destination for the tourist and writer. With improved transport links between London and the Welsh port of Holyhead by the nineteenth century, Ireland could be accessed relatively easily by sea. At the same time, despite this proximity, Ireland was an attractive subject precisely because many parts of it were unknown and, indeed, unfathomable to the Victorian mind. 1750–1850 represented the golden age of travel writing on Ireland when some of the greatest writers and

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thinkers of the age wrote accounts of their visits, including Arthur Young, Alexis de Tocqueville, Thomas Carlyle, Harriet Martineau and William Makepeace Thackeray (see Woods, 1992; Willliams, 2010). As Melissa Fegan points out, travellers, especially during the Famine years, could be attracted not so much by the Irish landscape, but by Irish misery in the wild natural environment (blightridden fields; teeming fisheries; corpses on the roads) (2001, p. 361). I argue that while travellers to Mayo took a great interest in Irish landscapes, it was generally through the medium of well-established colonial and aesthetic conventions which had a distinct outlook on the meaning of Irish ‘wilderness’. British colonists and visitors to the west of Ireland sought nothing less than the transformation of what were perceived as ‘wild’ landscapes into something more manageable, homely and picturesque. Fegan has argued for an essential homogeneity in Victorian travel accounts in which ‘The travel book became a palimpsest, over-written by succeeding travellers, preserving anachronistic interpretations, and indeed adding to them. It was a cumulative work that was selfreferential and self-verifying’ (2001, p. 363). The perception of Erris as ‘the wildest district of Ireland’ (Martineau, 1852, p. 126) was one of the most consistent tropes in Irish Victorian travel writing: with rare exceptions, travel writers saw Erris as a wild place (sublime) with an unproductive and savage native population that could, under the correct colonial patronage, be transformed into an industrious, prosperous, fertile and cultivated country (picturesque). There was never any doubt that Ireland was blessed with natural resources and sublime landscapes, but places are never just uncomplicated locations: the issue from a colonial perspective was how the natural environment was managed by native populations. For visitors, there was a palpable sense that in entering Connaught one crossed a threshold which divided an Ireland that was known, and which was being developed and improved, and an Ireland that was largely unknown, and stubbornly resistant to change and progress. When entering the province, one German visitor wrote: ‘this wild part of Ireland, seldom visited by natives, never by foreigners, has such a bad name that there is a proverb – “Go to Hell and Connaught!”’ (cited in Burke, 2001, p. 145). This is an interesting error for the traveller to make, for the original proverb, attributed to the Cromwellian regime, was ‘Go to Hell or to Connaught’: in the eyes of this German traveller, at least, there was no choice between the regions. In 1806 the Scottish traveller, Joseph Robertson, noted that the province was the least densely inhabited and least ‘improved’ province in the British Isles, and that Mayo especially stood out in terms of the cultural challenge which the natural environment represented: There are perhaps few districts in the three kingdoms so little indebted to nature or art as the county of Mayo. It is almost overrun with mountains of stupendous elevation; one third of the county is composed of bogs, marshes, and swamps; the climate is cold and wet; there are few woods or inclosures; the soil is miserably steril; and there are scarce any manufactures. (1806, p. 335)

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Such exaggerated claims about the Mayo landscape were part of a larger geographical imagination which designated Erris, along with Connemara, as the ‘Irish highland’ zone, a wild, savage area ripe for a communications revolution and the beneficent interest of civilised lowlanders (M’Manus, 1863; Knight, 1836). Descriptions of the Mayo landscape as ‘nature in her undress’ (Trotter, 1819, p. 493), or nature ‘in tattered garments’ (Nicholson, 1851, p. 136), further express the helplessness, naivety and wildness of the region, both people and place. The Scottish journalist Alexander Somerville, travelling through Ireland during the Famine, gives us perhaps the most extensive passages on Mayo as this paradoxical place in the Victorian imagination. It was, in his own words, ‘at once the most magnificent and most mean of Irish shores’ (1994, p. 107). Somerville found it difficult to gather into his brain ‘all the matter of Mayo from which ideas may be drawn out at the writer’s finger ends’ largely because of the variety of its natural landscape: mountains and islands, caves and cliffs. For Somerville, Mayo, ‘a county so stored with untold wealth’ (1994, p. 111), is let down by its inhabitants who have sunk beneath their sublime landscape instead of rising above it. But this outsider’s perspective unusually spreads opprobrium to the wastrel nobility of Mayo, many of whom dawdle in the army, ‘ignorant of true honour, the honour of industry’ (1994, p. 110). One of the first things which caught the eyes of travellers to Mayo were huge areas of ‘wasteland’ and a frequent criticism was that Ireland was far too ‘naked’ and bare, from an aesthetic perspective, suffering from a want of trees, hedges, and enclosures (Bilton, 1834, I, p. 5). The Mayo landscape, which contained much unfertile and unused land, was consequently seen as a prime location for improvement and colonisation (see Connell, 1950). The home-spun linen industry, which had picked up in the 1790s following the arrival of migrants from south Ulster, collapsed in the mid-nineteenth century due to competition from the more industrialised north (Almquist, 1979, pp. 323–324). An ‘Irish Waste Land Improvement Society’ was active during the 1830s and 1840s and it sought to encourage landlords to improve their estates by draining the land, breaking up the fragmented plot system, building model cottages, and otherwise improving the economic and moral culture of the peasantry. The idea of a sympathetic landlord radiating enlightenment from a well-run estate through a wild district was something that was pervasive in these travel accounts. In most cases, such expressions operated on the very simple colonial symbol of the pioneer: John Forbes wrote of a Quaker who had built a village outside Clifden and ‘converted this wild spot, if not to a paradise, certainly to a cultivated, fertile-seeming, Englishlooking homestead, – a green smiling island amid the dark desert of moors and bogs around it’ (Forbes, 1853, I, p. 260). At the heart of such thinking, therefore, was the colonialist idea of taming a wilderness diluted of local culture, history, and labour relations, and of raising, ‘as if by magic’, ‘an oasis in the desert’ by the movement of British industry and manpower into the west of Ireland (Knight, 1836, p. iii).

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The route through which one entered Connaught played a significant role in determining the opinion of the tourist on the level of development or civilisation in the province. Coming down through Ulster, the most industrial and Protestant province, and which had established customs which rewarded tenant improvements and gave security of tenure (‘tenant-right’ or ‘Ulster custom’), the vast tracts of unmanaged Connaught land represented a shock to the tourist. For Harriet Martineau, travelling south from County Derry allowed the reader ‘to see first some of the most prosperous parts of the country, in order to carry elsewhere the hope that the use of similar means may produce a similar prosperity’ (1852, p. 2). Ulster’s booming linen manufactures, put down to the industry and work ethic of Huguenots and Scottish Presbyterians, was a sign of what Catholic Ireland could be. Martineau therefore concluded: ‘These western wilds are the region for English settlers’ (1852, p. 109). Going in the opposite direction of Connaught to Ulster, a French tourist noted distinct changes in the physiognomy of the countryside: less bogland, more trees, and better kept farms (Bovet, 1891, p. 249). If entering Connaught, and then Mayo, was seen by many as crossing two thresholds into a wild region, then entering the Barony of Erris became a further descent for the tourist. Travelling through Erris was seen as an adventure to many tourists: as the engineer Patrick Knight put it, ‘the whole country is a natural curiosity’ (Knight, 1836, p. 116). The area, roughly the size of County Dublin (29 miles north to south, 23 miles east to west), was estimated to have a population of 15,000 in 1802, 24,000 in 1849 and was described as ‘being almost detached from the rest of the county’ (M’Parlan, 1802, p. 156). The landscape was mostly bog and mountain, with coastline to the north and west and a low band of hills separating the area from east Mayo (see Figure 2.1). In 1801 the surveyor James M’Parlan described the road north from Newport as ‘a burlesque upon roads...a satire upon the county’ (1802, p. v), while an 1831 report to the Lord Lieutenant described Erris as a ‘wild’ district consisting of ‘vast tracts of boggy swamp, chiefly waste, interspersed with a few lakes and unculturable mountains’ (cited in Jordan, 1994, p. 52). But from the nineteenth century, communications to the area increased greatly and programmes of road-building, public works, and evangelisation became part of the process of encouraging the peasantry into a beneficial relationship with the benefits of civilisation (industry, end to superstition, and so on) (Taylor, 1849, p. 4). Crucially, the creation of picturesque landscapes was considered a prerequisite for commercial and colonial development in the region, although frequently this operated on the basis of misunderstandings of the local ecosystem, as well as the spectralisation of native labour forces. The same political forces that equated wilderness with wild people advocated the ‘improvement’ of the west of Ireland – a particularly important concept which unites visions of capitalist development with other aesthetic, religious and moral projects of control (Barnard, 2008). The modernist dogmas of progress and economic development advocated by neo-liberals can therefore become “territorialised” and foregrounded in place. Connaught, with its particular landscapes and confessional make-up, represented

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a symbolic frontier zone for colonial improvers. On a visit to Binghamstown, a landlord village in Erris built by Major Denis Bingham in 1796, a tourist described Bingham’s as yet unfinished ‘noble castle’ looking onto Elly Bay, which was ‘picturesque...of the boldest kind’.

Figure 2.2

Elly Bay Castle, Binghamstown

Source: From, Knight, P., 1836. Erris in the ‘Irish highlands’, and the ‘Atlantic railway’. Dublin: M. Keene and Son. facing p. 68

Bingham took his guest on a tour of the demesne and discussed plans for a covered greenhouse on the castle grounds which would provide a ‘pleasing winter-walk in this exposed site’. For Bingham, this gothic pile, with its front lawn stretching down to the sea, represented the starting point for a wider commercial development of the countryside around (Trotter, 1819, pp. 489–490). But as we shall see, this vision did not come to fruition. The colonisation of Erris began in the seventeenth century when King Charles II granted some 95,000 acres of land to English businessmen in payment of debt. The project imagined Erris to be an empty, ‘unused’ space, and nature to be a cultural challenge. In 1676 a group led by Sir James Shaen, Surveyor General of Ireland, sought to develop the Mullet Peninsula and so leased allotments to Protestant colonists on very generous terms. Accompanied by a clergyman they ‘set about building comfortable houses and enclosing vegetable gardens from the fury of the Atlantic storm and clearing the farms of the aborigines for the purpose of turning them to the rearing of other stock’ (O’Donovan, 1926, p. 199). Such interlinking

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between the Protestant ‘improvement’ of Mayo and consequent softening of the landscape was a consistent trope of Victorian tourist literature. Martineau found the barrenness of some parts of Ireland aesthetically shocking – the Bog of Allen, she wrote, ‘makes the imagination ache, like the eye’ (Martineau, 1852, p. 76) – and made a direct link between English settlement and an improvement in the landscape. Despite being told, rather improbably, that trees do not grow in Ireland, Martineau’s litmus test for the improvement of Ireland would be when the island of Achill (where a proselytising Protestant colony had established themselves in 1834) was clothed by woods, ‘sheltering its valleys, and imparting an air of civilization to the wildest shores that the most romantic traveller could wish to see’ (Martineau, 1852, p. 115). One investigator suggested that planting woods on the Mayo coast could create scenery ‘that could easily exceed anything of the kind in Europe, the bay of Naples not excepted’ (M’Parlan, 1802, pp. 12–13) while a German traveller was convinced that through reforestation the west of Ireland could go from being ‘the most neglected region in the most neglected country in Europe’ to ‘one of the most appealing and sweetest countries in the world’ (cited in Rasche, 1995, p. 103). Indeed, trees as signifiers of culture, order, and civilisation, were something that had come out of the Romantic interest in woods and verdant scenery as a balm for the soul. But the presence of trees also played a central role in colonial power relations. This was an era in which the ideology of English landscape gardening presupposed significant modifications to the natural environment in the name of vistas, variety, and (paradoxically) a ‘natural’ look. Trees were symbols of fertility, cultivation, and power and were frequently planted to act as the boundaries of estates. Trees therefore performed the work of civilisation by beautifying the imperfect and disguising any actual agricultural productivity involving local inhabitants that did not conform to the requisites of the beautiful. Hence the frequent praise of landlords who managed to create picturesque estates in Ireland that were like ‘oasis in the desert’ (Knight, 1836, p. iii). Progress and the logic of colonisation might effect a magical transformation allowing the growth of trees and, in a deeply mythical sense, the return of fertility to the land. In building his castle at Elly Bay, Bingham sought to create a residence suitable for an imagined picturesque environment, yet the trees he planted on the grounds only grew to the height of the wall of the estate, due to the effects of sand. The lack of British settlers meant that plans for trade and commerce in Binghamstown were similarly stilted: by the 1830s a boat-quay, mill and market-house had all fallen into misuse. Almost nothing remains of Bingham’s castle today. In light of this, the environment of Erris represented the antithesis of cultural control. But its people were also thought to be a part of this process. Erris was known for its maritime culture and incredibly rich placelore, but issues of moral concern to outsiders included the worship of a stone idol on the island of South Iniskea and the collection of shoreline wreckage after shipping accidents (Maxwell, 1832, II, p. 2; Ó Catháin and O’Flanagan, 1975, p. 251; O’Donovan,

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1926, p. 200). Since the eighteenth-century, the region was also famous for its lack of trees, which many commentators either lamented or made fun of. Writing in 1780, Arthur Young related the apocryphal story: ‘There is not a tree in the whole barony of Erris; a man going out of it to pay his rent, &c. his son with him, a lad of near 20, when he came near Killala, and saw a tree, ‘Lord, Father!’ what is that?’ (Young, 1780, I, p. 347). In an adaptation of this tale, William Bennett, writing in 1847, cited the case of a respectable lady who employed a young shipwrecked man as a tutor for her six daughters: ‘They were acquainted with six different languages, could paint, sing, and play on the piano, but had never seen a tree, a bridge, a flight of stairs, or a wheeled carriage of any kind’ (Bennett, 1847, p. 16). Here an innate lack of culture extends to the Protestant inhabitants of Erris, due to their physical and cultural location outside the community of civilisation – they lack access to the basic signs of modern life. We can thus disclose an environmental-political dynamic in writings on Erris where aesthetic lack (the absence of the picturesque) justifies political lack. On the basis of Ireland’s lack of ‘garden-like and half-sylvan’ landscapes, the physician Sir John Forbes was prepared only to say that he encountered ‘fragments and glimpses of scenery super-eminently beautiful’. In this same account, Forbes associated the barrenness of much of Ireland, its bogs and moors, with its inability to attain: to that general aspect of delightfulness, which the combined powers of nature and art have bestowed upon England. When, indeed, the time arrives, as it is to be hoped it will, and at no very remote epoch, that shall see all the soil of Ireland that is cultivatable, cultivated as it ought to be; all her fine fields fenced with living hedges and lined with trees; and, above all, when the sloping shores that border and surround her thousand bays and lakes and rivers, have risen in all the glory and cultivation from the hands of an industrious, prosperous, and tasteful people; then may there be more room to question of her rank in the scale of beauty: then may she measure herself with England with less timidity. (Forbes, 1853, I, pp. 283–284)

Woods, gardens, respectable houses, drained bogs, and exploitation of the fisheries were the signposts of civilisation for most nineteenth-century tourists and in this rhetoric of ecological imperialism, injuries to the picturesque landscape took precedence over any historic wrongs to local inhabitants. In this sense it is interesting to compare such thinking with the aesthetic conventions used by a more sympathetic visitor, John Bernard Trotter, who walked extensively throughout the west of Ireland in 1817. Trotter sought to correct the misrepresentation of Connaught in England and wrote of ‘a country well cultivated, tranquil, and civilized, and no whit inferior to England herself’ (Trotter, 1819, p. 481). Trotter found the people of Mayo ‘industrious’ and it is noticeable that when faced with a sublime or desolate landscape he made positive comparisons with the Welsh countryside, only grieving that it was ‘destitute of the enchanting rural cottage, its fragrant flowers, and stock of bees!’ (1819, p. 423).

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In a political context, Trotter emphasised the loyalty of the Connaught population and suggested that it played little part in the 1798 Rebellion (despite the massive support French forces under General Jean Humbert had actually received from the peasantry) (1819, p. 445). In turning to Erris, therefore, Trotter’s perspective on the landscape was very different from other travellers. Its isolation and wild landscape, he believed, played a role in inspiring its famous poets; nature had blessed this ‘happy spot’ with an abundance of fish and seafood; instead of categorising the natives as savages, Trotter suggested they were the original inhabitants of Ireland, a people who avoided the battles of Milesian and English alike (1819, p. 493, p. 497). Trotter’s counter-hegemonic account portrayed a nonthreatening, productive, environment which, while it lacked trees and enclosures, was hardly a savage otherworld. Trotter, though, was an isolated voice. Representations of the Erris landscape and its people continued to be negative until the Famine when Erris degenerated into an apocalyptic zone of suffering in the Irish geography of starvation. Nicholson described Erris as ‘a spot of all others the most wretched’ and Belmullet as ‘the “fag-end” of misery’ (1851, p. 134). Emblematic of Erris’s degradation, for several travellers, were the turf hovels in which peasants starved (see Anon, 1852, p. 162, p. 206). These cabins, holes dug out of the bog or by the side of the road, were covered with a layer of turf and could be indistinguishable from the surrounding landscape. This degeneration of these people into the land was an abhorrent destruction of any sense of separation between the human and the animal. With Erris now imagined as a locus of misery, accounts from eyewitnesses and inspectors during the Famine suggest how the spectacle of such gothic suffering could release new narratives of placelessness. Existing on the fringes of social life, but existing beyond the possibilities of expressive language, the condition of the evicted and the dying revealed a new ontological order that eyewitnesses struggled to contain. Most frequently travellers in Erris created tableaux of suffering based on internal repetition: We entered a cabin. Stretched in one dark corner, scarcely visible, from the smoke and rags that covered them, were three children huddled together, lying there because they were too weak to rise, pale and ghastly, their little limbs, on removing a portion of the filthy covering, perfectly emaciated, eyes sunk, voice gone, and evidently in the last stage of actual starvation...We entered upwards of fifty of these tenements. The scene was invariably the same, differing in little but the number of sufferers or the groups occupying the several corners within (Bennett, 1847, pp. 26–27).

Hordes of skeletons, we are told, wandered the streets of towns in Mayo, some delirious, dying, or, perhaps most disturbingly, simply staring. Their liminal status in actual spaces, along with the moral and embodied collapse of the Erris peasantry, changed the terms of intercommunication as language lost its potency to express suffering. Spenser wrote of skeletons speaking ‘like ghostes Cryinge out of theire

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graues’ during the Munster Famine in the sixteenth century, but by 1847 it seems that the ‘ghastly smiles’ of ‘living skeletons’ could replace vocal appeals during the last stages of starvation (Tuke, 1848, p. 23; Morash, 1995). Where language was mobilised it was the language of the Other, endlessly repeating its demand: ‘When we enquired what was the matter, the answer was alike in all, – ‘“Tha shein akrosh”, – indeed the hunger”’ (Anon, 1852, p. 164). Hunger is the language of the spectre and in the encounter with the starving the gaze of the tourist is fundamentally obscured and representation is rendered unreliable: Throughout the whole country from Achill to Galway there are doubtless much poverty and scarcity, but a person coming from Erris is hardly qualified to judge impartially of the severity of the pressure in other places, so prominent and transcendant [sic] is the wretchedness there. (Anon, 1852, p. 203)

Figure 2.3

“The Absentee. Scene Naples. Enter the Ghosts of starv’d Irish Peasentry!!!” [sic]

Source: Looking Glass, August 1830. Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.

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Conclusion Aesthetic projects like Major Bingham’s front lawn represented for contemporaries a materialisation of the ideology of improvement, just as practices like eviction and the ‘thirty roofless houses’ seen at Binghamstown in 1847 represented native detachment from civilised place. For the scholar, as well as for the activist, this is the point at which representational analysis reaches it limits and the ‘more-thanrepresentational’ must be addressed. As a landscape of suffering, Erris becomes a location laden with emotion and affect, with maps of the dead and the diaspora overlapping and rupturing the hegemonic maps of ordnance and bogland surveys, poor law statistics and visions of improvement. In commemorations like that at Doolough each year the victims of the Famine are remembered as part of a spectral gathering, a grouping together of the ghosts of the past, present and future. This gathering and the walk which activates it seeks to harness the affectual forces which the Famine created in Ireland to address issues of hunger and injustice beyond its shores. This essay has argued that the landscape aesthetics of the nineteenth century, with their colonial logics of development, tied the idea of wilderness to the idea of a wild people. Erris was the scene of horrific suffering and emigration during the Famine, but to many observers the scene was the important thing: peripherality, bogland, primitive communications and superstitious survivals blended together into a nexus of place-myths: people became ‘“-scaped” within travel writers’ focus on ‘landscapes’ of suffering. But as these levels of suffering reached a point of culmination, the gaze of the tourist was thrown back by the horror of what was seen: ‘One family’, Tuke wrote, ‘presented a perfectly appalling picture, so worn and emaciated I could not bear to look at them’ (1848, p. 64). No longer merely a spectacle, the suffering of the starved could change the perspective of the viewer who then confessed to being unable to accurately describe. Lacking their own voices, and by their condition causing an ‘inexpressibility’ in travellers, the Famine victim becomes a spectral sign which is deployed as an affectual force – something which Irish artists, activists, and charities have mastered in the past two decades. The Doolough commemoration is part of this outpouring of affect, but by tying the horrors of the Famine to environmental and social injustices associated with the Corrib gas controversy in the present, it reconfirms how the issue of landscape perception is never an innocent process, but something always intertwined with ideology, consumption and resistance. While the idea of Erris as a wilderness is today used positively in terms of tourism and environmental activism, Afri and the Shell to Sea campaign point to some pertinent links between nineteenth-century laissez-faire economics and what they see as the hegemonic neo-liberal forces of resource extraction. The fact that the Celtic Tiger took off in the 1990s, at the same time as Famine commemorations exploded in number, is something that Afri has, like a gadfly, drawn public attention to (Cullen, 1997). In 1998 it described as ‘“grotesque and offensive”’ an initiative to allow individual and corporate sponsorship of the Famine memorial on Custom

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House Quay, Dublin (the centrepiece of Celtic Tiger Ireland’s new financial services district). In this case, despite Afri’s analogy between the behaviour of the rich in the Irish past and present, the leaders of the Democratic Left, Social and Democratic Labour Party, and Sinn Féin political parties were among the first to sponsor the engraving of their family names near Rowan Gillespie’s monument (Humphreys, 1998). Afri’s activism has also sometimes placed it at the periphery of national commemorations of the Famine. For instance, Afri and the Doolough tragedy were not included as part of the planning for the national day of commemoration for the Famine, established in 2008 (Raftery, 2008; Siggins, 2010) while some national and regional radio stations were unwilling to run advertisements for the Doolough commemoration of 2009 due to its connection with the Corrib gas controversy (Siggins, 2009). The Shell to Sea campaign, meanwhile, contrasts the words of support sent to them by Desmond Tutu with the ‘silence’ of Mary Robinson on the Corrib issue. In this it subverts the kind of affectual power that Robinson was able to harness during her Presidency (Nash, 2008) by tying it to an establishment consensus on development minus any radicalism (‘Mary’, 2012). The importance of the Doolough commemoration lies in promoting political movement through sites of suffering as a means of connecting with the starving and the subaltern. Its radicalism lies in Afri’s discursive movement from this particular Mayo tragedy to a whole range of other atrocities and injustices where it is critical of the hegemonic power of neo-liberalism, and therefore antipathetic to national, centralised and celebratory forms of Famine commemoration. It is clear, therefore, that the Irish Famine and its legacies among the diaspora does not and cannot remain in the past. As long as past events are commemorated, living landscapes will be recognised as harbouring the dead and their injustices. The Doolough commemoration of 2013 was unusual, however, in facilitating a kind of resolution as for the first time the walkers were welcomed to ‘complete’ their journey at Delphi Lodge, where the paupers were turned away in 1849. The manager of the Lodge, now a hotel, declared it was ‘opening the gates’ to walkers and acknowledged its role in the tragedy. As walkers carried placards bearing the names of descendents who had died on the original walk, an oak tree was planted on the grounds to symbolise their memory (Siggins, 2013). References Afri., No date. Famine walk. [online] Available at: [Accessed 7 July 2013]. Almquist, E.L., 1979. Mayo and beyond: land, domestic industry, and rural transformation in the Irish west. Journal of Economic History, 39(1), pp. 323– 324. Anon, 1880. The great Irish famine of 1845–1846. A collection of leading articles, letters, and parliamentary and other public statements, reprinted from ‘The Times’. London: F. Goodlake.

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Anon, 1852. Transactions of the central relief committee of the Society of Friends during the famine in Ireland, in 1846 and 1847. Dublin: Hodges and Smith. Barnard, T. 2008. Improving Ireland? Projectors, prophets, and profiteers, 1641– 1786. Dublin: Four Courts Press. Bennett, W., 1847. Narrative of a recent journey of six weeks in Ireland, etc. London: Charles Gilpin. Bewell, A., 1999. Romanticism and colonial disease. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Bilton W., 1834. The angler in Ireland: or an Englishman’s ramble through Connaught and Munster during the summer of 1833. 2 vols. London: Richard Bentley. Bovet, M.A. de,, 1891. Three months’ tour in Ireland, Translated by A. Walter., London: Chapman and Hall. Burke, E., 2001. ‘Paddy and pig’: German travel writers in the ‘wild west’, 1828– 1858. Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, 53, pp. 145–155. Butlin, R.A., 1991. Land and people, c.1600. In: T.W. Moody, F.X. Martin, and F.J. Byrne, eds. Early modern Ireland, 1534–1691. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Canny, N.P., 1973. The ideology of English colonization: from Ireland to America. William and Mary Quarterly, 30(4), pp. 575–598. Connell, K.H., 1950. The colonization of waste land in Ireland, 1780–1845. Economic History Review, 3(1), pp. 44–71. Cullen, P. 1997. Famine memorial organisers are ‘dancing on graves’. Irish Times, 22 May. Evans, E. E., 1992. The personality of Ireland: habitat, heritage and history. Dublin: Lilliput Press. Fegan, M. 2001. The traveller’s experience of famine Ireland. Irish Studies Review, 9(3), pp. 361–371. Forbes, J., 1853. Memorandums made in Ireland in the autumn of 1852. 2 vols. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. Hadfield, A., 1997. Edmund Spenser’s Irish experience: wilde fruit and salvage soyl. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Howard, J.E., 1855. The island of saints; or, Ireland in 1855. London: Seeley, Jackson and Halliday. Humphreys, J., 1998. Famine initiative to raise funds seen as offensive. Irish Times, 30 Oct. Jordan, D.E., 1994. Land and popular politics in Ireland: county Mayo from the plantation to the land war. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kiberd, D., 1996. Inventing Ireland. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Knight, P., 1836. Erris in the ‘Irish highlands’, and the ‘Atlantic railway’. Dublin: M. Keene and Son. Leech, J., 1845. The real potato blight of Ireland. Punch, 13 Dec. Martineau, H., 1852. Letters from Ireland. London: J. Chapman.

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‘Mary’., 2012. Mary Robinson: ‘everybody matters’...but the people of Erris. [online] Available at: [Accessed 7 July 2013]. Maxwell, W.H., 1832. Wild sports of the west, etc. 2 vols. London: Richard Bentley. McLean, S., 2004. The event and its terrors: Ireland, famine, modernity. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Morash, C., 1995. Spectres of the famine. Irish Review, 17/18, pp. 74–79. M’Manus, H., 1863. Sketches of the Irish highlands: descriptive, social, and religious, etc. London: Hamilton, Adams and Co. M’Parlan, J., 1802. Statistical survey of the county of Mayo etc. Dublin: Graisberry and Campbell. Motloch, J.L., 2001. Introduction to landscape design. New York and Chichester: Wiley. Mitchell, D., 2000. Cultural geography: a critical introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. Nash C., 2008. Of Irish descent: origin stories, genealogy, & the politics of belonging. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. Nicholson, A., 1847. Ireland’s welcome to the stranger. Or, an excursion through Ireland, in 1844 & 1845, etc. London: C. Gilpin. Nicholson, A., 1851. Annals of the famine in Ireland, in 1847, 1848, 1849. New York: E. Nora, P., 1989. Between memory and history: les lieux de mémoire. Representations, 26, pp. 7–25. Ó Catháin, S., and P. O’Flanagan., 1975. The living landscape: Killgalligan, Erris, County Mayo. Dublin: University College Dublin. O’Donovan, J., 1926. Letters relating to the antiquities of the county of Mayo: containing information collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1838. Dublin: National Library of Ireland. Ó Gráda, C., 1994. Ireland: A new economic history, 1780–1939. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Raftery, B., 2008. Commemoration day for famine. Letter to Irish Times. 2 Aug. Rasche, H., 1995. ‘A strange spectacle’: German travellers in the west 1828–1858. Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, 47, pp. 87–107. Robertson, J., 1806. The traveller’s guide through Ireland, etc. Edinburgh: Denham and Dick. Robinson, M., 1995. International conference on hunger keynote address. [online] Available at: [Accessed 7 July 2013]. Siggins, L., 2009. RTÉ denies censorship of Afri advert over Rossport reference. Irish Times, 6 Aug. Siggins, L., 2010. Famine memorial exclusion ‘not on purpose’. Irish Times, 17 May. Siggins, L., 2013. Connemara estate implicated in Famine deaths to erect commemorative plaque. Irish Times, 20 May. Slater, E., 1993. Contested terrain: differing interpretations of Co. Wicklow’s landscape. Irish Journal of Sociology, 3, pp. 23–55.

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Smyth, W., 2006. Map-making, landscapes and memory: a geography of colonial and early modern Ireland, c.1530–1750. Cork: Cork University Press. Somerville, A., 1994. Letters from Ireland during the famine of 1847. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. Storey, A., 2009. The Corrib gas dispute: background and current status. [online] Available at: [Accessed 7 July 2013]. Taylor, J.W., 1849. A month’s visit to Connaught and its mission stations. Edinburgh: Johnstone and Hunter. Taylor, L.J., 1980. Colonialism and community structure in western Ireland. Ethnohistory, 27(2), pp. 169–181. Trotter J.B., 1819. Walks through Ireland, in the years 1812, 1814, and 1817, etc. London: Sir R. Phillips and Co. Tuke, J.H., 1848. A visit to Connaught in the autumn of 1847, etc. 2nd ed. London: Charles Gilpin. Vulliamy, E., 2011. Shell’s battle for the heart of Ireland. The Observer, 29 May. Williams, W., 2010. Creating Irish tourism: the first century, 1750–1850. London: Anthem Press. Woods, C.J., 1992. Irish travel writings as source material. Irish Historical Studies, 28(110), pp. 171–183. Young, A., 1780. A tour in Ireland: with general observations on the present state of that kingdom in the years 1776, 1777, and 1778, etc. 2 vols, Dublin: T. Cadell and J. Dodsley.

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Chapter 3

The Creation of the ‘Irish Loop’: Ethnicity, Collective Historical Memory, and Place1 Willeen Keough

Introduction The southeast Avalon Peninsula prides itself on being the most Irish corner of the island of Newfoundland, and modern-day visitors seeking a transplanted piece of the ‘auld sod’ are encouraged to wend their way south of the capital, St. John’s. Indeed, the ribbon of highway that threads its way through the area has been designated by government nomenclature and tourism signage as the ‘Irish Loop’. Tourists to the province are lured to the area with promises that they will find a ‘thick Irish brogue’ (Irish Loop Development Board, n.d.a.) spoken in this ‘heart of Irish culture and heritage’ (The Irish Loop Tourism Centre, 2008). The web site of the Southern Shore Folks Arts Council serves up its program of special events with a good helping of Irish-Newfoundland vernacular: ‘If there’s ‘aire a drop o’ Irish blood in your veins atal, atal, you won’t want to miss the Annual Shamrock Festival!’ (Southern Shore Folk Arts Council, n.d.b). The shamrock proliferates on the signs and web pages of local businesses and tourism associations. Its reference to Ireland is clear enough, but it is a somewhat anachronistic symbol, for the plant is not native to Newfoundland; nor does it even grow well there, except in indoor plant pots, sheltered from the harsh spring climate. Or perhaps it is a fitting symbol after all – a transplant, trying to put down roots and adapt in a new and sometimes inhospitable environment. There has been an Irish presence on the southeast Avalon since at least the late seventeenth century, so the area makes solid claims to Irish roots. What is intriguing, though, is the re-awakening of Irish ethnic identity in the region since the 1960s and its open celebration of Irishness since the 1990s. Unlike 1 This is a revised version of a paper that originally appeared as: Keough, W., 2008. Creating the ‘Irish Loop’: cultural renaissance or commodification of ethnic identity in an imagined tourist landscape? Canadian Journal of Irish Studies / Revue canadienne d’études irlandaises, 34(2), pp. 5–24. The author acknowledges the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities and Research Council of Canada and the Institute of Social and Economic Research, Memorial University, in researching and writing this essay.

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St. John’s and the Conception Bay area to the north – where, historically, IrishCatholic ethnicity was articulated quite clearly, and sometimes explosively, in the presence of an English-Protestant ethnic other (Keough, 2005) – the expression of Irish identity on the southeast Avalon has been quite understated. Irishness was simply part of the rhythm of life, in cadence of speech and customary practice, gently modulated by Newfoundland experiences. So what has caused this more conspicuous assertion of Irish ethnicity along the southeast Avalon in recent decades? To understand this reimagining of place as the Irish Loop, we must explore the cartography of collective historical memory and the impact of socioeconomic disruption on the cultural landscape. The concept of collective historical memory implies sharing and mediation within what Irwin-Zareka (1994) has termed ‘community of memory’. This collective remembering (and forgetting) is often multi-generational; filtered through the passage of time, it is fluid and adapted to specific contexts, yet it also retains certain consistencies. As Sugiman (2004) has noted, ‘individual’ memories are often processed through a communal filter. O’Keeffe similarly observes that even memories of personal experience attract additional layers of meaning when they become part of what he calls ‘collected’ memory; they are no longer ‘really memories of the event but memories of its mediation’ (2007, p. 5). This shared interpretation of memories moves them into the realms of the social and cultural, and the way that they are read into a landscape (physical or cultural) provides a sense of place and belonging. The landscape itself then becomes a vehicle for remembering (and forgetting). This type of conceptual framework is particularly helpful in understanding the construction of ethnic identity over time and in the seeming absence of an ethnic other. For ethnicity is more than a static sense of belonging to a group based on common descent and shared culture. It also involves a dialogue of difference whereby groups essentialise their respective cultural identities by negotiating terms of inclusion and exclusion with ‘other’ groups (see Keough, 2005). The process is ongoing and varies over time and place, although negotiations are often most aggressive when groups compete for social, economic and political capital. Thus, ethnicity is not transhistorical and rigid. Furthermore, it is often tempered by subjective assessment, because individuals meeting the same objective criteria may or may not position themselves in a particular ethnic group, according to their own perceptions of their ethnic identities. Intriguingly, along the southeast Avalon, there are almost as many English descendants as Irish, with many hailing from mixed origins; but the collective historical memory has repressed Englishness in its understanding of place and belonging. What follows will be part historical discussion and part meditation on the complexities of these processes in the creation of the Irish Loop.

The Creation of the ‘Irish Loop’

Figure 3.1

51

Stone Island, home to Irish settlers in Caplin Bay at the turn of the nineteenth century

Source: Willeen Keough, 2003

The Irish Connection: Background Early nominal census material indicates a strong presence of English planter families on the southeast Avalon by the late seventeenth century – a demographic reflection of a West of England–Newfoundland fishery that was almost two centuries old (see, e.g., Berry, 1675, 1677; Story, 1681; Naval Officer, 1708). But an Irish runnel had begun to feed into this migration stream. By the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, fishing ships from north Devon ports were regularly stopping at southeast Irish ports for cheap salted provisions and labour for the Newfoundland fishery. In 1720, British naval authorities at the island noted especially the ‘great numbers of Irish roman Catholick servants [employees in the fishery], who all settle to the southward [of St. John’s]’ (Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Office, 1720, as quoted in Head, 1976, p. 89). Wartime conditions in the latter half of the eighteenth century wrought serious disruptions in the West of England–Newfoundland trade, particularly the migratory sector. Nonetheless, the Irish migration stream swelled as increasing numbers of Irish fishing servants filled the void left by English servants who had either been pressed into naval service or had moved inland from ports to avoid press gangs. After the Seven Years’ War, some merchants in southeast Ireland developed an independent trade with the southeast Avalon, and these ports and their hinterlands became a major source area for Irish emigrants to the area. Other southeast Avalon Irish initially entered through the port of St. John’s, attracted by its increasing commercial activity and potential for employment – ultimately making their way southwards from the town. By the late 1700s, an Irish population had established itself on the southeast Avalon, and numbers grew with further waves of immigration up to the 1830s (Keough, 2006; see also Mannion, 1977; 1993).

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With very few exceptions, the Irish who migrated to Newfoundland were Roman Catholic, and as increasing numbers of them arrived on the island, official discourse created an image of this immigrant group as wicked and treasonous. In 1705, the British naval commander stationed at Newfoundland for the fishing season articulated a theme that would echo throughout the eighteenth century and into the next: That Care may be taken of the Irish residing in the Country, for they by our daily Experience have proved very detrimental to the Governmt. hereof, for when the Enemy makes any Incursion upon us they do take up armes and informe our Enemy and prove very treacherous and our greatest Enemy. (Cummins, ca. 1705–6)

Authorities also represented Irish-Catholic fishing servants as idle and disorderly. The preamble to a proclamation by Governor Richard Dorrill in 1755 is representative: Whereas a great Number of Irish Roman Catholicks are Annually brought over here, a great part of which have but small wages, so that after paying their Passages to this Place, and the charges of Clothing &c during the fishing season, their whole wages are spent & they have not wherewith either to Pay their Passages home, or to Purchase Provisions for the Winter, by which means they not only become chargable to this Place but many Robberys and Felonys &c are committed, by them to the great Loss and Terror of His Majesty’s Liege Subjects in this Island … (Dorrill, 1755)

The Newfoundland Irish were a ‘problem’ group that required regulation and control (Keough, 2006). In particular, there were worries about the Irish to the south of St. John’s. During the American Revolutionary War, a petition to Governor John Montagu from the merchants and principal inhabitants of Renews (all of English origins) stated that, despite depredations committed by American vessels along that shore, ‘we are more in danger from some of them [Irish inhabitants], than from the Americans, as they are determined to plunder the Stores & turn Rebels’ (Inhabitants of Renews, 1778). In 1800, when the failed United Irish rebellion of 1798 sparked a mutiny amongst Irish troops in the Newfoundland Regiment at St. John’s, officials again expressed concern about the disloyalty of the Irish population, particularly those on the southeast Avalon: … we knew not who we could depend upon for support in case of resistance, having every reason to believe the defection was very extensive not only through the Regiment, but through the Inhabitants of this and all the Out Harbours particularly to the Southward almost to a Man have taken the United Oaths .... [T]he security of Trade and Fishery, nay the security and salvation of this

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53

Island itself will entirely depend upon a proper Military Force [of 800–1,000 men] at this place, with sufficient strength to afford small detachments to some of the Out Harbours to the Southward to watch their motions, and assist the Magistrates when necessary. (Ogden, 1800)

Throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, official proclamations and regulations sought to limit the size of the Irish-Catholic population in Newfoundland by ordering that they be returned to their home ports after the fishing season was over and that their ‘hutts’ be torn down to prevent their overwintering on the island. These regulations must be viewed within the context of a significant French presence on the island, provoking British concerns that Irish and French Catholics in Newfoundland would ally themselves against Britain in times of war. In addition, anti-Catholic penal laws were still in operation in Great Britain, Ireland and British colonies. Instructions to naval governors up to 1779 permitted liberty of conscience to all Christian faiths ‘except Papists’ in Newfoundland (Rollmann, 1987). In practical terms, the broader application of the penal regime was left to gubernatorial discretion, so there was variation in the level of enforcement over time, but certain key laws were more consistently applied. For example, Catholics in Newfoundland could not hold office within the rudimentary system of governance on the island; they were not permitted to bear firearms, hold property or run public houses; their trade was taxed. Catholics were not permitted to exercise their faith openly until Governor Jonathon Campbell issued a Declaration of Liberty of Conscience in 1784 (Keough, 2005; 2006). Still, there was a paradox in official attitudes towards Irish servants, for although the Irish were seen as undesirables, they were becoming increasingly essential to the operation of the fishery on the island, especially when English fishing servants became scarcer in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Furthermore, some employers actually preferred Irish servants to English. For example, Saunders and Sweetman – a Poole-based mercantile firm operating at Placentia and on the southern Avalon – sent at least one vessel annually, and in some years two, to Waterford to pick up Irish passengers for the fishery. As Pierce Sweetman noted in 1788: We have been very lucky in having no runaways, this Spring we have lost but 2 men & an Engh. Boy, I would advise you never to send out more Engh. youngrs. [youngsters – i.e., novice fishing servants] than will just clear the Vessels, the most of all that ran away from this [firm’s service] the Winter before this were Engh. Boys & youngrs. they never any of them stick to the place or have any attachment to it, & for hard labour one Irish youngr. is worth a Dozn. of them ... (Sweetman, 1788)

Indeed, most Irish immigrants, both men and women, were more interested in taking advantage of the opportunities in the Newfoundland fishery than taking up arms with the enemy, and as a resident fishery grew and the migratory fishery

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Heritage, Diaspora and the Consumption of Culture

declined, increasing numbers of them remained and formed fishing households of their own. Still, the rather cool reception from colonial authorities fed into a sense of Irish-Catholic grievance that manifested itself in numerous public articulations of ethnic identity. The group’s most significant ethnic ‘other’ in Newfoundland were English Protestants from the West Country. In areas where the two ethnoreligious groups both settled but maintained distinct identities, particularly St. John’s and Conception Bay, tensions often flared in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as the groups competed for political power and economic resources (Fitzgerald, 1997; Greene, 1999; Keough, 2005; 2009). But on the southeast Avalon, there were no similar incidents of communal violence. The one major disturbance in the area, dubbed the ‘Ferryland Riot’, was actually a faction fight between Irish immigrants from Munster and Leinster. In fact, Irishness was not strongly articulated to a local ethnic other on the southeast Avalon because English Protestants in the area, particularly among the plebeian fishing population, were being inexorably absorbed into the Irish-Catholic population. Despite a strong English-Protestant presence on that shore in the late 1600s, one century later, the inhabitants were almost totally Catholic. In particular, there was a dramatic increase in the proportion of Catholics in the area between 1754 and 1805, such that by the turn of the nineteenth century, the population was over 90 per cent Catholic; by 1845, this proportion had increased to 97 per cent (Governors of Newfoundland, 1754–1805; Government of Newfoundland, 1836, 1845). Using the conventional Newfoundland formula of origins – Catholic = Irish; Protestant = English – one could view this phenomenon purely in terms of a net movement of incoming Irish migrants and outgoing English inhabitants. However, anecdotal evidence provided by Catholic priests and ministers of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) strongly suggests that the processes of intermarriage, conversion and assimilation were at work in conjunction with Irish in-migration. A sense of fatalism about an increasing Catholic presence pervades the records of the SPG for the southeast Avalon. Dwindling Protestant congregations complained that the Roman Catholic religion was ‘daily gaining ground’ (Inhabitants of Bay Bulls, 1773). By 1801, there were only only 225 Anglicans (with 7 actual communicants) in the district, compared with 1579 dissenters, ‘particularly Papish’ (Dingle, 1801), falling to 129 Anglicans in 1826 (Blackman, 1826). Anglican clerics scrambled to round up those ‘few sheep in the wilderness, who have not followed the multitude into the strange pastures’ (Spencer, 1842); but by the mid-nineteenth century, the number of communicants had declined dramatically to only four families in Placentia, ‘and some of these [were] wavering’ (Feild, 1845). Meanwhile, the Catholic clergy were quite satisfied with their gains. Father Thomas Ewer, the first parish priest in the newly established Catholic mission at Ferryland, boasted to his superiors in 1796 that Methodism could make no inroads in the area, and that the ‘[Church of England] Protestants likewise lose ground & their minister oblidged to decamp notwithstanding his £70 a year

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55

from the Society’ (Byrne, 1984, pp. 140–2). In the mid-1830s, Catholic Bishop Michael Fleming happily observed the numbers of converts who had turned from ‘the flock of the stranger’ to ‘the bosom of Christianity’ on the southeast Avalon (Fleming, 1836, p. 91; 1837, p. 39). These reports of early missionaries sketch an impression of intermarriage and conversion rather than an exodus of EnglishProtestant families. A comparison of extant records of Catholic and Protestant marriages (available primarily for the period from the turn of the nineteenth century onwards) confirms that this process gained momentum throughout the nineteenth century. Very rarely does an Irish surname appear in the Anglican parish records of the area. Within the Catholic parish records, by contrast, English surnames are frequently interspersed amongst the Irish – indicating a high degree of assimilation of English-Protestant patrilines into the expanding Irish-Catholic ethnoreligious group, even by the early 1800s. A more in-depth breakdown of marriage patterns within the two groups (as discussed in Keough, 2006) adds to the impression of a growing and maturing Irish-Catholic population, steadily incorporating new members, vis-àvis a beleaguered English-Protestant group, increasingly middle class, in retreat and turning inwards on itself or recruiting from outside the southeast Avalon to maintain its class and ethnic homogeneity. Most of the intermarriages in the area induced conversions to the Catholic religion and/or the raising of children in the Catholic faith; ultimately, they resulted in assimilation to Irish-Catholic culture. But for the most part, Irish ethnicity on the southeast Avalon was not loudly proclaimed. Rather, it percolated beneath the surface of everyday life – in vernacular architecture and subsistence agricultural practices, in the observance of partible inheritance, in an alternate pre-Christian belief system that survived well into the twentieth century, in Gaelic words that peppered the vernacular, and in Irish accents and speech patterns that persist in the area to present day (Dillon, 1968; Seary, Story and Kirwin, 1968; Kirwin, 1993). The English language was ubiquitous by the nineteenth century because it was the language of the fishery, the legal system and, ultimately, the educational system; but other vestiges of Englishness were fading, wraithlike, into an Irish cultural landscape. A Portrait of Ethnicity: Painting by Numbers with Twentieth-Century Census Returns A century later, that cultural terrain was very similar. Yet a more robust Irish ethnic identity would soon be articulated, not just in this subregion, but also more widely in Newfoundland. This increasing ‘Celticisation’ troubled some scholars, who could not find corresponding evidence of ethnic identity in census reportings. But because ethnicity is fluid, contingent, and subjective, it is a social construction that defies ‘scientific’ measurement. Still, it is worth taking a moment to consider alternative interpretations of the census statistics.

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The Dominion Bureau of Statistics and Statistics Canada have included questions on ethnic origin2 and ancestry in census returns since the late nineteenth century in the hope of creating a yardstick of Canadian ethnic backgrounds. Intriguingly, in the 1951 Canadian census, the first to be taken after Newfoundland joined the Canadian confederation, only 14.8 per cent of Newfoundlanders identified themselves as being of Irish origin. Ten years later, the proportion had risen only slightly to 16.3 per cent (see Table 3.1). While these results relate to the entire province, not just to the southeast Avalon, they do invite some broader questions about the negotiation of ethnic identities in Newfoundland. Table 3.1

1951 1961

Ethnic Origins – British Isles as Percentage of Total Population of Newfoundland, 1951 and 1961 Total British Isles %

English %

Irish %

Scottish %

Other British Isles %

93.5 93.7

77.0 74.7

14.8 16.3

1.5 2.2

0.2 0.5

Source: Derived from Census of Canada (Government of Canada): 1951, Vol. 1, Table 33; and 1961, Vol. 1, Table 36.

The percentages claiming Irish origins were very low, given that European settlers in Newfoundland had overwhelmingly come from England and Ireland, with the Irish comprising roughly half the population by 1836 (Mannion, 1993). Even allowing for a substantial out-migration of Irish-Newfoundlanders to the ‘Boston States’ in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a large proportion of the population by the middle of the twentieth century had Irish ancestors in their background. Yet many did not acknowledge this in the midcentury censuses. Of course, the way in which people responded to the question about ethnic origins would have depended very much upon how the question was framed and how respondents understood it. In the hard-fought campaign on confederation with Canada in 1949, for example, the population had been sharply divided between joining Canada and returning to British dominion status. Most Catholic districts had voted against Confederation in part from concerns about Canadian Orangeism (Fitzgerald, 2007). In the census two years later, were some of them anxious to position themselves clearly within the ‘British vs. Canadian’ binary by declaring 2 Terms such as ‘ethnic origin’ and ‘ethnic group’ will be used here as they appear in the census material. They do not embrace the full complexity of ethnicity as a social construction.

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57

their ‘Englishness’? And how many people of mixed ancestry, when faced with the single-response option provided by these mid-century censuses, had simply selected the first applicable category on the form? Or were a substantial number of Newfoundlanders of Irish descent disassociating themselves from the Irish ethnic group because they had absorbed a hegemonic equation of Irishness with backwardness? Certainly, Irish origins appeared to be more muted in the records at this particular time than demographic unraveling might lead us to expect. By 1996, the percentage of Newfoundlanders reporting Irish origins had grown to 22.2 per cent of total responses – a 35 per cent increase since 1961 (within a population that had increased by only 20 per cent in the same time frame). Significantly, respondents had by now been offered the option of giving multiple responses, providing scope for a much more nuanced rendering of their ethnic origins. Indeed, of those reporting multiple backgrounds, 51.4 per cent claimed to be of Irish origin in combination with other backgrounds (see Table 3.2). These were significant shifts. But the picture is complicated, given that respondents now also had the option of choosing Canada as a place of origin, with many respondents in areas that had been long established selecting this option as a single response (Statistics Canada, 1996).3 Province-wide, 28.6 per cent identified themselves as being of Canadian origin only, while 36.4 per cent reported some Canadian origin in multiple responses. Additionally, the Newfoundland population was slowly diversifying, with immigrants from various parts of the world reporting in new categories and lowering percentages in older ones. Regardless, there was still an upturn in identification of Irish ethnic origins among Irish descendants in the province. By the taking of the 2001 census, the continuing shift to Canadian identity was reflected across the range of responses in that category; in terms of total respondents in Newfoundland and Labrador, 41 per cent (or 55 per cent of those giving single responses) described themselves as Canadian only. However, this transition was not accommodated by an even decline across other ethnic groups. The bleed came almost entirely from the English ethnic group, which dropped over 20 per cent in both total and single responses, with very little loss from the Irish and other ethnic groups from the British Isles – a tenacity that is intriguing. In the 2006 census, reportings in these categories seem to have stabilized somewhat, with slight drops in some, likely reflecting the ongoing trickle of global immigration to the province.

3 According to Statistics Canada, regions that were ‘settled the earliest, and had experienced relatively little recent immigration, tended to have the highest proportion of people reporting their origins as Canadian’ (Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, 1996 Census).

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Table 3.2

Ethnic Origins – British Isles, Canadian and Newfoundlander as Proportion of Total Population of Province, 1996, 2001 and 2006

English Irish Scottish Welsh British, n.i.e.* Canadian Newfoundlander

Total Responses

Single Responses

Multiple Responses

%

%

%

1996

2001

2006

1996

2001

2006

1996

2001

2006

59.8 22.2 7.0 0.6 0.2 30.7 NR

39.4 19.7 6.0 0.5 0.2 53.4 NR

44.0 21.1 6.6 0.7 0.8 46.3 1.0

52.7 11.5 1.6 0.1 0.2 28.6 NR

28.1 9.3 1.1 0.1 0.2 55.0 NR

31.9 10.5 1.6 0.1 0.5 48.0 0.6

79.1 51.4 21.7 1.9 0.4 36.4 NR

72.3 50.3 20.1 1.9 0.3 48.8 NR

73.6 46.8 18.9 1.9 1.4 42.1 1.8

Notes: * ‘not included elsewhere’ Statistics Canada makes the following distinction: ‘British Isles only origins include single responses of English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh or other British, as well as multiple British Isles only responses that is, a combination of any of the following: English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh or other British (for example, ‘English and Irish’).’ While this ‘clarification’ is murky, it is likely that some respondents in this category may also have been acknowledging Irish origins. Figures from which percentages were derived were based on 20 per cent of population and rounded to the nearest 5. Source: Derived from Statistics Canada (Government of Canada): 1996 Census, ‘Top 15 Ethnic Origins, Based on Total Responses’, Table for Newfoundland; 2001 Census, ‘Selected Ethnic Origins, for Canada, Provinces and Territories – 20% Sample Data’, Table for Newfoundland and Labrador; and 2006 Census, ‘Ethnic Origin, Generation Status, Single and Multiple Ethnic Origin Responses and Sex for the Population 15 Years and Over of Canada, Provinces, Territories, Census Divisions and Census Subdivisions, 2006 – 20% Sample Data’, Table for Newfoundland and Labrador.

But how accurately did these broader trends in the province reflect what was happening on the southeast Avalon? While we have no detailed information from the mid-twentieth century, the later censuses do provide breakdowns of origins by communities, from which I have created an aggregate impression of the Irish Loop in Table 3.3. The significant surge in Canadian identity in 2001 echoes in this refined data; but the shift was more evenly spread across English and Irish groups, other than a slightly sharper decline in English reportings in 2001.4 But there are 4 This is a long-established area, with virtually no recent immigration. Aside from some mixed French origins (5.6 per cent of total responses; 20.9 per cent of mixed

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59

two very significant differences between Tables 3.2 and 3.3. First, the percentages of residents claiming Irish origins were strikingly higher on the Irish Loop than for the entire province – ranging from 25 to 40 per cent higher in all categories, with a notable 50.1 per cent identifying solely as Irish and 83.3 per cent claiming some Irish background in 1996. These numbers seem to justify the ‘Irish Loop’ designation. But Table 3.3 also reveals a strong recognition of English origins in the area; indeed, in the multiple responses category, English and Irish origins were running neck and neck by 2006. Table 3.3

Ethnic Origins – British Isles, Canadian and Newfoundlander as Proportion of Population of the Irish Loop, 1996, 2001, and 2006

English Irish Scottish Welsh British, n.i.e.* Canadian Newfoundlander

Total Responses

Single Responses

Multiple Responses

%

%

%

1996

2001

2006

1996

2001

2006

1996

2001

2006

43.3 61.1 1.6 0.3 0.0 26.1 NR

23.8 46.2 3.3 0.3 0.0 46.3 NR

35.2 47.7 3.9 0.4 0.0 44.0 1.0

29.4 50.1 0.6 0.0 0.0 18.8 NR

11.6 36.4 0.3 0.0 0.0 48.3 NR

17.6 35.5 0.9 0.0 0.0 42.6 1.2

72.7 85.3 3.3 1.0 0.0 41.0 NR

64.1 78.2 11.7 1.0 0.0 38.8 NR

73.4 73.8 10.5 0.8 0.0 46.1 0.8

Source: Derived from the sources listed for Table 4.2, based on specific reportings for communities from Bay Bulls south of St. John’s to St. Catherine’s in St. Mary’s Bay.

These proportions do not satisfactorily explain the intensifying manifestation of Irishness in the area in the latter decades of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. To arrive at better understanding, we must widen our lens to a broader social, economic, and cultural landscape. The Academy, the Arts Community and Tourism, 1960-1980s In the 1960s, there was a surge of interest in ‘Newfoundland culture’ within the academic community of the newly established Memorial University of Newfoundland. Folklorists and their students engaged in oral fieldwork around the responses), this shore was overwhelming settled by immigrants from the British Isles from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries.

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province, seeking to preserve evidence of local folk narratives, songs and practices that were beginning to suffer encroachment from ‘North American culture’.5 Soon, faculty and students in other disciplines – Anthropology, History, Geography and English – also initiated oral research projects in local communities, tapping into the richness of a still vibrant oral tradition in Newfoundland and Labrador. The impact of academics pouring up over dirt roads by bus and into remote harbours by boat, with tape recorders and notebooks in hand, was extremely empowering to local residents who had long been told by educators and bourgeois culture that their customs and speech patterns were signs of backwardness. As one elderly woman on the southeast Avalon told once told me, ‘They made us ashamed of who we were’ (ESX, 1999). Suddenly, their traditional practices and dialects were worthy of academic study. So there was an increasing awareness in the outports of the province that what they had to offer was important, not only to the university, but to their own sense of cultural worth. By the 1970s, the local arts community was also revitalising Newfoundland culture on a grand scale (Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage, n.d.). Artists celebrated traditional folk arts, ranging from mat hooking and recitation to accordion playing and traditional dance. Young singers and musicians like Anita Best and Kelly Russell apprenticed themselves to traditional singers and fiddlers and learned their repertoires. The Mummers Troupe revitalised a flagging mummering tradition. In their collaborative theatre productions, CODCO and Rising Tide Theatre created a host of memorable local characters from workingclass St. John’s and the outports. But there was more to this cultural renaissance than the insulating, fossilising process that Ian McKay observed within the Nova Scotian context – something other than upholding ‘the pre-modern, quaint, therapeutic Otherness’ of the ‘Folk’, while paradoxically reinforcing modern capitalist relations with the help of the modern liberal state (McKay, 1994, p. 151). Figgy Duff, for example, combined traditional songs and reels with original material, stirring it with the driving rhythms of rock and winning international acclaim for the sophistication and innovation of their arrangements. The Mummers Troupe engaged in protest theatre, critiquing the misrepresentation of Newfoundland sealers by animal welfare activists in They Club Seals, Don’t They? and mourning the human and environmental costs of irresponsible resource extraction in Buchans, a Mining Town/Company Town. So this was not a cultural renaissance born of capitalism and bourgeois culture to maintain a subaltern group in its subordinate position (McKay, 1994, p. xvi). Indeed, the most innovative artists were of the ‘Folk’ themselves, and the groundswell was being energised from below, not above. The arts community was receiving a substantial amount of funding from federal and provincial governments, it is true; but it was maintaining its innovative edge while signaling that ‘tradition’ was no longer a dirty word in 5 Today, the Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive is a world-renowned repository of information on folk beliefs and customs, folk songs and narratives, popular culture, local dialects and vernacular, oral history and material culture.

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Newfoundland. However, the provincial government would attempt to give the cultural revival its own spin. While the academics tried to conserve Newfoundland culture and the arts community sought to revitalise it, the provincial Department of Culture and Tourism6 and tourist industries began to market it as never before. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, tourist literature had focused primarily on Newfoundland and Labrador as an unspoiled wilderness – a place of interest to nature lovers, scientists, hunters and sports fishermen (see, e.g., Fraser, 1899– 1906; O’Reilly, 1911; Young, 1945; Davies, 1946; Government of Newfoundland, Department of Tourism, 1946; 1948; Cable, 1948). But by the 1960s, a new tourist potential was spotted within the large expatriate Newfoundland population living on ‘the mainland’, many of whom came home to visit friends and families on a regular basis. The province sent out the call ‘Come home, Newfoundlanders!’ and 1966 was established as ‘Come Home Year’. In order to facilitate this provincewide reunion and soirée, federal and provincial governments committed resources to ‘Finish the drive [Trans Canada Highway] in ’65’. After this successful appeal to out-migrants, a broader invitation was extended to all visitors. Tourism was hailed as the ‘new growth industry of the sixties’ (Wheeler, 1967, pp. 11, 13); virtually overnight, it had become ‘everybody’s business’ (Newfoundland Journal of Commerce, 1969, pp. 16, 18–19). While the province’s great outdoors still featured in promotional literature, another motif entered tourism’s script: the uniqueness of Newfoundland culture (Overton, 1996, discusses the ‘invention’ of a ‘distinct Newfoundland culture’). The province was represented as a place inhabited by colourful characters, unmatched for their humour and hospitality. A guide to interpreting Newfoundland dialects and vernacular was published in Maclean’s magazine (1965). Mainlanders who wanted to engage with this culture sui generis could come to the province and be ‘screeched in’: that is, kiss a codfish, eat a slice of ‘Newfoundland steak’ (bologna, courtesy of Maple Leaf/Canada Packers Inc.) and swig back a couple of ounces of ‘Newfoundland Screech’ (cheap rum imported from Jamaica). The ‘essential Newfoundlander’ – earthy, witty and welcoming, stoic in the face of adversity – was submitted to the tourist gaze, and eco-tourism and cultural tourism became the two brightest jewels in tourism’s crown (see Hancock, 1986; Stone, 1987; Where It’s At, 1996; Brown, 1996; MacDonald, 1997; Crummey, 2001; Devereaux, 2002; Jarvis, 2002; Chafe, 2003. But while visitors in the bars and conference centres of the capital city were fully exposed to this commodified ‘Newfie’ image,7 ordinary people in the city and 6 For consistency, I will use this name throughout the paper, although the department has had several name changes, from its earliest manifestation as the Department of Tourism to the current Department of Culture, Tourism and Recreation. 7 The resemblance between constructions of the ‘Newfie’ and the ‘Irish Paddy’ is quite striking and may help to explain why so many outsiders mistakenly believe that almost everyone in Newfoundland is of Irish descent.

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the outports continued to get on with their lives and preferred that visitors accept them as they were. Still, by the 1980s, a number of small communities began to tap into federal and provincial funding for heritage tourism projects. An abundance of summer festivals and historical pageants came on stream, and while they were motivated by a genuine interest in local heritage, they were also intended to attract the tourist dollar. Nevertheless, along the southeast Avalon, the main tourist activity throughout the 1980s continued to be eco-tourism, with whale and puffin boat tours featuring predominantly. However, an ecological disaster loomed which would have a devastating effect on the area. In the midst of this crisis, the potential of cultural tourism would take on a whole new significance for the region. Cod Moratorium On 2 July 1992, the federal government announced a two-year moratorium on the northern cod fishery, which had sustained communities along the southeast Avalon (and throughout Newfoundland and Labrador) for centuries (Government of Canada, Industry Canada, 1996). Fingers were pointed – at federal scientists, large Canadian fish corporations, foreign fishing fleets, local fishers, growing seal herds and global warming – but casting blame did not resolve the problem. When the two years had passed, the biomass had not recovered and the moratorium was extended. At ground zero, the impact was devastating. Some local fishing families turned to other fisheries; some found jobs in other sectors, many commuting to the capital city daily while trying to maintain their ‘berths’ back home; but increasingly, outport communities grew accustomed to the sight of young families packing up U-Haul trailers and heading off across the Trans Canada Highway and the Cabot Strait to the greener pastures of Toronto, Calgary and Fort McMurray. Realising that northern cod stocks were not recovering as quickly as had been hoped, the federal government launched ‘The Atlantic Groundfish Strategy’ (TAGS) on 19 April 1994 (Government of Canada, Industry Canada, 1996). The plan included immediate financial support for those who were unemployed because of the crisis in the fishery. Ominously, it also announced the need for a ‘labour adjustment’ in the Atlantic cod fishery – a rather neutral term for the displacement and fragmentation of families and communities that would follow. TAGS provided income support and career counseling for training in other fields of employment as well as cash bonuses for plant workers and fishers who found employment outside the fishery. Those who had to move to pursue work opportunities were given relocation assistance. The program also offered wage

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subsidies to employers in other sectors to hire former plant workers and fishers. And it offered income incentives to plant workers and fishers between the ages of 50 and 64 to retire early (the ‘Fishery Older Worker Adjustment Program’). The tone of the policy was upbeat and encouraging. Local fishers and plant workers would receive ‘support for entrepreneurship, restoration of the environment and other community activities’. They would be able to ‘seize opportunities in the new economy’ and meet the demands of ‘diversified and changing labour markets’ (Government of Canada, Industry Canada,1996). But as the flow of U-haul trailers intensified, it was painfully obvious to many small rural communities that these new opportunities and labour markets were developing elsewhere – that their own communities were in crisis.8 In 1992, a federal-provincial task force was formed to make recommendations for community economic development in Newfoundland and Labrador. In its 1995 report, Community Matters: The New Regional Economic Development, the task force recommended the creation of various economic development zones in the province, including the Irish Loop region (Zone 20), stretching from Bay Bulls to Mall Bay on the southeast Avalon. The stamp was immediately set on development in the area with the rationale for the name: ‘This area has long been known as the Irish Loop because of its rich Irish culture and ancestry,’ the task force proclaimed (report available on website, Irish Loop Development Board, n.d.a.). This was somewhat misleading: the area had never been known as the ‘Irish Loop’ before. But it was a name that was about to gain currency in a hurry. Local residents were beginning to accept that the fish resource that had provided for them for hundreds of years was gone. Now they would have to make their own opportunities, and the Irish connection would feature prominently in their efforts. In the same year that the task force made its recommendations, the Southern Shore Folk Arts Council was established to celebrate the ‘unique culture and heritage of the Irish Loop Region’. The council revitalised the annual Southern Shore Folk Festival that had been held in Ferryland since 1986, stirring the mix of offerings to give it ‘a more traditional Newfoundland/Irish flavour’ and renaming the event the ‘Shamrock Festival’. The council also refurbished the Kavanagh Premises, an old general store in Ferryland, to serve as an Arts Centre; 1999 would see the inauguration of its summer dinner theatre and other cultural activities, such as local concerts, traditional dances and art exhibitions (Southern Shore Folk Arts Council, n.d.a.) Also in response to the 1995 task force report, the Irish Loop (Regional Economic) Development Board was established in 1997, and it began to develop a strategic economic plan (SEP) for the area. The result, ‘Creating a Vision for the Irish Loop’, was specifically aimed at providing a ‘basis for new growth and 8 Readers will note from the tables in the text that there was a precipitous drop in the province’s population from almost 5.5 million in 1996 to just over 4.2 million in 2006. The population of St. John’s was actually increasing (and continues to do so); the dramatic demographic decline was occurring in the outports.

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a choice to the people in the region as to whether or not they stay in the area’ (Irish Loop Development Board, 1997). Residents of the southeast Avalon would become ‘stakeholders’ in this newly conceived ‘Irish Loop’, embracing a strategy that offered hope of survival to local communities in the wake of the collapse of the ground fishery. The plan targeted a number of key areas: economic development and entrepreneurship; fisheries; natural resources and environment; seniors and health; youth and education; culture and heritage; and community infrastructure. In particular, it assessed the viability of untapped areas of growth; and it gave high priority among emerging industries to the ‘undeveloped potential’ of cultural tourism. (Irish Loop Development Board, 1997, p. 17). ‘We have a unique culture that must be preserved and promoted,’ the report argued. ‘Our region represents the greatest tourist resource in the province that remains to be developed.’ (Irish Loop Development Board, 1997, p.119) Local communities would be encouraged to participate in an ‘extensive region-wide program that identifies and preserves our heritage and culture’ (Irish Loop Development Board, 1997, p. 123) Key to the cultural heritage initiative would be the Irish connection: The distinctive feature of our region is its predominantly Irish nature. This fact affords us an opportunity to promote the region as part of the new international focus on Gaelic culture. The Shamrock Folk Festival is an example of how we can benefit from an emphasis on our Irish connection. We are called the Irish Loop. No other jurisdiction in Atlantic Canada has staked out a claim to that heritage and we have an opportunity to position ourselves in this direction. (Irish Loop Development Board, 1997, p. 123)

The more cynical might ask: Was this ethnicity or economics? Yet ‘staking out a claim’ and ‘positioning’ the group are important elements of constructing ethnicity. So the rhetoric of the SEP was very suggestive of the negotiation of ethnic space. Yet the language also suggested a certain degree of dormancy, a need to ‘identify’ and ‘develop’ cultural heritage. Sleeping Beauty was awaiting Prince Charming’s kiss. The report also highlighted the goal to ‘preserve’ Irish-Newfoundland culture. But the intention was not to create a heritage theme park, freezing local communities in the distant past. Neither was the board advocating that residents attempt to recreate a carbon copy of Ireland along the southeast Avalon. What we must ensure [the report stated] ... is that our region maintains its own culture, which is a unique variation to that of Ireland. How we promote ourselves under the heading of the Irish Loop will be a critical issue in our region in the next several years. We cannot become a pale imitation or a caricature of the real thing nor should we try to. (Irish Loop Development Board, 1997, p. 123)

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But the Irish connection was situated front and centre in the marketing of the tourist industry. One of the recommendations of the board was the establishment, by January 1999, of an Irish Loop Tourism Association to coordinate tourism activities in the area (Irish Loop Development Board, 1997). This association would serve as an umbrella group for members along the southeast Avalon who were offering a wide range of cultural and eco-tourism services, from coffee houses and museums to hiking trails and whale and puffin tours. But the Irishness of the area was particularly emphasised – the home page of the association festooned with garlands of shamrocks; the lower-case ‘I’ in Irish Loop jauntily dotted with a single green trefoil (The Irish Loop Tourism Centre, 2008). The Irish connection also became focal in the marketing of musicians from the area. Perhaps the most successful band to emerge from the southeast Avalon in the past two decades is called ‘The Irish Descendants’. Several founding members of the group had been fishermen, who played in local bands in their spare time. When the crisis in the fishery came in the early 1990s, they decided to take in their nets and take up their instruments full-time. The group has become one of the most popular live bands on the island and has gone on to record 13 albums (to date). They play a variety of material, including a range of Irish ballads, reels and revolutionary pub songs (always crowd pleasers), selections of traditional Newfoundland reels and ballads, and original material based on personal experience and reflected in album titles such as ‘Look to the Sea’, ‘Livin’ on the Edge’, ‘So Far, So Good’, and ‘Rollin’ Home’. But it has been the band’s Irish pedigree that has featured most prominently in its marketing: Their name speaks for itself. There are few places on earth with deeper Irish roots than The Irish Descendants’ home of Newfoundland. In fact if secret agents brought you there blind folded, once freed you would be sure to think you were in Ireland. The look, the smell, the way they talk, the local pub, it’s all so Ireland. (The Irish Descendants, n.d.)

Indeed, when the group toured Ireland in 1994, it was hailed there as the ‘lost Celtic tribe of Newfoundland’ (Irish Arts and Entertainment, n.d.a.). Ireland’s curiosity about Celtic kin ‘lost’ on the shores of Newfoundland was about to be further piqued by a joint governmental initiative. Memorandum of Understanding Between Ireland and Newfoundland Cultural tourism with an Irish twist was given a significant boost by the signing of the 1996 Memorandum of Understanding between the governments of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Republic of Ireland (MOU). Its purpose was to identify linkages and encourage cooperation between Ireland and Newfoundland in areas such as business, research and development, and cultural and academic exchange (Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, 1996). The MOU spawned the

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Ireland Business Partnerships (IBP) in Newfoundland and the Irish Newfoundland Partnership (INP) in Ireland to foster various collaborative efforts. The response in terms of cultural exchanges and joint productions has been immense, in no small part because people in Ireland, particularly in the southern counties, have begun to realise that they have distant cousins among the Newfoundland Irish. The IBP and INP have sponsored a smorgasbord of initiatives, including radio and television programs, films, CDs, books, plays, pageants and artist exchanges. And although the recent global financial crisis has severely curtailed the budgets for these activities, the partnerships have continued on a smaller scale (Government of Newfoundland, 2005–2014). A sampling of projects gives an indication of the strength of this recent relationship (Irish Newfoundland Partnership, n.d.; Irish Business Partnerships, n.d.; Government of Newfoundland, 2005–2014): • ‘Twinning of Faces and Facades’, an investigation of the cultural, social and architectural links between Waterford and St. John’s; • ‘Atlantic Crossings: Cultural Connections Between Ireland and Newfoundland’, radio documentaries; • The Bere Island Projects Group, a cross-Atlantic theatre project; • ‘Atlantic Sound’, a contemporary comedy series for television; • ‘Wexford and Newfoundland Historical and Cultural Links’, a study in areas such as folklore, story telling, traditional musical, genealogy, literature, church connections and dialect; • ‘Ireland Newfoundland – A Cultural Exchange’, an artist’s print residency and exchange programme between Dublin and the Southern Shore; • ‘Love and Savagery’, a co-produced feature film by Morag Productions (Newfoundland) and Subotica Entertainment (Ireland); • Feile Seamus Creagh Festival, an annual traditional music and song festival; • Feile Tilting, an Irish-Newfoundland cultural conference. There is little doubt that government funding of such projects has encouraged greater reflection upon shared cultural roots than would have occurred without financial incentives. And the Department of Culture and Tourism has become very keen on marketing Newfoundland as a site of Irish cultural heritage. Ethnicity, Memory and Landscape Yet it would be too superficial, I think, to interpret the response on the southeast Avalon as mere carrot-and-stick ethnicity. My maternal roots are in the area, and I spent every summer of my youth there. Regardless of how local residents responded to census takers through the years, they were as sure of their Irish background as they were certain that the sun would rise in the east. In fact, families with English surnames considered themselves as much a part of the Irish ethnic group as those that bore Irish surnames; and until recently, many were not even aware

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of their partial English-Protestant ancestry. (On our way to an oral interview with one elderly narrator in the late 1990s, a worried daughter warned me, ‘For god’s sake, don’t tell dad he’s part English. He’ll kill the both of us!’) A recent upsurge in genealogical research from the 1990s onward has brought the complexity of ethnic origins into the historical consciousness. But still the cultural landscape is profoundly Irish. And this is where the spectre of an English other informs ethnic identity. However, it is not the ghosts of English fishers past or present, but rather of former English authorities and West Country merchants, that haunt the collective historical memory of the place. In this discourse of difference, the past of English fishing families on the southeast Avalon is subsumed in a script that contains class tension but is distinctly Irish-Catholic. A local narrative about the ‘Masterless Men’, an outlaw band that inhabited a wild and remote section of the southeast Avalon in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (Keough, 2006, pp. 89–90), reveals some of the messiness of this process. What follows is a website retelling that advertises another local musical group, one that has assumed the name of these folk heroes: [In the] 1750s, press gangs of the British Navy ferried off many of the strong Irish youths from the southern and western Counties of Ireland to live and work under the most deplorable conditions for their British Masters in its far-flung New World Colonies. In the Colony of Avalon, now Ferryland on the Southern Shore of Newfoundland, these so-called ‘Irish Youngsters’, under the strong and resourceful leadership of Peter Kerrivan, defied their masters’ tyranny. Under sentence of hanging, this band of merry rogues retreated to freedom in the mountainous area of the Avalon Wilderness known as the Butter Pots. There they eluded and taunted their former British Masters and flourished for more than a century and became known as ‘Masterless Men’. (The Newfoundland Shop, n.d.)

The narrative has powerful resonance on the southeast Avalon, but there are anomalies here. The Colony of Avalon was a seventeenth-century entity pre-dating the Kerrivan band. British press gangs trawled British, not Irish, ports for recruits, although they also operated on the high seas and, later, in the colonies; still, they were mostly interested in skilled seamen and, as noted earlier, the impressment of English sailors into the Royal Navy actually created opportunities for Irish servants in the Newfoundland fishery in the eighteenth century. Kerrivan, himself, may well have joined or been pressed into the navy and deserted in Newfoundland. But the term ‘Youngsters’ alludes to an inexperienced hand, regardless of age, in the fishery, introducing another possibility that at least some of the Masterless Men had deserted fishing service with West Country firms operating in Newfoundland – reneging on contracts or refusing to return to their home ports, as required by law. Furthermore, there is a strong likelihood that at least some of these outliers were English fishing servants. Yet the collective historical memory positions

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this narrative as just one more example of British oppression of Irish Catholics since they had arrived in Newfoundland. Driven to the inhospitable terrain of ‘the Barrens’ and Butter Pots, yet defiant and resourceful, the Masterless Men serve as a metaphor for Irish marginalisation and resistance.

Figure 3.2

A distant view of the Butter Pots, the hideout of the Masterless Men

Source: Willeen Keough, 2003.

The broader oral tradition of the southeast Avalon also invokes the ethnic other of ‘British Masters’ in explaining long-ago processes of immigration and settlement. And while it acknowledges the role of the fishery in drawing both the Irish and the English to the area, it also offers some alternative motivations that have been steeped in a broader Irish-Catholic historical consciousness: the Irish rebel running from the law; the Irish Catholic fleeing from religious persecution; the Irish cottier escaping the great potato famine (Keough, 2006, Ch. 3). While isolated cases such as these may have existed along the southeast Avalon, such explanations are far more reflective of an inherited collective memory of grievance than actual experience: the Irish rebel was more likely a deserting servant hiding from a fishing master; the religious refugee would surely have sought sanctuary elsewhere than a British possession with a similar penal regime; and while crop failures and regional famines may have encouraged movement to the southeast Avalon, most hungry peasants of the mid-nineteenth century by-passed

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Newfoundland altogether and disembarked on the mainland of North America. Yet these communal narratives of migration are important, for they provide insight into the evolution of ethnic identity and reflect a sharing with Ireland and with other Irish diasporic groups of a collective historical memory of deprivation and struggle that is, in itself, a significant cultural continuity – as significant as trenching lazy beds, hunting the wren, and putting blessed bread in children’s pockets to protect them from the fairies. Conclusion Some may question whether revisiting ethnic identity within the context of tourist potential has moved that process into the realm of exploiting culture for economic gain (Newby, 1994). Have commercial priorities influenced the selection of aspects of cultural heritage deemed worthy of preservation, and has this, in turn, affected local articulations of ethnicity? Does it really matter, given that ethnicity, like any social construction, is open to negotiation and re-construction within shifting contexts? To those who might claim that Irish ethnicity has been commodified or tainted by tourist dollars, I would suggest that the picture is far more complex. Certainly, cultural tourism has not been a neutral force in the area – especially since the 1990s, when the cod fishery collapsed. Yet the residents have not been, like McKay’s ‘Folk’ (1994), the passive recipients of tradition – pre-modern ‘others’ constructed by bourgeois, urban cultural producers. Neither has the southeast Avalon allowed itself to be strewn with federal or provincial monuments and memorials – a cultural landscape in which elites control the means of memorialising while non-elites can only comply with or resist those interpretations (O’Keeffe, 2007, p. 4). Rather, residents have been active in shaping and reshaping the cultural landscape in which they live, allowing ethnicity to reconfigure itself in changing historical contexts rather than cling to exact replications of the past. Furthermore, they have not been isolated from the modern world. If anything, their initiatives in cultural tourism reflect a contemporary and adaptive response that is unquestionably an economic survival strategy, yet is also, more significantly, an attempt to maintain cultural community and continuity in the face of significant social and economic upheaval. To judge this refashioned identity as tainted, or somehow less pure, than earlier manifestations of ethnicity would require a good measure of academic arrogance. Census reports indicating a broad acknowledgment of English as well as Irish ancestors might initially be read as evidence of a cultural landscape that is fragmented and far less Irish than the descriptor ‘Irish Loop’ suggests. But the presentation of ethnicity in the area, although often muted, has rarely been ambiguous. The understanding of place for over two centuries has been distinctly Irish. There is less disjuncture between origins and ethnicity than a superficial analysis might suggest, for most English Protestants on the southeast Avalon had been absorbed into Irish-Catholic culture by the early nineteenth century. The

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ethnic other in the negotiation of Irishness has not been the English fisher but the ‘British Master’ – symbolizing an intersection of both ethnic and class tensions within an Irish-Catholic historical consciousness. While the shade of that ethnic other haunts the cultural landscape of the southeast Avalon, it does not attenuate the Irishness of the place, but rather, reinforces it. Still, those who would seek to draw a straight line between the present and the past will likely find some disjuncture …

Figure 3.3

Annie Sullivan O’Toole telling stories in Calvert, 1999

Source: Willeen Keough, 1999

Epilogue The largest tourist draw along the southeast Avalon, and the centrepiece of the heritage industries in the area, is the Colony of Avalon, an archeological dig in Ferryland that has been meticulously recovering a site of settlement dating back to the early seventeenth century. The dig draws thousands of visitors per year – 21,966 visitors in 2001, for example (Rumboldt, 2002) – and various other heritage endeavours in the area have piggybacked on its success. The new Arts Centre at the Kavanagh premises is immediately nearby. The Southern Shore Folk Arts Council welcomes visitors to celebrate the Irish heritage of the area with the following words: ‘Irish roots in the Colony of Avalon date back to Lord Baltimore’s (Sir George Calvert’s) original settlement in 1621, when he first came to the New World with a group of Irish Catholics.’ (Southern Shore Folk Arts Council, n.d.c). This statement significantly underplays the Englishness of the original endeavour at Ferryland. Calvert was English, and so were the first settlers on this specific site, who had arrived in 1621 with Calvert’s deputy, Captain Edward Wynne. In 1627, Calvert (by now, Lord Baltimore) did come to the colony,

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bringing with him his large household from his Irish estate; it is therefore highly probable that Irish servants accompanied him. However, Baltimore decamped after the ‘intolerable wynter’ of 1628–29, founding another colony at Maryland in the United States and leaving Ferryland in the hands of Wynne. Perhaps some of his Irish servants remained behind; no one knows for sure, although Baltimore (who had, himself, converted to Catholicism) had secured the right for Catholics to practice their faith in the Colony of Avalon. Eventually, in 1637, the settlement came into the hands of the English-Protestant adventurer Sir David Kirke. So there is a certain irony to the celebration of Irishness at a premises adjoined to the Colony of Avalon site. The annual summer dinner theatre series at the renovated Kavanagh Premises introduces visitors to a variety of colourful local characters, most of them Irish-Newfoundlanders, and a good time is had by all. Yet their hostess for the evening (as she is for a number of heritage events in the area) is Lady Sarah Kirke, the wife of seventeenth-century proprietor David Kirke, and a very intriguing historical figure in her own right – but an Englishwoman. References Berry, J., 1675. A list of ye planters names with an acct. of their concerns from Cape de Race to Cape Bonavista, 12 September 1675. [manuscript] Keith Matthews Collection, 16–C–2–035, CO 1, vol. 35 [17ii], fols. 149v–56. St. John’s: Maritime History Archives. Berry, J., 1677. Berry Census. [manuscript] GN 2/39/A (from CO 1). St. John’s: Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador. Blackman, C., 1826. Rev. Charles Blackman to Edmund B. Brenton, Colonial Secretary, 6 November 1826. [letter] GN 2/2, vol. 1, 49–50. St. John’s: Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador. Brown, V., 1996. Heritage, tourism and rural regeneration. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 4(3), pp. 174–82. Byrne, C.J., ed., 1984. Gentlemen-bishops and faction fighters: the letters of bishops O Donel, Lambert, Scallan and other Irish missionaries. St. John’s: Jesperson Press. Cable, H., 1948. Newfoundland as others see it!: a million dollar view in every cove! Atlantic Guardian, 5(2), pp. 39–40. Chafe, P., 2003. Hey buddy, wanna buy a culture? Culture and State, 3, pp. 68–76. Crummey, M., 2001. A time and place apart. Maclean’s, 114 (33), pp. 22–3. Cummins (Naval Officer), ca. 1705–6. Remarks of Naval Officer Cummins in relation to Newfoundland. [manuscript] CO 194, vol. 3, fols. 424–5. St. John’s: Centre for Newfoundland Studies. Davies, F.R., 1946. Photogenic Newfoundland: a picture paradise. Atlantic Guardian, 2(9), pp. 16–17. Devereaux, L., 2002. Dive in: using history to lure crowds. Atlantic Chamber Journal, 16(4), p. 31.

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Dillon, V.M., 1968. The Anglo-Irish element in the speech of the southern shore of Newfoundland. M.A. Memorial University of Newfoundland. Dingle, 1801. Rev. John Dingle to Rev. Doctor Morris, secretary to the SPG, 22 November 1801. [letter] MG 598, SPG Collection, C Series, box 1A/18 (Nova Scotia and Newfoundland), 180. St. John’s: Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador. Dorrill, R. 1755. Proclamation. [manuscript] GN 2/1/A, vol. 2, 236, 22 September 1755. St. John’s: Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador. ESX, 1999. Interview. Interviewed by Willeen Keough [oral interview]. Calvert: 19 July 1999. Feild, E., 1845. Bishop Edward Feild to Rev. Ernest Hawkins. [letter] MG 598, SPG Collection, G Series, vol. 1, 159, November 1845, St. John’s: Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador. Fitzgerald, J.E., 1997. Conflict and culture in Irish-Newfoundland Roman Catholicism, 1829–1850. Ph.D. University of Ottawa. Fitzgerald, J.E., 2007. The orange order and Newfoundland’s confederation with Canada, 1948–49. In: D. Wilson, ed. 2007. The Orange Order in Canada. Dublin: Four Courts Press. Ch. 7. Fleming, M.A., 1836. The state of the Catholic religion in Newfoundland Reviewed in Two Letters by Monsignor Fleming to Rev. P. John Spratt. Rome. Copy at St. John’s: Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John’s, Fleming Papers, 103/26. Fleming, M.A. 1837. Report of the Catholic mission in Newfoundland in North America, submitted to the Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda. Rome: Printing Press of the Sacred Congregation. Copy at St. John’s: Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John’s, Fleming Papers, 103/26. Fraser, A., 1899–1906. Newfoundland in 1896. Transactions of the Inverness Scientific Society and Field Club, 6, pp. 173–87. Government of Canada, Dominion Bureau of Statistics, 1951. Census of Canada, 1951. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1953. Government of Canada, Dominion Bureau of Statistics, 1961. Census of Canada, 1961. Ottawa: Dominion Bureau of Statistics, 1965. Government of Canada, Industry Canada, 1996. The History of the Northern Cod Fishery. [website] [Accessed 20 November 2013]. Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, 1996. 1996 Census: Ethnic origin, visible minorities [website] Available at: [Accessed 30 December 2007]. Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, 2001. 2001 Census [website] Available at:

[Accessed 30 November 2013]. Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, 2006. 2006 Census. [website] Available at:

[Accessed 30 December 2007, 3 January 2008, and 30 November 2013].

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Government of Newfoundland, 1836. Newfoundland Population Returns, 1836. St. John’s: Queen’s Printer. Government of Newfoundland, 1845. Newfoundland Population Returns, 1845. St. John’s: Ryan and Withers. Government of Newfoundland, Department of Tourism, 1946. Hunting the moose [advertisement]. Atlantic Guardian, 2(11), back cover. Government of Newfoundland, Department of Tourism, 1948. Salmon rivers of Newfoundland: Terra Nova River [advertisement]. Atlantic Guardian, 5(2), back cover. Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, 1996. Premier signs Memorandum of Understanding in Ireland. [press release] 8 November 1996. Available at [Accessed 29 March 2006, 3 January 2008, 25 November 2013]. Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Innovation, Business, and Rural Development, Business Partnerships, 2005–2014. Activity Plans and Annual Reports. [website] Available at: [Accessed 30 November 2013]. Governors of Newfoundland, 1754–1805. Governors’ Annual Returns of the Fisheries and Inhabitants of Newfoundland, C.O. 194 Series. St. John’s: Centre for Newfoundland Studies. Greene, J.P., 1999. Between damnation and starvation: priests and merchants in Newfoundland politics, 1745–1855. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Hancock, L., 1986. Newfoundlanders: they’re hard to forget. Newfoundland Lifestyle, 4(2), pp. 37–9. Head, C.G., 1976. Eighteenth Century Newfoundland. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Inhabitants of Bay Bulls, 1773. Petition of the Inhabitants of Bay Bulls for a clergyman. [manuscript] MG 598, SPG Collection, C Series, box 1 (Newfoundland), 56, 19 October 1773. St. John’s: Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador. Inhabitants of Renews, 1778. Petition from the merchants and principal inhabitants of Renews to Montagu. [manuscript] GN 2/1/A, vol. 7–reverse end, 96–8, 29 July 1778. St. John’s: Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador. Irish Arts and Entertainment, n.d. Irish Descendants. [website] Available at: [Accessed 29 March 2006, 3 January 2008]. The Irish Descendants, n.d. The Irish Descendants. [website] Available at: [Accessed 29 March 2006, 20 December 2007]. Irish Loop Development Board, 1997. Strategic Economic Plan. [report] Available at: [Acceessed 29 October, 2005].

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Irish Loop Development Board, n.d.a. Historical Information. [website] Available at [Accessed 29 October 2005]. The Irish Loop Tourism Centre, 2008. The Irish Loop. [website] Available at [Accessed 29 October 2005, 31 December 2007]. Revised website available at: http://www.theirishloop.com/about. htm#Origin%20of%20Name> [Accessed 20, 22 November 2013]. Irish Newfoundland Partnership, n.d. [website] Available at [Accessed 11 April 2006, 20 December 2007]. Irish Business Partnerships, n.d. (website] Available at [Accessed 11 April 2006, 20 December 2007]. Irwin-Zarecka, I., 1994. Frames of remembrance: the dynamics of collective memory. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Jarvis, D., 2002. Festival frenzy. Downhomer, 15(2), pp. 19–20. Keough, W., 2005. Ethnicity as intercultural dialogue in eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury Newfoundland. Canadian Journal of Irish Studies / Revue canadienne d’études irlandaises, 31(1), pp. 18–28. Keough, W., 2006. The Slender Thread: Irish Women on the Southern Avalon, 1750–1860. New York: Columbia University Press. Keough, W. 2009. Contested terrains: ethnic and gendered spaces in the Harbour Grace Affray. Canadian Historical Review, 90(1), pp. 29–70. Kirwin, W.J., 1993. The planting of Anglo-Irish in Newfoundland. In: S. Clarke, 1993. Focus on Canada. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 65–84. MacDonald. C., 1997. A different world. Atlantic Progress, 4(4), p. 74. Maclean’s, 1965. Linguistic hints for Mainlanders. Maclean’s, 78(11), p. 47. Mannion, J.J., 1977. Introduction. In: J.J. Mannion, ed., 1977. The Peopling of Newfoundland: Essays in Historical Geography (Social and Economic Papers). St. John’s: Institute of Social and Economic Research, Memorial University of Newfoundland. pp. 1–13. Mannion, J.J., 1993. Tracing the Irish: a geographical guide. The Newfoundland Ancestor, 9(1), pp. 4–18. McKay, I., 1994. The quest of the folk: antimodernism and cultural selection in twentieth-century Nova Scotia. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Naval Officer at Newfoundland, 1708. List of inhabitants’ names, the no. of their families, 1708. [manuscript] R 95/20, from CO 194, vol. 4, fols. 253–6. St. John’s: Maritime History Archives. Newby, P.T., 1994, Tourism: support or threat to heritage? In: G. J. Ashworth and P.J. Larkham, eds, 1994. Building a new heritage: tourism, culture and identity in the new Europe. London: Routledge. pp. 206–28. Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage, n.d. The arts. [website] Available at: [Accessed 7 December 2007 and 3 December 2013]. Newfoundland Journal of Commerce, 1969. Tourism: everybody’s business. Newfoundland Journal of Commerce, 36(8), p. 16, pp. 18–19.

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The Newfoundland Shop, n.d. The Masterless Men. [website] Available at: [Accessed 28 November 2013]. Ogden, J., 1800. John Ogden to William Waldegrave. [letter] CO 194. vol. 42, fols. 167–9. St. John’s: Centre for Newfoundland Studies. O’Keeffe, T., 2007. Landscape and memory: historiography, theory, methodology. In: Y. Whelan and N. Moore, eds. 2007. Heritage, memory and the politics of identity: new perspectives on the cultural landscape. Abingdon: Ashgate. Ch. 1. O’Reilly, J.A., 1911. The Adirondacks of Newfoundland (a resort for TB treatment). Newfoundland Quarterly, 11(2), pp. 26–8. Overton, J., 1996. Making a world of difference: essays on tourism, culture and development in Newfoundland. St. John’s: Institute of Social and Economic Research, Memorial University of Newfoundland. Rollmann, H., 1987. Religious enfranchisement and Roman Catholics in eighteenth-century Newfoundland. In: T. Murphy and C.J. Byrne, eds. 1987. Religion and identity: the experience of Irish and Scottish catholics in Atlantic Canada. St. John’s: Jesperson Press. pp. 34–52. Rumboldt, B., 2002. The southern shore: an economy in transition. [report] Available at: [Accessed 20 April 2006 and 3 January 2008]. Seary, E.R., Story, G.M. and Kirwin, W.J., 1968. The Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland: An Ethno-Linguistic Study. Ottawa: Bulletin No. 219, National Museum of Canada. Southern Shore Folk Arts Council, n.d.a. Southern Shore Folk Arts Council. [website] Available at [Accessed 29 October 2005, 2 January 2008, 20 November 2013, and 22 November 2013]. Southern Shore Folk Arts Council, n.d.b. Shamrock Festival. [website] Available at [Accessed 20 November 2013]. Southern Shore Folk Arts Council, n.d.c. Dinner Theatre. [website] Available at [Accessed 14 April 2006, 20 December 2007 and 25 November 2013]. Spencer, A., 1842. Bishop Aubrey Spencer to Rev. A. M. Campbell. [letter] MG 598, SPG Collection, G Series, vol. 1, 9–10, 22 June 1842, St. John’s: Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador. Stone, C., 1987. Marketing our heritage. Newfoundland Lifestyle, 5(3), pp. 30–33. Story, J., 1681. An account of what fishing ships, sack ships, planters & boat keepers from Trepasse to Bonavist & from thence to faire Island the northward part of Newfoundland, 1 September 1681. [manuscript] Keith Matthews Collection, 16–D–1–006, from CO 1, vol. 47 [52i], fols. 113–21v. St. John’s: Maritime History Archives. Sugiman, P., 2004. Passing time, moving memories: interpreting wartime narratives of Japanese Canadian women. Histoire sociale / Social History, 37, pp. 51–79.

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Sweetman, P., 1788. Pierce Sweetman at Placentia to ‘Dear Brother’. [letter] MG 49, Sweetman Collection, box 5, Saunders and Sweetman Letterbook, 1788–1793 and 1802–1804, 11 May 1788, St. John’s: Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador. Wheeler, D.J., 1967. Tourism: growth industry of the Sixties. Newfoundland Journal of Commerce, 34(7), p. 11 and p. 13. Wheeler, D.J., 1969. Tourism: everybody’s business. Newfoundland Journal of Commerce, 36(8), p. 16 and pp. 18–19. Where It’s At, 1996. For a good time, come where we’re at! Where It’s At. p. 13. Young, E., 1945. Icebergs are money-makers. Atlantic Guardian, 1(10), p. 48.

Chapter 4

Neoliberal Landscapes of Migration in Ireland: The Space, Management and Experiences of Asylum Seekers Angèle Smith

Introduction While there has been a long history of immigration in much of Europe, transnational migration, particularly of asylum seekers and refugees to Ireland is in its relative infancy. In less than two decades, there has been a transformation in Ireland from emigration to immigration. Postcolonial Ireland has undergone economic boom and more recently, economic bust. At the height of the boom, Ireland saw dramatically increased numbers of newcomers, many of whom have stayed and made a new home for themselves. Many of the asylum seekers who arrived during this period are still awaiting a decision on their refugee status as they live in state-operated holding centres. In the midst of the current economic and political crisis, Ireland is witnessing very high rates of emigration: between 1000–1500 Irish people leave per week (Molloy and Sheehan 2011, Sheehan 2012, Glynn et al. 2013), even while new asylum seekers arrive. In light of this turmoil, governing newcomer communities and multiethnic integration would seem to be of little importance. Yet immigration systems, policies and institutions are still operating and are regarded as a viable, stable business. In this chapter, I examine how the treatment of migrants, and especially asylum seekers, can be best understood as part of the neoliberal political economy of Ireland. The social landscapes and experiences of asylum seekers in Ireland are managed to exclude them from fully integrating into Irish society, yet fully including them as part of the neoliberal market economy. Ireland is in an on-going process of reinventing its Irishness while simultaneously framing itself as a modern, cosmopolitan player in the European Union. In an increasingly transnational world, migration, mobility and “integration” are highly relevant in Ireland. Thus, Ireland must grapple with its own cultural identity while managing the increased multi- or interculturalism of transnational communities within its borders. In my own work (Smith 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013), I focus primarily on asylum seekers and refugees since they, unlike other migrants, often

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do not choose their host country and thus do not have the same motivations for integrating, leaving them marginalized. Further, as these particular transnationals are in political, social and spatial limbo awaiting the determination of their refugee status, the government of Ireland as the receiving country does little to include them in their “integration” schemes, despite that many asylum seekers live in stateoperated holding centres for as long as 3–5 years (Smith 2009). Little attention has been paid to the human rights of asylum seekers, especially their right to and expression of their cultural identity and sense of belonging. The voices of these marginalized newcomers concerning their experiences of inclusion/ exclusion around the politics of negotiating place, cultural identity and heritage have largely gone unheard. This chapter explores the negotiation and transformation of places and identities in two sites of interaction for new multiethnic communities in Ireland. First, I examine the institutional accommodation centres that house all asylum seekers as they await the decision on their refugee status. Asylum seekers are situated on the margins of Irish society in these centres, in social and spatial limbo. Yet, or perhaps because of this, they strive to both integrate, and simultaneously forge a sense of their own ethnic identity within the Irish society. Second, I examine a variety of heritage and culture programs that represent and practice a blended sense of “traditional” and “newly globalized” Irish identities. How are newcomers included/ excluded from public cultural activities such as sports, music, storytelling, national symbols, language as well as cultural/ multicultural festivals and events? How does the cultural heritage of the place transform the cultural identity of the newcomers? To what extent does “integration”/ “exclusion” take shape in these sites of interaction between host and multiethnic communities? This study focuses on social and spatial exclusion/ inclusion where the sense of place and identity are transforming to incorporate more multi- or interculturalism into the fabric of society. Background: Political, Economic and Migrational Shift It is important to recognize the impact of the political and economic shifts in recent Irish history, in order to better understand the contemporary phenomenon of multiethnic communities in Ireland. Throughout much of the 20th century, Ireland had been economically marginal and politically isolated. In the 1970s, Ireland was in a deep recession, with an unemployment rate of 17 percent and soaring emigration rates (Glynn et al. 2013). But in the late 1990s, the situation drastically changed with the coming of an economic boom called the “Celtic Tiger”. International aid, and more significantly foreign investment mostly by American Information Technology companies stimulated economic growth such that Ireland became an international hub of software production and development (Jacobson and Kirby, 2006; Jackson, Kirby and O’Broin 2006). A highly trained young Irish workforce was readily available to fill new positions and there was,

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consequently, an extreme reduction in unemployment and inflation. From one of the poorest countries in the European Union, Ireland had emerged as one of the most economically thriving. The second phase of the Celtic Tiger, beginning in 2004, was largely the result of Ireland opening its doors to workers from the new EU member states. With this came drastic increases in the housing price market and a continuation of investment from foreign multinationals especially in IT and pharmaceutical companies. One consequence of the boom economy was an unprecedented increase of immigration into the country: Ireland, once a place of emigration, had become a destination-place for economic migrants as well as asylum seekers. While other chapters in this book clearly illustrate that migration to Ireland was not a “new” phenomenon, during this period what was particularly noteworthy was the volume of transnational migration. This not only came from EU member countries, but also from non-European home countries, including from African and Asian countries. As an example, and to focus primarily on the volume of those transnational migrants seeking political asylum, the statistics on the applications for refugee status in Ireland clearly reflect this increase. In 1992 (just prior to the Celtic Tiger), only 39 individuals sought asylum in Ireland, by 2000 (the peak of the Celtic Tiger) that number had increased to almost 12,000 (USCR 2003). For a country with a population of just over 4 million, these numbers were striking (CSO 2009). Not only were the numbers of these new asylum seekers unprecedented, but they were also noteworthy in Irish society because they were a visible group. On average at the peak of this immigration, the largest percentage of asylum seekers (about 68 percent) is African; and specifically, the largest nationality group (between 30–35 percent) is Nigerian. (Although the percentages have changed somewhat from the earliest statistics, Africans (75.5 percent) and Nigerians (26.4 percent) still make up the largest groups represented in new asylum seekers.) This marked a significant change in the demographics in Ireland during the Celtic Tiger. Although today the ratio of single women applying for asylum as compared with men is less than half, or 2:5 (ORAC 2010), prior to the 2004 Irish Citizenship Referendum (Smith 2008), the ratio was reverse and twice as many women sought asylum, as did men. Thus, the largest group of asylum seekers was highly visible as a racialized and gendered group. This has had its own implications in how asylum seekers have been and are perceived and treated by the Irish society and media (Smith 2008, Lentin 2003). In addition to changing the demographics of immigration patterns to Ireland, this modern wave of immigration also had impact on transforming the ideology of what constitutes “Irishness” or “Irish identity”. How does Irish identity include and make a place for African asylum seekers and refugees? Or does it? Elsewhere (Smith 2008), I have argued that Ireland’s long history of colonialism under British rule has strongly shaped and still influences their sense of identity. Under British colonialism, the Irish were disenfranchised from and marginalized within their own land. The consequence was that Ireland’s ideology of the “Other” was defined as British. The corollary is that there is an ideology that Ireland has always been

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homogenously White. What happens then when the newcomers seeking asylum are not White? To say that Ireland has never known a multi-ethnic community within its borders is historically not accurate. However, I suggest that these ideologies of perceived Irish identity have influenced how newcomers have been treated as well have given some cause to reflect on the understanding of what “Irishness” means in a post colonial and newly globalized Ireland. In the case studies I visit below, these issues are further examined. What is apparent is that in the early 2000s, Ireland was unprepared to manage the influx of asylum seekers arriving on its shores. Previously the numbers were so low that only ad hoc systems existed and asylum seekers were dealt with on an individual basis. Asylum seekers were given vouchers to provide for their housing and food, but were left to their own devices as to how and where they would settle while waiting for their refugee application to be determined. But with the increased numbers of new arrivals and administrative backlogs in processing refugee applications, the Irish State recognized a need to manage and control asylum seekers. This was done through the formation of government departments and agencies to regulate and standardize the legal evaluation of the asylum seekers’ claims but also to manage where the asylum seekers lived and moved in the country. The establishment of the Direct Provision Accommodation Centres administered the housing of asylum seekers, keeping them under surveillance and separated from the rest of the Irish society. Ironically, systems of managing asylum seekers and other newcomer multiethnic communities can also be seen in the later attempts by the government to create “integration schemes”. On the surface these schemes appeared to be more inclusive, but under closer examination they continued to maintain an ideology of assimilation at worst or a non-inclusive kind of cultural pluralism at best. These two case studies of the Direct Provision Accommodation centres and the integration schemes are still reflective of the social and spatial managing of multiethnic communities in Ireland despite the dramatic “death of the Celtic Tiger” with the economic collapse. As one headline lamented: “The Celtic Tiger it seems has been declawed and defanged!” (Winship 2010). In September 2008, the Irish government officially announced that the country had entered a recession, the first country of the Eurozone to do so. The finger is pointed equally at politicians, bankers and developers. The government augmented one of the world’s largest housing bubbles offering huge tax breaks on new buildings; construction swelled, accounting for a fifth of Ireland’s economy; prices, mortgages, wages and costs soared; and unregulated banks were on a lending spree. Bank debts were astronomical. A sharp rise in unemployment followed the crash of the housing bubble: there is 30 percent youth unemployment; “ghost” estates of new unsellable houses lay empty; and emigration has reached rates of between 1000–2000 leaving per week (Molloy and Sheehan 2011, Ó Fátharta 2013). Austerity measures included severe cuts in public spending and raising taxes. The government budget of 2009 harshly reduced public sector salaries by 5–15 percent, and drastically reduced spending on health care, education, welfare

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benefits and other social programs. In 2010, Ireland was the second country after Greece to require European bailout, leading also to a discredited government and Taoiseach Cowen (Prime Minister) agreeing to step down once fiscal packages and budgets were in place. In the midst of this political and economic crisis, when the “victims” of the collapse are reported as the “ordinary Irish person”, it begs the question: what does this mean for the asylum seeker and new multi-ethnic community? One might expect that funds would be withdrawn from supporting, governing or managing these communities – that in light of this turmoil, there would be a re-focusing of attention and funding and that newcomer communities and multiethnic integration would seem to be of little importance. However, there is evidence for maintaining these services and programs; I argue that it is because these services and programs are regarded as “good for business”. The first evidence of this is in the maintenance and continuation of the Direct Provision accommodation centres. While it is true that the number of asylum seekers newly applying for refugee status in Post Celtic Tiger Ireland has dropped, there are those backlogged and in-process asylum seekers who are still in the system. As of December 2012, there were over 4,800 people still living in the accommodation centres, more than one-third of whom had been living in centres for more than three years (Conlan 2013). In light of current economic hardships, immigration and integration have slipped from both the political and social agenda, masking the fact that roughly 16.5 percent of the population is now “foreign-born” and that over 11 percent speak a “foreign” language at home (CSO 2011). In the following sections I will lay out the history of and describe the two systems established by the Irish government for managing the newcomer asylum seeker and multiethnic communities in Ireland: (1) the Direct Provision Accommodation Centres; and (2) the integration schemes and projects, including (a) the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) Integration and Inclusion Strategy, and (b) the multicultural festivals of World Cultures Day and Africa Day. Direct Provision Accommodation Centres for Asylum Seekers Much of my research concerning asylum seekers in Ireland focuses on issues of racial tensions and the spatial governance of asylum seekers by examining the state-operated Direct Provision accommodation centres, where asylum seekers are detained while they await the decision on their refugee application (Smith 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013). They are required to live in these centres or risk removal from the asylum process. They are not free to move inside Ireland or to find their own living arrangements. During their stay (which is often as long as five years), they are not allowed to work nor attend post-secondary school. These centres are institutional places of limbo. They create a structured, exclusionary and liminal transnational landscape of difference where the State controls the movement, social borders and the place and identity of asylum seekers.

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In 2000 and 2001, the issue of the Irish State taking control of housing asylum seekers was a product of the economic boom and global politics of the day. Under the Celtic Tiger’s housing market, house prices were exorbitantly high and there was a real shortage of affordable housing, especially in Dublin city centre. With the number of refugees reaching its peak (both newly arriving and backlogged as a result of the slow and ad hoc application process), the State decided to legislate a system to manage and control those coming into their borders seeking asylum. It was at this time that a suggestion was put forward in the Dáil for using “Floatels” – essentially “floating hotels” on barges which were proposed to house asylum seekers and be harboured in ports around the country. Though the debate was shelved, it was nevertheless clear that the State was searching for a means to spatially govern the asylum seeker “problem”. What was resolved was the system of direct provision accommodation centres where the Irish State provides food and shelter for those waiting a decision on their refugee claim. In April 2001, the Reception and Integration Agency (RIA) was established under the aegis of the then Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, to manage and operate the direct provision accommodation system (IRC 2002, IRC 2004). It is also significant that in 2001 with Foot and Mouth disease in Ireland in the Spring and Summer, and 9/11 in the Autumn, tourist centres were suffering. For a country whose economy is dependent on tourism, this was a heavy blow (Anon, 2001; McCaid 2001). The State conceived of the idea to use empty hostels, hotels and other kinds of lodges and convert them into asylum seeker accommodation centres. Thus there was a shift from transnational tourist bodies (in guesthouses around the country) to transnational asylum seeking bodies – a shift from welcomed outsiders to “threatening” outsiders who must be controlled and governed. Since 2001, it is considered an essential part of the asylum process that asylum seekers are required to reside at accommodation centres or their application for asylum will be withdrawn and refused (RIA Information Website, 2007). When an asylum seeker initially makes their application for refugee status through the Office of the Refugee Application Commissioner (ORAC), they are first housed in Reception Centres in Dublin. They stay in these lodgings for 10–14 days and are instructed about legal, medical and welfare services and are issued a temporary residency certificate and a health card. Asylum seekers are then relocated and “dispersed” to an accommodation centre, usually outside of the Dublin area (RIA, 2007). Rather than a means to integrate the asylum seekers into the fabric of Irish life, the goal, and most certainly the consequence, of dispersal was to cause the asylum seekers’ issues to “disappear” in “places apart” from the rest of the Irish society. There is evidence for careful spatial engineering to avoid the development of “ethnic enclaves” within any one area across the country, and specifically to avoid situating asylum seeker centres in the Dublin area – thus removing most of the asylum seeker population from the cosmopolitan city centre. As of June 2013, there are 34 centres situated around the country (although there have been upwards of 70 centres in operation at one time, RIA Statistics, June, 2013; RIA Statistics 2005). They are often on the margins of small towns

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and have ranged in size from holding 20 to 1000 asylum seekers, although the tendency now is that they are larger and more often located in larger towns or cities across Ireland. There is an understanding that the asylum seeker residents in these accommodation centres are transient, temporary and not a part of the Irish society, furthering the significance of the accommodation centres as a place of limbo and a place-between-worlds for the asylum seeker experience. Their shelter and food are provided, in addition to an allowance of €19.10 per week, however life in accommodation centres is like a “prison without bars”. Adult asylum seekers are not allowed to attend post secondary schooling nor are they allowed to work. They cannot cook their own meals but must eat the catered food provided in the on-site cafeteria at the regulated times. All family members might share a single room, and single residents or single parents and their children might share with non-family members. Rooms are often overcrowded and there is little privacy. Their day-to-day lives are governed by a multitude of strict rules and regulations, including signing in daily at the reception office of their accommodation centre to verify that they are still in the system. Many live in these centres for more than three years, and some for as long as five or seven years. It is institutionalized living where the space and experiences of asylum seekers are engineered and controlled by the Irish State. In a neoliberal landscape, asylum seeker centres are a lucrative business for managing companies, hotel owners, and catering companies. Securing contracts is competitive. These centres are stable and reliable businesses for many Irish working people. As industries of control and surveillance over asylum seekers, the accommodation centres provide security: both job security and security over these new communities. Sites of Interaction and Integration In contrast to the social and spatial marginalization of the accommodation centres, a second example of how asylum seeker and multiethnic communities are managed is through the establishment of public spaces or sites of interaction and integration. While the accommodation centres create an experience of limbo for socalled “temporary residents”, it is clear that as institutions they are part of a now permanent system of managing immigration in Ireland. Similarly permanent is a greater awareness of the internal multiethnic and intercultural nature of Irish society. Some of this attention was managed through the Irish Government. For example, in 1998 the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI) was established by the Irish State Department of Equality and Law Reform to coordinate government departments and agencies, along with non-governmental organizations to address issues of racism at the national level. In addition in 2007, the Irish Government declared its commitment to integration with the appointment of a Minister of State for Integration, Conor

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Lenihan, and in 2008, with its production of the Minister’s “Migration Nation” statement on Integration Strategy and Diversity Management. However, this lacked any teeth since no legislation was ever brought forward specifically relating to immigrant integration in Ireland. The Office of the Minister for Integration was restructured as the Office for the Promotion of Migrant Integration in 2010 to focus only on legally resident migrants in Ireland, thus relieving the government of any commitment to integration for asylum seekers. As the government relinquished more and more of its responsibility towards the integration and inclusion of all multiethnic newcomers to Ireland, a new landscape of non-governmental organizations and advocacy groups was emerging. Closed in 2008 as a result of government budgetary cutbacks, the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI) nevertheless heralded in a new age of organizations focused on the issues faced by a more culturally diverse society with the aim to create new spaces for inclusive intercultural interactions. That many of the subsequent organizations were non-governmental fits with the neoliberal trend of decentralizing and deregularizing social services. The result has been a burgeoning new industry of advocacy and interest groups. In the following sections I describe two different sites of interaction and integration of multiethnic newcomer communities into the Irish society: (a) the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) Integration and Inclusion Strategy, and (b) the multicultural festivals of World Cultures Day and Africa Day. Although there are tangential ties to some partial governmental funding, these are not solely or primarily government-instigated events or sites. The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) Integration and Inclusion Strategy An example of the “business or industry of multicultural communities” involves the Gaelic Athletic Association’s Inclusion and Integration Strategy that institutionalizes integration of newcomer multiethnic communities into the quintessentially Irish game of Hurling. Partnered with the government, the GAA developed this nine-year project that has as its mission: “To offer an inclusive and welcoming environment for everyone to participate in our games and in our culture”. It continues to explain that the GAA will “welcome people of all nationalities, ethnicities, religions, ages and abilities into our sports and [will] make it easy for everybody to take part…[will] champion equality within the Irish sporting landscape…[and] work with the GAA family to make sure that we offer an inclusive and welcoming environment for everyone” (GAA Strategy, 2009) . This is especially significant because the game of Hurling and the GAA is part of the “Irish consciousness and plays an influential role in Irish society that extends far beyond the basic aim of promoting Gaelic games” (GAA About, 2009). It is at the very core of Irish identity and culture. Indeed, archaeological evidence suggests that hurling may have been played as early as the 7th or 8th century (Moriarty, 2011), but Irish mythology places it even earlier, with tales of

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the poet warrior Cú Chulainn and other legendary heroes (whose origins date to the Iron Age, or 500 BCE) who are recorded as being expert hurlers. Every Irish boy, in every community, in every parish of every county in Ireland has some connection to the game. The sense of community is at the heart of the GAA and the amateur hurling sportsman is first and foremost a player in his parish club. Traditionally, at the core of every parish community were two institutions: the church, and the GAA clubhouse. This fundamentally fosters a clear sense of identity and place – identity at “grassroots” level. This strong sense of Irish identity is also reflected in the history of the GAA which was formalized as an association in 1884 as a conscious act of nationalism and very much in opposition to British rule. However, with the rapid changes that Ireland has undergone since the Celtic Tiger economy and substantial immigration, Ireland’s population is no longer only the traditional native-born family structure living in small communities. The GAA tradition, passed from generation to generation, does not account for those “non-nationals” who are unacquainted with Gaelic games. In light of all this, that the GAA has developed an Integration plan says much concerning the state of remaking the definition of “Irishness” that includes non-nationals – people who have had no local level sense of belonging to a piece of Ireland. In some ways this is quite revolutionary. But at the same time, I must point out that this is not so much the meeting and blending of cultures. This is really about making more accessible the practice of “being Irish”. In order to maintain and market itself to this wider audience, the GAA recognized the profitability of the Inclusion and Integration Strategy. It makes good business sense. Despite the economic climate, the GAA has maintained its economic stronghold. Prominent sports economist, Andrew Zimabalist states that “the sports industry is more insulated against global recession than most industries” because fans tend to cut back on other consumption before they cut back on their sports in-take. “Sports give people a feel good factor… [and is] a form of escapism” (quoted in Gregory 2008). Commercial sponsors recognize this too and so continue to support the GAA and by extension the Integration and Inclusion Strategy (including such unlikely sponsors at this time of economic hardship and bank scandal as the Bank of Ireland and Ulster Bank). The GAA has created a public space of intercultural interaction. It has provided a means by which multiethnic communities, be they legally resident and settled migrants or the more “transient” asylum seekers, can interconnect and share a common activity and purpose. In these ways, it aims to combat racisms and discrimination. And yet it is less about a proper two-way intercultural integration and more about greater inclusion in “being Irish”.

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Multicultural Festivals: World Cultures Day and Africa Day Another example of business or industry focused on multi-ethnic newcomer communities are the annual Fusion music and multicultural festivals. The two that I examine here are the Festival of World Cultures and the Africa Day celebrations. In contrast to the GAA’s Strategy of Inclusion and Integration which has the ultimate aim of making “Others” seem more “Irish”, in a kind of unwitting assimilationist incorporation, the Festival of World Cultures sought to make a “drum circle” of multiple cultures equally contributing to playing music and dancing together. The organizers explained that the ethos of the Festival was to “Excite, inform, and create awareness of the worth and potential of a multicultural society” (Festival of World Cultures, 2011). The event sought to “enhance artistic expression and the integration of Ireland’s newer communities by providing a platform for intercultural creative exchange and dialogue. Crossing cultural, ethnic, religious and social bridges, the Festival aim[ed] to build a positive public response to integration, nurturing respect for diversity through the arts and entertainment” (Festival of World Cultures, 2011). Rather than a national scheme, this festival was funded and organized through the municipal government of the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown city council. Since 2001 this multi-ethnic music event sought to bring people to this harbor town (just south of Dublin city) for a two and a half day public event. Audiences grew from 20,000 in 2001 to 250,000 in 2008, as 800 artists representing 50 different countries came together in over 160 events. Some of these acts and performances included: Bulgarian singers, Chinese theatre circle, Oleku Band from Nigerian, Afresh Band with musicians from Zimbabwe, Poland, Slovakia and Ireland, Moraccan dance bands, an Afro-Caribbean Carnival parade, Nepalese traditional folklore musicians, as well as the Samba drum circle. This last event, the Samba drum circle, is symbolic of the whole “Mela” or festival as evidenced in its advertisement which read that: “Drumming is an ancient musical tradition that many cultures use to energize, build unity, focus attention, relax and heighten creativity as [we] drum in the company of other rhythms…” (Festival of World Cultures, 2011). The cultural diversity of the performers and artists in the Festival in general reflected, and also promoted an image of, the increasingly cosmopolitan and multicultural nature of Ireland today. This public event had the effect of opening up space for inclusion and integration. At the same time it served to endorse and market the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown municipality as transnational and cosmopolitan, advertising this area as the “new vibrant place” for those with Celtic Tiger affluence to invest and live in. The Festival ran from 2001 to 2010. The final figures for the 2010 event showed that it ran a deficit of €400,000 in excess of its expected budget. In 2011, the Festival was significantly down-sized but was still scheduled to take place. One official gave the reasoning that this was “so as not to lose what had been gained economically, politically and culturally through this event”. However, at the eleventh hour, the 2011 Festival was cancelled; this was presumably for

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budgetary reasons but the reasons were never clearly disclosed (Dún Laoghaire Festival 2011) and the Festival has not been held since. With the economic crisis, the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown municipality has not been in a financial position to host the event despite the obvious interest from the spectator audience and performers alike. The Festival of World Cultures was regarded as a celebration of Ireland’s new global and multicultural status and identity (especially during the Celtic Tiger boom). It was a fully integrative and intercultural dynamic that recognized the joining and sharing of cultures just as occurs in the drumming circle. While the Festival of World Cultures did not survive the recent economic collapse, other Festivals did, for example the Africa Day celebrations that have been hosted in Ireland since 2006. The 2013 Africa Day celebrations marked the 50th anniversary of the Africa Union (originally the Organization of Africa Unity (OAU)) that aims to address challenges such as armed conflict, climate change and poverty in Africa. Africa Day is celebrated in many African and European countries, as well as in Canada and the USA. In Ireland, Irish Aid, the government’s Overseas Development Programme, funds and helps to host the event. This year’s event was held on the grounds of the Farmleigh Estate in Phoenix Park, Dublin, and included three main elements. The first was an “African Bazaar” where stalls from over 20 different African countries provided food and activities such as drumming, dance, hair-braiding, henna hand-painting, and more as well as information from a range of Irish-based and migrant-led NGOs and African embassies. There were also live music performances from many bands and choirs, including African and African fusion bands. The final element was a series of workshops covering African/Irish issues and the changing relationship between Ireland and Africa over the past 50 years. These discussions were led by a series of special guests, including Irish politicians and advocacy- and migrant-community leaders. While these workshops are open to the general public, they are not as well attended by the public as are other events, particularly the music events. Rather, these workshops are largely the site of interaction between politicians and leaders of African-based advocacy groups. The Africa Day celebrations represent African heritages to an Irish audience. That the 2013 event took place on the estate lands of the prestigious Guinness family had the effect of creating a marked contrast between Irish estate and African Bazaar. The Bazaar was almost solely the domain of Africans and very few white Irish audience members ventured into the area. The whole Africa Day event is about spectacle and spectator, and there is a clear distinction and divide between African participants and white Irish audience. A further division is witnessed in the flags, maps, & country names of each stall in the Bazaar, distinguishing differences between and across African countries and cultures rather than promoting African unity. Perhaps the representation of public heritage cannot be more than “Dance, Dress and Dish”. While African heritages as a public event mark an inclusion into Irish social landscape, the distinctiveness of these heritages from each other

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and from an Irish heritage suggests a perpetuation of exclusion from a sense of belonging to the place and identity of Ireland. Heritage events such as Africa Day can be the platform for political and cultural recognition and a medium for intercultural dialogue. Certainly, the Africa Day celebrations are an attempt at developing awareness and appreciation of the multiple and alternative cultural narratives of multiethnic communities that co-exist in Ireland, including both legally resident migrants as well as asylum seekers. Interactive activities, such as the drumming sessions, storytelling events and the workshops, allow and encourage non-Africans to become participants rather than mere spectators. These do seem to be successful at moving away from representing cultural differences as a perpetuation of cultural boundedness and are aiming towards creating greater plural intercultural narratives. Conclusion: Neoliberal Landscapes of Space, Management and Experiences of Asylum Seekers in Ireland Under the current economic collapse, Ireland has once again become one of the poorest countries in Western Europe. Unemployment rates have soared as high as 30 percent for those under 30 years of age and it is estimated that 2000 Irish emigrate per week. In June 2013, the Integration Centre launched their “Annual Monitoring Report on Integration” which stated that Irish attitudes to immigrants had become more negative, that willingness to accept immigrants had fallen in recent years and that official racism statistics were grossly underestimated. It reported that the poverty rate was twice as high and the unemployment rate 3.5 percent higher for immigrants than for “Irish-nationals”. The fluctuating economy in Ireland (from bust to boom to bust again) has resulted in varying responses to immigration and has impacted the sense of Irish security and identity. Within this context, it may be surprising to learn that integration programs are upheld and maintained, even as Ireland is catapulted into its current economic crisis, principally because they serve political and economic interests. In each of these cases (the Accommodation Centres, the GAA’s Inclusion and Integration Strategy, and the multicultural festivals), I have suggested that as businesses engaged in managing multiethnic communities, they are recognized as viable and profitable. It is a critical time to examine the political economy of Ireland’s migration and multi- or interculturalism. It is paradoxical in the midst of this economic, political and social crisis that profitable business is in the form of industries of control and surveillance; the commodification of multiculturalism; and the management of newcomer communities. In the neoliberal landscapes of migration in Ireland, the State apparatus both controls and governs as it decentralizes its management of asylum seekers. Within the institutional framework of the accommodation centres and the support service industry, we see inherent and inevitable contradictions encompassed by the neoliberal hegemonic discourse. Asylum seekers, relegated to the margins of

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Irish society, are socially and spatially excluded and yet simultaneously are fully integrated into a market system that benefits from managing their exclusion. References Anon, 2001. St. Patrick’s Day parades in Dublin and Cork cancelled. The Irish Times, 2 March 2001. Conlan, S., 2013. Seven years like a robot: direct provision accommodation for asylum-seekers is inhumane, anti-family and profligate. Village Magazine, Ireland’s Political Magazine. April–May 2013. pp. 56–57. CSO, 2009. Census Ireland 2009, Population and Migration Estimates. [pdf] Dublin: Central Statistics Office. Available at: [Accessed 4 December 2013]. CSO, 2011. Census Ireland 2011, Cork: Central Statistics Office. Festival of World Cultures, 2011. Our Ethos. Festival of World Cultures. [online] Available at: http://www.festivalofworldcultures.com/about/our-ethos [Accessed 5 May 2012]. GAA, 2009. About the Gaelic Athletic Association. [online] Available at: http:// www.gaa.ie/about-the-gaa/ [Accessed 5 May 2012]. GAA Strategy, 2009. Gaelic Athletic Association Inclusion and Integration Strategy, 2009–2015. Dublin: Croke Park. Glynn, I., Kelly, T. and MacÉinrí, P., 2013. Irish Emigration in an Age of Austerity. Cork: University College Cork. Gregory, S., 2008. Can sports avoid this recession? Time, [online] Available at: [Accessed 5 May 2012]. Moriarty, C., 2011. Hurling: its ancient history. Irish Archaeology [blog] 3 September 2011. Available at: [Accessed 5 May, 2012]. Jacobson, D. and Kirby, P., 2006. Globalization and Ireland. In: D. Jacobson, P. Kirby, and D. O’Broin, eds. Taming the Tiger: Social Exclusion in a Globalised Ireland. Dublin: Tasc at New Island. pp. 23–44. Lentin, R. and McVeigh,R., eds., 2002. Racism and Anti-Racism in Ireland. Belfast: Beyond the Pale. McCaid, J., 2001. Press Release: End of Year Statement on Tourism Performance. Press Release, 28 December 2001. Dublin: Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism, Irish Government. Molloy, T. and Sheehan, A., 2011. 1,000 a week forced to emigrate. Irish Independent, [online] 11 January 2011. Available at: [Accessed on 20 November 2013].

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Ó Fátharta, C., 2013. 1,000 a week forced to emigrate. Irish Examiner, [online] 30 August 2011. Available at: [Accessed on 28 February 2014]. Reception and Integration Agency, 2007. Reception and Integration Agency, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. [online] Available at [Accessed on 30 October 2007]. Reception and Integration Agency, 2013. Monthly Statistics June 2013. [pdf] Dublin: Reception and Integration Agency, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Available at [Accessed 24 November 2013]. Reception and Integration Agency, 2007. Monthly Statistics October 2007. [pdf] Dublin: Reception and Integration Agency, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Available at [Accessed 24 July 2010]. Reception and Integration Agency, 2005. Monthly Statistics October 2005. [pdf] Dublin: Reception and Integration Agency, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Available at [Accessed 24 July 2010]. Reilly, G., 2011. Dún Laoghaire festival called off ‘at eleventh hour’, The Journal [Online] 20 August 2011. Available at: [Accessed 24 November 2013]. Sheehan, A., 2011. Emigration ‘at famine levels’ as 200 leave country each day. Irish Independent, [online] 11 December 2012. Available at: [Accessed on 20 November 2013]. Smith, A., 2010. Social/ spatial mapping of asylum seeker accommodation centres in Ireland, Geographic Information System (GIS) Interactive Website, . Smith, A., 2009. A negotiated sharing of space: globalization, borders, and identity of African asylum seekers in Ireland. In: A.G. Adebayo and O. Adesina eds., Globalization and Transnational Migrations: Africa and Africans in the Contemporary Global System. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishers. pp. 88–105. Smith, A., 2008. The Irish citizenship referendum (2004): motherhood and belonging in Ireland. In D. Reed-Danahay and C.B. Brettell eds., Immigration and Citizenship in Europe and the United States: Anthropological Perspectives. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. pp. 60–77. USCR, 2003. World Refugee Survey 2003: Ireland. Washington: US Committee for Refugees. Winship, M., 2010. The Celtic Tiger, Declawed and Defanged. The Huffington Post, September 28, 2010. Available at: [Accessed 28 February 2014].

Section II Memory and Mobility

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Chapter 5

How the Irish Became American: Reflections on the History of the Irish in the United States William H. Mulligan, Jr.

Introduction Identity, both how an individual sees him or herself and how the larger society sees them, is an important aspect in how people fit into the social landscape of their society. For migrants and their children this can be especially challenging. Identity and all that it involves is an important part of the cultural baggage migrants carry and one element in how they will interact with their host society. It is not a constant, but changes over time, an especially important consideration in the case of the Irish. Emigration from Ireland has been an important element in Irish society since the late seventeenth century. The dimensions of this emigration have changed over time in nearly every way. Similarly, the identity or self-image of the host culture is also not fixed, but highly malleable. In the case at hand, the United States, both factors have affected how the Irish have been received and how they saw their place in their new home. I’d like to begin with a quotation from Akenson on the literature of Irish American history: In particular, unless one is very sophisticated, it is best to eschew entirely the literature on the Irish in the United States of America, because as a collective entity that literature has become a massive baroque structure that is built on quicksand: an explanatory system aimed at justifying certain primitive beliefs that in fact have little or no evidentiary base. (Akenson, 1991, p. 12)

If this view was ever true, and it may have been at one point, it was certainly obsolescent if not completely obsolete when it appeared in 1991. But, as someone who recently referred in a scholarly journal to the Irish history he learned from his grandmother, it caught my attention and does seem like a good starting point for

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a discussion of the recent literature on the Irish in the USA (Mulligan, 2008). Is it still a “baroque structure” erected on quicksand?1 My title, obviously, is a reference to Ignatiev’s How the Irish Became White (1995) as well as the literature on whiteness as applied to ethnic Americans. For a number of reasons, which I hope to develop here, I have always felt this literature was too concerned with being theoretically clever and metaphorical to be very useful in understanding the Irish experience and to compound the more obvious problems was based on a very limited understanding of the Irish American experience, but those who proposed it were often not scholars who were deeply concerned with the history of the Irish in the USA. The Irish in the United States In the United States today, people asserting Irish ancestry are the second largest white ethnic group–there are more people claiming German ancestry. The 30.5 million or so United States citizens who claim Irish descent, as well as another 4.3 million who self-identify as Scotch-Irish are largely Protestant—about 52 percent. The number has actually declined slightly since ethnic identity was first reported in 1970; in that year the total of Irish and Scotch-Irish was slightly over 43 million (Brittingham and Cruz, 2004). No one is quite sure why. The large number was something of a surprise; that the majority of self-identifying Irish in the United States are Protestants was much more so. The principal reason for this is that for quite some time in the United States being Irish has been equated with being Roman Catholic. Popular culture, especially the movies, played a significant role in promoting this view. The academic literature certainly reflected that understanding as well for a long time (see e.g. Handlin, 1941; McCaffrey, 1976; Akenson, 2000).2 It is one aspect of Akenson’s more sustained critique of the writing of Irish American history that had some real merit when first set forth thirty some years ago. How this came about is the result of complicated cultural processes that there is not enough space to explore in depth here. Two important articles appeared in 2003 that form a foundation for understanding the Irish experience in the United States. The first, Kenny’s “Diaspora and Comparison: The Global Irish as a Case Study” appeared in the Journal of American History in June 2003 (Kenny, 2003). The second, O’Sullivan’s 1 Much of the discussion that follows is influenced by Fitzgerald and Lambkin’s Migration in Irish History, 1607–2007 (2008). This is a very significant book with numerous, valuable insights and challenges and one that needs to be addressed by all of us working on the Irish diaspora. 2 For a critical review of this literature see Donald Harmon Akenson, “Irish Migration to North America, 1800–1920,” in Andy Bielenberg, editor, The Irish Diaspora (Harlow, England: Longman, 2000), 111–138.

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“Developing Irish Diaspora Studies: A Personal View” appeared in New Hibernia Review in 2003. O’Sullivan’s essay is important for a number of reasons, two of which I want to highlight. As founder and long-time moderator of the Irish diaspora discussion list, O’Sullivan has been a central figure in the development of the field and helped create the sense of community that exists among scholars working on the diaspora. Second, the essay began as a presentation at the International Basque Congress. The Basques were interested in the Irish diaspora and particularly the connection those in the diaspora feel to Ireland and being Irish as a model for the dispersed Basque people, who also have a diaspora. The Irish diaspora, both as an analytical concept and as particular type of community, is significant far beyond its role in Irish history and its relationship to Ireland. It is something other groups are beginning look to for help in understanding their own experience. The special, particular nature of the Irish diaspora as well as its more general aspects makes it a viable and important framework for research. Recently, several books have appeared which make important contributions to the history of the Irish in America. The first, Kenny’s The American Irish: A History (2003) is a very successful attempt to synthesize the scholarship of the last two decades into a coherent overview of Irish America. Dolan published The Irish Americans: A History (2008) which is consciously aimed at providing a coherent overview of Irish American history for the popular audience and succeeds well beyond that goal. Miller, Schrier, Boling, and Doyle’s Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan (2003) is perhaps the most detailed exploration of Irish emigration to America before 1815. The book combines documents, letters, memoirs, and diaries, with essays that introduce the document and discuss it in a broad context. The authors also explore the question of identity and each essay is an important contribution on its own. Another very useful introduction to the current state of knowledge about the history of the Irish in the United States is Meagher’s, The Columbia Guide to Irish American History (2005). The format of Meagher’s book is also somewhat unusual, part encyclopedia, part monograph, but quite effective. In short form and very broad strokes, the dynamic of migration from Ireland to the United States shifted from being primarily from the north of Ireland and heavily (about 2/3) Protestant to being principally from the south and west and overwhelmingly Catholic around 1830. The pre-1830 arrivals, especially those arriving before 1800, came during the formative period of what would become the United States and helped shape and define its values and identity. They did not need to become American; they were present during the creation of the nation and its identity, which predated and made possible the War for Independence and Revolution. Those who were Catholic often had few qualms about becoming Protestant in their new homeland, especially before 1800. The strong identification between Catholicism and Irish nationalism, and hence identity, seems to have developed more strongly during O’Connell’s various campaigns of the 1820s and 1830s. The nature of their Catholicism was also different than that of later, post-Famine emigrants (see Connolly, 1982 and Larkin, 2006). Those who came after 1830 not only were mostly (about 2/3) Catholic, they were overwhelmingly

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from rural areas and found themselves in a country that had both defined itself as existentially Protestant and was well along in the process that would transform it into an urban, industrial economy and society. The Irish were profoundly other in ways that earlier arrivals had not been. Their ‘otherness’ made their experience very different from that of those who had arrived earlier. Many of those from Ireland already in the United States around 1830 and those Protestants who continued to come to the United States developed a new identity, variously stated as Scots-Irish or Scotch Irish that underscored their separateness from the more recent arrivals.3 This helped them avoid the discrimination that Irish Catholics faced and preserved their position as part of the core culture. Based on recent work this phenomenon may have been more pronounced in the northeast than in the southern states due to the presence of large numbers of African slaves in the South. Interestingly, when large numbers of eastern European Jews began arriving in the United States in the late nineteenth century German Jews, who were already established, followed a similar course. More important to my concern here, for many years scholars and others who wrote about the Irish in the United States focused on the Catholic Irish, especially those who arrived around the time of the Irish Potato Famine and the several decades after that great calamity. Many, but by no means all, of these scholars were themselves Catholic Irish Americans. Over roughly the last twenty-five years, however, the historical literature has come to grips with the more varied nature of the Irish experience in the United States and better reflects the diversity of the varied religious backgrounds of the Irish in the United States. Further, while the literature on the Catholic Irish in the United States had focused heavily on the Irish in northeastern cities there has been increasing attention to the Irish in other sections of the United States during this same period. The result of this new research and writing has been to expand and enrich our understanding of the Irish experience in the United States. The most significant book in beginning the sustained reexamination of the Irish in the United States is Miller’s, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish 3 There is a huge literature. Among the more important studies is James G. Leyburn, The Scotch-Irish: A Social History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1962) already something of a classic. Kerby A. Miller has addressed this issue in “‘Scotch-Irish, ‘Black Irish’ and ‘Real Irish’: Emigrants and Identities in the Old South,” in Bielenberg, The Irish Diaspora, 139–157 and in “‘Scotch-Irish’ Myths and ‘Irish’ Realities,” in Charles Fanning, editor, New Perspectives on the Irish Diaspora (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000), 75–92. Patrick Griffin, The People with No Name: Ireland’s Ulster Scots, America’s Scots Irish, and the Creation of a British Atlantic World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001, David T. Gleeson, The Irish in the South, 1815–1877 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001) and Gleeson, “Small Differences: ‘Scotch Irish and ‘Real Irish’ in the Nineteenth-century American South,” New Hibernia Review 10 (2006), pp. 68–91 have addressed the topic in highly useful ways. James Webb, Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America (New York: Broadway Books, 2004) is aimed at the popular market and draws very selectively from the scholarly literature.

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Exodus to North America (1985). Only a year earlier, the first revised edition of McCaffrey’s The Irish Diaspora in the United States appeared with a new title, The Irish Catholic Diaspora in the United States (emphasis added). The first edition, published in 1976, had omitted the word Catholic although it only discussed the Irish Catholic experience (McCaffrey, 1976; 1984). To a certain extent, McCaffrey was responding to specific and pointed criticism of his focus on the Catholic Irish by Akenson as well as to work that had appeared following his initial publication.4 So, the first thing about the Irish in the United States that we now are more aware of (and have a substantial and growing historical literature) than we were twentyfive years ago is the balance between Catholics and Protestants among the Irish in America. This is important because it opens up new possibilities for studying the Irish in regions where Protestants were more numerous than Catholics, such as the American South, and adds new levels to our understanding of the reception of Irish immigrants as the make-up of that migration changed.5 For many years, a corollary of the focus on the Irish Catholic experience was a focus on the seaport and industrial cities of the northeastern United States that received the largest number of immigrants, especially during the Famine. These cities certainly had large Irish communities and the work done was generally quite good. Handlin’s work on Boston, first published in 1941, was a major contribution. Handlin’s view of immigration as an “uprooting” prefigured in some ways Miler’s focus on loss and longing among Irish immigrants.6 Thernstrom discussed Irish Catholic immigrants as part of a larger study of social mobility in nineteenthcentury Newburyport, Massachusetts (Thernstrom, 1964). He found significant differences between the Catholic Irish and other groups. The Irish were slower to own homes and move up the social ladder—which Thernstrom attributed to the resources committed to building churches, schools, and other separate institutions. Clark wrote extensively on the Irish in Philadelphia (see Clark, 1973). While not 4 Akenson has written extensively not only on the Irish in the United States but also on the entire diaspora, giving his work an unusually comparative dimension. The most relevant of his works for this essay are Donald Harmon Akenson, The Irish Diaspora: A Primer (Toronto: P. D. Meany Company, 1996); Being Had: Historian, Evidence and the Irish in North America (Toronto, 1985); and Small Differences: Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, 1815–1922: An International Perspective (Kingston and Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1988); and “Irish Migration to North America, 1800–1920.” 5 Gleeson’s The Irish in the South, 1815–1877 (2000) was among the first to begin this investigating this. His article “Small Differences: ‘Scotch Irish and ‘Real Irish’ in the Nineteenth-century American South” (2006) shows the continuing potential the topic offers. 6 Oscar Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants: A Study in Acculturation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941, rev. ed., 1959) and The Uprooted (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1951). John Bodnar has suggested a different metaphor for understanding immigration to the U.S.—“transplanting” rather than “uprooting.” This has great potential for reframing how we look at Irish immigration, The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985).

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an academic historian, Clark was a prodigious researcher and his work has been well received in academic circles. Very good work continues to appear especially focused on the medium size northeastern cities such as that of Mitchell (1988) on Lowell and Meagher (2001) on Worcester, both of which are in Massachusetts. An interesting area where there is renewed activity is the study of the Irish in New York City. Obviously, historians have not just discovered that there were Irish people in New York City. The size of the city and the very large number of people involved, however, discouraged the kind of comprehensive community studies that appeared for smaller communities. In 1986, the New York Irish History Roundtable began changing this situation. A number of books and articles are bringing the largest Irish community outside Ireland’s history forward. For example, work being done on New York include: Bayor and Meagher’s edited collection, The New York Irish (1996); Kelly’s The Shamrock and the Lily: The New York Irish and the Creation of a Transatlantic Identity, 1845–1921 (2005); and Ambinder’s, Five Points: The 19th-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World’s Most Notorious Slum (2001). The journal, New York Irish History, which began publishing in 1986, and the New York Irish History Roundtable have played central roles in the increased attention to the Irish in New York. Further, the important role Irish immigrants played in the development of popular culture in the United States is discussed in Harrington’s The Irish Play on the New York Stage (1997). Yet another area of new and exciting research is a more national focus for research, moving beyond the northeast and coastal cities. It is now clear that the experience of the Irish outside the northeast was quite different. A number of recent studies on San Francisco, California show a very different pattern than that which emerges from the studies of the northeastern communities. In San Francisco, there was much less discrimination against Irish Catholics, more rapid upward social mobility, and more marriages outside the group (Burchell, 1980; Dowling, 1988; Jordan and O’Keefe, 2005). This is an area where a great deal of work remains to be done. One very interesting project underway at Stanford University is creating an online library of literary works that grow out of the Irish experience in the American west as well as memoirs and autobiographies. These works were largely unknown before this project and offer tremendous potential for future research. Many are not only out of print, but very hard to find. The Irish American West Project, to use its formal name, is a very positive example of the power of the Internet to open up new areas of scholarship (see http://hotgates.stanford.edu/IAW/about-overview.html). .

The Irish in Upper Michigan Another of the images of Irish immigrants in the United States has been that they have been overwhelmingly unskilled, rural people. This, and much of what we have “known” about the Irish in the United States, is largely based on extrapolation

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from the Famine-era immigrants. To a considerable degree, the renewed attention directed at pre-1830 immigrants has revised this view for that cohort. However, the image persists to a considerable degree for later arrivals, especially those during and shortly after the famine. Given the economy of Ireland, a large portion of unskilled, rural migrants in any cohort of emigrants would hardly be surprising. However, recent work is uncovering a thread of Irish immigrants who brought real skills to the United States and who migrated at least in part because of those skills. Among the first to highlight these skilled Irish immigrants was Emmons in his work on the Irish in Butte, Montana. Marcus Daly, from County Cavan, emerged as the winner of the War of the Copper Kings and controlled the copper mining industry in Butte from 1875 to his death in 1900. Irish copper miners from the failing copper mines of the Beara Peninsula in southwest County Cork flocked to Butte to work in Daly’s mines. In addition, Irish miners from the Michigan Copper Country went to Butte. The Michigan mining districts, copper and iron, had opened in the mid 1840s and Irish miners from the Beara and mines in counties Waterford and Tipperary were among the pioneer settlers there (Mulligan, 2001a; 2001b; 2004a; 2004b; 2004–2006; O’Neil 2001). This was thirty years before Butte. Other Irish miners, I have learned through my own research, appear to have been from the small mines of County Tipperary, had already been in the lead mines of southwestern Wisconsin and northwestern Illinois and were the earliest Irish in the Copper Country. Other recent research has found the Irish on most western mining ranges as skilled miners who had migrated either directly from Ireland or from the Michigan copper and iron ranges (Fahey, 1971; McGloin, 1971; Butler, 1998; James, 1998a, 1998b; Walsh, 2010). My research expanded with this enlarged agenda and has revealed a very different experience for the Irish who went to the Michigan Copper Country from the Irish in the Northeast whose experience has dominated the literature on the Irish in the United States. The first Irish in the Copper Country arrived there from the lead mining fields of Southwest Wisconsin and Northwest Illinois beginning in 1845 (see McDonald, 1976). They were almost all originally from County Tipperary, which had a number of small copper, lead, and other metal mines early in the nineteenth century. They left Ireland between 1820 and the early 1840s, nearly all pre-Famine. The next wave, which began to arrive a few years later were overwhelmingly from the Beara Peninsula, which had the most extensive copper mines in Ireland at Allihies. Others in this group were from the Knockmahon mines in County Waterford. The mining areas in Tipperary appear to have been areas well penetrated by English, the Beara and Waterford mines were in heavily Irish-speaking areas (Fitzgerald, 1984; 2003). While not ruling out the ability to communicate in English—and those who worked in the mines at Allihies would have had to have some English to communicate with the small number of Cornish miners, including the superintendents, and the Puxleys—it does suggest the possibility of problems using English, at least initially. Those from Knockmahon would have had a similar need for minimal English.

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There is some contemporary information about the language spoken by the Irish in the Copper Country, even if one disregards the phonetic mocking of Irish speech frequently appearing in the Portage Lake Mining Gazette, especially in the 1860s that suggest persistence of Irish. Language may have been an issue for the Beara emigrants in the Copper Country. In an 1860 letter to the Wahrheitsfreund, a German-language Catholic newspaper published in Cincinnati beginning in 1837. Frederic Baraga, founding bishop of the diocese within which the Copper Country is located, wrote, The copper mines in Portage Lake are very rich, and they attract so many people that on the census taken this year, over 6000 persons were found there, of whom one-third are Catholics. . . . Last year, we built quite a large church here, but it is now too small. This year we will begin to build a second one. I would like to point out a remarkable fact: the zealous missionary, Mr. Jacker, [pastor at Hancock] who already hears confessions and preaches in four languages, is now going to learn a fifth, that is the Irish, or better the Celtic language, because he has so many Irishmen who only speak this language. It takes a heroic will for learning such a language. I procured him a Celtic grammar in New York. (Walling and Rupp, 1990, p. 1837)

There is additional evidence of use of the Irish language in the Copper Country. In the early 1870s, a dozen or so families who had emigrated from the Beara between 1845 and 1849 joined Fenian General John O’Neill’s planned agricultural colony, modestly named O’Neill, in north central Nebraska. In her reminiscence of growing up in O’Neill, Margaret McGreevy wrote, One of the areas that I remember well was the Michigan settlement where the Dwyers and the Sullivans and the Murphys lived. Tim and John Dwyer were friends of Grandpa and they loved to go back to the Gaelic selections that they both knew in Ireland – songs and poems that they learned in school. Grandpa would carry a Gaelic bible and a Gaelic catechism down to the Bank sets – their favorite meeting place when the weather was nice, to speak Gaelic to one another and they were always surrounded by interested listeners. (McGreevy, 19738)

The last piece of Irish language evidence is especially intriguing. In its November 3, 1881 issue the Portage Lake Mining Gazette reprinted an article from the New York Tribune about a local man. James Sheehan, who had worked at the Osceola Mine, near Calumet, had gone to New York City to arrange for his wife and twelve children to join him. 7 Baraga to Wahrheitsfreund, Sault Ste. Marie, October 5, 1860 quoted in Walling and Rupp (1990). 8 She was 88 at the time she wrote this as part of a program by the historical society to collect reminiscences.

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An Irish immigrant who came to this country in May last, went to the Castle garden yesterday and was unable to make known his destitute condition except through an interpreter, as he could not speak any other than the Irish language. The man was James Sheehan, who, assisted by the Irish Relief Fund, left his wife and twelve children in Castle Down, [most likely Castletownbere] Ireland, and came here to establish a home. He went to work in Osceola mines, near Lake Superior, and not only sent money home to support his family but sent $100 additional six weeks ago, to pay their passage here as soon as he could send a little more ... He does not speak a word of English. (Portage Lake Mining Gazette, 1881)

Yet, despite not having a word of English, he was able to work in the mines for more than year, earning enough money to send a substantial amount home. This was in 1880—more than three decades after the initial settlement of the region and several decades after large numbers of Irish people had settled in the region. So, Irish had to be spoken and understood in the Copper Country longer than the initial settlement period for Sheehan to have survived. Granted this is not a large body of evidence, but it suggests that some of the Copper Country Irish were Irish speakers, some, especially in the earlier years, exclusively so. I think this is an important factor in two characteristics of the Copper Country Irish community. First, the dominant role early arrivals from Tipperary played in the community, particularly in the period before 1870—they clearly had English—and the very high percentages of Irish-born people who married an Irish-born person into the 1880s. This, the language question, is another of the things we thought we knew that needs to be reevaluated. It has been a standard explanation for Irish upward mobility in the historical literature that the Irish had an advantage over most of immigrant groups because they spoke English. Given the strength of the Irish language in the rural south and west of Ireland, major sources of post-1830 emigration to the USA, this deserves to be reconsidered. The earliest arrivals in the Copper Country, those who arrived before 1850 especially, did well. It was a mining boom area—those who knew how to open mines, sink shafts, and the other aspects of hard rock mining found work and opportunities to advance. The Tipperary group benefited the most—they had some familiarity with the United States and English; the Beara and Waterford people had less familiarity with English and some, apparently, only spoke Irish. They could work because mining work was organized by teams in the early period and the teams were based on ethnicity—Cornish, German, and Irish. As the mines went deeper and shifted from mining mass copper to native copper the costs of development and operations rose dramatically and control shifted from prospectors and small firms to large corporations. These firms were based in Boston and controlled by native-born capitalists (Gates, 1971). They strongly preferred Cornish and German Lutheran workers to Irish Catholics. Opportunities for Irish Catholics, especially for promotion, declined dramatically. By the mid-1870s the

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community was stagnating and an exodus began to Butte, Montana, Leadville, and other mining towns further west where opportunity existed. This, and much of what is being learned about Irish Catholic communities in the nineteenth-century American west, suggests that we may also need to rethink the nature of prejudice against the Catholic Irish and see it not as a constant in the United States but as a variable depending upon the specific environment in which people found themselves and the time of their arrival in terms of the area’s development. Another group that illustrates the presence of skilled workers among Irish immigrants is the workers at E. I. du Pont’s gunpowder plant on the Brandywine River in Delaware early in the nineteenth century. A very high percentage were Irish (Kelleher, 1993; Mulrooney, 2002). The du Ponts were French, but had little success in recruiting workers from France and many of their early workers were Irish. I first became aware of this in 1977 when I joined the staff at the Hagley Museum & Library, established to preserve and interpret the early du Pont site. Only years later did I learn that not only were many of the early Hagley workers Irish--they were from Ballincollig in County Cork. Many had emigrated when the Royal Powder Works in Ballincollig closed after the Napoleonic wars -- the precise time du Pont, who was desperate for labor, had finally accepted that he would not be able to draw it from France. Several other studies trace specific groups of emigrants from Ireland to the United States and follow their lives in their new environment. Connors (1999) has done this for a group of fishermen from Arranmore Island, County Donegal who settled on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan and Dunn (2008) for a group from Ballykilcline. There are a few other studies that are relevant here, such as Ambinder’s work on assisted emigration from Lord Palmerston’s estates (Ambinder, 2001; see also Norton, 2003). Looking beyond the USA to other areas of the diaspora, the experience of the Irish in Argentina, for example, suggests that connections between particular places and particular industries, in this case grazing sheep and cattle are worth pursuing more generally. A majority of the emigrants bound to Argentina came from the Irish Midlands counties of Westmeath, Longford and Offaly, as well as from Co. Wexford. According to Kirby, however, the focus is even narrower: came from two clearly defined areas, south-east of a line from Wexford Town to Kilmore Quay in Wexford, and from a quadrangle on the Longford/Westmeath border stretching roughly from Athlone to Edgeworthstown, to Mullingar and to Kilbeggan. Virtually the whole population surrounding the town of Ballymore, which stands roughly at the centre of this quadrangle, emigrated to Buenos Aires in the 1860s. (Kirby, 1992, p. 150)9 9 A major source on the Irish in Latin America is the electronic journal, Irish Migration Studies in Latin America at: http://www.irlandeses.org. Two recent works of note are: Edmundo Murray, Becoming Irlandés: Narratives of Irish Emigration to Argentina (Buenos Aires: Literature of Latin America, 2006) and Oliver Marshall, English, Irish and

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A clearly related area is assisted migration. Generally, assisted migration in the Irish diaspora is associated with Australia and New Zealand and to a much lesser extent South Africa. Ambinder’s work and that of Dunn raises questions as to how extensive this might have been in the United States outside the northeast. Bishop Ireland’s efforts to establish rural Irish communities in Minnesota, for example, and Ambinder’s recent article on assisted emigration to New York City from Lord Palmerston’s estates suggests that this too is an area worth investigating more thoroughly for the United States as well (Ambinder, 2001; Norton, 2003; Regan, 2002). Diaspora Dimensions The final area I want to discuss before trying to answer the question I posed in my title is the awareness that Irish immigration in the United States is very much part of a larger, global process, the Irish diaspora. While president of Ireland Mary Robinson brought the discussion of the diaspora out of the shadows in Ireland and the diaspora has attracted considerable scholarly interest. Mary MacAleese has continued to discuss the diaspora during her presidency. In 1997, both the Irish Centre for Migration Studies at University College Cork and the Centre for Emigration Studies (now the Centre for Migration Studies) at the Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh hosted major international conferences devoted to the diaspora. That same year the last volumes in a six-volume anthology of scholarly writing on the diaspora, The Irish Worldwide, appeared. In 1999, RTÉ produced a five-part television series, The Irish Empire, with accompanying book (Bishop, 1999), which explored both the history and current status of the Irish around the world. Both the Irish Journal of Sociology (Vol. 11, no. 2 (2002)) and the Irish Journal of Psychology (Vol. 23, nos. 3–4 (2002)) have published special issues on the diaspora. An internet discussion list ([email protected]) helps maintain a lively exchange among scholars interested in the Irish around the world. The diaspora approach to the study of the Irish in the United States offers a great deal of advantage. One of the limitations on the study of United States history has long been what is known as “American [United States] exceptionalism.” In its simplest form, this approach begins by seeing U.S. history as a unique experience, separate from the larger flow of world events, and stresses the distinctiveness, some would say uniqueness (literally) of the American experience. At times, this can be providential and/or triumphal, suggesting that the United States has been specially favored and blessed not only by nature, but also by God. While this approach is waning, it persists often subtly. Looking at the experience of the Irish in the USA in the context of the Irish diaspora helps move beyond that approach. Including the perspective of the diaspora is also useful in another important way; it Irish-American Pioneer settlers in Nineteenth-Century Brazil (Oxford: Centre for Brazilian Studies, 2005).

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helps us move away from seeing the Irish American experience simply as the Irish Catholic American experience. From the very beginning, migration out of Ireland has related to events in Ireland more than anything else. Further, the decision of where to go, once one decided to leave was complex. Canada was generally the least expensive destination (other than Great Britain), but as part of the British world after 1776 Catholics faced the same religious discrimination (disabilities was the contemporary term) there as in Ireland. Assistance was frequently available for Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa but these were distant and harsh environments. South Africa attracted relatively few Irish settlers who were not already there as part of the British Army, for example. Despite Irish sympathies with the Boers in their struggle with Britain, few Irish emigrated there. Irish troops were also a significant component of early Irish settlement in New Zealand. Australia, of course, received many involuntary settlers. Being Irish, the precise sense of Irishness people develop and organize their lives around, differs throughout the diaspora—as it has in Ireland. We need to begin the integration of the many studies of the Irish in local communities and countries across the globe into a coherent sense of the overall experience. This not only should affect our understanding of Irish America, by seeing the Irish experience in the United States as part of a global diaspora, not something purely American, but help answer the question of Irish acceptance as Americans. When we look at all we have learned about the Irish in the United States and the many aspects of that experience we are only beginning to explore, such as roles of women, in the last twenty five years or so, say from the publication of Emigrants and Exiles, it becomes clear that the question has many answers not just one. For most Irish people arriving in the American colonies and the new United States before roughly 1780 there was no issue; they were part of the process by which the culture defined itself. Charles Carroll of Carrollton was not the only person of Irish ancestry who signed the Declaration of Independence or can otherwise be thought of as a “Founding Father.” He was just the only one who was Catholic. Hibernian Societies, St. Patrick Societies, and other Irish organizations existed across the country or, more accurately for the time, along the seaboard. St. Patrick’s Day was observed and celebrated. These Irish were fully accepted as Americans. It would appear that subsequent Irish Protestant immigrants had relatively little difficulty adjusting to the United States or in being accepted. The situation becomes more complicated after approximately 1825. The environment had changed. The United States had clearly defined itself as a Protestant nation and saw Protestantism as closely connected with individual liberty. The Catholic Church was also becoming better organized and more extensive. Churches were built in many cities and dioceses were established. There was a somewhat complicated ethnic transition, but by the 1830s Irish clergy and bishops were replacing the second generation of bishops (seeing John Carroll as a one man first generation) who were mostly French. Catholicism became more

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closely connected to Irishness for Irish Catholics and emigration from Ireland became more heavily Catholic. Hostility toward Irish Catholics was strongest in the northeast and relatively weak in the southern, slave states. There was apparently no question there about the ‘whiteness’ of Irish Catholics (Mulligan, 2010). We now know a great deal about the contribution of Irish units and Irish Americans in the American Civil War and that Union Irish units, at least, were overwhelmingly Catholic. Southern units are a little more difficult to be certain about. In her recent book The Harp and the Eagle (2006), Bruce has shown clearly that despite Irish American heroism and sacrifice for the Union cause there is little evidence that this changed mainstream northern attitudes towards the Irish or towards Catholics. Gleeson (2013) has shown that somewhat the opposite happened in the South at least in immediate aftermath of the war. If “whiteness” deals with seeing blacks as inferior, there is ample evidence that the Irish embraced that idea before the Civil War. The institutional church, especially New York Archbishop John Hughes, strongly rejected Daniel O’ Connell’s call for Irish support for abolition of slavery and few Irish Americans supported the abolition of slavery. If being American is at least in some part a willingness to fight for the nation, again we see the Irish demonstrating that. But we see little acceptance. Two interesting events took place in 1905. James Michael Curley was elected as the first Irish Catholic mayor of Boston. William Sumner Appleton founded the Society for the Preservation on New England Antiquities to preserve the artifacts, buildings, and culture of New England. And, when did Appleton date the end of the New England civilization worth preserving?--with the arrival of the first large number of Irish Catholics. Local political power, which the Irish had achieved, did not necessarily translate into social acceptance. In World War I, Irish Catholics again responded to the call for arms, quite visibly in the NY State Militia’s “Fighting 69th”. To simplify a complicated story, the 69th was founded in the 1850s as an Irish unit by Michael Corcoran. (It still leads the New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade, but is no longer entirely Irish.) The 69th distinguished itself in the U.S. Civil War under first Corcoran and then Thomas Francis Meagher and did so again in the Great War. Its chaplain Father Ryan achieved a level of fame for his heroism. Did acceptance follow? In1928 Alfred E. Smith ran for president. While his father was German, Smith identified with his mother’s Irish ancestry and was seen as an Irish Catholic throughout his political career. While a case can be made for the difficulty of any challenger beating Herbert Hoover, seen as the architect of the prosperity of the 1920s, Smith lost votes in nearly every traditional Democratic Party stronghold outside areas with large Catholic, ethnic communities. His ethnicity and religion (being from New York City didn’t help either) were major issues in the campaign that he couldn’t shake. Acceptance remained elusive for Irish Catholics. We know very little about Irish Protestants outside the south because there has been little systematic work done. The 1970 census and subsequent censuses indicate that they are most numerous in the south and much more likely than

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Irish Catholics to live in rural areas or small towns. They are less educated and less wealthy than Irish Catholics, who are most numerous in the northeast and Midwest. Work done on Irish Catholics in the northeast and Midwest in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries suggests several reasons for this seeming reversal of positions. Several of these relate to Irish and Irish American women. One is that Irish emigration included at least as many single women as men after 1855. It appears more women than men over time. A very large number of them found work as domestic servants gaining exposure to the standards of the middle class. Janet Nolan has also shown that a significant number of immigrant women had training and experience as teachers and that a significant number of young Irish American women trained and worked as teachers in public schools (Nolan, 2004). Middle class American values and the importance of education were adapted by Irish Catholics in America very early on. Education in public schools in a society hostile to Catholicism was seen as a problem by a number of bishops, especially John Hughes of New York. Beginning in the 1830s, he began establishing parish schools, secondary schools, and colleges. Hughes had his opponents among fellow bishops, but by 1883 the US bishops had endorsed the idea of a completely Catholic education for every Catholic child. While never fully realized nationally, elementary and secondary schools were widely adopted by Catholic parishes, with the support of teaching orders recruited initially largely from Ireland. These orders grew significantly in the United States until the late 1960s. This parallel educational system came to include colleges and universities with a full spectrum of professional schools. By the 1920s an educated, Irish Catholic middle class was well established in most sections of the country. Although a great deal more research is needed here. Large number of Irish Americans served in the military during World War II. Few units, if any, however, can be identified with any particular ethnic or religious group. For the most part ethnic identity was not as prominent during the Second World War as it had been in early conflicts. The GI Bill, passed toward the end of the war, as a demobilization measure would have profound and lasting consequences for Irish America. One of the benefits offered by the GI Bill was low interest mortgages. This made home ownership much more affordable for working class and lower middle class Americans, which was where most Catholic Irish Americans were situated. One stipulation was that the mortgages could only be used for new homes not for the purchase of existing houses. This led to the creation of large suburbs around most American cities. The Irish found themselves in these new suburbs with neighbors of a variety of ethnic backgrounds rather than in the old, Irish neighborhood. The parish church might have an Irish American pastor, but the parishioners were no longer as heavily Irish as they had been in the urban, ethnic neighborhoods. This changed the nature of Irish American identity. Gradually at first and then more rapidly, those areas that had been closed to Irish Catholics began to open. Elite universities to major banks, law firms, and

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brokerage houses admitted and hired Irish Catholics and promoted them. By 1960, Irish Catholics were among the most educated and most economically successful white ethnic groups. In 1960, John F. Kennedy was nominated for president by the Democratic Party. The grandson of Irish Catholic politicians, including a mayor of Boston, Kennedy was not a typical Irish Catholic. He was a Harvard graduate and his father was a very wealthy and successful businessman who had been able to give his sons opportunities not generally available to Irish Catholics. Still, Kennedy was unapologetically Irish and Catholic. As it had during the Smith campaign in 1928, the issue of religion and the question of whether a Catholic president would be more loyal to the church than to the Constitution arose. While Kennedy confronted the issue directly, it did not have the power it had in 1928. In part this was part of a reaction to the ideas about race used by the Nazis and in part a reflection of the overall educational and economic success of Irish Catholics and their political success as well. Irish Catholics had served successfully as governors, senators, congressmen, and cabinet officers. Another factor is that the image of the Catholic Church and especially priests had benefitted tremendously from its portrayal in motion pictures. It was hard to see Father O’Malley, as played by Bing Crosby in Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary’s, as part of a nefarious plot to control America from Rome. There are many other motion pictures which portray the church and priests in a very positive way. Kennedy’s election does mark, in a real way, the acceptance of Irish Catholics as fully American. What is sometimes overlooked is that during Kennedy’s presidency both the speaker of the house and the majority leader of the senate were Irish Catholics as well. From the perspective of the diaspora and comparing the experience of the Irish in the United States with those in other countries this level of acceptance was very slow in coming. It is an interesting question to consider whether the parallel institutions that maintained a strong Irish Catholic identity in the US delayed this acceptance or laid the foundation for it. Conclusion So, there are really two answers to the question. Irish Protestants became American in large part because they were part of the founding of the nation’s identity. Those Irish Protestants who arrived later were generally compatible with the society they joined, except briefly in the late 1790s when United Irish refugees from the failed 1798 rebellion tried to influence US policy in the war between Britain and France. What is interesting, and the subject of some very good work currently is how their self-identification developed in response to the arrival of Irish Catholics and, and something less studied, how they maintained their sense of Irishness in a culture that increasingly equated being Irish with being Catholic.

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For Irish Catholics it was a longer, more involved process. They were definitely and obviously other in religion and in their rural background in Ireland. In the northeast and the Midwest they were largely urban and faced at least initial discrimination and hostility that persisted if declining in its intensity. Elsewhere in the country where we have studies the discrimination and hostility were both less intense and shorter lived, although much more work is needed to expand the number of communities studied. The work of Janet Nolan and Ruth-Ann Harris points to a very important role played by Irish women who came to the United States on their own and whose experiences have not been the focus of as much research as that of men. Much the same can be said for women in religious life, a great deal of additional work is needed on their role in Irish America. They were essential to the parallel society developed by the church that included schools, colleges and universities, hospitals, orphanages, and other social welfare agencies. This, especially the schools and colleges, was an important engine for Irish Catholic acceptance as Americans. From 1920 to1940, Irish Catholics began achieving educational and economic parity with native-stock Americans. Despite some economic setbacks during the depression, Irish America continued generally to advance. Many New Deal programs and initiatives during the 1930s helped the Irish, particularly the Wagner Act which recognized the right to collective bargaining. Skilled and semi-skilled workers benefitted from the recognition of their unions and the Irish were heavily represented both in the rank and file and among the leadership of unions from the local level to the national. The post-War GI Bill and the general prosperity of the 1950 completed the process of moving Irish America into the middle class and the ubiquitous suburban developments broke down the old ethnic neighborhoods and their tendency to isolate members of various ethnic groups from one another. Irish Catholics, long seen as other, came to be seen as Americans. References Akenson, D.H. 1991. Occasional papers on the Irish in South Africa. Grahamstown: Institute for Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University. Akenson, D.H., 2000. Irish migration to North America, 1800–1920. In: A. Bielenberg, ed., The Irish Diaspora. Harlow, England: Longman. pp. 111–138. Anbinder, T. 2001. Lord Palmerston and the Irish Famine Emigration. Historical Journal 44, pp. 441–469. Anbinder, T., 2001. Five points: the 19th-century New York City neighborhood that invented tap dance, stole elections, and became the world’s most notorious slum. New York: Free Press. Anon., 1881. “Knows no other Language but the Irish” Portage Lake Mining Gazette. 3 November 1881. Bayor, R.H. and Meagher, T.J. eds., 1996. The New York Irish. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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Bishop, P., 1999. The Irish Empire: The story of the Irish abroad. London: Boxtree. Bruce, S.U., 2006. The harp and the eagle: Irish volunteers and the Union Army, 1861–1865. New York: New York University Press. Burchell, R.A., 1980. The San Francisco Irish, 1848–1880. Berkeley: University of California Press. Butler, A.M., 1998. Mission in the mountains: the daughters of charity in Virginia City. In: R.M. James and C.E. Raymond, eds., 1998. Comstock women: the making of a mining community. Reno: University of Nevada Press, pp. 142– 164. Connolly, S.J., 1982. Priests and people in pre-famine Ireland, 1780–1845. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan Connors, P.G., 1999. America’s Emerald Isle: The cultural invention of the irish fishing community on Beaver Island, Michigan. Ph.D. Loyola University Chicago. Dolan, J.P., 2008. The Irish Americans: A history. New York: Bloomsbury Press. Dowling, P.J., 1988. California: The Irish Dream. San Francisco: Golden Gate Publishers. Dunn, M.L., 2008. Ballykilcline rising: From famine immigrants to immigrant America. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Fahey, J., 1971. The Ballyhoo Bonanza: Charles Sweeny and the Idaho mine. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Fitzgerald P. and Lambkin, B., 2008. Migration in Irish history, 1607–2007. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. FitzGerald, G., 1984. Estimates of baronies of minimum level of Irish-speaking amongst successive decennial cohorts: 1771–1781 to 1861–1871. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 84C(3), pp. 117–155. FitzGerald, G. (2003) Irish-speaking in the pre-famine period: a study based on the 1911 census data for people born before 1851 and still alive in 1911. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 103C(5), pp. 191–283. Gates, Jr. W.B., 1951. Michigan copper and Boston dollars: an economic history of the Michigan copper mining industry. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Gleeson, D.T., 2000. The Irish in the South, 1815–1877. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Gleeson, D.T. 2006. Small differences: ‘Scotch Irish’ and ‘Real Irish’ in the nineteenth-century American South. New Hibernia Review, Summer, 10(2), pp. 68–91. Gleeson, D.T., 2013. The green and the gray: the Irish in the Confederate States of America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Handlin, O., 1941. Boston’s immigrants: a study in acculturation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Harrington, J.P., 1997. The Irish play on the New York stage. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Ignatiev, N., 1995. How the Irish became white. New York: Routledge.

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The Irish American West Project, 2004. About. [online] Available at: [Accessed 4 December 2013]. The Irish Empire, 1999. [video and DVD] R. Cogan. coordinating producer. New York: Winstar Home Entertainment. James, R.M.1998a. The roar and the silence: a history of Virginia City and the Comstock Lode (Reno: University of Nevada Press); James, R.M.1998b. Erin’s Daughters on the Comstock: Building Community. In: R.M. James and C.E. Raymond, eds., 1998. Comstock women: the making of a mining community. Reno: University of Nevada Press, pp. 142–164. Jordan, D. and O’Keefe, T.J., eds. 2005. The Irish in the San Francisco Bay area: essays in good fortune. San Francisco: The Executive Committee of the Irish Literary and Historical Society. Kelleher, G.D., 1993. The gunpowder mill at Ballincollig. Iniscarra, Ireland: John F. Kelleher. Kelly, M.C., 2005. The shamrock and the lily: The New York Irish and the creation of a transatlantic Identity, 1845–1921. New York: Peter Lang. Kenny, K., 2003. Diaspora and comparison: the global Irish as a case study. Journal of American History 90, pp. 134–162. Kirby, P., 1992. Ireland and Latin America, links and lessons. Dublin: Trócaire. Larkin, E., 2006. The pastoral role of the Catholic Church in pre-famine Ireland. Washington: Catholic University of America Press. McCaffrey, L.J., 1976. The Irish Diaspora in the United States. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. McCaffrey, L.J., 1984. The Irish Catholic Diaspora in the United States. Washington: Catholic University of America Press. McDonald, G., 1976. History of the Irish in Wisconsin in the nineteenth century. New York: Arno Press. McGloin, J.B., 1971. Patrick Manogue: gold miner and bishop. Nevada Historical Society Quarterly 14, pp. 25–31. McGreevy, M. 1973. Submission to Holt County Historical Society, June 1973. [manuscript] O’Neill, Nebraska: Holt County Historical Society. Meagher, T.J., 2001. Inventing Irish America: generation, class, and ethnic identity in a New England city, 1880–1928. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Meagher, T.J., 2005. The Columbia guide to Irish American history. New York: Columbia University Press. Miller, K.A., 1985. Emigrants and exiles: Ireland and the Irish exodus to North America. New York: Oxford University Press. Miller, K.A., Schrier, A., Boling, B.D., and Doyle, D.N., 2003. Irish immigrants in the Land of Canaan: letters and memoirs from colonial and revolutionary America, 1675–1815 (New York: Oxford University Press). Mitchell, B.C., 1988. The Paddy Camps: The Irish of Lowell, 1821–61. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

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Mulligan, Jr. W.H., 2000. Irish immigrants in the early Keweenaw mines: a research note. The Superior Signal 15(2), pp. 7–8. Mulligan, Jr. W.H. 2001a. From the Beara to the Keweenaw. Journal of the Mining Heritage Trust of Ireland 1, pp. 19–24. Mulligan, Jr. W.H. 2001b. Irish immigrants in Michigan’s Copper Country: assimilation on a northern frontier. New Hibernia Review 5, pp. 109–122. Mulligan, Jr. W.H. 2004a. ‘The merchant prince’ of the Copper Country. Tipperary Historical Journal, pp. 151–160. Mulligan, Jr. W.H. 2004b. Completing the ethnic mosaic: Irish miners in the Upper Peninsula. Chronicle (The Historical Society of Michigan) 27, pp. 14–16. Mulligan, Jr. W.H., 2004–2006. From the Emerald Isle to the Copper Island: The Irish in the Michigan Copper Country, 1845–1920. Radharc 5–7, pp. 53–72. Mulligan, Jr. W.H., 2008. The case for emotion: looking back at The Great Hunger. New Hibernia Review 12, pp. 149–152. Mulligan, Jr. W.H., 2010. Irish Americans. Encyclopedia of the Early Republic and Revolutionary America. New York: Sharpe Reference, pp. 499–503. Mulrooney, M.M., 2002. White lace, black powder: the du Pont Irish and cultural identity in nineteenth-century America. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Nolan, J., 2004. Servants of the poor: teachers and mobility in Ireland and Irish America. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Norton, D., 2003. Lord Palmerston and the Irish famine emigration: a rejoinder. The Historical Journal 46(1), pp. 155–65. O’Neil, T.M., 2001. Miners in migration: The case of nineteenth-century Irish and Irish-American copper miners. Eire-Ireland 36(1and2), pp. 121–140. O’Sullivan, P., ed. 1992–1997, The Irish World Wide, Volumes 1–6, London: University of Leicester Press. O’Sullivan, P., 2003. Developing Irish diaspora studies: a personal view. New Hibernia Review 7, pp. 130–148. Thernstrom, S., 1964. Poverty and progress: social mobility in a nineteenth century city. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Walsh, J.P., 2010. Michael Mooney and the Leadville Irish: respectability and resistance at 10,200 feet, 1875–1900. Ph.D., University of Colorado-Boulder. Walling, R.M., and Rupp, N.D., 1990, The Diary of Bishop Frederic Baraga: First Bishop of Marquette. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

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Chapter 6

Contemporary ‘Irish’ Identity on the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean: St. Patrick’s Day on Montserrat and the Invention of Tradition Laura McAtackney, Krysta Ryzewski and John F. Cherry

Introduction In recent decades, the island of Montserrat has been noticeably repositioning itself within the Caribbean as a place with a unique Irish heritage (Figure 6.1). Using the tag-line ‘the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean’, there has been an explicit attempt to evoke images of a verdant, green island with a long Irish heritage. Both of these features are partially true. Montserrat is a small island (39 square miles) of lush green hills and valleys, but this landscape has been dramatically changed in recent years by the devastating eruption of the Soufrière Hills volcano, ongoing since 1995. Likewise, the history of Irish connections to the island is based in reality, but the story is considerably more complicated than it is often portrayed. The first European inhabitants of Montserrat were a group of Irish, Roman Catholics expelled by the English from the neighbouring island of St Kitts in 1632. With further additions, these Irish inhabitants became the majority European nation settled on the island during the 17th century. Most of the Irish departed Montserrat by the late 18th century, due to the continued influx of African slaves that peaked in the third quarter of the century and the decline of the sugar industry after ca. 1770 (Ryzewski and Cherry, n.d.). Yet there remains abundant evidence of their historic connections to the landscapes of the island, including many toponyms, family names and, more recently, a profusion of Irish symbols in the marketing of the island both internally and to overseas audiences. One of the most prominent manifestations of this Irish connection to Montserrat is the adoption of St Patrick’s Day as a national holiday in 1985, one of the few places outside Ireland where this day is officially celebrated. This chapter explores how the long-absent physical Irish presence on Montserrat has been mutably rearticulated for contemporary needs. To do so, it dissects the historic Irish links to the island, as a means of providing context for how enduring, if fluctuating and ambivalent, connections to place have been maintained. St Patrick’s Day is used as a case-study to highlight the evolving conceptions of the

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Irish on this shared historic landscape of contemporary Montserrat. The following discussion of St Patrick’s Day particularly notes how celebration of the holiday has taken on deliberately Hiberno-African aspects, due to economic expediency as well as emotional links within the context of debates about what is culturally acceptable to the island’s inhabitants.

Figure 6.1

Map of the Caribbean situating Montserrat in the Lesser Antilles

Source: Krysta Ryzewski

The Historic Irish Presence on Montserrat The Irish arrival on Montserrat was part of a wider population movement to the Caribbean during the 17th century, which had multiple roots and originated in a number of European countries. The Irish congregated in number on Montserrat through their role within the British colonial system, one that was simultaneously positioned as both colonized and colonizer. In this dual position, the Irish were transported in substantial numbers as indentured servants but also many voluntarily engaged in the colonial processes through planting, administering, extracting and trading goods from the rich, fertile islands of the Caribbean. At the same time, their suspect loyalty ensured that they were tightly surveyed and it was only on this

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island that they became a majority presence. The Irish on Montserrat encompassed a broad range of implanted society—from political dissidents, petty criminals and indentured servants, to the upper echelons of Gaelic, Anglo-Irish and Scots-Irish society who were driven by their own overarching desires to exploit and benefit from the profitable industrial, mercantile, and maritime enterprises associated with the islands’ plantation economies. Whilst early Governors of Montserrat often had Irish origins (including the first, Anthony Briskett), the demand for labor once the plantation of Montserrat began in earnest in the mid-17th century was met in part by the lower-class Gaelic Irish. In the wake of the Cromwellian wars and population displacements, they either sought economic opportunities in the Caribbean as indentured servants, or were involuntarily transported there from Irish and English jails and other institutions. Of the island’s white population, at least two-thirds of those who selfidentified as Irish were poor farmers, laborers, or indentured servants who lived in close proximity within St Patrick’s Parish, located in the southwest region of the island (for further information on the particularly Irish identity of this area see Oliver, 1910, pp. 316–20; 342–47; Akenson, 1997, pp. 171–87; Fergus, 1994, pp. 73–76, 266). The importance of this historic Irish heartland in more recent times is discussed later in relation to the evolution of the St Patrick’s Day holiday. Although not a homogenous group, the majority of Irish settlers shared not only a common nationality, but also religion: Roman Catholicism. Both the Irish and Roman Catholic affiliations of the island’s population was unusual in the context of the plantation-era Caribbean. The first Leeward Islands census of 1678, collected by the Anglo-Irish Governor Sir William Stapleton, shows that Montserrat had the largest concentration of Irish inhabitants anywhere in the Lesser Antilles: 70 per cent of Montserrat’s white populations were identified as Irish, as compared to much lower percentages on nearby St Kitts (10 percent), Nevis (23 percent), and Antigua (26 per cent) (Johnston, 1965).1 Despite the very real differences in background, status and power among the island’s Irish residents, contemporary British officials commonly depicted all of the Montserratian Irish as a cohesive group, joined by what was presumed to be a shared faith. This perceived commonality by the colonial authorities served to identify and isolate the perceived threat that Catholics posed to the (Protestant) British Crown, without taking into account the Irish communities’ different social connections, economic interests, or, in fact, religious affiliations (Gwynn, n.d.). Montserrat’s Roman Catholics of Irish descent were subject to varying degrees of legal discrimination, which culminated in the rippling impacts of the Irish Penal Laws. At their worst they imposed restrictions barring Catholics from owning land, holding political offices and occupying other positions of influence (McGrath, 1996). However, there is evidence on Montserrat of local colonial authorities’ toleration of Roman Catholic practices at different times, including the initial Governorship of Anthony Briskett (Binasco, 2011). It is therefore debatable 1 See also Stapleton Manuscripts, 15th–19th century, John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester.

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how far the Penal Laws were effective in circumventing the best-connected Irish to trade effectively and move within the upper echelons of Montserratian society during this quickly-changing early colonial period. Of course, suspicion of the Irish was not always without foundation. The original settlers had been moved from St Kitts due to a perceived lack of loyalty to the British Crown and their preference for the (predominantly Roman Catholic) marauding French. The stereotyping of Irish Catholics as fundamentally disloyal—and a serious liability at times when the French were a threat to British holdings in the Caribbean—was an ongoing issue during this period. The significant decrease in the island’s white, predominantly Irish, population occurred during the peak of 18th-century sugar production alongside the increase of imported enslaved labor and the accompanying absenteeism among the planter elite (Ragatz, 1931). Whereas in 1678 Montserrat’s population of 3,775 was 74 percent white, by the time of the 1729 census the island’s population of 6,998 was only 16 percent white; and 46 years later, in 1775, although the population had nearly doubled in size to 11,148, it was as little as 12 percent white (Savage English, 1930; Johnston, 1965; Wheeler 1988; Mason, 1993). Although Irish planters and laborers were among those who left the island in large numbers, their departure was not as rapid as the census data suggest. Indeed, Pitman (1917, pp. 378–82) notes that, in comparison to the other Leeward Islands, Montserrat’s white population declined more gradually, and in fact it remained relatively constant throughout much of the 18th century (Ryzewski and Cherry n.d.). Pitman contends that this was due to a dual process where new Irish settlers continued to come to the island in significant numbers at the same time as long-term Irish inhabitants of Montserrat were also leaving. Nonetheless, by the late 18th century the majority of the Irish had physically left Montserrat for the more economically and culturally welcoming shores of the North American mainland. Exploring Contemporary “Irish” Identity on Montserrat Despite undoubted historic Irish links to the island, the actual presence of Irish people ended sufficiently long ago to warrant explanation for their continued prominence as part of the current Montserratian imaginary. “Irish” motifs and identifiers exist in abundance in the island’s contemporary material culture. Today, upon arrival on the island, the first official interaction is the stamping of passports with a large green shamrock (Figure 6.2). Shamrocks are ubiquitous symbols on Montserrat, proliferating on governmental and tourist information notices, shop signage, and entertainment establishments. The shamrock appeared on postage stamps as early as 1903, and both the former Government House in Plymouth and its later replacement in Woodlands displayed a shamrock on their roofs. Montserrat’s national flag, adopted on 10 April 1909, encompasses a British Union flag with a white, cross-carrying and harp-playing colleen, known as “The Lady with the Harp” (Figure 6.3).

Contemporary ‘Irish’ Identity on the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean

Figure 6.2

Montserrat Passport stamp from 2011

Figure 6.3

Montserrat’s flag with “The Lady with the Harp” hanging from a bar wall on the island

Source: Laura McAtackney 2013

Source: Laura McAtackney 2011

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The colleen’s connection to the Irish personification of Erin is unmistakable, and indeed in a 1991 tourist document it is clearly stated that she is “Erin of Irish legend” (Anon. 1991, p. 19). The Lady with the Harp is one of the island’s most longstanding examples of an emblem that articulates Irish connections. She also appeared on Montserrat’s 1965 six-cent stamp, while other philatelic issues included a map of the island showing Irish place-names (Messenger 1975, p. 282). Most recently (July 2012), a revised “brand identity” was launched for the new capital town under development at Little Bay and Carr’s Bay, in the form of a logo that incorporates a Celtic symbol in explicit recognition of the island’s Irish heritage. Academic interest in the Irish connections to Montserrat dates at least to the early decades of the 20th century. Initial research, conducted by Irish or Irishdescent researchers, aimed to reveal the details of the historic Irish presence on the island. Fr Aubrey Gywnn SJ, an Irish Jesuit, was one of the earliest and most influential historians of the Irish in the Caribbean. He published his research, based mainly on British colonial archives, in the late 1920s and 1930s, before turning his interests to early Christian Ireland (Gwynn, 1929, 1932a, 1932b). Also working during this period was the colonial civil servant T. Savage English, who transcribed many (now lost) government documents from Montserrat while working for the British government. The emphasis of both Gwynn and Savage English on the essentially benevolent—and indeed persecuted—character of the Irish presence on Montserrat stood as the accepted narrative, until the later publication of more critical work by local historians such as Sir Howard Fergus (1983, 1994). Similarly, David Akenson’s volume If the Irish Ran the World (1997) argued that Montserrat was essentially an Irish colony and that their enthusiastic import, treatment and trade of African slaves reveals that they were equal to, if not worse than, the British in their engagement in the slave trade. These contrasting interpretations of the Irish occupation of Montserrat, and the relationship between African slaves and the Irish, provides a tension that continues to be negotiated on the island and is central to the following St Patrick’s Day case-study in this chapter. Academic research of a more ethnographic nature was undertaken by John Messenger, who explored comparative case-studies in the West of Ireland and on Montserrat. His anthropological research moved the emphasis from the historic documents to theorize supposed contemporary continued and interconnected cultural practices. Messenger enumerated what he considered to be a number of tangible, lasting traces of Irish culture and socialisation on the island. These include alleged ongoing Irish influences in commonalities of speech patterns; the eating of goat water (claimed as a type of Irish stew); musical instruments (a number of bodhrán-like drums are used on Montserrat), dance-steps, and songs; and even systems of value and codes of etiquette, such as a predilection for hospitality (Messenger, 1967, 1975). Whilst Fergus (1981) has critiqued many of these claims as fanciful, it is undeniable that Irish resonances do continue in some capacity. Undisputed Irish linkages can be found in nomenclature that recurs geographically

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in landscape features, towns, and estates. The Montserrat phonebook testifies to the enduring existence of Irish surnames, as well as the names “Ireland” and “Irish”, which indicates at the very least a lack of active expunging of historical names (in contrast to the practices on other Caribbean islands that had been colonized by the British). The enduring Irish presence in personal and landscape names is indicative of a complicated relationship that contemporary Montserrat maintains with a conception of Ireland that is both postcolonial, but simultaneously embedded in an historical and, for the island, ongoing colonial project. The interconnection between knowledge of an historic Irish presence on Montserrat and an ambivalence as to what the relationship with the Irish actually was (as already noted, simultaneously fellow colonial victims, but also active colonisers) is particularly interesting in the context of the recent adoption of St Patrick’s Day as a public holiday. The prolonged discussion and debates about what this day means, how it should be remembered—or indeed called—and its changing spatial dimensions and utilisations (due to both its popularity and the impact of devastating ecological disasters) are complicated (Skinner, 2004). We turn now to discuss the evolution of St Patrick’s Day as a narrative that reveals publicly articulated conceptions of the Irish linkages, the connections between the present and the past, and the impact of specific cultural figures. The development of this narrative is retrievable primarily through newspaper archives and tourist brochures and it occupies the remainder of the chapter. It is a product of the historical and archival research conducted as one arm of a larger, fieldworkbased project, co-directed by Cherry and Ryzewski, entitled Survey and Landscape Archaeology on Montserrat, and in progress since 2010 (Cherry, Ryzeweski and Leppard, 2012; Ryzeweski and Cherry, 2012). St Patrick’s Day on Montserrat The present celebration of St Patrick’s Day on Montserrat as an official, week-long festival is one of the most unlikely, if increasingly well known, commemorations of the saint outside of Ireland. Images of the inhabitants of the island dressed in their newly-invented national costume (a green, white and orange “Irish” tartan) are now widely accessible, due to international media coverage, the internet and Montserratian floats having graced parades throughout the Irish diaspora. These images of the “Black Irish” embracing their European heritage—whether this hybrid identity is based on an historic shared space or even in some cases bloodlines—nonetheless conceal the protracted and often contentious path that led to the island’s official adoption of St Patrick’s Day as a national holiday. They also do not reveal how debates about the reasons for celebrating the saint’s day have continued since that time and have only truly abated in response to the vastly changed circumstances brought about by ecological disasters on the island. The devastating double impacts of Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and the ongoing eruptions

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of the Soufrière Hills volcano since 1995 have resulted in widespread destruction and more than half of the island being rendered uninhabitable. This in turn has led to yet another reevaluation on the island about what St Patrick’s Day means and how it can be put to use again, now that the island has its own substantial diaspora. Through the examination of the newspaper archive in the “Montserrat Collection” of the island’s Public Library, a complicated story emerges of an island that had little in-depth knowledge of St Patrick’s Day and its Irish connections in the mid-20th century, and of attempts by public intellectuals on the island to use the day for “ideological reorientation” amongst the population from the mid-1970s onwards (Montserrat Mirror, 13 March 1979). We take a chronological approach to exploring the changing meanings of St Patrick’s Day, one that will intersect with overarching themes such as postcolonial, left-wing politics, the Black Power movement, the role of the Roman Catholic church, the changing spatial dimensions of the festival’s home, and the repositioning of the festival as a gathering-point for the diaspora that has emerged since the 1995 eruption began. Newspapers as Sources of Public Opinion Newspapers are a most useful source for gauging opinions on current issues at the local and national level; this is particularly true for a small island community such as Montserrat, where a weekly newspaper can be central to communicating news, highlighting issues, and debating controversies amongst the island’s population. In such an isolated and constrained environment, the local newspaper is, and remains, central to the lives of the islanders. While this was particularly the case in the pre-internet age, it is still largely true, despite the impact of globalization and the internet in recent decades. In particular, the increasing tendency throughout the 20th century for the Caribbean islands to look to the USA for trade, investment and technology (and the resultant impact this has on island media, lifestyle and business), though not to be ignored, should not overshadow the essentially localized, island-centric nature of Montserrat (Dunn, 2004, pp. 71– 73). The Montserrat Reporter recently articulated its conception of the role of the newspaper in an editorial published on 1 November 2013, which poignantly is a reprint unchanged from an earlier editorial of March 2000: Some see the press as the country’s information source, some see it as a medium for spreading propaganda, others see it as something that keeps the public aware of what is happening, yet others think it keeps the authorities in check and other persons could not care less. Regardless of which category we find ourselves, a newspaper is very important to any country or island… [unlike television and radio] A newspaper can be sent worldwide and will be around for many years.

Furthermore, there is also the need to be aware of the myriad issues involved in using newspapers as a means of gauging authentic, public opinions. As noted in this same Montserrat Reporter editorial, those who write to newspapers are

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often those who have strong opinions that are overtly critical or negative. The editor notes: “Very few persons would write to compliment or congratulate”, and this of course can skew our view of public opinion on specific issues. Thus it is important to follow particularly negative or positive communications across a number of issues to view how (or if) they are engaged with over time. For instance, Louise Ryan has analysed newspaper presentation of contentious issues of gender and conflict in early 20th-century Ireland, and has found that newspapers reveal bias and attempts to persuade the public of their viewpoint. From her thorough interpretation of the presentation of women in conflict, she concluded that, while newspapers were “useful in providing images and representations”, they were also “deeply flawed in providing accurate historical information” (Ryan, 2001, p. 214). She also highlights the use of editorials, which she describes as an “authorative” forum, for disguising often personal, singular, and unrepresentative viewpoints as if they were widespread public opinion (2001, p. 244). The circumstances about which Ryan writes are very different from the debates about St Patrick’s Day on Montserrat, but her analysis is indicative of some of the issues concerning the use of newspapers that must be carefully considered when they are used as the primary source in interpreting public opinion. Indeed, if one is conscious of the potential biases of newspaper reporting, these very issues can be useful in revealing the individual drivers behind certain standpoints, the ongoing nature of particular debates, and the motivations behind specific interpretations. The holdings in the Montserrat Collection of the public library contain newspapers printed on the island from the middle decades of the 20th century to the present day. They are mainly bound in leather volumes, arranged by newspaper title and stored chronologically. There are gaps in the earlier decades and until the 1960s the holdings clearly do not represent the entire collection of newspapers printed on the island. A number of newspapers were short-lived and there are periods when the island was able to maintain more than one newspaper. Titles include: the Montserrat Times, the Observer, Montserrat Mirror and the Montserrat Reporter. A number of pamphlets, brochures and tourist publications that exist within the same holdings are likewise used as a means of gauging contemporary debates, opinions, and official or unofficial strategies relating to St Patrick’s Day. The newspapers in the collection were not dailies but weeklies and, for purposes of this research, they were examined for one month before and one month after St Patrick’s Day, in order to retrieve coverage of the day and discussions and debates in the lead-up and response to it. All newspaper items referencing St Patrick’s Day were recorded, including articles, editorials, letters, photographs, and advertisements. Such broad inclusion meant that as many views and interpretations of St Patrick’s Day as possible were incorporated. There was a deliberate attempt to consider all aspects of reporting, regardless of whether they were consciously articulating an argument, claiming to represent public opinion, or only peripherally related to the day. In this way, we believe, we may have been able to capture unconsidered assumptions and shared ideas (for example, as reflected in advertisements); in some ways these are more telling than the most

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fervently argued editorial in reflecting shared cultural conceptions about what the day meant to Montserratians at that time. Remembering St Patrick? “Irish” Commemorations in mid-20th Century Montserrat Although the newspaper holdings prior to the mid-20th century are scant and at best partial, it is clear that there was little engagement with St Patrick’s Day during this period. Prior to 1975, there are only three examples (from 1958, 1966 and 1971) of any mentions of St Patrick’s Day in the newspapers, and these references are fleeting or merely Church Notices. Thus, the earliest mention in an extant newspaper dates from 15 March 1958 in the (now defunct) The Observer and appears in the Church Notices section of the newspaper’s supplement. After reporting that on Sunday 16 March the Lord Bishop would bless the belfry and deliver the sermon at St Patrick’s Church, it is noted without further elaboration: “Monday, March 17 St Patrick’s Day / 7:30am Confirmation, Mass & General Communion”. While it is likely that this blessing took place on the Sunday closest to St Patrick’s Day, the two events are not explicitly linked in the Church Notices. The next mention comes on 12 March 1966 in a small front-page article relating to a visit to the island by a member of the British Royal family. Entitled simply “St Patrick’s Day”, the article noted: “During the Royal Visit of Feb. 19 references were made to the Irish connection of Montserrat, and it is understood that several correspondents on the Royal Tour were seeking information on the matter. It should perhaps be noted that Thursday next, March 17, is St Patrick’s Day; the national day of Ireland” (Montserrat Mirror 12 March 1966, p. 1). This short article highlights two aspects that are important in understanding the development of the celebration of St Patrick’s Day on Montserrat: firstly, the wording suggests that it was relatively unknown, let alone publicly celebrated, at this time; and secondly, that there was an increasing awareness of the interest of outsiders in this unusual aspect of the island’s heritage. It could be suggested that it was from this time that the connection to Ireland was beginning to be considered as a unique selling-point for the island, particularly in its attempts to nurture a fledgling tourism industry. Indeed, in the following week’s edition of the Montserrat Mirror, there is a small article on an inside page noting a “St George’s Day garden party” that “will be Bigger and Better than ever”. Evidently, in the 1960s the connection of Montserrat to the patron saint of England was stronger than to that of Ireland. More pronounced attention to St Patrick’s Day is to be seen in an article from 1971, filling most of an inside page of the Montserrat Mirror for 20 March. Howard A. Fergus—a name intimately connected to the promotion and reconsideration of St Patrick’s Day to Montserratians in the coming decades— writes that “March 17 may become a National Day”. He begins by referencing Guyana’s Independence Day celebrations on February 23 (it had become independent from the UK in 1966) as commemorating an historic slave revolt, and continues by detailing Montserrat’s failed slave rebellion on St Patrick’s Day 1768 (see also Ryzewski and Cherry, n.d.). Fergus presents a narrative of brave

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slaves who were plotting to overthrow “Irish Montserrat’s planter-lords”, only to be betrayed by a female accomplice and brutally murdered by their oppressors; these slaves are portrayed as “martyrs of freedom” and overtly connected to contemporary politics as “precursors of black freedom-fighters”. To further highlight the contemporary relevance of this anniversary, the article ends: “Perhaps we owe it to their shades to achieve another dimension of freedom by freely enslaving ourselves in our country’s cause” (Fergus, 1971, p. 5). Despite the strong wording, some ambiguity can be seen in this article regarding the connection to the historic Irish occupation and their role on the island; and it is an ambiguity that resurfaces in many subsequent discussions. March 17 is argued to be a more appropriate public holiday than any pre-existing “Imperial landmark” through a connection to St Patrick’s that undoubtedly relates to the contradictory perception of the Irish as both colonizers and colonized. At this stage, St Patrick’s Day is given emphasis as marking the date of a failed slave rebellion, but it also hints at the contemporary post-colonial situation of Ireland (no longer being “Imperial”) and the personal attributes and circumstances of the figure of St Patrick himself. As Fergus put it: “Legend has it, that St Patrick freed Ireland of snakes. The plotters of this coup do not appear to me unworthy of association with St Patrick” (Montserrat Mirror, 20 March 1966, p. 1). It is also widely believed that St Patrick was himself a slave, who had been kidnapped overseas (there is debate as to his birthplace) and then forcibly exiled to Ireland. In other words, St Patrick’s Day is being promoted as the anniversary of an historic slave revolt, but at the same time the saint himself seems an appropriate figure for veneration, on account both of his personal attributes, circumstances and of his connection to the long-departed Irish. St Patrick’s Day and the Politics of the (Post)colonial Caribbean Debates on the merits of St Patrick’s Day being established as a national holiday occur more frequently in the press from the mid-1970s. These discussions, often quite lengthy and detailed in their treatment of the subject, appear in a number of forms: articles, editorials, letters to the editor, but also poems, certainly pointing to a greater depth of treatment, and indeed a more emotional connection to the subject, than had been the case before. There were a number of motivations behind this greater interest, one of which was the wider context of the first wave of decolonizing Caribbean islands under British territorial rule. The connection of decolonization to earlier slave revolts and eventual emancipation is frequently referenced and provides a political context driving discussions about commemoration; this is especially important for an island not in an economically viable position to follow the same route to full independence. The Montserrat Mirror (17 March 1979) noted the role of public intellectuals in feeding this debate: “ideological re-orientations started by Howard Fergus and George Irish in the late 1960’s and fanned into a blaze by Irish in the 70’s”.

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This reconsideration of the Irish legacy on Montserrat in ways relevant to contemporary politics was even more overtly asserted in the monthly island newsletter Pan-Afrikan Liberator in 1993. It argued in the strongest terms that there was a need to counter the growing “Irish myth” by revealing the true historical context of colonization, in which the Irish were actively implicated, and by demonstrating that colonial waves of power were still current on the island: In the early 1980s the fourth phase of the settler control of Montserrat was started. Because old colonial systems and old societal values are still in place, it has made it extremely easy for the descendants of the old slave masters, still maintaining their slave master mentality, to move back into key positions of control throughout the island. (Brown, 1993)

This four-page article refutes claims that had evidently surfaced alongside the celebration of St Patrick’s Day that the island represented a “creole Afrikan-Irish society”. This is argued through a simplistic view of the hierarchical structure of plantation-era Montserrat, with “English landholders at the top, Irish farmers in the middle, and Afrikans held as slaves on the bottom” (1993, p. 1), and by asking readers: “If there’s any doubt in your mind, just look at the faces around you” (1993, p. 4). The suggestion that the Irish be considered as colonizers alongside the British implies that there was a growing conception on the island of connections between these two historically dominant groups on Montserrat being more amicable than the projected binary narrative of oppressor/oppressed would have it. This intellectual engagement with St Patrick’s Day and attempts to direct conceptions of it in the public consciousness had first arisen some years earlier. The Montserrat Mirror (4 March 1977, p. 2) noted in a lengthy article that the academy is to “mark St Patrick’s Day / slave uprising” so as to “rescue this rebellion from the decaying archives of oblivion”. That this forceful attempt to reshape St Patrick’s Day as the anniversary of a failed slave rebellion, rather than a celebration of the island’s Irish connections, was opposed in some quarters seems evident in writing such as this: “There are those who would have us close their particular window on our history; they would have us feign amnesia toward the historical realities which account for our present, and can help to give directions and dynamics to our future” (Montserrat Mirror, 4 March 1977, p. 2). Evidently, such promotion and reorientation was not without its detractors; but it is not reflected in the newspapers, which are silent on the matter. In contrast to these politicized readings of St Patrick’s Day, it is also clear that sectarian religion increasingly played a role, promoting the emotional connections to the essentially Roman Catholic nature of both the Irish and their saint’s day. It is evident from an early stage in the growing knowledge and celebration of St Patrick’s Day on Montserrat that the Catholic Church was taking not only an active, but dominant role in directing (and benefiting from) the renewed interest in St Patrick’s Day. Whilst the Catholic Church was the only body communally

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observing the day in the 1950s, it quickly engaged with the fledgling celebrations to create a Catholic focus for them and to use their popularity as a means of gaining funds for the church. In 1979 there appeared a Letter to the Editor from the “St Patrick’s Day Dinner Committee”, thanking attendees at the dinner and concluding: “The funds raised have been put to the Building Fund of the Roman Catholic Church and, on behalf of our church, we also wish to say thanks to everyone” (Montserrat Mirror, 24 March 1979). The role of the Church as a leading organization engaging with the day is notable at this time; indeed, the only mentions of St Patrick’s Day in the newspapers of 1982 and 1983 are one article with a photograph and a small advertisement relating to this dinner and its fundraising successes (Montserrat Times, 19 March 1982; 25 March 1983). A couple of years later, the Montserrat Reporter detailed the week’s activities on the island, noting: “The St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church paid tributes to their Patron Saint in the form of a dinner held last Saturday. The dinner has become an annual affair and was as usual very well attended” (22 March 1985, p. 8). St Patrick’s Day as a Public Holiday In 1985 St Patrick’s Day formally became a public holiday on Montserrat for the first time. It was marked in the print media by a number of pieces, the majority of which emphasized that this was the official recognition of a failed slave uprising on the island in 1768. But a more Irish-orientated connection appears in some of these narratives. The Entertainment Section of the Montserrat Reporter, concentrating on listing the week’s activities, begins with: “The holiday in observance of a local slave rebellion in 1768 and the patron saint, St Patrick” (22 March 1985, p. 8). It also reveals the essentially localized nature of the celebrations at this time, with events firmly centred on St Patrick’s Village and specifically its Roman Catholic Church. The report notes, “For the most part, the celebrations were held at St Patrick’s parish where a committee was set up some four years ago to specifically organize St Patrick’s Day celebrations” (22 March 1985, p. 8). An extensive article written by the public intellectual George A. Irish appeared in the Montserrat Reporter in 1985, providing an overview of the history of the promotion and reorientation of St Patrick’s Day on the island. Irish noted that attempts to re-educate the public on its links to the 18th-century slave rebellion began through continuing education programmes. A lengthy review of the historical slave revolt and its repercussions is book-ended with overt linkages to the contemporary situation. Yet Irish was keen to ensure that this ongoing engagement with the racially divided past should not be used to justify contemporary “racial hatred” and instead “must now serve as the springboard for a positive re-evaluation of our past and a constructive projection into the future” (15 March 1985, p. 7). Emphasizing the balance between knowledge of the dark history of this day, while also ensuring it does not negatively impact on contemporary relationships, perhaps hints at the caution necessary when trying to reengage a community with

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its unsettling history—much in the way that any post-conflict society must deal with its difficult past. After St Patrick’s Day became an established public holiday on Montserrat, there increasingly emerged differences in perspectives about what the day means and why it is important. For example, within a year of the creation of the public holiday, an article headline in the Montserrat Times (27 March 1986, p. 3) proclaimed: “Irish Connection Pays Off”, as it detailed the potential impact on the tourist industry of media interest from Ireland and the UK in “the other Emerald Isle”. But while those especially interested in the financial benefits of celebrating the Irish saint perhaps gained the most attention, there were also further attempts to promote recognition of the day as a commemoration of the slave uprising. From 1987 there are a number of articles in the local media that increasingly promoted the view that the problematic Irish connections of “St Patrick’s Day” should be replaced by the overt celebration of slave antecedents in “Heroes Day”. The Montserrat Reporter carried a speech given by Howard Fergus calling for St Patrick’s Day to be renamed “Heroes Day”, to not only “know and recognize your heroes” of the past, but connect with the present as a means of building national identity in the “independence era” (20 March 1987, p. 1). This continuing emphasis on the merits of “Heroes Days” was argued in starkly contemporary terms, when an editorial in 1988 favourably compares life on the island to its past and current colonial masters: In contradistinction to the tranquility which prevailed here prior to, during and after St Patrick’s Day, the Irish find themselves brutally killing each other and the English because of historic hatred, politics and pointless arguments over the correct road to the place where God lives. As for the English who created a multiracial empire on which ‘the sun never sets’, they are unabashedly preoccupied with the evil task of institutionalizing racism. (Montserrat Times, 18 March 1988)

Despite these arguments, which appear annually at this period with little or no counterbalance, the change of nomenclature was never officially made. This perhaps hints that, despite the sustained attempts at ideological reorientation amongst the island’s public intellectuals, there was a continued lack of mainstream support for this eclipsing of the Irish history of the island. Another gradual change in the post-1985 status of St Patrick’s Day, as the festival gained popularity both on Montserrat and among a wider, international community, was the growing effort to move the celebration away from its traditional local base in St Patrick’s village and its Catholic Church. The first grumbles about the control of events by this small, traditionally Irish part of the island are heard in the years following the day’s promotion to the status of national holiday. One 1987 editorial (Montserrat Reporter, 20 March 1987, p. 4) offers congratulations on “moving away from the narrow parochial flavour that had come to dominate this important occasion in the last few years”, but it also notes that, although many island groups are now taking part in the celebrations, they are still very much

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rooted in the locality of St Patrick’s (Montserrat Reporter, 20 March 1987, p. 4). The pressure to move St Patrick’s from a local to a truly national affair reached its climax in 1995, when the newspapers are openly critical of the failings of “a village organizing committee”. In an article entitled “St Patrick’s Day Celebrations Flop”, the Montserrat Reporter notes that, given the increasingly international interest in the celebrations and more visitors, there is a need to nationalize and professionalise the arrangements for the week (24 March 1995, p. 1). The attempts to make the festival much more national, and indeed international, in scope undoubtedly had an impact on the promotion of multiple interpretations of meaning for it. Though retaining its roots in the failed slave uprising of 1768, there is a noticeable change in the range of activities involved in the now week-long commemorations. For instance, the early morning “Slave Run”, now one of the central focuses of St Patrick’s Week, was not an original part of the programme, and it was only in 1987 that the first Freedom Run took place. Likewise, the National Dress Competition had roots in these early years of the broadening of the festival’s focus after 1985. The first such competition occurred in 1987, and this very popular annual event received increasing attention until the 1994 competition resulted in a national dress being officially recognized. The guidelines for the entrants attempted to balance all views of the meaning and consequence of St Patrick’s Day, in that “roots awareness” was overtly promoted, as was incorporation of the “African, Irish/European, Arawak” background of the islanders (Montserrat Times, 11 March 1988, p. 4). A standardized national dress was finally adopted in 2002—a green, white and orange tartan—which referenced the African heritage of the island in the use of the colour green, but which is also overtly Irish in its combination of colours. In the years after 1985, there is a notable proliferation of more traditionally Irish aspects, including an annual “Leprechaun Pub Crawl” organized by the Tourist Board (Montserrat Reporter 11 March 1994). As time passed, there was less political interpretation of the celebrations and more balance between the two main perspectives on the celebration: those aspects that specifically referenced the 1768 slave revolt and those nodding to uncomplicated contemporary manifestations of Irish identity. The acceptance of the parity of esteem towards these two perspectives is evident in a newspaper report from 1995 that quotes the Montserrat Tourist board, without contradiction: “we can reflect on, and celebrate our Irish and African heritage as well as honour the initiators of the eighteenth century abortive slave revolt” (Montserrat Reporter 24 March 1995, p. 1). Such changes in tone reveal an increasing acquiescence from both business and tourism leaders and the public intellectuals that the emerging multiple narratives relating to meaning and identity of the day could comfortably co-exist together. This shift followed in the spirit of Bishop Demets’s (1987, p. 4) letter to the Montserrat Reporter highlighting the history of the persecuted Roman Catholic Irish of the island, as well as the tribulations of African slave ancestors, with a hope that “experts find a way to amalgamate the two events without disturbing the peaceful celebration Montserrat has enjoyed for so many years”; but other external factors should also be included.

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Post-Disaster St Patrick’s Day The impact of Hurricane Hugo in September 1989, which destroyed or severely damaged almost all the buildings on the island (Ryzewski and Cherry, 2012), may account for some of the relaxation in the emphasis on St Patrick’s Day as solely commemorating the failed slave rebellion. The left-wing, anti-colonial, historical focus on the day was considered by many as discouraging international tourists who wished to enjoy on Montserrat the more convivial, alcohol-fuelled celebrations of St Patrick’s Day typical in other places. This was especially true of the most sought-after and lucrative (Irish-) American market. The desire to regenerate the island economically after the destruction of the hurricane is glimpsed through the newspapers for a number of years, including a report about the clients of the “National Development Project” participating in the St Patrick’s Day Exhibition (Montserrat Reporter, 22 March 1991, p. 2). It is also clear that the connection to contemporary Ireland was not only developing, but was positively embraced, in the years following the hurricane. In 1995 there appeared a number of articles detailing Irish media interest in the events and, for the first time there are several letters from high-profile Irish politicians, including the then Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) John Bruton. In his letter, he extended St Patrick’s Day greetings and noted, “The island of Montserrat symbolizes in a very potent way the strong historical connections between Ireland and the rest of the world” (Bruton, 1995, p. 12). This creeping change in interpretation of the historic Irish connection to the island, which reaches a pinnacle of official recognition with Bruton’s letter, did not pass without counter-commentary (including Brown, 1993), but it did increasingly become the narrative in the mainstream media. However, it was the even greater devastation of the eruption of the Soufrière Hills volcano (beginning in July 1995 and necessitating the evacuation of much of the island by July 1997) that provoked the most seismic shift in understandings and promotion of St Patrick’s Day (Figure 6.4). In 1996, between the initial and most devastating eruption of the Soufrière Hills volcano, an article appears that revisits the earlier issue of what the Montserratians are celebrating on St Patrick’s Day. The article notes that, now the organization of the festival has moved from amateurs at the village level to being planned by a national body, its engagement with the “Irish” narrative has eclipsed earlier understandings: “[there] seems to be no exception looking at the official programme: we see a Leprechaun night, a dinner and Irish party, a tour to Galways Sugar Plantation (Irish owned) and an Irish sing-along at the Catholic Church’s St Patrick’s Day Dinner” (Montserrat Reporter 15 March 1996, p. 4). After emphasizing the importance of remembering the 1768 slave rebellion, it ended on a conciliatory note: “Perhaps it doesn’t really matter in this little Emerald Isle of ours, let’s give each and everyone we meet a 100,000 welcomes and really enjoy ourselves” (Montserrat Reporter 15 March 1996, p. 4). The use in this sentence of the traditional Irish greeting “Céad Mile Fáilte” [One Hundred Thousand Welcomes] was of course deliberate.

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Figure 6.4

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Image of a smoking Soufrière Hills volcano taken from the water

Source: John F. Cherry 2011

The next relevant article appeared on 13 March 1998, with a lengthy discussion of St Patrick’s Day and why it is celebrated, written by Howard Fergus. Despite remarking on the historic Irish presence and their poor treatment by the British Crown as Roman Catholics of suspect loyalty, he continued to emphasize the lack of shared history and the need to remember the historic slave rebellion. He admits defeat on the profusion of stereotypical materiality of Irishness that Montserrat by this time has wholeheartedly adopted in its celebrations. He closes the article, nonetheless, by arguing that external appearances are not connected to internal understandings by Montserratians: “We may wish to regale ourselves in green and wave the shamrock and yes, there is an Irish heritage, but we are not Irish, at least the vast majority of us” (Fergus, 1998). This evident change in interpretation of St Patrick’s Day—from being solely related to the failed slave rebellion, to having a hybrid character that recognizes the impact of the historic Irish presence on the island—is overtly articulated from around this time. In an article of 20 March 1999, the Montserrat Reporter highlighted the slave rebellion, but then rewrote the history of the adoption of St Patrick’s Day and presented its “Irishness” as a continuation: “However, what no one can deny is the Irish presence here, indelibly written in the names of most people and places, and in the blood of some. The connection is also very evident in the Roman Catholic religion”. There is an emphasis on the Irish presence being a

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colonial one, but its acceptance as an indelible marker of the Montserratian psyche and identity is now presented as universally agreed. The promotion of St Patrick’s Day as a means of counteracting the devastation and negativity of the volcanic disaster is first overtly featured in the newspapers of 2000. The report on St Patrick’s Week stated: “The week of activities was hailed as one of the most meaningful St Patrick’s Day programs since the onslaught of volcanic activity in July 1995” (Montserrat Reporter, 24 March 2000, p. 8). Tellingly, the activities had a strongly Irish flavour: a lecture by the now President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins TD (cf. Higgins 2011), Irish dancing, and the start and end events occurring at the Roman Catholic Church. This is confirmed by tourist literature from this time, which increasingly presented the festival as an opportunity to encourage the return of the Montserratian diaspora that had only recently been forced to flee abroad. Such sentiments were given added force by the impact of the most violent volcanic eruption in 1997, when two thirds of the island’s population left Montserrat permanently and the previously most heavily populated area (and also the centre for St Patrick’s Day celebrations) was abandoned for good (Cherry, Ryzewski and Leppard, 2012, p. 283). The impact of this forced change of locality for St Patrick’s Day did not mean a complete break with the historic connections between the festival and the Catholic Church. Despite the festival’s relocation to the north of the island, the Church remains central to the organization of the main events (such as the venue for an ecumenical mass and the final night dinner) and it features prominently in the media coverage. The forced displacement of the population, it appears, has led to the embracing of these links to the traditions of celebrating St Patrick’s Day (short though they may be), and in particular its connection to Irish identity. In the Montserrat Reporter for 27 March 2009, an article detailing the week’s activities ends with the following statement: “Montserrat, according to the island’s official website is known as the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean not just because of its lush, green tropical landscape, but also because of its unique Irish connections, which date back centuries”. The impact of this seismic change on the island—and its link to the multiple narratives of historic Montserrat—is most movingly articulated in a commemorative booklet Montserrat on the Move: A Celebration of Resilience / 10 Years on… 1995–2005 (Anonymous, 2005). While enunciating the contemporary need for resilience in the face of great misfortune, it speaks primarily to the Irish historical presence: St Patrick’s Day in Montserrat is therefore about struggle, culture and identity. We celebrate the Irish connection with the colour green, the national dress, the national emblem – the Lady with the Harp – and even through religion. The earliest settlers were Roman Catholics who sought and found freedom of worship in this emerald island. But we also focus on our African heritage as is evidenced by drum music, masquerade and even our special Creole foods.

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Conclusion The Irish involvement in the Caribbean island of Montserrat, although short-lived, was complicated and adds nuance to our existing accounts of historic Irish diasporic experiences. Far from the mid-19th century Famine narrative that dominates many of our understandings of the forced and lowly migrant experience, the Irish were often beneficiaries of the reach of the British Empire and were happy to make their fortunes in far-off climes exploiting lands and African slaves. The Irish must be understood as a diverse group that included the upper echelons of colonial society, as well as lowly indentured servants. Our understandings of the perception of the Irish on contemporary Montserrat can be misled by media images of the “Black Irish” and their week-long celebrations of St Patrick’s Day. Yet careful reading of newspaper and tourism promotional materials over a period of several decades provides a different story, one that offers an unusually well documented modern-day instance of “the invention of tradition” (Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983). It reveals an initial promotion of St Patrick’s Day that was anticolonial (and indeed anti-Irish) and that was sponsored by a small group of public intellectuals. They uncover the tensions between perceptions of the Irish as both fellow victims of colonialism, but also ruthless colonizers themselves. They show the competing wishes of Montserratians to embrace a glorious past of defying colonial masters and the desire to attract an Irish diasporic tourist audience. They reveal the impact of external and unexpected events on reevaluating what St Patrick’s Day means in recent years and particularly how it can be utilized to engage with tourist markets and Montserratians abroad. Lastly, the more recent engagement of Irish political figures with Montserratians on St Patrick’s Day opens up the possibility within Ireland of a conception of Irishness that is not solely based on blood but on historic shared space and Irish responsibilities to those impacted by a colonialism by which they were not only affected, but also in which they were heavily implicated. References Akenson, D.H., 1997. If the Irish ran the world: Montserrat 1630–1730. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Anonymous, 1958. Church Notices. The Observer, 15 March 1959. Supplement, p. 2. Anonymous, 1991. A short history of Montserrat. The visitor: the official guide to Montserrat. 1(2). Anonymous, 2005. Celebrate St Patrick’s Day on Montserrat, The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean. Montserrat on the move: a celebration of resilience 10 Years on…1995–2005. Binasco. M., 2011. The activity of Irish priests in the West Indies: 1638–1669. In C. Murphy (ed.), The missionary experience in Ireland, Latin America and the

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Caribbean: connections, influences and reflections, 7(4). Available at: http:// www.irlandeses.org/imsla2011_7_04_10_Matteo_Binasco.htm [Accessed 13 January 2014]. Bramble. H.A., 1988. Yes Heroes Day! (Editorial) Montserrat Mirror, 18 March, p. 4. Brown, M.S.C., 1993. Burying the Irish myth. Pan-Afrikan Liberator 1(11), June, pp. 1–4. Bruton, J., 1995. St Patrick’s Day Message from the Taoiseach Mr John Burton [sic] TD, Montserrat Reporter, 24 March, p. 12. Cherry, J.F., Ryzewski, K. and Leppard, T.P., 2012. Multi-period landscape survey and site risk management on Montserrat, West Indies. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 7(2), pp. 282–302. Demets, A., 1987. ‘What’s in a name?’ (Letter to the Editor) Montserrat Reporter, 27 March, p. 4. Dunn, H.S., 2004. The politics of the media in the English-speaking Caribbean. In: P.N. Thomas and Z. Nain, eds., Who Owns the Media? Global Trends and Local Resistances. Palgrave: New York. pp. 69–97. Fergus, H.A., 1971. March 17 may become a National Day, says Howard A. Fergus. Montserrat Mirror, 20 March, p. 5. Fergus, H.A., 1981. Montserrat, ‘Colony of Ireland’: the myth and the reality. Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 70(280), pp. 325–40. Fergus, H.A., 1983. Montserrat, Emerald Isle of the Caribbean. London: Macmillan. Fergus, H.A., 1994. Montserrat: history of a Caribbean colony. London: Macmillan. Fergus, H.A., 1998. Your history in small doses: St Patrick’s Day on Montserrat. Montserrat Reporter, 13 March. Greenaway, E. 1985. Overview of St Patrick’s. Montserrat Reporter, 22 March, p. 8. Gwynn, A., 1929. Early Irish emigration to the West Indies (1612–1643). Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 18, pp. 377–398. Gwynn, A., 1932a. Documents relating to the Irish in the West Indies. Analecta Hibernica 4, pp. 139–286. Gwynn, A., 1932b. The first Irish Priests in the New World. Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 21, pp. 213–228. Gwynn, A., n.d. Report of Sir Charles Wheler, 9 December 1671. Colonial Office, C.O. I/XXVII No. 52, The National Archives, London. [working papers]. Dublin: Jesuit Archive. Higgins, M.D., 2011. Renewing the Republic. Dublin: Liberties Press. Hobsbawm, E., and Ranger, T., eds., 1983. The invention of tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Irish, G.A., 1985. Special Feature: on St Patrick’s, Montserrat Reporter, 15 March, p. 7.

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Johnston, J.R.V., 1965. The Stapleton Sugar Plantations in the Leeward Islands, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 48, pp. 175–206. Mason, K., 1993. The world an absentee planter and his slaves made: Sir William Stapleton and his Nevis Sugar Estate, 1722–1740. Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 75, pp. 103–31. McGrath, C. I., 1996. Securing the Protestant Interest: the origins and purpose of the Penal Laws of 1695. Irish Historical Studies 30(117), pp. 25–46. Meade-Swanston, S. 1987. Letter to Editor, Montserrat Reporter, 27 March, p. 8. Messenger, J.C., 1967. The influence of the Irish on Montserrat. Caribbean Quarterly 13(2), pp. 3–26. Messenger, J.C., 1975. Montserrat: The most distinctly Irish settlement in the world. Ethnicity 2(3), pp. 281–303. Messenger, J.C., 1994. St Patrick’s Day in ‘The Other Emerald Isle’. Éire-Ireland 29(1), pp. 12–23. Montserrat Mirror, 1966. St Patrick’s Day, Montserrat Mirror, 12 March, p. 1. Montserrat Mirror, 1977. U.C. to mark St Patrick’s Day / slave uprising. Montserrat Mirror, 4 March, p. 2. Montserrat Mirror, 1979. March 17! / Montserrat’s National Day? Montserrat Mirror, 17 March. Montserrat Reporter, 1987a. Heroes Day? Montserrat Reporter, 20 March 1987, p. 1. Montserrat Reporter, 1987b. Editorial, Montserrat Reporter, 20 March, p. 4. Montserrat Reporter, 1991. NDF score big in St Patrick’s, Montserrat Reporter, 22 March, p. 2. Montserrat Reporter, 1994. Celebrating St Patrick’s Day, Montserrat Reporter, 11 March. Montserrat Reporter, 1995. St Patrick’s Day celebrations flop, Montserrat Reporter, 24 March, p. 1. Montserrat Reporter, 1996. St Patrick’s Day—How to celebrate? (Editorial) Montserrat Reporter, 15 March, p. 4. Montserrat Reporter, 1999. St Patrick’s Day a truly Montserratian Day, Montserrat Reporter, 20 March, p. 9. Montserrat Reporter, 2000. Enthusiastic crowds at St Patrick’s events, Montserrat Reporter, 24 March, p. 9. Montserrat Reporter, 2009. Successful week of St Patrick’s celebs, Montserrat Reporter, 27 March, p. 7. Montserrat Times,1982. St Patrick’s Day. Montserrat Times, 19 March, p. 10. Montserrat Times, 1983. Thanks, Montserrat Times, 25 March, p. 5. Montserrat Times, 1986. Irish connections pays off, Montserrat Times, 27 March, p. 3. Montserrat Times, 1988. National dress competition. Montserrat Times, 11 March, p. 4. Montserrat National Trust, 1984. Know your beautiful island. Montserrat Times, 16 March.

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Oliver, V.L., 1910. Mounserrat, 1677–78, a census. In: V.L. Oliver, Caribbeana: Being Miscellaneous Papers Relating to the History, Genealogy, Topography, and Antiquities of the British West Indies, Vol. 2. London: Mitchell, Hughes and Clarke. Pitman, F.W., 1917. The development of the British West Indies, 1700–1763. New Haven: Yale. Ragatz, L.J., 1931. Absentee landlordism in the British Caribbean, 1750–1833. Agricultural History 5, pp. 7–26 Ryan, L., 2001. Gender, identity and the Irish press, 1922–1937: embodying the nation. Lewiston: Mellen Press. Ryzewski, K., and Cherry, J.F., 2012. Communities and archaeology under the Soufrière Hills Volcano on Montserrat, West Indies. Journal of Field Archaeology 37(4), pp. 316–27. Ryzewski, K. and Cherry, J.F., n.d. St. Patrick’s Day and Sugar Estates: blending historical and archaeological perspectives on the Plantation Era in Montserrat. (To be submitted to International Journal of Historical Archaeology). Savage English, T., 1930. Ireland’s only colony: records of Montserrat, 1632 to the end of the nineteenth century. London: West India Committee. Skinner, J., 2004. ‘The way the Caribbean used to be’: The ‘Black Irish’ and the celebration or commemoration of St. Patrick’s Day on the ‘Other’ Emerald Isle. In: J. Skinner: Before the volcano: reverberations of identity on Montserrat. Kingston, Jamaica: Arawak Publications. pp. 141–70. St Patrick’s Day Dinner Committee, 1979. Letter to Editor, Montserrat Mirror, 24 March, p. 4. Wheeler, M.M., 1988. Montserrat, West Indies: a chronological history. Plymouth, Montserrat: Montserrat National Trust.

Chapter 7

Migrancy, Mobility and Memory: Visualising Belonging and Displacement in Jaki Irvine’s The Silver Bridge (2003) Kate Antosik-Parsons

Introduction Time-based art from Ireland spanning the last 30 years responds to different aspects of Ireland’s political, economic and social climate. Performance, video, installation and sound art are known as time-based because the work unfolds over a measure of time. This artwork utilises active viewer engagement, as opposed to passive viewing conditions attached to traditional media like paintings or drawings. Subsequently, the making of meaning is reliant on the intersections of time, space and viewer interactions. These practices are well positioned to engage with the issues surrounding migration, and offer a new way to comprehend the complexities of migrant experiences as culturally, temporally and spatially inbetween. It is therefore unsurprising that during the Celtic Tiger era (1995–2007), artworks about migration featured prominently in several high profile national and international exhibitions such as Irish Art Now: From the Poetic to the Political (1999–2002, McMullen Museum, Boston; the Art Gallery of Newfoundland and Labrador, St Johns; Pittsburgh Center for the Arts; the Chicago Cultural Center and the Irish Museum of Modern Art) and 0044: Contemporary Irish Art in Britain (1999–2000, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York; and Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork). Their inclusion in these exhibitions that interrogated Irishness highlights the significance of conceptualising migration in Irish culture at the end of the twentieth century. Jaki Irvine’s (b.1966) The Silver Bridge (2003) is one time-based work that explores migration. The Silver Bridge began as a proposal shortlisted for the Nissan Public Art Project, a series of temporary, public artworks located throughout Dublin. It focused on the ‘problems experienced by those who leave home, and by exiles who try to return’ (Dunne, 1999). This essay questions how an artwork visualises the hidden complexities of return migration and illustrates how cultural production contributes to current understandings of these complexities. Firstly it outlines issues that arise from Irish return migration and how Irish art responds to migration. Then, using The Silver Bridge as a lens, it explores how contemporary Irish time-based art responds to migration. I argue that The Silver

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Bridge manipulates the existing hierarchy of humans over animals by deploying this relationship as a lens to project the relationship between mobility, migrancy and memory. It deftly positions representations of men and women against wild animals such as bats, deer and birds at different locations around Dublin; confined in enclosures at Dublin Zoo, preserved in the Natural History Museum, and in the wild at the Phoenix Park. In each of these locations, The Silver Bridge juxtaposes the intimacy and isolation of communication and spectatorship. I examine how The Silver Bridge draws specific elements from the narrative in Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla and manifests what Freud termed ‘the uncanny’, or that which is unfamiliar and familiar at the same time. By evoking the uncanny, The Silver Bridge destabilises assumptions about relationships between animals and humans, and, importantly, the distinction between self and Other. Finally it argues that Othering as it occurs in The Silver Bridge renders visible the ambiguities and uncertainties that underscore the experiences of return migrants, permitting for multiple and fluid understandings of Irish identities. Emigration and Migration in Irish Art Historical emigration from the island of Ireland dates to the beginning of the eighteenth century, peaking between the 1840s and 1880s (Corcoran, 2003, p. 302). The twentieth century has seen three main waves of emigration (1920s–30s, 1950s and 1980s), with large numbers of emigrants settling in Britain and the United States. Until recently, migration studies in the Irish context centred on emigration from Ireland or the Irish diaspora abroad. With the sustained influx of ‘net in-migration’ during the rapid economic growth known as the Celtic Tiger era, migration scholarship has shifted. Inglis and Donnelly (2011, p. 128) assert that although Ireland ‘has always been open to flows in and out of the country of capital, ideas, technologies, goods, services and people. What has changed, however, is the frequency, depth, breadth and intensity of these flows and how much they penetrate everyday local life’. Furthermore, recent research, such as Narratives of Migration and Return (2003–2005), jointly carried out by University College Cork, Centre for Migration Studies (Omagh), Queen’s University, Belfast and University of Limerick, and Ralph’s Understanding home: the case of Irishborn return migrants from the United States, 1996–2006 (2011), suggest that studies of migration in Ireland have begun to consider other migration processes, particularly return migration. Though return migration appears in principle relatively simple, indicating the return of migrants to their country of origin, in reality it is a complex and nuanced process. What is the intent of the migrant? Are their motivations economic or social? Is return voluntary or enforced as a result of deportation? What impact does the perception of their success or failure abroad have on the reasons for their return and their subsequent reintegration in their country of origin? Did they maintain professional and communal linkages with their country of origin? These

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are some of the many dynamics to consider when attempting to locate similarities or commonalities between the experiences of return migrants. By definition ‘return’ indicates a degree of mobility, to go or come back to a former place, position or state of being. However, its use to qualify the type of migratory pattern may be problematic, given that for many return migrants the place they return to has mostly likely experienced noticeable political, economic and social changes in their absence. It is worth bearing in mind that ‘return’ is not as straightforward as it appears and it can be fraught with difficulties. In relation to the precarious position of recently returned migrants to Ireland, Ní Laoire notes that a vexing complication of their situation commonly arises from ‘not quite belonging’, essentially a denial or silence around their experiences as migrants because of their potential to unsettle ‘assumptions of Irish homogeneity, of a shared sense of Irishness regardless of one’s history’ (2008, p. 40). The oral archive of return migrants constructed by the Narratives of Migration and Return project utilised a narrative approach to data collection that enabled migrants to construct their own understandings of their experiences and reflect on their reintegration in Irish society. Positioning these migrant narratives in relation to the formation of individual and collective memory is important because these personal and collective experiences assert different versions of Irishness, both in Ireland and abroad, articulating the multiplicity of Irish identities. In History and Memory in Modern Ireland, McBride (2001, p. 3) writes, ‘In Ireland, perhaps more than in other cultures, collective groups have thus expressed their values and assumptions through their representations of the past’. Misztal (2003, p. 52) defines collective memory as ‘a shared image of a past and the reflection of the social identity of the group that framed it’. Collective memory allows a group to view historical events from a ‘single committed perspective and thus ensures solidarity and continuity’ and provides a sense of social cohesion (Misztal, 2003). The danger that can arise is that as a dominant group asserts its own version of Irishness, voices of those who represent difference become marginalised and silenced. The denial of differences and the invisibility of migrants can be profoundly troubling for the perception of a return migrant’s cultural identity. Ralph theorises that, ‘The relationship between mobility and fixity, and home and homeland is questioned as migrants move astride, betwixt and between old and new homes’ (2009, p. 184). He argues that for Irish return migrants ‘the construction of home, for both the geographically promiscuous and the geographically monogamous, is not necessarily tied to a fixed location but emerges out of social processes and sets of relationships to both humans and non-humans’ (2009, p. 185). Bound up in understandings of home are familial relationships, social networks and the rootedness of place. For migrants returning ‘home’, the denial of their experiences that function as markers of difference within dominant Irish culture can be profoundly destabilising. Irish art reflects different aspects of migration that shape understandings of the socio-political and cultural conditions of Ireland. Until recently, visual images of migration most commonly related to exodus during and after the Great Famine

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(1845–1852). Breathnach-Lynch (1999, p. 251) identifies that nineteenth century British and Irish artists side-step the economic and social reasons behind famine emigration. Works like the cheerful Emigrants at Cork (c.1840, UCD Folklore Collection) and Edwin Hayes’s An Emigrant Ship, Dublin Bay, sunset (1853, National Gallery of Ireland) focus on the event of departure. Erskine Nicol’s Irish Emigrants Waiting for the Train (1864, Museums Sheffield) sentimentalises emigration by focusing on the ‘noble peasant’, in this case a serenely sad couple leaving their home behind. James Brennan’s Letter from America (1874, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork) renders a moment of personal communication with migrants through the receipt of letters. Compellingly, migration is imagined as a singularly forward moving journey with a straightforward conclusion. It is striking that in these works, the avoidance of the conditions and hardships experienced is essentially an avoidance of the past. Only very few paintings like Walter Deverell’s Irish Vagrants in England (1853, Johannesburg Art Gallery), depicting an impoverished Irish family on the side of the road, or the starkly painted forlorn poacher in Eileen Murray’s This or Emigration (c.1926, Ulster Museum), rendered Irish economic problems with any degree of social realism. In exploring contemporary Famine commemorations, Mark-FitzGerald (2013) deftly weaves together Irish history, diaspora and visual culture examining how commemorative practices provide continuity with the past. The occurrence of public commemorations both at ‘home’ in Ireland and ‘abroad’ in locations like New York, Boston and Sydney during the Celtic Tiger suggest that migration, cultural memory and Irish art are intimately connected. Through such commemorative activities ‘Famine migrants become the “authentic” Irish migrants, the traumatic, but genuine origin of “Irish emigration” and a contemporary diasporic Irishness’ (Gray, 2002, p. 131). Assessing the recurring theme of homelessness in Irish art, Kelly argues that the symbol of the cottage signifies the displacement of people (2009, p. 143). In these works, Irish emigrants are often represented by their noticeable absence; furthermore, the destruction of ‘home’ references the trauma associated with forced emigration and evictions driven by the Famine. Likewise, paintings such as Paul Henry’s vast, solitary landscapes of the West of Ireland, often interpreted as romanticising the Irish landscape, may in fact convey its condition as a consequence of being ‘emptied of people as a result of emigration’ (Gray, 1999, p. 201). Works like this envision a connection between home and movement. Approaching Time-based Art: Liminality and Othering Time-based art offers a new perspective on mobility and migration and reflects the influence of migration on conceptualising individual and collective Irish identities. In the 1980s and early 1990s artworks like Alanna O’Kelly’s Chant Down Greenham (1984–1988), or her famine series The Country Blooms – A Garden and A Grave, originally titled Famine/Emigration (1991–1996), Dorothy

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Cross’s Attendant (1993), Patricia McKenna’s The Grey House (1993) and Frances Hegarty’s Turas (1995) addressed migration in an elegiac way. Each draws awareness to ‘place’ and facilitates a consideration of one’s own position in relation to place. Helen Armstrong (2004, p. 239) says bound up in ‘knowing one’s place’ are experiences of marginality or a search for identity. These works visualised home and place as something that must be simultaneously mourned and remembered, evoking the liminal position of in-betweeness that migrants find themselves in. On a separate, yet related point, it is worth nothing that the relationship between Irish art and migration can be paralleled by the patterns of migration of twentieth century Irish artists, who commonly moved abroad to seek further opportunities. Barber’s (2013) insightful study on how Irish art has been shaped by the shifting dynamics of political and social conditions underscores the impact of this migration on the development of avant-garde art in modern Ireland. Consequently, these personal experiences of migrancy have often prompted Irish artists to reflect on the economic and socio-political impact of migration in Irish society more broadly (Deepwell, 2005, p. 3). The concept of liminality, as something in transition or in the process of becoming, is useful in understanding how time-based art challenges home as singular or fixed. Schechner defines a liminal space as: a threshold or sill, a thin strip neither inside nor outside a building or room linking one space to another, a passageway between places rather than a place in itself… It is enlarged in time and space yet retains its peculiar quality of passageway or temporariness… (2002, p. 58)

Time-based art situated in the disused Victorian toilets in Cross’s Attendant, the ruined house in McKenna’s The Grey House and the former underground jail in Alastair MacLennan’s Bled Edge (1988), ground meaning in liminal spaces by bridging physical and geographic space with a psychological one. Thus the appearance of liminality in Irish time-based art highlights the importance of memory and the past in constructing present Irish identities. Liminality provides a way to comprehend the transitional and ambiguous cultural status of returned migrants. The Othering of return migrants can be understood by applying Freud’s concept of the uncanny or unheimliche, ‘that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar’ (Freud, 1976, p. 620). The word unheimliche is considered opposite to heimlich and heimisch (respectively defined as homely, ‘belonging to the house or the family’; and native, Freud, pp. 620–621). According to Freud (p. 636), the presence of the uncanny is felt most profoundly in relation to death, dead bodies and ghosts and spirits. The uncanny is manifested when a paradoxical occurrence takes place and one feels terror upon the identification with something or someone that is remarkably familiar. For Freud, this identification is often located in a doubling of the self:

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Heritage, Diaspora and the Consumption of Culture This relation is accentuated by mental processes leaping from one of these characters to another – by what we should call telepathy – so that the one possesses knowledge, feelings and experience in common with the other. Or it is marked by the fact that the subject identifies himself with someone else, so that he is in doubt as to which his self is, or substitutes the extraneous self for his own. In other words there is a doubling, dividing and interchanging of the self. (Freud, p. 630)

The uncanny signals the return of that which has been unconsciously repressed and is manifested in the appearance of the doubled or split figure of the Other; essentially the unfamiliar familiar. With regard to return migrants, the idea of ‘doubling’ relates to the transnational identities that result ‘from the combination of migrants’ origins with the identities they acquire in their host countries’ (Cassarino, 2004, p. 262). Cassarino identifies this as a ‘double identity’, one that is more likely to manifest than a perceived ‘conflicting’ identity. The double identity of the migrant, brought into dialogue with Freud’s theory of the uncanny, demonstrates the potential for the experience of uncanniness to arise from within. The Silver Bridge (2003) Irvine’s The Silver Bridge plays upon a number of tensions: home and exile; belonging and displacement; familiar and uncanny. The initial inspiration was Le Fanu’s collection of five short stories In a Glass Darkly (1872). Irvine’s interest in gothic novellas is evident in earlier works such as Foreign Body: A Love Story (1993). The Silver Bridge was eventually realised through funding from the Arts Council and was completed in 2003. This eight screen video installation is loosely based on Le Fanu’s gothic novella Carmilla (1872), the story of a disquieting relationship between Laura, a lonely nineteen-year old woman of English descent and Carmilla, a shape-shifting lesbian vampire attempting to return home. Irvine was intimately familiar with the subject, having left Dublin in the early 1990s to study and reside abroad in London and Italy before returning nearly a decade later. The novella focuses on the inexplicable longings between the two women to frame Carmilla’s quest to return home. The emergence of vampirism in Irish gothic literature references the political situation in Ireland during the nineteenth century and the devastating effects of the Great Famine (Stewart, 1999). In Carmilla, veiled references to the BritishIrish colonial relationship are evident through the insistence of Laura and her father on their Englishness, aligning them with Anglo-Irish gentry. The deserted ancestral village that Carmilla attempts to return home to recalls the devastation of certain communities during the Famine. ‘The fantastic’ was central to Gothic literature, and, as Lozes argues, was ‘based on the representation of a contorted, indeed, inverted image of reality, and characterised … by a lively emphasis on the subversive involving every kind of transgression…’ (1998, p. 221). In Le Fanu’s

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novella, Carmilla is positioned as the racial and sexual Other through reference to her ‘foreign’ background and her sexual aggression and lesbian desire for Laura (Brock, 2009, p. 125). The concept of Otherness, difference located on the periphery of dominant identification, establishes the basis for the exploration of Irish migrant identities in The Silver Bridge. In The Silver Bridge place is intimately connected to memory. The distant memories and melancholic longings evoked throughout The Silver Bridge can be framed by this description of the woodland setting where Laura first meets Carmilla: At the right the same road crosses the steep and picturesque bridge, near which stands a ruined tower which once guarded that pass; and beyond the bridge an abrupt eminence rises, covered with trees, and showing in the shadows some grey ivy-clustered rocks. Over the sward and low grounds a thin film of mist was stealing like smoke, marking the distances with a transparent veil; and here and there we could see the river faintly flashing in the moonlight. No softer, sweeter scene could be imagined. The news I had just heard made it melancholy; but nothing could disturb its character of profound serenity, and the enchanted glory and vagueness of the prospect. (Le Fanu, 1872, unpaginated)

The title of this work is taken from a Dublin landmark: the Silver Bridge spanning the River Liffey. Also known as the Guinness Bridge, it is located at the bottom of Knockmaroon Hill, just outside the Knockmaroon gates to the Phoenix Park (Liffey Valley Park Alliance n.d.). The open trellis iron bridge once provided access for employees of the Farmleigh Estate, a former residence of the Guinness Family, but the bridge is now in a state of disrepair.1 Both Le Fanu and Irvine hail from nearby areas: Le Fanu was originally from Chapelizod while Irvine is from Palmerstown, where the bridge is located. The different locations of The Silver Bridge are significant as each is a clearly identifiable place that serves as a reminder of the former importance of Dublin to the British Empire. The Phoenix Park (1745), Dublin Zoo (1831) and the Natural History Museum (1857) were all established during the height of the colonial period, while the bridge itself is a symbol of the former wealth of the prominent Anglo-Irish Guinness family. The locations of The Silver Bridge obliquely reference William Ashford’s (1746–1824) A View of Dublin from Chapelizod (1795–98, National Gallery of Ireland). Ashford’s work surveying various barracks and forts of Ireland for the Ordnance Office influenced the ‘ordered neatness’ of his topographical landscape paintings (Crookshank and Knight of Glin, 2002, p. 150). The highly detailed painting depicted from the weir at Islandbridge was commissioned for John Jeffreys Pratt, Earl Camden, Viceroy of Ireland (1795– 1798). In clearly defined pictorial planes, a deer grazes in the foreground while the Phoenix Park and the magazine fort spatially define the middle ground. 1 The Farmleigh estate was purchased from the Guinness Family by the Irish government in 1999 for €29.2m.

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Elizabeth Bridge, the Four Courts, the Royal Hospital Kilmainham and various other buildings are rendered in great detail in the background. Ashford’s painting suggests an idyllic view of colonial Dublin depicted in linear perspective. While paintings like A View of Dublin from Chapelizod may appear passive and neutral, W.J.T. Mitchell (2000, pp. 14–15) argues they are essentially imperial landscapes ‘embedded in the tradition of cultural signification and communication, a body of symbolic forms capable of being invoked and reshaped to express meanings and values’. The traditional landscape genre often depicted land as feminised, surveyed with an authoritative or magisterial gaze that implied an unacknowledged masculine ownership. In an Irish context, this connects to the colonial feminisation of Ireland. Political cartoons in nineteenth century British publications, such as Punch magazine, depicted Ireland under colonial rule as subordinate and weak. Ireland, as a place, became symbolically embodied in the guise of a helpless young woman in need of assistance and salvation (see Walter 2001, pp. 83–84). This relationship between gender and place assumes an interesting dimension in relation to migration. As in Ashford’s painting, the romanticisation of the Irish landscape as ‘picturesque’ renders the realities of social problems and conflicts invisible. Gray writes, ‘This trope of “landscape” has been variously deployed in different contexts as a means of “authenticating” and “naturalizing” relationships between identity and place; for example, colonial discourses equated the wild Irish landscape with the ‘wild Irish’ character of the people’ (Gray, 1999, p. 201). Looking at Irish women emigrants, Gray identified a trend where participants references to the physical landscape at home and abroad were grounded in an understanding of the ‘authenticity’ of national identities as belonging to place. The tame ‘wildlife’ in the foreground of the painting, understood as the subdued native Irish population, juxtaposed with the magnificent grandeur of colonial Dublin allows Ashford to convey the implied stability and prosperity of British colonial rule in Ireland. In contrast, The Silver Bridge does not seek to celebrate or romanticise Dublin or its imperial legacy. Instead it undercuts the implied cultural meaning of its specific locations, evoking a strangeness and Othering that emphasises the ‘in-between’ of cultural belonging for return migrants. According to Ní Laoire returnees occupy shifting ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ positions ‘as they seek to belong while maintaining a sense of self and individuality…’ (2008, p. 45). Othering in The Silver Bridge is revealed through the real and imagined relationships, exchanges and communications between human and animals. The Silver Bridge is, therefore, located outside of the representation of animals in the work created by contemporary Irish women artists during the 1980s and 1990s. Much of this work used spectacle to respond to the cultural Othering of women in Irish society. This was underpinned by trends in Irish feminist politics tied to body politics and the struggle for women’s sexual and reproductive rights in a conservative climate. For example, Louise Walsh’s (b.1963) Harvest Queen (1986), a half-woman, half-horse assemblage sculpture constructed of natural and found materials drew upon Celtic zoomorphic representations to investigate the historical subjugation of women. Dorothy Cross’s (b.1956) series of tactile and

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seductive sculptures, reminiscent of Surrealist art, employed cow skins and udders to address the role of gender and sexuality in Irish society. Works like Alice Maher’s (b.1956) Bee Dress (1994), a child-sized dress constructed of hundreds of honey bees and her visceral self-portraits, Collar (2003) and Necklace of Tongues (2003) in which she donned sheep’s hearts and cow’s tongues, powerfully manifested a visceral relationship between women and nature. These works playfully evoked assumptions about the affinity between women and domesticated animals in order to highlight cultural and bodily Othering. The Silver Bridge moves away from these kinds of embodied representations, instead focusing on how human relationships to animals communicate a sense of the uncanny. The first video was located in the bat house at the zoo where a woman carefully observed a colony of bats (not pictured in text). The division between the bats and the woman was highlighted by her stillness and silence in contrast to their constant sounds. The woman briefly glanced at a man walking past who then exited the frame. The lack of exchange between them suggested the inability to make a connection. As Knight argues: ‘Animals who rely on cover in the wild become exposed in the fully zoo. This makes the zoo doubly unnatural for the animals within it: they are subject not only to forcible enclosure but to forcible exposure’ (2009, p. 173). In this video exposure is bound up in the subtle complexities of spectatorship. Though the bats remain enclosed while the man and woman are unrestricted, the position of the camera emphasised the woman as the focus of observation. Yet this position was revealed as unstable when the point of view shifted to observe the bats through the glass. The subtle reflection of the glass was a reminder of the invisible barrier of the enclosure. The second video depicted a close up shot of the bats, while the man and woman were absent from view. The slight movement of the camera, as though suspended from a height, encouraged the viewer to identify with them rather than the humans. Traditional folklore, literature and horror cinema often depicts bats as frightening, disquieting creatures. Stoker’s Dracula (1897), based on Le Fanu’s Carmilla, essentially defined the convention of the vampire’s uncanny ability to shape-shift into a bat. Incidentally, the bats housed at the Dublin Zoo are not vampire bats but Rodrigues Fruit bats (Pteropus rodricensis), a critically endangered species due to habitat loss on their native Rodrigues Island in the Indian Ocean. Protected under the Wildlife Act (1976), ten different species of bats reside in Ireland, often nesting in old buildings and under bridges while during the summer the females gather in maternity roosts to give birth (National Parks & Wildlife Service, n.d.). Their continuing survival is dependent on the communal, protective care of zoological institutions (Beer et al., 2008, p. 418). Suspended upside down, the bats climbed along ropes in their enclosure flapping their wings [Fig. 7.1]. Their interactions were communicated through their careful grooming and squawking noises, reinforcing their shared communication in ways that the man and woman failed to achieve. This video juxtaposed the aural and visual, though it is relevant to mention that these fruit bats have excellent eyesight, imbuing the bats with the potential to turn gaze back upon humans.

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Figure 7.1

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Jaki Irvine, The Silver Bridge (2003), Eight Screen Video Installation, Video Still, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art

Source: Jaki Irvine.

The third video was filmed at the National History Museum, known as the ‘Dead Zoo’. The same woman from the zoo was silently waiting while overlooking the prominent wood and glass Victorian display cases. The contrast between the zoo and the museum emphasised the split between the living and the dead. Each signalled a different relationship to memory. A shift in the camera angle revealed the head of a taxidermied gazelle stoically gazing down in silence upon the woman’s stilled figure articulating a reversal in the hierarchical relationship between human and animals, denoting a different type of consciousness [Fig. 7.2]. The exhibition and display of dead animals, some of which are now extinct, harkens back to a time when the museum was actively building its collection. The colonial legacy of the institution is evident in the large amount of material in the collection that originates from outside Ireland, gathered when ‘Irish scientists and keen amateurs staffed the largest navy in the world and were involved in numerous expeditions to far away places’ (National Museum of Ireland, n.d). The results of these travels, in the form of the numerous species on display, attest to the journeys taken and the mobility of the Irish. The activation of this location as a place of memory enables recollection of the different migratory journeys the Irish have embarked upon, particularly to destinations with a connection to the British empire, places like Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.

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Figure 7.2

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Jaki Irvine, The Silver Bridge (2003), Eight Screen Video Installation, Video Still, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art

Source: Jaki Irvine.

The fourth video located in the Phoenix Park, recorded the movements of the man pacing through the overgrowth as if waiting for someone or something [Fig. 7.3]. He appeared like a crouching animal, awaiting prey, though it never materialised. Curiously with each step the tall grasses that threatened to envelop the man appeared to erase the traces of his steps. This articulated a tension between human and nature. The man and woman in these two videos were joined in their isolation. The fifth video depicted deer peacefully grazing on grass in a wooded glen. A majestic stag bent his graceful neck while a juvenile stood nearby, representing a continuum between youth and maturity. James Butler, the Duke of Ormond, first introduced the herd of Fallow deer into the Phoenix Park in the 1660s (OPW, 2013). The park now essentially functions as an urban sanctuary for mammals with wildlife habitats and conservation areas located throughout its seventeen hundred acres (OPW, 2013). Unlike the waiting man, these deer appeared at home in their surroundings as they moved slowly and elegantly through the trees. Next, five white doors appeared in the glen as the deer materialised from behind them, before continuing to forage [Fig. 7.4]. These images were accompanied by the natural sounds of the forest. As the image shifted to represent the deer, a noticeable blurring effect referenced a lapse in time. The dappled sunlight on the doors evoked a sense of serenity about this mysterious location, symbolising portals or openings through which one can escape from the ‘present’.

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Figure 7.3

Heritage, Diaspora and the Consumption of Culture

Jaki Irvine, The Silver Bridge (2003), Eight Screen Video Installation, Video Still, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art

Source: Jaki Irvine. 

Figure 7.4

Jaki Irvine, The Silver Bridge (2003), Eight Screen Video Installation, Video Still, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art

Source: Jaki Irvine. 

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The depiction of the deer next to and behind the doors recalled the frequent appearance of otherworldly deer in Irish mythology where their purpose is to lure ‘the living into the realms of the gods’, where time remains static (Ross, 1996, p. 338). Those who entered the fairy realm were rarely able to return to the human world, but for those who did return things often changed beyond recognition. For return migrants there is the distinct possibility that nostalgic memories of home can be displaced upon realisation that ‘home’ no longer remains the same. Brah identifies the dualism of home as a ‘mythic place of desire in the diasporic imagination’ and as ‘the lived experience of a locality’ (1996, p. 192). In this arises a potential for experiencing conflict or dislocation between one’s assertions of ‘home’ as a place in the past and ‘home’ as the site of daily life and everyday experiences. There is the unspoken expectation that return migrants will ‘feel a sense of belonging and homecoming, and therefore, issues such as loneliness and adjustment are either not acknowledged or unexpected’ (Ní Laoire, 2008, p. 40). Yet these experiences of loneliness while attempting to reintegrate suggests that home is both internal and external to constructions of identity. When the two do not twine together effortlessly the realisation of this disconnect may be problematic. Emilie Pine’s analysis of return migrants in contemporary Irish theatre provides a template for understanding how this specific migration phenomenon is addressed in the Irish cultural register and what cultural tropes are deployed. In particular, Pine (2011) notes that the fantasy of home is represented as a ‘destructive illusion’. Moreover, home and homecoming signal ‘a return to the past, to remembered places and selves, and this provokes more conflict than reconciliation’ (Pine 2011, p. 99). In these theatrical works ‘the returnee represents a fractured temporal narrative that conflicts with that belonging to those who stayed in Ireland, who have their own remembered version of the past…’ (2011, p. 98). This is further demarcated by a split in remembrance culture between the nostalgic turn to the past and the development of ‘anti-nostalgic’ view of the past as something to escape from (2011, p. 98). However, The Silver Bridge never fully embraces either of these ideas. Dunne states that for Irvine, home can be thought of as ‘habitude, a dull, deadened route whereby feelings and awareness are blunted’ (2006, p. 10). By definition habitude suggests habitual or repetitive actions or behaviours while also evoking an essential character. It is possible that liberating ‘home’ from the nostalgia/anti-nostalgia dichotomy that Pine identifies in Irish theatre, The Silver Bridge instead advances a more nuanced way of conceiving of the return to home and to the past, one that separates it from fixed notions of Irish identity. The sixth video captured the woman, at twilight, dressed in black, writhing on the ground and crawling across the ruined Silver Bridge. Moving rhythmically across the bridge, the soles of her dirty bare feet represented her vulnerability, which echoed the decaying iron structure [Fig 7.5]. Her slow, continual movements and lack of progress in her inability to reach the other side alluded to the burden of the perpetual state of flux that return migrants find themselves in, neither belonging ‘here’ nor ‘there’. Moreover, this particular positioning of the body referenced a

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moment in Carmilla when: ‘I saw a large black object, very ill-defined, crawl, as it seemed to me, over the foot of the bed, and swiftly spread itself up to the poor girl’s throat, where it swelled, in a moment, into a great, palpitating mass.’ (Le Fanu, Unpaginated) Here, the mention of the throat, like the woman’s exposed feet, renders visible a point of weakness, which in turn expresses the marginalisation of Irish return migrants within their ‘home’ communities. This small format video was projected low to the ground, encouraging the viewer to adopt an awkward viewing position, ensuring the viewer was conscious of the act of observation.

Figure 7.5

Jaki Irvine, The Silver Bridge (2003), Eight Screen Video Installation, Video Still, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art

Source: Jaki Irvine. 

In the seventh video, the bridge was depicted from a distance, spanning a stretch of calm water, with trees and invasive undergrowth overwhelming its iron structure. Two women hung gracefully like bats upside down from the bridge [Fig 7.6], their rhythmic movements harmoniously choreographed as they embraced like lovers, ‘merging and emerging from each others bodies’ (Smyth, 2005, p. 43). As they moved acrobatically it was evident that they were composite figures developed through special effects. The singular woman from the other videos was, in effect, doubled, mimicking Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of the uncanny in which the doubling or splitting of the self represents the repression of the self. Works by other time-based artists such as Stan Douglas’s Der Sandmann (1995) and Willie Doherty’s Ghost Story (2007) notably incorporate this dually doubled

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and split figure. However, the appearance of the doubled female figure can be read as the uncanny sense of otherness evoked by lesbian desire. Le Fanu makes reference to this in a moment of desire shared by Carmilla and Laura: She kissed me silently. “I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love; that there is, at this moment, an affair of the heart going on.” “I have been in love with no one, and never shall,” she whispered, “unless it should be with you.” How beautiful she looked in the moonlight! Shy and strange was the look with which she quickly hid her face in my neck and hair, with tumultuous sighs, that seemed almost to sob, and pressed in mine a hand that trembled. Her soft cheek was glowing against mine. “Darling, darling,” she murmured, “I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so.” (Le Fanu, unpaginated)

In Irvine’s earlier works, The Hottest Sun, the Darkest Hour: A Romance (1999) and Another Difficult Sunset (1997), subjects often struggle with uneasy relationships as lovers left behind (Blaney, 2007, p. 83). The lack of connection between the two waiting figures of the man and the woman represent the anticlimax of a missed encounter. Yet in the seventh video, the female figures provide a temporary resolution to the tension experienced throughout the installation as two figures unite briefly before severing their connection.

Figure 7.6

Jaki Irvine, The Silver Bridge (2003), Eight Screen Video Installation, Video Still, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art

Source: Jaki Irvine. 

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The poetic relationship in this particular video can be understood in relation to the uncanniness that arises from the presence of a foreigner or stranger, for it is in the strangeness of the Other that Carmilla and The Silver Bridge are knotted together. In Stranger to Ourselves, Kristeva describes the notion of the foreigner or stranger as ‘not belonging to any place, any time, any love. A lost origin, the impossibility to take root, a rummaging memory, the present in abeyance’ (1991, p. 7). The emphasis on the condition of the foreigner as having a lost origin, similar to the figure of Carmilla, resonates with the duality of the unfamiliar/ familiar of the return migrant whose uncanniness is situated in the perception of possessing a marked difference despite having the same origins as the dominant culture. Kristeva proposes: Living with the other, with the foreigner, confronts us with the possibility or not of being an other. It is not simply – humanistically – a matter of our being able to accept the other, but of being in his place, and this means to imagine and make ourselves other for oneself. (1991, p. 13)

The splitting of the female figure in The Silver Bridge attests to the disquieting possibility of the internal split or repression of the originary self. Yet in the context of The Silver Bridge the utterance from Carmilla, ‘I live in you’, suggests an Otherness experienced from within; a doubling of the self in which return migrants simultaneously embrace and expel themselves as the unacknowledged Other. Only the eighth video used an unidentifiable location as a stationary camera directed skyward recorded the sweeping movements of a murmuration of starlings as dominating a cloudless blue sky [Fig 7.7]. Their overwhelming sounds and restless nature meant it was impossible for the viewer to disengage with the active gaze, as such, the rapid movements established a strange field of perception that compressed the foreground and background. This active gaze heightened viewer anxiety, reminiscent of scenes from Hitchcock’s horror movie The Birds (1963). As the looped effect of the work continued to prolong the duration of the video, the starlings massing in the sky was hauntingly elegiac. In the continually shifting formation each individual bird temporarily unified with the murmuration, its individual identity adapted to form a collective one. Likewise, the morphing shapes of the flock referenced the shape-shifting Carmilla, who shifted between woman and cat, allowing her to enter Laura’s bedroom undetected.

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Figure 7.7

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Jaki Irvine, The Silver Bridge (2003), Eight Screen Video Installation, Video Still, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art

Source: Jaki Irvine. 

In Irish mythology female goddesses often assume the guise of animals, for example in the Táin Bó Cúailnge, the legendary Irish epic, Morrígan or Badbh, goddesses and battle furies, shape-shift as a raven or carrion bird, symbolising impending death (Green, 1999, p. 55) In the context of The Silver Bridge, shapeshifting represents the mobility of Irish migrants, as starlings are a partial migratory bird, meaning that while Irish and UK populations remain resident during winter, starlings from Northern Europe migrate to these locations. A communal bird, thousands of starlings roost in a single location, yet when a roosting site becomes unavailable, they are forced to abandon former feeding areas and relocate (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, 2013). Gray argues that migrancy involves, ‘… the leaving of one place for another, the experience of living in another place with memories of somewhere else, and a future that involves embedding these memories in a new place’ (2006, p. 209). Home in The Silver Bridge is imagined ‘more like a perch than a cage’,2 and in this way it differs from Carmilla’s relentless pursuit to regain her lost homeland. The evasion of a linear narrative within the work allows for the possibility that home can be understood as both a place and a journey. This displacement of traditional notions of home as a fixed point of origin implies that 2 Inglis and Donnelly (2011, p. 128) use this phrase in the context of migration and globalisation, referring to the decreasing association of place with the local and national context.

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‘home’ may no longer offer the safety of that which is familiar. Though the viewer begins to anticipate the repetitive movements of the birds, they also encompass the potential anxiety that may accompany a dislocation from home. Dislocation that occurs from the deliberate manipulation of time in The Silver Bridge further emphasises this displacement of belonging. This was represented through different techniques, for example, while the starlings dart quickly across the sky, the deer move in slow motion, with no middle ground between the movements of animals. In the Natural History Museum, a space dedicated to the preservation of natural history through its taxidermy, time was slowed, depicted through the deliberate movements of the silent woman’s eyes as they opened and closed. In this space there was an implied tension between life and the posed life-like animals permanently preserved, suggesting the duality that arises with temporal and cultural displacement. Time was temporarily suspended as the man waiting in the field disappeared briefly from the frame before reappearing again. His temporary absence symbolised the invisibility and Otherness of return migrants (Ní Laoire, 2008, p. 44). The perpetual motion of the girl making her way across the bridge denied the viewer the opportunity to grasp a fixed duration, highlighting no end and no beginning. Importantly, the double figure of the girl hanging from the bridge represented a displacement of migrant experiences. Referring to the two girls in Carmilla, Lozes describes their relationship as ‘…inseparable, exchanging recollections, dreams, impulses and emotions to the extent that their identities almost merge together’ (1998, p. 228). Yet, in The Silver Bridge, as one ‘self’ clung to the bridge, the other dropped from the frame, articulating the split that occurs when migrant identities experience ambivalence in relation to their place of origin. Finally, the physical aspects of the installation, such as the looped videos of different lengths, experienced through a series of adjoining rooms that could be viewed non-sequentially further emphasised the passage of time. In narratives that address migration, time is a key factor because it highlights the importance of the past in present conceptualisations of identity. Gray argues, ‘The migrant’s past elsewhere is accessible to those in the destination country only as narrative, and therefore has to be repeatedly narrated by the migrant in order to be part of her migrant life’ (2006, p. 209). Though The Silver Bridge lacks a clear-cut narrative, the looping effect, allowing for the work to continually play, asserts the fluidity of these identities. Commenting on the nature of the installation itself in the different sized spaces of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Maeve Connolly (2008, p. 206) describes: ‘The Silver Bridge is structured as a journey with several possible routes…’. This translates into the imagery itself, as birds move to and fro. The various types of movements suggest different temporal and spatial possibilities but in the absence of a structured narrative, the ‘journey’ can never be fully completed. The bridge as a structure that aids and frustrates this journey is evident in different ways. Crossing the bridge implied the duration of a journey as in the set time and distance that it takes to get from point of origin to point of arrival. The bridge is a structure that unites two places, a symbol of both past and present. In this regard the bridge

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represents nostalgia for the past, especially given that it was a former meeting place for local teenagers from that area before it was boarded up. Returning to the bridge as it stands in the present day reveals the attachments of nostalgia and imagination that permeate sites of childhood memories. The different imagery of the bridge, doors, portals, and enclosures represent both obstacles that can enable and prevent passage. In particular, it is the bridge, formerly a means to a destination, which functions as a dual symbol of transition and liminality. The massive urban redevelopment fuelled by the economic prosperity of the Celtic Tiger is at odds with the disrepair of the bridge. Connolly (2008, p. 207) argues that ‘the decaying cast iron bridge seems to offer an oblique reminder of an industrial past not yet wholly recuperated within the discourse of urban cultural regeneration’. Viewed from a post-Celtic Tiger perspective, the crumbling structure, like abandoned ‘ghost estates’ and vacant retail premises, stand like silent monuments in the urban landscape to the ebbs and flows of economic austerity that hastens the mobility of people. Conclusion In using a gothic novella as lens to examine the displacement of migrants, The Silver Bridge questions the preservation of home as a fixed, stable concept. The work actively seeks to elucidate the experiences of observing and being observed. The subjects, both animals and humans constantly fulfil this role, while the identifications of the viewer and the functioning of the gaze is made evident though various cinematic techniques. The manipulation of time is symbolic of memory: while memory preserves certain events, remembering and forgetting are mutual processes that provide cohesion to ‘experience, thought and imagination in terms of past, present and future’ (Brockmeier, 2002, p. 21). However if these time modalities are not clearly separated, then remembering and forgetting must be understood as highly selected modes that attempt to structure memory into narratives. The continuous looping throughout the work reiterates the melancholic feelings of missed connections and highlights the lack of narrative structure to provide explanation. Although the reasons for return migration are in part based on a ‘quest for community, for attachment to others and a sense of continuity,’ return is not straightforward nor does returning home does not mean an easy transition into the life that one left behind (Corcoran, 2003, p. 314). It does not account for any economic hardships that returnees might encounter. From a social perspective there is often an assumption that returnees should reassimiliate with relative ease back into dominant Irish society. As Ní Laoire argues a return migrant can serve as ‘an uncomfortable reminder of the many silences in Irish emigration, such as the past failures of the economy, as well as the unarticulated reasons for departure’ (2008, p. 380). If ‘remembering and forgetting are social activities’, the framing of the past is dependent on how a particular identity group employs its

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‘vocabularies, ideas and representations’ (MacBride, 2001, p. 12). The invisibility of return migrants positions them as culturally in-between, their contradictory experiences of sameness and difference signifying the often-unacknowledged multiplicity of Irish identities. The Silver Bridge manipulates the existing hierarchy of humans over animals, allowing ‘othering’ to render visible multiple and fluid understanding of Irish identities. Importantly, The Silver Bridge seeks to complicate the idea of return, its emphasis on the tension between disjointed temporalities and endlessness illustrates the ways in which Irish art can visualise migrancy, mobility and memory. References Armstrong, H., 2004. Making the unfamiliar familiar: research journeys towards understanding migration and place. Landscape Research, 29(3), pp. 237–260. Barber, Fionna., 2013. Art in Ireland since 1910. London: Reaktion Books. Beer, A.J., Day, T., Gray, L., Green, J., Jackson, T., Taylor, B., 2008. Exploring mammals. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish Corporation. Bhreathnach-Lynch, S., 1997. Framing the Irish: Victorian paintings of the Irish peasant. Journal of Victorian Culture, 2(2), pp. 245–263. The Birds, 1963. [Film] Alfred Hitchcock. USA: Universal Pictures. Blaney, A., 2007. Jaki Irvine: In a world like this, Model Arts and Niland Gallery Sligo, November 2006–January 2007. Circa, 119, pp. 82–83. Brah, A., 1996. Cartographies of diaspora: contesting identities. London: Routledge. Brock, M., 2009. The vamp and the good English mother: female roles in Le Fanu’s Carmilla and Stoker’s Dracula. In: M. Brock, ed. 2009, From Wollstonecraft to Stoker: essays on gothic and Victorian sensation fiction. Jefferson: McFarlane and Company, pp. 120–31. Brockmeier, J., 2002. Remembering and forgetting: narrative as cultural memory. Culture Psychology, 8(1), pp.15–43. Cassarino, J.P., 2004. Theorising return migration: the conceptual approach to return migrants revisited. IJMS: International Journal on Multicultural Societies, 6(2), pp. 253–279 [pdf] Available at: www.unesco.org/shs/ijms/ vol6/issue2/art4 [Accessed 25 September 2013]. Connolly, M., 2008. Of other worlds: nature and the supernatural in the moving image installations of Jaki Irvine. Screen, 49(2), pp. 203–208. Corcoran, M. P., 2003. The process of migration and the reinvention of self: the experience of returning Irish emigrants. In: K. Kenny, ed. 2003. New directions in Irish American history. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 302– 318. Crookshank, A. and Knight of Glin, 2002. Ireland’s Painters 1600–1900. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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Deepwell, K., 2005. Dialogues: interviews with Irish women artists. London, I.B. Tauris. Dunne, A., 1999. Finalists chosen in millennial project. Irish Times, November 17, p. 9. Dunne, A., 2006. Precarious positions on stairs and bridges. Irish Times, 4 January, p. 10. Freud, S., Strachey, J., Cixous, H., and Dennomé, R., 1976. Fiction and its phantoms: A reading of Freud’s Das Unheimliche (The ‘Uncanny’). New Literary History, 7(3), pp. 525–548 and 619–645. Gilmartin, M., 2012. The changing landscape of Irish migration, 2000–2012. NIRSA Working Papers, 69, pp. 1–19. Gray, B., 1999. Longing and belonging- gendered spatialities of Irishness. Irish Studies Review, 7(2), pp. 193–210. Gray, B., 2006. Curious hybridities: transnational negotiations of migrancy through generation. Irish Studies Review, 14(2), pp. 207–224. Green, M J., 1999. Back to the future: resonances of the past in myth and material culture. In: A. Gazin-Schwartz, and C. Holtorf, eds. 1999. Archaeology and Folklore. London: Routledge, pp. 46–64. Inglis, T. and Donnelly, S., 2011. Local and national belonging in a globalised world. Irish Journal of Sociology, 19(2), pp. 127–143. Kelly, N. A., 2009. Remembering homelessness and the great Irish Famine. In: D.A. Valone, ed. 2009. Ireland’s Great Hunger: relief, representation, and remembrance. New York: University Press of America, pp. 140–160. Knight, J., 2009. Making wildlife viewable: habituation and attraction. Society and Animals, 17, pp. 167–184. Kristeva, J, 1991. Strangers to ourselves. Translated by Roudiez, L. 1st ed. New York: Columbia University Press. Le Fanu, J.S., 1872. Carmilla. [Ebook] Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/ files/10007/10007-h/10007-h.htm [Accessed May 9, 2011]. Liffey Valley Park Alliance. 2013. Strawberry beds. [online] Available at: http:// www.lvpa.ie/strawberrybeds.html. [Accessed 17 September 2013]. Lozes, J., 1998. In the other world of some Irish Vampires. In: B. Stewart, ed. 1998. That other world: the supernatural and the fantastic in Irish literature and its contexts. Gerrards Cross: Colin Symthe, pp. 221–230. Mark-FitzGerald, E., 2009. Towards a famine art history: invention, reception, and repetition from the nineteenth century to the twentieth. In: D.A. Valone, ed. 2009. Ireland’s Great Hunger: relief, representation, and remembrance. New York: University Press of America, pp. 181–202. Mark-FitzGerald, E., 2013. Commemorating the Irish Famine: Memory and the Monument. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. McBride, I., 2001. Memory and national identity. In: I. McBride, ed. 2001. History and memory in modern Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mitchell, W.J. T., 2000. Landscape and power. Chicago: The Chicago University Press.

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National Museum of Ireland, 2013, Natural History Museum Collections. [webpage] Available at: http://www.museum.ie/en/list/natural-historycollections.aspx [Accessed 15 April 2013]. National Parks & Wildlife Service, Wicklow Mountains National Park, 2011. Bats in Ireland [webpage] Available at: http://www.wicklowmountainsnationalpark. ie/Bats.html [Accessed 3 May 2011]. Ní Laoire, C., 2008. Complicating host-newcomer dualisms: Irish return migrants as home-comers or newcomers?. Translocations, 4(1), pp. 35–50. Office of Public Works. Phoenix Park, 2012, Phoenix Park About. [webpage] Available at: http://www.phoenixpark.ie/about/ [Accessed 2 March 2012]. Pine, E., 2011. The politics of Irish memory: performing remembrance in contemporary Irish culture. Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Ralph, D., 2009. “Home is where the heart is?” Understandings of “home” amongst Irish born return migrants. Irish Studies Review, 17(2), pp. 183–200. Ralph, D., 2011. Understanding home: the case of Irish-born return migrants from the United States, 1996–2006. Ph.D. University of Edinburgh. Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, 2013, Starlings. [webpage] Available at: http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpingbirds/decline/starlings.aspx [Accessed 24 April 2013]. Ross, A., 1996. Pagan Celtic Britain: studies in iconography and tradition. Chicago: Academic Chicago Publishers. Schechner, R., 2002. Performance studies: an introduction. London: Routledge. Smyth, C., 2005. Jaki Irvine: A Retrospective. Circa, 114, pp. 40–45. Stewart, B., 1999. Bram Stoker’s Dracula: possessed by the spirit of the nation? Irish University Review, 29(2), pp. 238–255. Walter, B., 2001. Outsiders in: whiteness, place and Irish women. London: Routledge.

Section III Global Culture and Consumption

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Chapter 8

Langue Sans Frontières: Finding The Irish Language in Canada1 Sarah McMonagle

Introduction: The Irish Language in Canada In Canada today, Irish-language learners may avail of a variety of formal and informal contexts. A number of higher-level institutions offer instruction in the language. The development of a multiculturalism policy from the 1960s sought a place for Canada’s ‘heritage languages’ and brought about the establishment of the so-called ‘ethnic’ chairs for the study of Canada’s heritage groups other than the British or French and their respective languages. Subsequently, a Chair of Celtic Studies was founded at the University of Ottawa, a Chair of Gaelic Studies at St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish and a Chair of Irish Studies at St. Mary’s University, Halifax. Elsewhere, the Celtic Studies programme at the University of St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto was born out of a strong research interest in Anglo-Irish literature. The School of Canadian Irish Studies at Concordia University in Montreal focuses on both the history and culture of Ireland and ‘the contribution of Irish immigrants in all regions of Canada to the social, cultural, economic, religions [sic], educational and political life of the country’ (Concordia University School of Canadian Irish Studies, http://cdnirish.concordia. ca). Thanks to such initiatives as the Ireland Canada University Foundation Irish Language Programme (established in 2009), Irish can continue to be taught and increasingly offered at Canadian universities. As well as the offer of instruction through university programmes, the Irish experience in Canada is also very much lived and remembered through informal Irish-language learning. As such, the Irish language resonates among those contemporary Canadians who have actual or cultural memories of migration from Ireland. In a memoir, John Donahue (1997, p. 71) recalled that he had inherited a prayer book which was brought over from Ireland by my ancestors, a prayer book written in Irish. My mother recalls that her grandmother could 1 This chapter was previously published under McMonagle, 2012a, Finding the Irish Language in Canada, New Hibernia Review, 16(1), pp. 134–149. I am grateful to the publishers and editor for permission to re-use this article for the current edition. A number of edits have been made from the original publication.

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Such adult learners of Irish play a significant part in the presence of the language in Canada. In several Canadian cities, volunteers conduct and maintain classes and comhrá (conversation) groups. The groups’ success has led to a network of sorts, attributable to the commitment of those choosing to learn or maintain Irish-language skills. This, in turn, has led to what is perhaps the most striking development for the Irish language outside of Ireland in recent history: the establishment of Gaeltacht Thuaisceart an Oileáin Úir (North American Gaeltacht) in Ontario in 2007. In policy terms, the Gaeltacht refers to those areas in Ireland that are officially recognised by the government as Irish-speaking.2 The notion of a Gaeltacht outside of Ireland may therefore seem somewhat implausible, being detached from the Irish language’s native environment. Yet a recent study on this project (McMonagle, 2012b) reveals a highly motivated group of language learners who support the North American Gaeltacht for educational and communicative purposes, as well as for the historical and symbolic significance to Irish diasporic identities in Canada. In this instance, the Gaeltacht is defined as ‘an area in which the Irish language is spoken as a community language and its cultures and traditions are very much alive and thriving’ (Gaeltacht Thuaisceart an Oileáin Úir, www.anghaeltacht.ca). The Gaeltacht continues to be a place of learning in Ireland. The site in Ontario is correspondingly dedicated to learning and speaking the Irish language (although it is not permanently inhabited by Irish speakers). The practical and symbolic aspects of this endeavour are positively viewed by those who avail of the facility and who recognise that opportunities to speak Irish are indeed rare in Canada. That an interest in the Irish language exists in Canada is unsurprising, given the presence of an Irish diaspora there. According to the 2006 Census of Canada, 4,354,155 respondents describe their ethnic origins as Irish3 (Statistics Canada, 2006). The ancestral or ethnic background of a learner often conflates with the motivation to learn a language, and it is certainly the case that a significant number of Irish-language learners in Canada claim to be descended from Irish immigrants. One learner describes their motivation as such: ‘First of all it is a question of heritage and identity. It is the language of my ancestors and is therefore part of who I am’ (McMonagle, 2012b, p. 415).

2 The Gaeltacht Bill of 2012 allows for the eventual re-evaluation of current Gaeltacht boundaries in Ireland (Irish Government News Service, 2012). 3 Of these, 3,863,125 identified being Irish as part of multiple responses, with 491,030 proclaiming ethnic Irish roots singularly.

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The Irish Language in Canada: From the Present to the Past? The establishment of Gaeltacht Thuaisceart an Oileáin Úir prompted the present author to investigate historical aspects of Irish migration and the Irish language, seemingly contained in the diasporic memory of many learners and speakers of Irish abroad. Library shelves and online catalogues show a regrettable dearth of scholarship on this topic, not just in Canada, but also in other parts of the world to which large numbers migrated from Ireland. There is, thus, a considerable discrepancy between the memories of present-day Irish-language enthusiasts in Canada, and a largely undocumented past of the Irish language outside of Ireland. Of course, it would be unsound to suggest a straightforward cause-and-effect relationship between contemporary memory constructions and sociolinguistic realities of the past. A collective or cultural memory of a group’s ancestral language often relies on imagery perpetuated through narratives of identity, and not necessarily based on solid knowledge – however that may be acquired – of historical linguistic behaviour and choices. Assman and Czaplicka (1995, p. 129) describe how cultural memory is maintained through fixing on ‘fateful events of the past’. In the stories of the Irish diaspora, ‘fateful events’ are those of emigration from Ireland, predominantly during the course of the nineteenth century. Emigration from Ireland during the nineteenth century was indeed largescale. Furthermore, it was during this period that Irish-language usage in Ireland most rapidly declined in the shift to English. Numerous accounts and studies authoritatively link the emigration of Irish speakers with the weakening of the language in Ireland at that time (Ó Cuív, 1951; de Fréine, 1978; Ó Murchú, 1985; Ó Huallacháin, 1994; Ó hIfearnáin, 1998; Mac Giolla Chríost, 2005; Crowley, 2008). But historical and sociolinguistic research has neglected analyses of the language outside of Ireland. Although outward migration is, inter alia, a familiar and well documented explanation for Irish-language decline, the fate of the language in places to which its speakers migrated remains less well known. From a present-day perspective, we know that in the ‘receiving’ societies, Irish most certainly did not endure as a community language acquired through natural and intergenerational transmission. The shift to the dominant, and therefore more socially expedient, register – which in Canada meant English and, in some instances, French – is understood. Yet it would remain a scholarly disservice to continue to ignore the Irish language in accounts of Irish migration based on this alone. Knowing that Irish-language speakers emigrated from Ireland presupposes that they settled elsewhere. And the latter part of that equation calls for some critical attention, at the very least. This chapter therefore offers a sociolinguistic and historiographical critique of the Irish language in Canada. It recounts what can be seen as a significant absence in both Irish diaspora and Irish language studies: namely, the fate of the language abroad. As such, it seeks to take part in a discussion aimed at correcting such absences, while responding to Ó Conchubhair’s (2008a, p. 38) remark that ‘the Irish language in North America has yet to receive sustained critical attention’.

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The study at hand focuses specifically on Canada, although Irish immigration and settlement obviously occurred in a range of places. This choice was prompted initially, as indicated above, by contemporary developments for Irish there. Yet case-specific studies should also serve to avoid generalisations that obscure the need for primary analyses. Where language shift has occurred (from, say, Irish to English or Irish to French), local contingencies in the host society will most certainly influence that shift, whether or not the process had already commenced in Ireland. The next section will describe the beginnings of that language shift in Ireland and the stigmatising effects of it on the Irish-speaking rural populations who sought to migrate. Irish Migration and Language Decline Although the Anglicisation of Ireland had been set in train through centuries of conquest and the instigation of the Penal Code in 1695, the subsumption of Ireland into the British state after 1800 saw the spread of the English language as the necessary tool of centralisation in politics, education and commerce. This was by no means unusual in Europe at that time with newly-established ‘nationstates’ assuming one language for unification and legitimacy. Ó Riagáin (1997: viii) notes that these languages were initially spoken by a minority within the territory of the state, yet they belonged to ‘a socially and politically dominant group’ and, therefore, were adopted by those in power to become the national language bolstered by state support. As such, the Parisian dialect became the French language. With the creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the English language was clearly politically dominant as the language of central government in Westminster and it had already assumed a position of social advantage as the language of the small yet powerful Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. The majority Irish-speaking population had been denied any benefits under that particular system so that by the time the Penal Laws were relaxed and the Union of Great Britain and Ireland came about: People intent on obtaining rights and benefits within the British system appreciated that there was no place in that system for a second language. Ability to communicate in English was a necessity for life and progress in Ireland. (Ó Huallacháin, 1994, p. 24)

Although English had been established as the language of power and social influence, Irish continued to be spoken at the grassroots level, particularly in rural populations. No official statistics on language usage were collected in Ireland until 1851, but a variety of statistical and parochial surveys from the first half of the nineteenth century have shown that Irish speakers resided in every county. They were most prevalent in Connaught, least prevalent in Leinster, and localised in areas of Ulster (Ó Cuív, 1951, pp. 19–22). Ó Cuív (1951, p. 22) suggests that Irish

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was spoken by over two million people in the first half of the nineteenth century. Ó Murchú (1985, p. 26) puts forward the estimates – although acknowledging that they may not be exact – that in 1820 there were 3.5 million Irish speakers in Ireland and in 1835 the figure had risen to four million. A rise in the number of Irish speakers at this time can be attributed to a rising population more generally from the late eighteenth century, which would subsequently slump in the wake of famine and mass emigration from the mid-nineteenth century. The increased number should not be construed as any sort of recovery from the language shift to English that was already in place. The rising birthrate occurred primarily among the rural poor who were still Irish-speaking; precisely those who sought opportunities to escape poverty. This meant that the process of Irish-language decline was compounded by unprecedented rural depopulation due to outward migration. For those who migrated to towns, linguistic assimilation seemed inevitable in the already established Englishspeaking networks. Emigration to Britain and the New World began to increase in the early part of the nineteenth century, in particular with the United Kingdom’s economic downturn following the Napoleonic wars when members of the various strata of Irish society sought their livelihoods elsewhere. Historical accounts and numerical estimates indicate that emigration from the second half of the nineteenth century was most devastating, with around five million people departing from Ireland between 1846 and 1901 alone (Crowley, 2008, p. 121). The massive surge in outward migration from the 1840s can be directly attributed to the potato famine, which Ó Conchubhair (2008b, p. 224) describes as the ‘singular event in 19th-century European history combined with industrialisation, urbanisation, and educational policy … where native Irish-speakers abandoned their language with a haste and endeavour…’ The famine had its most devastating consequences on the rural poor who, as indicated above, were most likely to be Irish-speaking. While English had been established as the language of state and mobility and therefore a means of linguistic capital, Irish had come to be associated with a social underclass. The decline of the language in Ireland thus took full effect at the grassroots, as speakers perished or migrated. Documenting Irish Migration: The Disappearance of the Irish Language The link between emigration and language decline, although multilayered, is explicit. The settlement of Irish-language speakers elsewhere and their subsequent linguistic behaviour is not as clear. A short study from Nic Craith and Leyland (1997) indicates that Irish speakers in nineteenth-century Britain were not unusual. And Nilsen (1997, p. 53) has documented the presence of Irish in nineteenthcentury New York, remarking that ‘although it is generally well known that New York City has been home to many generations of Irish immigrants, it is less well known that many of the Irish who arrived on these shores spoke a language other than English.’ This lack of awareness is perhaps the reason that ‘until recently Irish American historians have shown little desire or inclination to acknowledge

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the existence of Irish speakers’ in the United States (Nilsen, 1997). Historians of the Irish in Canada have shown a similar reluctance to investigate language issues, and in some instances may even be charged with denying the arrival of Irish speakers in Canada. If Irish speakers were present in nineteenth-century Britain and New York, then they were surely present in other parts of the world to which they migrated. This chapter seeks a continuation of this discussion in the context of Irish migration to Canada. The following section will therefore lay out the principal periods of migration, as researched and published by a number of historians in the field. Some of those historians overlook language issues, while others claim that Irish migrants were universally English-speaking when they arrived in Canada. The section then proceeds with a critique of the former claim, a discussion of the historical contingencies that underlay migration to the New World and an appraisal of the Anglophilia that has informed the historiography of the Irish in Canada. The Migration of the Irish (Language) to Canada The seasonal migration of Irish fishermen to eastern Canada can be traced back to the sixteenth century. One palpable example of interlinguistic influence is the Irish translation of Newfoundland (which joined Canada in 1949) as Talamh an Éisc, meaning Land of the Fish. The province is the only place outside of Ireland to have a non-derivative Irish place name. Although much migration to Newfoundland was seasonal, majority Irish communities had developed on the Avalon peninsula by the mid-eighteenth century. The growth in Irish numbers was reportedly so alarming to the authorities that a series of restrictions were put in place to curtail supposed Irish influence and fishermen were ordered back to Ireland at the end of the season (Coogan, 2002, p. 421). Other Irish got their ‘footing’ in Canada under the French regime in the seventeenth century (2002, p. 386). Members of the so-called ‘Wild Geese’, exiled to France and Spain after the Williamite Wars, constituted an Irish mercenary class who participated in the French colonial project in North America (Grace, 1993, p. 21; Coogan, 2002, p. 386). An Irish presence is thus noted in New France ‘well before the cession of the colony to the English’ (Grace, 1993, p. 22). It was, however, in the context of the British Empire that the principal period of Irish migration to Canada occurred, between 1815 and 1855. The nineteenthcentury Irish migrations to Canada happened in two key phases. The first comprised ‘better-off’ migrants following the end of the Napoleonic wars; the second brought those fleeing famine and destitution (cf. Houston and Smyth, 1990). Many migrants stayed near their points of entry at Quebec, Halifax and St John, though a good many continued south to the United States or west to present-day Ontario (the province in which the majority of Irish migrants who remained in Canada settled). These patterns of Irish emigration to and within North America are generally well known, and a discernible image of the Irish in the United States is alive on both

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sides of the Atlantic. This persisting identity can be traced to strongly identifiable Irish American communities in the United States, the reproduction of memories and identity in movies and music, and to some extent, to the efforts of the IrishAmerican Lobby in politics. No such image persists for the Irish in Canada. Nonetheless, the Irish comprised the largest non-French ethnic group in nineteenth-century Canada. Some historians have insisted on documenting the Irish migrations to Canada, highlighting that they deserve their own space in the story of the Irish diaspora (cf. Elliott, 1988; Wilson, 1989; Akenson, 1993). In particular, Akenson has been credited with ‘an almost single-handed battle for recognition of the Canadian Irish in the immigration stream to North America’ (Harris, 1999, p. 10). And yet a certain invisibility also attends the group in such accounts: Houston and Smyth (1990, p. 4) maintain that the Irish ‘became Canadians early in the creation of the country, and for that reason they have tended to disappear’. Nineteenth-century Ireland witnessed two dramatic phenomena that may lead to this assumption. Firstly, outward migration was unprecedented at that time and the Irish constituted a key group in the context of the British Empire at the time of Canadian Confederation in the 1860s. Secondly, the shift to English was already underway in Ireland and the migrating Irish most certainly assimilated to English – and, in some instances, to French – in Canada. However, although Irish eventually faded as a spoken language in Canada, this chapter contends that its ‘disappearance’ is largely implicated in historiography. This supposed ‘disappearance’ of an Irish identity in Canada must therefore be interrogated. The Irish made up a substantial portion of the population in the nineteenth century and contemporary identity constructions are based on a sense of Irishness from the past. In the first census of the Dominion of Canada in 1871, for which information was collected in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario, 24.3 per cent of those recorded were of Irish ethnicity. The English made up 20.3 per cent and the Scottish 15.8 per cent (Wilson, 1989, p. 11). Of course, the Irish migrations to Canada occurred within the context of the British Empire and census-takers’ differentiation between the constituent ‘nations’ may not always have been consistent. If the Irish ‘disappeared’ in British Canada, then one can suppose that the Irish language did too. A Critique of the Historiography Yet even those historians mentioned above who have specifically sought to document Irish emigration to Canada appear to have overlooked the question of language. Wilson states (Wilson, 1989, p. 4) that ‘most Irish migrants had already learned English before they left home.’ If this statement is true, then one might understand why historians fail to cover the Irish language in their respective overviews of the Irish in Canada; but the assertion is, for the most part, put forward without evidence. Simply to state that this large group of migrants was generally English-speaking without further analysis or discussion does not suffice. Those who left Ireland in the early nineteenth century were predominantly Protestants from

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central and eastern Ulster. Twentieth-century events and continuing sectarianism in Northern Ireland may incline some to suppose that these migrants did not speak Irish, as historiography and policy-making have closely associated the language with Catholicism and Irish republicanism (Pritchard, 2004; McMonagle, 2010). Yet it has been amply documented that many nineteenth-century Protestants spoke Irish – some as native speakers, some to proselytise Irish-speaking Catholics and some out of liberal educational and revivalist interest (Blaney, 1996; Pritchard, 2004; Hughes, 2006). The second large group of migrants from Ireland was those escaping conditions of famine and poverty. This group most certainly contained Irish speakers from rural Ireland. From his earliest work on the Irish education system, Akenson (1970, p. 378) claims that official statistics from the 1851 census in Ireland ‘suggest that Irish had ceased to be the national language long before mid-century.’ Although he does not qualify what he means by ‘long before’, Akenson (1993, p. 39) reiterates the claim in his later work on the Irish diaspora: ‘long before the Famine, most Irish people were able to speak English’ and follows this statement with, again, statistics from the 1851 census. That particular census was the first year for which official statistics are available regarding language in Ireland and a time when the devastating effects of the potato famine on the language can be identified. It is regrettable that the 1841 census contained no such question. Indeed, Adams (1973, p. 50) suggests that the very reason the question appeared in 1851 was to measure the apparent effects of the famine on language usage. Questions surrounding the accuracy of language data retrieved from this census have been raised for some time now; the question regarding language was actually a footnote to a question about literacy. It is highly probable that it was overlooked by a number of census enumerators, leading to an underestimation of Irish-language speakers (Adams, 1973; 1975; 1979). Furthermore, the adequacy of language-related data from consecutive censuses since 1851 can be, and has been, questioned (cf. Hindley, 1990; Ó hIfearnáin, 1998; FitzGerald, 2005). The concerns relate largely to political and social expediency of the day. Census data are generally problematic as they rely on the subjective assessment of participants. The 1851 figures are more than likely underestimates, given the supposed link between the Irish language, poverty and the underprivileged. At the time, the stigma of poverty and illiteracy led to what Grillo (1989, pp. 173–174) terms an ‘ideology of contempt’ towards the subordinate language; it can be safely assumed that many Irish speakers did not report themselves as such. Because Irish held no status in the key domains of politics, education and commerce, the language was most certainly in decline. For the same reason, we must also assume that the stigma of being an Irish-speaker was pronounced and therefore inclined to be concealed in the context of the colonial state. It is likely that the fate of the Irish language within Ireland was mirrored in the experience of migration. In the first instance, many Irish perished from starvation and disease at home. So too did many who fled to Canada at Grosse Île and in

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the towns of Kingston and Toronto. Secondly, during the nineteenth century, a significant proportion of the Irish population was bilingual and on the way to becoming daily English speakers. For those bilinguals who migrated to Britain, Canada, the United States or Australia, English was also to become their dayto-day reality. As Crowley (2008, p. 128) says, they viewed English ‘as a way to improve their immediate material lot, not least in that it opened up the possibilities offered by migration and emigration.’ Such a viewpoint persisted well into the twentieth century, while emigration remained a feature of Irish life. Akenson (1993, p. 39) remarks: ‘It is hardly an accident that the overwhelming bulk of the Irish diaspora went to points in the English-speaking world.’ At home or abroad, the English language was viewed as linguistic capital. Historical Contingencies and Anglophilia Akenson’s view of the choices afforded to the migrating Irish is too narrow for a number of reasons that will be outlined here. First, the shift to English occurred at a time of political, economic and social dislocation; the language change can hardly be viewed as a free and scrupulous choice made with a view towards a brighter future in the New World. And migration alone cannot explain the full extent of the effects of famine on the Irish language. Crowley (2008, p. 121) describes the undermining consequences of ‘helplessness, loss, panic, and uncertainty’ which must be accounted for in the loss of language and would have accompanied the migrants to their destinations. Second, some 300,000 Irish migrants received assistance to travel to North America. With the economic downturn in the United Kingdom following the Napoleonic Wars, fears spread that Irish migrants would head for Britain which was already dealing with issues of population growth and lawlessness (Moran, 2004: 19). Emigration to Britain’s colonies in North America, in particular after the loss of the thirteen colonies to the American revolutionaries, was deemed both a remedy to overcrowding at home and to defence of the Crown abroad. The British government, landlords, poor law unions and philanthropists granted passage to ‘British subjects’ to British North America, what is known today as Canada. Settlers from Ireland and Britain were also deemed desirable as a means to extend British markets. In this sense, it is hardly an accident that many Irish journeyed to Canada. Their migration was planned and assisted. Third, Canada, like the United States, is a settler society. Between 1815 and 1914, some 35 million individuals migrated from Europe to the Americas (Grace, 1993, p. 27), and not just those from supposedly English-speaking places. German and Norwegian communities, for example, who arrived in North America in the latter half of the century, certainly had not been Anglicised. Yet they chose these particular destinations because they were settler societies. Migration to the Englishspeaking world highlights, in the first instance, a historically contingent trend, and what is more, the British influence in overseas expansion. That very influence brought about the historic, institutionalised Anglophilia of Canadian government

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and law, a major source of tension and conflict for Francophone Canada. As Fraser (2007, p. 14) describes, the rules for bilingualism were established on the first day of Confederation debates, setting a paradigm that persisted for a century: ‘the operating assumption was that the English did not understand French at all, while the French were expected to understand English.’ The dominant position of English in Canada mirrored its position in nineteenth-century Ireland. A final point to be made in relation to Akenson’s statement that the Irish sought out English-speaking societies is that institutionalised Anglophilia can also influence scholarship. The tendency to homogenise migrant groups has been criticised elsewhere (Toner, 1988, pp. 219–220). For instance, although the majority of Irish immigrants in Canada settled in present-day Ontario, they also had a significant presence in nineteenth-century Quebec, Canada’s largest province. Orphaned children from Grosse Île were adopted into families in Quebec and allowed to keep their names. Irish surnames are visible there today: a prominent example would be Claude Ryan, director of the Quebecois newspaper, Le Devoir, and later leader of the Parti Libéral du Québec. Sylvain may derive from Sullivan. One can visit municipalities with names such as Mayo and walk along Rue McMahon in Quebec City. Quebec City saw the beginnings of an Irish settlement as early as 1816 (Grace, 1993, p. 30). By the mid-nineteenth century, the Irish population of the city was estimated to be 9,120, an 800 per cent increase over the previous thirty years (Grace, 1993, p. 60). Yet the received historiography has characterised the Irish as ‘a very unstable population’ in nineteenth-century Quebec, migrating to cities, westwards to Ontario, and south to the United States (Grace, 1993, p. 63; Linteau, Durocher and Robert, 1983, p. 129). Out-migration was a major factor in Quebec’s decreasing Irish population as the century progressed. However, Grace (1993, p. 63) also notes that ‘integration into the local population through intermarriage and perhaps through the school system’ should be taken into account. Those Irish who settled in Quebec must, then, have been linguistically mixed. Rudin (1985, p. 110) reports that in 1931, 15 per cent of all Quebecers of Irish origin had French as their mother tongue, due to Irish-French Catholic marriages. The very title of Rudin’s book refers to ‘English-speaking Quebec’, which implies that the Irish belonged under the English-speaking umbrella to begin with. He makes the assumption explicit when he states that ‘it is possible to use the British origin population as a surrogate for those with English as their mother tongue’ (Rudin, 1985, p. 27). This would surely prove a poor surrogate for those Irish who migrated from Irish-speaking areas in Ireland or for those Hebrideans who settled in the eastern townships of Quebec, who spoke Gaelic prior to acquiring English and whose descendants eventually acquired French (Bennett, 2003). Grace (1993, pp. 72, 101) also provides references to Irish settlers who integrated into French-speaking communities in the Laurentides and Lanaudiere, and provides evidence of English-speaking Irish migrants through the growth of Catholic communities in Anglophone Montreal. Yet, in what is otherwise a thorough excavation of the many aspects of Irish contributions to Quebec society,

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Grace overlooks the question of which language the Irish spoke on arrival; only in the closing section of the book does he ask whether the Irish language played a role in the process of linguistic assimilation (p. 134). Although he does not attempt to answer this himself, the question alone opens a space for the Irish language in accounts of migration to Canada – a space that has been closed through the standard narrative that the language simply was not there. Having challenged that narrative to some degree, this chapter proceeds with discussion of a number of primary and secondary references to the presence of the Irish language in Canada. The former are ongoing, the latter scattered. Altogether they indicate that focused examinations – rather than assumptions – can lead us to a better understanding of language in the history of the Irish diaspora. Finding the Irish language in Canada Although the numbers of English speakers in Ireland grew rapidly in the nineteenth century, this should not lead us to presuppose that Irish migrants were universally English-speaking when they arrived in Canada – especially given that outward migration was a major causative factor in the decline of the Irish language in Ireland. Statistics on the Irish language in Ireland were unreliable, but they were wholly absent in Canada at that time. Bumsted, in Canada’s Diverse Peoples (2003, p. 110), says that, Detailed public record keeping was only in its infancy in the first half of the nineteenth century, as was public regulation of the movement of people, even across oceans and borders … Some ships dropped off their human cargoes on remote beaches, where no counting or processing was ever done.

Without the relevant statistics, claims that either deny or assert the arrival of Irish speakers in Canada can be charged with being based on assumptions. Elliott, noting that passenger lists are absent for the large-scale Irish migrations to Canada, attempts to circumvent this dearth of data by suggesting to study the migrants individually to determine their social and regional origins, their economic circumstances at home, their dates of departure and subsequent migrational histories, their process of settlement in Canada and their lives there, and then to move beyond to try to understand the key decisions of the life course in terms of the people’s own aims and strategies. (1988, p. 4)

Elliott provides such a focused case study of Protestant families who migrated to Canada from North Tipperary in the first half of the nineteenth century. Relying on archival evidence, he has uncovered that this particular group of migrants were English-speaking, Irish having died out in the area by 1820 (Elliott, 1988). The

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‘new approach’ proposed in the subtitle of his book is precisely to move away from overviews and universal claims which have been shown to be flawed. Primary Investigations Archival evidence, naturally, is key to historical compilation as well as to critical analysis of historical issues that tend to be influenced by contemporary perceptions. Peter Toner at the University of New Brunswick has uncovered Irish speakers in the 1901 Censuses in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, most of whom were born there, were Protestant and whose ancestors were pre-famine migrants.4 According to Toner, the ancestors of these Irish-speaking Protestants mostly came from Donegal, Derry, Tyrone and Fermanagh, with some also coming from Armagh, Leitrim and Kerry (Personal communications November 2008, June 2009, March 2012). Similarly, Lesa Ní Mhunghaile at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick has uncovered Irish speakers in Ontario, primarily around the Ottawa Valley area, in her primary investigation of the 1901 census. In some instances, Irish was being passed down from generation to generation (Personal communication, March 2011). Such investigation is groundbreaking in that it directly contradicts the traditional assumptions held by historians of the Irish in Canada. These findings should not only enlighten the historiography of the Irish language there, but also critique essentialised notions of origins and identity in Ireland too. Through archival investigation, linguistic habits can be better assessed on a case-by-case basis, as indicated by Elliott, Toner and Ní Mhunghaile. The records of those migrants who were assisted in their passage from Ireland would most certainly be of interest to further uncovering numbers of Irish speakers in Canada. In the 1880s, James Hack Tuke assisted migrants from Belmullet, Newport, Clifden, Oughterard and the Aran Islands in the west of Ireland to travel to Canada (Tuke, 1885; Kohli, 2003; Moran, 2004). Language must surely have been an issue as these areas were majority Irish-speaking at that time and continue to comprise present-day Gaeltachtaí. Moran (2004, p. 177) notes that at least one family member had to be English-speaking in order to receive assistance through the Tuke scheme. One member of the Tuke Committee (1885, p. 140) remarked from their time in Clifden in 1882: ‘“Irish” is the language usually spoken, although it is by no means uncommon to find among the children a knowledge of English.’ Further studies of a focused nature would enrich and build upon the histories of the Irish migrations, both for language issues and for other sociocultural matters. This chapter seeks to develop arguments for more rigorous investigation of language in the Irish experience of migration. The historical accounts discussed thus far have succeeded in establishing a distinct place for the Canadian Irish in the literature on immigration to North America. However, habitual and generalised 4 I wish to thank Professor Toner for sharing his research findings with me and for continuing communication on the topic of recovering the Irish language in Canada.

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approaches to language have been found wanting. The primary analyses raised here, some of which are ongoing, ought to revise and expand academic and public perceptions of the history of the Irish language to include it in the diasporic experience in Canada. Secondary References A synthesis of further references, too, from secondary literature offers revealing insights into linguistic behaviour. Enthusiastically, and in direct contrast to Wilson and Akenson, Mac Aonghusa has claimed that the majority of migrants to North America in the nineteenth century were Irish-speaking, many of them monoglot. His zealous claim may be explained by the fact that he considers the Irish language to be ‘the most Irish thing about Ireland’, to which everything else is ‘secondary’ (MacAonghusa, 1988, p. 711). Yet he does cite some instances of the visibility of the Irish language in Canada’s history. In particular, he discusses the role of the language in Newfoundland, or Talamh an Éisc. Other authors suggest that the Irish language was so commonplace in Newfoundland in the 1800s that this in itself was unremarkable: …one ought not to be surprised that there is so little allusion to the fact that Irish was spoken extensively or that it was spoken at all for the simple reason that in the Irish and Newfoundland ambience of the eighteenth century the linguistic situation of Irish being spoken extensively was one of the données of everyday life. (Byrne, 1988, p. 3)

Just as in Ireland, usage there gradually gave way to the dominance of English. One reason given for the decline of Irish in Newfoundland, and in particular on the Avalon Peninsula, was the introduction of formal education. In 1833, the Presentation Order of Nuns from Ireland developed a school system throughout the area to attend to the children of the ‘lower class’ where Irish ‘does not appear in any of their surviving school curricula’ (Foster, 1977, pp. 42–43). Among the Sisters of Mercy, whose mission was to ‘provide liberal education for the children, particularly for the daughters, of the noticeable Irish middle and upper class’, Foster (1997, pp. 43–44) notes that Irish was never among the subjects taught. These references allude to some sort of presence for Irish, albeit a declining one. Other sources indicate active Irish-language usage at this time. For example, Kenneth Nilsen (1996, p. 257) has found that the Irish language was used to proselytise Roman Catholics to Protestantism in New Brunswick in the 1830s. The annals of Newfoundland’s St. Bonaventure’s College, established in 1856 to prepare young men for the priesthood, refer to the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language (Foster, 1977, p. 45), indicating that revivalist trends in Ireland found resonance among communities abroad. There are also records of this same Society in New York at that time (Crowley, 1996, p. 111). Douglas Hyde,

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of course, travelled to New York and to New Brunswick in the early twentieth century seeking support for the language revival. Conclusion: Irish and the Canadian Mosaic Although documented histories of the Irish have either ignored or rejected any role for the Irish language in Canada, the synthesis of the many and scattered references to the language responds to this gap in scholarship. The information presented here indicates that the Irish language had a presence in Canada in the nineteenth century, and also that speakers eventually assimilated to English, and to a certain extent, to French. Moreover, the evidence clearly indicates that there is scope for much further research in this area. While this particular enquiry takes issue with the prevailing narrative that language was not an issue for the migrating Irish, that certainly does not close the matter. If anything, the evidence raises more questions than it answers. For instance, the evidence presented thus far has sought to avoid making any generalisations about the Irish migrations, diaspora or Irish language by focusing solely on Canada. Yet Canada’s extraordinary regional and cultural diversity must also be recognised if we are to gain a clearer understanding of these matters. The experiences of the Irish educational orders on the Avalon Peninsula will most certainly not match those of the labouring and highly mobile Irish in Quebec. An Irish farm settlement in Ontario may tell a different story to expansionist settlements in Western Canada following Confederation. Regional and social emphases will materialise from the ongoing and emerging studies mentioned previously, and will – and should – drive any future analyses of this topic. Here, we might look to the research of Margaret Bennett concerning Gaelicspeaking Hebrideans in the eastern townships of Quebec. Bennett (2003, p. 6) takes note of the background of these Scottish migrants, ‘many of whom were monoglot as they had no need of the English language in Lewis or Harris.’ Information concerning the geographic and sociolinguistic backgrounds of the Irish, too, ought to give a clearer picture of linguistic integration through immigration. It is difficult to estimate whether migrants from, say, ‘Ulster’, rather than a more specific locale, would have been Irish- or English-speaking. We know that Belfast has been predominantly English-speaking from the seventeenth century on, and that Irish survived as a native language in parts of Counties Tyrone and Antrim into the twentieth century. Specific information on where migrants came from, as well as where they ended up, will tell us so much more about their linguistic behaviour and choices. Bennett (2003, p. xvii) maintains that Canada’s cultural diversity may only be understood by looking at it ‘piece by piece’. This is a pressing consideration, given the fact that Canada is widely construed as a multicultural ‘mosaic’, wherein identity and language are foremost. One contemporary learner of Irish refers to their own ancestry as part of a modern, multicultural Canada:

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My great grandparents were born in Ireland and we have always taken pride in being of Irish descent. Canada is multicultural, which basically means we keep the culture of our ancestors and blend the rest. Thus, my family refer to ourselves as ‘Irish’ even though we are born in Canada. (McMonagle, 2012b, p. 416)

And it is indeed remarkable that in a country noted for celebrating its multicultural heritage, Irish identities have been neglected in analysis. Scottish Gaelic has maintained a distinct cultural and symbolic presence in the Canadian Maritimes. Williams (1991, p. 36) states that ‘Gaelic is an historically significant “other language” in the cultural mosaic of Canada’. That is to say, Gaelic offers something other than the well-known examples of Franco-Anglophone relations or the linguistic needs of immigrants in Canada. Irish also ought to be deemed culturally significant in this respect due to its historical, yet largely undocumented, presence in Canada and to its traceability and celebration in the present day. Where the Irish language has ceased to be spoken, its distinguishing features have found their way into the ‘brogue’ or ‘twang’ of the Canadian Irish, as documented in the case of the Ottawa Valley settlers (Trew, 2001, p. 227). Like Scottish Gaelic, Irish did not survive as a community language in the Maritimes, yet it can be detected in Newfoundland English today, in both the distinguished accent associated with the province and in its vocabulary (cf. Story, Kirwin and Widdowson, 1999). Enthusiasts of Scottish Gaelic avail of facilities to learn and speak the language in the Canadian Maritimes as it, too, ceased to be transmitted between generations. Founded in 1938, Colaisde Na Ghàidhlig (The Gaelic College) is dedicated to the teaching and learning of Gaelic arts, culture and language (The Gaelic College, www.gaeliccollege.edu). Edwards (1991, p. 295) maintains that the learning of Gaelic as a second language among enthusiasts in the Maritimes illustrates ‘a continuity of culture without a continuity of original group language in its ordinary, communicative sense’. The Irish language, too, has contemporary resonance for those Canadians who have actual or folk memories of migration from Ireland and who learn the language accordingly. One contemporary learner describes their attachment to the language as such: My grandfather emigrated from west Cork to Newfoundland after the civil war. He spoke Irish, but my Dad and his siblings only reluctantly [sic] in their community in Newfoundland, despite being surrounded by Irish and Irish descent. As my father got older he regretted not paying more attention, and his experience stuck with me. (McMonagle, 2012b, p. 416)

We already see some acknowledgment of the historic presence of Irish in Canada, in such efforts as the maintenance of artifacts like prayer books in library and personal collections. Symbolic significance is traceable in contemporary efforts to promote Irish culture. One self-identifying Irish-Canadian sees the establishment

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of Gaeltacht Thuaisceart an Oileáin Úir as ‘an homage to Canada’s history because so many Irish speakers emigrated to Canada from Ireland’ (McMonagle, 2012b, p. 420). We also see acknowledgment of the historic presence of Irish in Canada in the contributions of higher education. The Chair of Celtic Studies at the University of Ottawa, for instance, sees its role in part as giving ‘Canadians an opportunity to learn the languages and cultures of peoples who have had a formative role in the settling and development of the Ottawa Valley’ (University of Ottawa Chair of Celtic Studies, www.modernlanguages.uottawa.ca/celtic.html). It is hoped that more detailed and focused case studies will emerge from the ongoing primary investigations referenced in this chapter, as well as from challenges to the standard narrative that has dominated historical accounts of the Irish in Canada. Those studies will surely make use of archives, census data, buried secondary references and anecdotal evidence. After all, the experiences of the Irish abroad are surely as varied and multi-layered as the Canadian ‘mosaic’. Future analyses of the Irish language in Canada will enrich the ‘mosaic’, find a place for it in Canadian history and a space for it in the relevant scholarship. References Adams, G.B., 1973. Language in Ulster, 1820–1850. Ulster Folklife, 19, pp. 50– 55. Adams, G.B., 1975. Language census problems, 1851–1911. Ulster Folklike, 21, pp. 68–76. Adams, G.B., 1979. The validity of language census figures in Ulster, 1851–1911. Ulster Folklife, 25, pp. 113–122. Akenson, D.H., 1970. The Irish education experiment: the national system of education in the nineteenth century. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Akenson, D.H., 1993. The Irish diaspora: a primer. Toronto: PD Meany. Assman, J. and Czaplicka, J., 1995. Collective memory and cultural identity. New German Critique, 65, pp. 125–133. Bennett, M., 2003. Oatmeal and the Catechism: Scottish Gaelic settlers in Quebec. Edinburgh: John Donald. Blaney, R., 1996. Presbyterians and the Irish language. Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation and Ultach Trust. Bumstead, J.M., 2003. Canada’s diverse peoples: a reference sourcebook. Santa Barbara; Denver; Oxford: ABC-CLIO. Byrne, C., 1988. Irish language in Newfoundland. In: G.W. MacLennan, ed. Proceedings of the First North American Congress of Celtic Studies held at Ottawa, 26–30 March, 1986. Ottawa: Chair of Celtic Studies, University of Ottawa, pp. 1–8. Colaisde Na Ghàidhlig (The Gaelic College). Available at http://gaeliccollege. edu/ [Accessed 21 August 2013].

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Concordia University School of Canadian Irish Studies. Available at http:// cdnirish.concordia.ca [Accessed 19 August 2013]. Coogan, T.P., 2002. Wherever green is worn: the story of the Irish diaspora. London: Arrow. Crowley, T., 1996. Language in history: theories and texts. London: Routledge. Crowley, T., 2008. Wars of words: the politics of language in Ireland, 1537–2004. Oxford: Oxford University Press. de Fréine, S., 1978. The great silence. Cork: Mercier Press. Donahue, J., 1997. Growing up Irish in rural Quebec. Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 23(1), pp. 67–74. Edwards, J., 1991. Gaelic in Nova Scotia. In: C.H. Williams, ed. Linguistic minorities, society and territory. Clevedon; Philadelphia; Adelaide: Multilingual Matters, pp. 269–297. Elliott, B.S., 1988. Irish migrants in the Canadas: a new approach. Montreal; Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Fitzgerald, G., 2005. Ireland in the world. Further reflections. Dublin: Liberties Press. Foster, F.G., 1977. Irish in Avalon: an investigation of the Gaelic language in Eastern Newfoundland. In: H.J. Paddock, ed. Languages in Newfoundland and Labrador. St. John’s: Department of Linguistic, Memorial University. Fraser, G., 2006. Sorry, I don’t speak French: confronting the Canadian crisis that won’t go away. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. Gaeltacht Thuaisceart an Oileáin Úir (North American Gaeltacht). Available at www.anghaeltacht.ca [Accessed 19 August 2013]. Grace, R., 1993. The Irish in Quebec: an introduction to the historiography. Quebec: Institut quebecois de la recherche sur la culture. Grillo, R., 1989. Dominant languages. Language and hierarchy in Britain and France. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harris, R.M., 1999. Introduction. In: A. Gribben, ed. The Great Famine and the Irish diaspora in America. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, pp. 1–20. Hindley, R., 1990. The death of the Irish language: a qualified obituary. London: Routledge. Houston, C.J., and Smyth, W.J., 1990. Irish emigration and Canadian settlement. Patterns, links and letters. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Hughes, A.J., 2006. Robert MacAdam and the nineteenth-century Irish language revival. In F. de Brún, ed. Belfast and the Irish language. Dublin: Four Courts Press, pp. 43–64. Irish Government News Service, 2012. Minister of State McGinley welcomes the Government’s decision regarding the Gaeltacht Bill. Press release, 8 February 2012. Linteau, P-A., Durocher, R., Robert, J-C., 1983. Quebec: a history, 1867–1929. Toronto: James Lorime.

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MacAonghusa, P., 1988. Reflections on the fortunes of the Irish language in Canada, with some reference to the fate of the language in the United States. In: R. O’Driscoll and L. Reynolds, eds. The untold story: the Irish in Canada, Volume II. Toronto: Celtic Arts of Canada, pp. 711–717. McMonagle, S., 2010. Deliberating the Irish language in Northern Ireland: from conflict to multiculturalism. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 31(3), pp. 253–270. McMonagle, S., 2012a. Finding the Irish language in Canada. New Hibernia Review, 16(1), pp. 134–149. McMonagle, S., 2012b. Gaeltacht Thuaisceart an Oileáin Úir: post-territorial Irishness and Canadian multiculturalism. Irish Studies Review, 20(4), pp. 407– 425. Moran, G., 2004. Sending out Ireland’s poor: assisted emigration to North America in the nineteenth century. Dublin: Four Courts Press. Nic Craith, M. and Leyland J., 1997. The Irish language in Britain: a case study of North West England. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 10(3), pp. 171–185. Nilsen, K.E., 1996. The Irish Language in New York, 1850–1900. In: R. Baynor and T. Meagher, eds. The New York Irish. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 252–274. Ó Conchubhair, B., 2008a. Cad chuige an Ghaeilge san ollscolaíocht? / Why Irish in acadaemia? In: B. Ó Conchubhair, ed. Why Irish? Galway: Arlen Publications, pp. 11–42. Ó Conchubhair, B., 2008b. The global diaspora and the ‘new’ Irish (language). In: C. Nic Pháidín and S. Ó Cearnaigh, eds. A new view of the Irish language. Dublin: Cois Life, pp. 224–248. Ó Cuív, B., 1951. Irish dialects and Irish-Speaking districts. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Ó hIfearnáin, T., 1998. Irish. In: A. Ó Corráin and S. Mac Mathúna, eds. Minority languagein Scandinavia, Britain and Ireland. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, pp. 199–220. Ó Huallacháin, C., 1994. The Irish and Irish: a sociolinguistic analysis of the relationship between a people and their Language. Dublin: Irish Franciscan Office. Ó Murchú, M., 1985. The Irish language. Dublin: Government Publications. Ó Riagáin, P., 1997. Language policy and social reproduction: Ireland 1893– 1993. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mac Giolla Chríost, D., 2005. The Irish language in Ireland. From Goídel to globalisation. Oxford; New York: Routledge. Pritchard, R., 2004. Protestants and the Irish language: historical heritage and current attitudes in Northern Ireland. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 25(1), pp. 62–82. Rudin, R., 1985. The forgotten Quebecers: a history of English-speaking Quebec, 1759–1980. Quebec: Institut quebecois de recherche sur la culture.

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Statistics Canada, 2006. Ethnic origins, 2006 counts, for Canada, provinces and territories – 20% sample data. [online] Available at: www12.statcan.gc.ca/ census-recensement/index-eng.cfm [Accessed 10 September 2012]. Story, G.M, Kirwin, W.T., Widdowson, J.D.A., 1999[1982]. Dictionary of Newfoundland English. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Toner, P., 1988. ‘Lifting the mist: recent studies on the Scots and Irish’, Acadiensisi, 18(1), pp. 215–226. Trew, J., 2001. Ottawa Valley Irish: place, culture and identity. In: J. Keshe and N. St-Onge, eds. Ottawa: making a capital/Construire une capitale. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, pp. 223–237. Tuke, J.H., 1885. Mr Tuke’s fund for assisted emigration, 1882–1885. Trinity College Dublin Library Collection. University of Ottawa Chair of Celtic Studies. [online] Available at: www. modernlanguages.uottawa.ca/celtic.html [Accessed 19 August 2013] Williams, C.H., 1991. Linguistic minorities: west European and Canadian perspectives. In: C.H. Williams, ed. Linguistic minorities, society and territory. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 1–43. Wilson, D.A., 1989. The Irish in Canada. Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association.

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Chapter 9

‘What Use Is It Here?’: Sociability and Benevolence in Wellington’s Orange Order 1870–1930 G.E. Horn There may have been a need of Orangeism once, though that we doubt, but what use is it here save to embitter our Catholic colonists? (Anon, 1880)

Introduction Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Orange Order provided many Irish Protestant migrants with an important institutional apparatus through which they could maintain connections with their homeland and develop relationships in the new world. For those migrants who became members of the Order, it reinforced political motivation, cultural continuity and ethical certainty. Equally importantly, it afforded members an associational structure which allowed them to access opportunities for employment, sociability and mutual aid. Although these associational aspects of Orangeism have received some treatment with respect to Canada (Houston and Smith, 1978) and northern England (MacRaild, 2005b) they have been largely ignored within the New Zealand literature which has, understandably, focussed on political and sectarian issues. Sweetman’s exploratory essay on Orangeism in New Zealand (2006) is an exception to this trend, describing the institution’s appeal to Irish Protestants in the antipodes as being based on its ability to provide fraternalism, mutualism and, through its rituals and public activities, an ‘escape from the mundane’. Taking Sweetmen’s claims as a starting point this chapter looks to explore the social functions of Orangeism in New Zealand so as to illustrate the role which lodges played in the lives of the institution’s membership. Doing this augments our understanding of why and how Orangeism became popular in that country demonstrating that its attractiveness to potential members was not exclusively based on ideological concerns. The chapter commences with a brief overview of Irish migration to New Zealand in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and provides a discussion of the development of the Orange Order in the colony. It moves on to examine the areas of sociability and mutualism, as well as the role that the Order, as an institution, had in bringing together disparate and informal Irish Protestant social networks. Using the example of the Orange Order in Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city, between 1870 and 1930, it argues that these aspects of the Order were

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important for a deepening sense of an Orange community. At the same time, they also represented some of the ways in which Irish-born, Orange migrants were being drawn into sets of wider social networks. In this regard, Orangeism is just one example of the associational structures underpinning the pan-British identity which Belich (2001) identifies as emerging in New Zealand from the 1880s. New Zealand’s Irish Population Estimates vary as to the extent of migration from Ireland to New Zealand. The first comprehensive study of Irish migration to that country suggested the figure between 1840 and 1930 to be in the region of 150,000 migrants, reaching a peak of 51,400 in 1886 (Akenson, 1990). New Zealand was neither an obvious or easy choice for potential Irish migrants and peaked as a civilian migrant destination only during times when perceived economic opportunities there were at height or when the cost of passage was limited. The former occurred when the Otago and West Coast gold-rushes of the 1860s brought large numbers of Irish to the colony for the first time (McCaskill, 1956; Brosnahan, 1999); the latter when the colonial government of Julius Vogel encouraged mass migration from Britain and Ireland in the 1870s. Vogel initiated an ambitious programme of increased immigration, to be encouraged through assisted and nominated passage schemes, combined with the ‘closer settlement’ of rural New Zealand. The resultant influx of migrants raises two issues of interest for this chapter. The first is one of chronology: although the Orange Order existed in New Zealand from the 1840s it was not until Irish migration reached its peak in the 1870s that it began to develop regular and widespread formal structures across the colony. The second issue is that of location: while the lower North Island, the area on which this study focusses, had experienced relatively little Irish migration previously, the Vogel Scheme’s attempts to encourage intensive small farming combined with bush clearance schemes and infrastructural initiatives not only facilitated migration from Ireland, and elsewhere, but also drew both new and established migrants to the lower North Island (Borrie, 1991). By 1881, Wellington city and the surrounding districts were home to a rapidly increasing Irish-born population of over 4,690 people, and the numbers continued to grow for the following 25 years (Horn, 2010a). This is in contrast to the rest of New Zealand where Irish immigration declined sharply from 1880, when the provision of assisted passages ceased as a result of the deteriorating New Zealand economy (Phillips and Hearn, 2007: 35–6). A final point to consider in relation to New Zealand’s Irish population is its denominational composition. The most authoritative recent study, the Peopling of New Zealand Project, suggests that Protestants accounted for over 40 per cent of the colony’s Irish-born population from 1840 to 1915, with most of these originating from Ulster. The study also shows that this over-representation was consistent throughout the period with the pattern strengthening over time (Phillips,

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2006). Indeed, from 1905 to 1930, Protestants, largely although not exclusively from Ulster, provided an absolute majority of the dominion’s Irish migrants. The same data also demonstrates that Ulster was the largest single provincial source of Irish migrants to New Zealand and that this flow drew heavily on the province’s Protestant population, Catholics making up 10 per cent or less of the decennial migrant flows from 1840–1945. Unsurprisingly, Ulster migrants and Protestants were strongly represented within Wellington’s Irish population, although at a less pronounced level than elsewhere in New Zealand (Horn, 2010a). This chapter then is based on documents drawn from a city and surrounding districts that was experiencing a notable increase in its Irish population much of which was composed of Ulster-born Protestants. Orangeism and Migrant Irish Protestant Populations These conditions meant that Wellington in the 1870s was potentially fertile ground for the spread of Orangeism. International studies suggest, however, that this spread was neither inevitable nor restricted to places where these factors were in operation. MacRaild (2005b) emphasises the importance of Irish Protestant migration to the Order in the north of England in the formation of Orange lodges in that region and, for example, ascribes the strength of the Order in Barrow-onFurness to the arrival of Belfast shipyard workers. On the other hand, Fitzpatrick’s (2005) study of the organisation in South Australia argues that the Order’s success in the state relied on the adaptability of the Order’s structures to meet the local situation by suppressing intra-Protestant competition and rivalry. Kaufmann’s (2007) comparative study found that Orangeism in two migratory destinations (Scotland and Ontario) was connected to the strength of Irish Protestant migration and opposition to increased Catholic migration. This was not the case in a third destination, Newfoundland, where Kaufmann considered rural settlement patterns to be the important contributory factor to the Order’s strength. Studies of the institution in New Zealand (Coleman, 2010 and Horn, 2010b) have suggested that during the 1870s, when its membership and the number of lodges were expanding, the Orange Order relied heavily on the large number of Irish Protestant migrants in New Zealand. In subsequent decades, however, the organisation attracted a majority of its membership from across the United Kingdom and further afield. Orangeism in New Zealand New Zealand Orangeism prior to 1930 can be divided, albeit crudely, into three periods. The first of these ran from 1843, when the first New Zealand lodge was founded in Auckland by James Carlton Hill, through to the late 1860s. During this time, the Order in New Zealand was largely dependent on imperial soldiers for its membership and lodges tended to be located in districts in which regiments

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were stationed (Carnahan, 1886). Not only was Orange membership common within the British army during the period, but many of the recruits who served in New Zealand originated in Ireland. Researchers have yet to establish the denominational composition of these soldiers; however, two studies (Galbraith, 1998; Horn, 2010a) suggest a strong Ulster presence within that cohort, pointing to the possibility that many of the soldiers were Irish Protestants. A second phase of development coincided with the arrival of large numbers of Irish-born migrants in the 1860s and 1870s, lasting through to the first decade of the twentieth century. Formal regional structures were put in place with a grand lodge formed on the North Island in 1867 and a second grand lodge established on the South Island. This was mirrored at a local level as the number of lodges increased and Orange activities were held more regularly and publically. The period was marked by increased civilian involvement and also by the emergence, or at least the formalisation, of female Orangeism. This period saw Orangeism in New Zealand expand beyond its Irish Protestant roots in two ways: through its links and similarities with other fraternal organisations and by becoming part of an emerging low-church, Protestant milieu (Bueltmann and Horn, 2010). Despite these efforts, the Order’s political and social influence remained limited. It was not until after the turn of the new century that it moved closer to the centre of New Zealand’s political stage. The amalgamation of the two grand lodges in 1908 to form the Grand Orange Lodge of New Zealand (Anon, 1908) marks the beginning of a third era of development in New Zealand Orangeism. Membership and lodge numbers grew rapidly and the Premiership of the Roman Catholic, Liberal Joseph Ward exposed a sectarian divide within New Zealand politics that became pronounced in the second decade of the twentieth century. For New Zealand Orangeism, the period from 1908 through to the early 1930s was the one during which the movement reached the height of its popularity and political influence. By the 1920s the dominion’s Orangemen could boast an organisation of more than one hundred lodges, over 3,000 members, full-time paid organisers and a nationally distributed monthly publication (Coleman, 1993). Its political influence was manifest through its popular daughter organisation, the Protestant Political Association and through the close connections it retained with the governing Reform Party, especially Prime Minister Bill Massey, who it could claim as a former member (Moores, 1966). Orangeism in Wellington Detailed analyses of the composition of the Order in Wellington and its development over the period can be found elsewhere (Horn, 2010a; Horn, 2010b; Bueltmann and Horn, 2010) however a brief overview will help establish a local context for this chapter. The city’s first Orange lodge was founded on 12 July 1848, a year after the British army’s 65th regiment was stationed in the city, by seven soldiers

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from that regiment (Carnahan, 1890; McAnerin, 1934). For the following quarter of a century Orangeism in Wellington failed to develop significantly outside military circles with lodge operations limited to periods when army regiments were stationed in the city. As noted above, the 1870s was a period of heavy Irish migration to New Zealand and by 1874 sufficient Orange members were resident in the vicinity to allow the development of a more settled lodge structure. In February 1874, Alexander Crowe, a former army sergeant, opened Loyal Orange Lodge [hereafter LOL] 16, having applied to the Grand Lodge of the North Island for permission to do so (McAnerin, 1934). The lodge expanded rapidly and, by November 1876, its roll had increased from eight to 102 members (LOL 16, 1874–1904). In line with this increased participation the Order’s organisational structure expanded and its activities became more publicly visible. Within ten years four additional lodges had emerged in the city, permanent lodge rooms had been purchased and a marching band had been formed (Horn, 2010b). Simultaneously, the events organised by the institution were recorded more regularly and prominently within the local press. Newspaper advertisements as well as extant minute books record that monthly lodge meetings were held regularly in the city by the late 1870s. As well as these, local Orangemen celebrated anniversaries of the Battle of the Boyne on 12 July and of William III’s landing at Torquay and Guy Fawkes’ night of 4 and 5 November. The festivities on these occasions involved church services, evening-time dances and, occasionally, picnics or sports days (Bueltmann and Horn, 2010). These were relatively large events which were an important part of the city’s Orange calendar. That said, the members appear to have been attracted to the organisation by more than its political posturing or its public displays. Two things which emerge from the extant minute books as preoccupations for the city’s Orangemen were sociability and benevolence; these are explored briefly in the following two sections. Given that many of New Zealand’s Irish migrants arrived as young, single people (Akenson, 1990), it is unsurprising that groups like the Orange Order, or in the case of Irish Catholic migrants, the HACBS (Hibernian Australian Catholic Benefit Society), became important associational hubs for them, providing their respective migrant populations with formalised means to accumulate and access what Portes (1998) describes as social capital. Sociability R.V. Comerford’s (1981) analysis of the role of sociability in the growth of Irish Fenianism in the 1860s broke new ground in explaining the emergence and popularity of an organisation that had previously been considered in solely political terms. Although the Orange Order in New Zealand and elsewhere was unquestionably a political and religious organisation, surviving internal archival material suggests that much of its members’ activity and energy was spent in organising and engaging in social pursuits. A brief review of some of the activities recorded in the minute

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books of the lodges in the working-class suburb of Petone is in order to provide an idea of the camaraderie and associational aspects of lodge life. Music appears to have played an important part in the more sociable aspects of lodge life. After what seems to have been an especially short meeting in April 1907, ‘a little harmony was indulged in’ by the sisters of Ladies Loyal Orange Lodge [hereafter LLOL] 8 (LLOL 8, 1906–22: 11 April 1907). The following April, 1908, the members of LOL 47, assisted by those of LLOL 8, entertained visitors at a ‘social’ after the meeting with several songs, a piano solo and refreshments (LOL 47, 1908–1915: 23 April 1908). By 1908 the Petone lodges had initiated a sports day, with that year’s Orange Handicap being won by a Bro. Alma Mexted (LOL 47, 1908–1915: 20 March 1908); and the lodge’s sporting activities increased the following year when they played a rugby match against their fellow lodgemen from LOL 36 in Lower Hutt (LOL 47, 1908–1915: 26 August 1909). After the regular LOL 47 meeting was closed in September 1909 ‘Games of Euchre, Cribbage & Quoits were played by members and visitors & refreshments were also provided and all went home satisfied’ (LOL 47, 1908–1915: 11 September 1909). Petone’s Orangemen were obliged to sociability again the following month when a group of Orangemen visited from the HMS Challenger in port in Wellington. When the lodge was closed they ‘went in for a social evening. Songs and recitations were given by several Bros. and friends. Refreshments were handed around…’ (LOL 47, 1908–1915: 28 October 1909). In July 1910, the lodged moved to purchase quoits and challenge the members of LOL 36 to a quoits and cards tournament for which they purchased a trophy (LOL 47, 1908–1915: 14 July 1910). Although it is necessary to keep in mind the political and religious purposes of the Order, this series of examples demonstrates the importance of lodges in facilitating relatively mundane social interactions amongst its members. In that regard the lodge provided an appropriate space for respectable working-class and lower-middle class Protestants to fraternize; the more so as the military influence decreased and lodge meetings moved from hotels and public houses to dedicated lodge rooms. Charity and Benevolence Another social aspect of the Order during the period which bound members of the organisation to one another was its charitable and mutual aid concerns. Wellington’s lodge minute books comprehensively show that the provision of support to members and their families in times of need was a crucial function of the society. Despite this, such support was on an ad hoc basis; the level of assistance varied depending on the particular circumstances of hardship, the extent of the member’s activity in the lodge and the other lodge member’s circumstances. In this regard, the experience of the Order in Wellington appears to have been far closer to that of Orangeism in the north of England as described by MacRaild (2007) in his comparative analysis of mutual aid in the Orange diaspora than it was to the situation in Canada.

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A selection of cases from the period provides an insight into the extent and level of such activities. In February 1886, for example, a well-regarded member of LOL 47, Bro. Phillips, died and his lodge undertook to pay for his funeral costs (LOL No. 47, 1885–94: 1 February 1886). They did this through a subscription from the other lodges in the district, which raised £5.6.0, and an undisclosed collection from their own lodge. Having failed to raise the full cost of the funeral in such a manner the members voted the difference, 2/-, be paid from lodge funds. Two months later LOL 16 voted ‘[t]he sum of £2 … to assist the family of Bro Johnson who [was] in hospital with typhoid fever and the family were rather pushed’ (LOL 16, 1885–7: 7 April 1886). In October 1887, LOL16’s Worshipful Master [hereafter WM], Bro Parr, brought his lodge’s attention to the plight of Bro. Brooker who had been out of work for some time and who, having a large family to support, was in ‘distressed circumstances’. The lodge donated £2 to the brother and gave the WM the power to assist further if required (LOL 16, 1885–7: 5 October 1887). Less common than these local cases, but by no means unusual, were appeals from lodges around the country for members who had met with ill-fortune. In August 1888, LOL 46 was appealed to on behalf of a brother in Palmerston who had ‘met a Chapter of misfortunes’ and responded with a spontaneous subscription of 19/6 (LOL 46, 1884–91: 24 August 1888). Such acts of mutualism went beyond simply donating money with city lodges endeavouring to make visits to brethren from outside Wellington who were hospitalised in the capital (LOL 47, 1885–94: 5 December 1887). Apart from the matters of internal procedures and ritual, this type of benevolence appears to have been the activity most frequently engaged in by Wellington lodges during the latter part of the nineteenth century. It would be fair to say that benevolence and mutual aid in the Wellington Order went beyond the provisions for widows and orphans described by MacRaild’s (2007) comparative study or Erik Olssen’s (1996) examination of mutual aid societies in Dunedin. Nevertheless, despite a number of attempts in the late 1890s and early 1910s by senior Orangemen to establish central or national funds, benevolence and mutual aid remained informal and inconsistent (Horn, 2010a). There are at least three plausible explanations as to why the Order does not appear to have been successful in establishing a benevolent society in the nineteenth century, although the current dearth of sources means that these are speculative. First, and the most obvious, is that there was already a raft of such Friendly Societies open to Wellington’s Orangemen and, in at least one case, that of the Protestant Alliance Friendly Society, there was one with which the Order had a good working relationship. Second, while there were clearly many within the Order who harboured ambitions for it to develop in a multitude of directions, there was also a centrifugal tendency which resisted any expansions of its goals beyond fraternalism and religion. Finally, in Wellington at least, it seems unlikely that prior to the later stages of World War One, the Order would have had either sufficient membership (Horn, 2010b), or membership with sufficient funds, to sustain such an endeavour. Horn (2010b) suggests that 76 per cent of Wellington

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city’s Orange members were skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled trades-people making it a considerably more working-class organisation than three of the four Dunedin friendly societies described in Olssen (1996). Despite her rehabilitation of friendly societies as privatised welfare agencies Carlyon (1998) recognises that the scope of such societies was limited to ‘better paid workers’. Given that semiand unskilled workers appear to have made up 40 per cent of Wellington’s lodge members during the period (Horn, 2010b), it is possible that part of the resistance to formalised arrangements reflected the inability of less well paid workers to commit to a further set of regular expenses. Migrant Networks and Orangeism The public activities and celebrations engaged in by the Order were attempts to establish it as having an important role in New Zealand’s political and social life. The preceding sections show, however, that politics and religion were not the only roles which the organisation had in the lives of its members. It also provided a formal organisational structure which allowed Orangemen and women access to regular social interraction and mutual aid. The balance of this chapter attempts to go beyond this to explore whether, as an organisation, the Order had an impact on the functioning of an Irish Protestant diaspora community in Wellington city. The mere presence of Irish Protestant migrants, however, does not mean that such a community automatically existed. This section briefly reviews some of the quantifiable evidence relating to the fragile basis of that community in Wellington before focussing on a series of related migrant networks to illustrate the manner in which they intersected one another and considering the role of institutions such as the Orange Order in facilitating those connections. The data used in the chapter is drawn from a larger study of Wellington’s Irish Protestant community (Horn, 2010a). Part of that study involved mapping social relationships using material from the marriage registers of thirty churches in the city and its surrounding districts to establish whether such a community can be said to have existed. The results were mixed. Irish migrants, Catholic and Protestant, are estimated to have made up between one fifth and one quarter of all migrants to New Zealand, yet 32 per cent of Irish Protestants identified in the study (106 of 328), who did not marry a New Zealander, married another Irish-born migrant. Although that suggests a notable tendency to marry within their perceived ethnoreligious group, the realities of colonial demography overwhelmed any such preferences. Predictably, as England was the largest single source of migrants to New Zealand, a higher proportion of those Irish-born Protestants whose spouse was another immigrant married someone from England (119 of 328). In addition, the marriage register data suggests an absence of geographic or denominational clustering among Wellington’s Irish Protestants population. Whereas Irish Catholics comprised 18 and 19 per cent of all parties to marriages in the city’s two main Catholic churches, they made up less 5 per cent of those marrying in any

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of the Protestant churches examined. Unlike the situation identified by William Jenkins (2008) for Victorian Toronto, there do not appear to have been specific churches identified with or dominated by Irish Protestants. On the surface then, the existing quantifiable data does not suggest the existence of an exclusive or multi-generational Irish Protestant migrant group within the city. When the material is examined more closely however, it is possible to identify individual, overlapping migrant networks and point to the associational role which the Orange Order played in their maintenance and extension. These networks are worth tracing out in some detail for two reasons. Firstly, the detail is fundamental to illustrating the processes of network development. Secondly, it speaks to a continuing methodological dispute in New Zealand history writing (McCarthy, 2011): namely whether or not the quantitative techniques used by Fairburn (1989) in his rejection of migrant ethnicity, or at least old-world relationships and affiliations, as a meaningful social factor in nineteenth century New Zealand and his dismissal of his critics’ use of detailed local studies as being unrepresentative (Fairburn, 1991), were appropriate. The complexity of the relationships and the breadth of sources needed to reconstruct these networks suggest that straightforward quantification relying on discrete sets of sources is not an appropriate means for dismissing ethnicity, and its importance, out-of-hand. One set of networks which illustrate these points can be traced out from the scattered documentary evidence related to Thomas Mawhinney who, apart from some extreme personal misfortune, appears to have been an ordinary and unremarkable working-class, Irish Protestant migrant to the city. Through the last four months of 1896 the members of Wellington’s LOL 46 commenced their monthly meetings with scripture readings from the book of Joshua. Their minute book does not record anything unusual about Mawhinney, their lodge chaplain, as he read the first three verses of Joshua Chapter 20 at their November meeting, but given its focus on death and exile it cannot have been an easy task (LOL 46, 1891– 1900: 27 November 1896). The previous month, October 1896, after just seven years of married life, his wife Rebecca had died at 26 years of age. Her death, after enduring several weeks of critical illness, was the culmination of a tragic month for the family. Only three weeks earlier, on 8 September, Thomas and Rebecca had buried their infant son Eric (Anon, 1896a). The couple had already buried their nine-month old daughter, Dorothy, in March 1894. It is unknown who attended Rebecca or Eric’s funerals, yet there are strong indications that the various social networks, of which Thomas was a part, rallied around. Members of the Protestant Alliance Friendly Society and the Loyal Orange Institution were both requested, by advertisement in the local newspapers, to attend Rebecca’s funeral, (Anon, 1896b) while the next annual report of the Kent Terrace Presbyterian Church (1896) made special mention of Mawhinney’s bereavements. His involvement in these institutions and their collective reaction to his personal tragedies suggest that, during the 1890s at least, Mawhinney was a part of a low-church, Protestant community in the city that was, as discussed below, not exclusively Irish but which relied on the Orange Order as an important institutional

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pillar. For Irish Protestants this provided a framework which not only supported existing relationships, but also expanded the composition of their social networks to include increasing numbers of non-Irish Protestants. The first such network that can be identified for Thomas Mawhinney is his membership of an informal migrant friendship group which had migrated to Wellington in the 1870s and 1880s. Mawhinney’s place of origin is recorded on his marriage-certificate only as Co. Londonderry, yet his immediate circle was visibly based around migrants from the town of Castledawson. In the years 1887 and 1888 he witnessed the weddings of three Castledawson men married in Wellington: John Smith, Alexander Houston and William Dawson (Kent Terrace Presbyterian Church [hereafter KTPC], 1885–9 and Wellington Central Baptist Church, 1888). Elizabeth Parr, in whose house Mawhinney’s own wedding took place, was William Dawson’s sister (KTPC, 1885–9 and St. Peter’s Anglican Church 1890–91). The tightness of this social network is further suggested by the fact that Dawson and Houston married two sisters, as well as the migrants’ locational proximity to one another. All were resident within a 200-metre radius in a small group of streets between Taranaki and Tory Street, a distinctively working-class area of the city (Nolan, 2006). While the aggregate data mentioned above suggest that Irish Protestants were not the predominant ethnic group within any of Wellington’s churches, further exploration suggests that the city’s Protestant churches were still potential associational nodes. Mawhinney and his friends from Castledawson appear to have maintained an affiliation with the nearby Kent Terrace Presbyterian Church, whose minister was the Orange sympathiser, James Kennedy Elliott. There they came into contact with another Ulster-based network of immigrants, drawn mainly from the neighbouring district of Ballymena. This group centred on the friends and relatives of William Abernethy, of Eglish, Co. Tyrone, and Rebecca Wade,

Figure 9.1

Thomas Mawhinney’s Castledawson network

Source: G.E. Horn

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of Drumrankin, Co. Antrim. Abernethy was born in Tyrone, but it is possible his family migrated from Tyrone to Antrim before Abernethy departed for New Zealand, as his younger sister was born in Co. Antrim. The witnesses at the Abernathy-Wade wedding were William Abernethy’s younger sister Rose and Rebecca Wade’s brother Benjamin (KTPC, 1889–1895). Eight years later Rose was married at Abernethy’s house on Aro Street (KTPC, 1899–1900), and in 1917 Elizabeth Maxwell of Co. Antrim was also married at a Mr Abernethy’s house, this time in Wadestown (KTPC, 1916–7). It is probable that Elizabeth Maxwell was known to Rebecca and Benjamin Wade in Ireland. Her birth-certificate records that she, like Rebecca Wade, was born in Drumrankin (General Registrar of Ireland, 1879). The Cancelled Land Books for Ballyconnelly Electoral District (in which the townland was situated) suggest that from 1879 the Maxwells lived in a house and farm previously occupied by the Wades and that from 1879 to 1886 the families remained neighbours. Furthermore, both Wade and Maxwell recorded mothers named Elizabeth White, raising the possibility of a family connection between the migrants. This is not the only evidence of movement from the locality to the city. Another contemporary resident of Drumrankin, Edward Carlisle, was married in Wellington (KTPC, 1921–3). Both he and Elizabeth Maxwell were in their early twenties when they were recorded on the 1901 Census of Ireland as living on neighbouring farms and, again, it appears likely that they knew each other prior to emigration. Finally, at least one other resident of the area, Agnes Carlisle, of the neighbouring townland of Killyless, was married in Wellington during the period (KTPC, 1925–9). Others connected to the friendship circle are mapped out in Figure 9.2. While the connection between the Castledawson and Ballymena groups can be traced through the local Presbyterian church, the Orange Institution played an important role in connecting Mawhinney’s network to other Irish Protestant circles within the city. This is not to say that everyone in these groups was an Orange member or sympathiser; rather it is to suggest that lodges provided a place where these networks intersected with one another. This is illustrated particularly well in the connection between the Mawhinney circle and another extensive Ulster network, the kin-group of Stewart Morton. Morton’s obituary and funeral notice in the Evening Post do not record his place of birth, but note that, at the time of his death in 1914, he was an elderly and respected resident of the suburb of Wadestown (Anon, 1914). His connections with the Castledawson group were through the Dawson family: he was a witness at the wedding of W.H. Parr and Elizabeth Dawson, and in August 1882 he nominated a Jane Dawson, again of Castledawson, for passage to New Zealand (St. Peter’s Anglican Church, 1880–91 and Wellington Assisted Passage Nomination Rolls, 1881–90). Jane Dawson, who did not take up the offer of passage, was described as a friend on the nomination application. Morton was an enthusiastic nominator of migrants from Ulster, and although only three Wellington nomination registers from the period 1870–90 survive, they record eleven nominations made by him. Apart from

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Jane Dawson, and an Eliza McCaffrey for whom no relationship was recorded, all of the nominations were of kinfolk (Wellington Assisted Passage Nomination Rolls, 1881–90). These included his brother-in-law, John McKeown, along with his wife and four children, his nephews Joseph Smith and Alexander Neely, and his niece Annie Smith. Except for Dawson, the entire group hailed from Augher, Co. Tyrone. Given that it is 36 miles from Augher and Castledawson, it seems improbable that the two groups were connected in Ulster. Thus their relationships were likely to have been forged in New Zealand. While the evidence is only circumstantial, the connection between Morton and William Dawson appears to have been crucial, being based on three grounds: their shared Ulster birth, their common trade as carpenters, and their membership of the Orange Institution. Mawhinney, as noted above, was a member of LOL 46, along with Dawson and Smith, while Parr, Dawson’s brother-in-law, belonged to LOL 23 (LOL 16, 1885–7: 7 April 1886). Morton was a member of LOL 16 (LOL 16, 1874–1904: 1 December 1874), while his nephew Alexander Neely joined LOL 46 (LOL46, 1884–91: 27 November 1885) several years after his arrival. The importance of the Order in supporting a potential Irish Protestant community can be seen in another of Stewart Morton’s relationships. One of the executors of his will was David Auld, former Worshipful Master of LOL 23 and trustee of the Orange Hall on York St. (Wellington High Court, 1915). Auld, in turn, was a witness at the weddings of the Scottish-born

Figure 9.2

Intersecting networks from Castledawson and Ballymena

Source: G.E. Horn

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Orangeman Edward Milligan and his Limerick born-wife, Kathleen Armstrong (née Sullivan) (St. Peter’s Anglican, 1885–9), and the Belfast-born couple James McLachlan and Mary Neill (St. Peter’s Anglican, 1889–85). The connections with other Irish Protestants that can be traced outwards from Thomas Mawhinney illustrate not only the existence of informal migrant networks but they also show the importance of institutions like the Orange Order or the local Presbyterian church in underwriting them. That said, the data also should also provide reason to be cautious. While Mawhinney and his companions remained within an Orange community, that community appears to have spread far beyond Wellington’s Irish-born Protestant population. A sample of 186 funeral notices that could be linked to death certificates between 1876 and 1933 suggests that as few as one-quarter of New Zealand’s Orange members were born in Ireland (Horn, 2010b). Moreover, analysis of the Order’s political engagement shows that after the first Home Rule crisis their concerns moved from those of Irish Unionism to those of popular New Zealand political Protestantism: temperance, Bible-in-Schools, opposition to ‘creeping ritualism’ within the Anglican church and opposition to Joesph Ward’s leadership of the Liberal party (Horn, 2010a; Horn, 2012). In an analysis of the changing political usages of Orangeism and its symbols in the Irish context, Bryan (2000) argues that the period from 1870–1920 was marked by the attempts of bourgeois interests to both appeal to and control the increasingly independent, Belfast, Protestant working-class and in doing so attempted to make the Order a more respectable institution. Part of this focus

Figure 9.3

An Orange community

Source: G.E. Horn

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on increased respectability involved controlling the rougher elements of Orange parades as well as regulating the sale of alcohol at Orange events. There are some parallels in Wellington in the growing pre-eminence of the temperance and Biblein-Schools questions in Wellington described elsewhere (Bueltmann and Horn, 2010; Horn, 2012). Nevertheless, it is also clear that Wellington did not possess an unruly Orange proletariat, or at least one of sufficient scale to necessitate being programmatically made more respectable. Recent anthropological studies of small Protestant churches and their importance to migrants point not only to the divergent impact of religious institutions on different groups, but may provide useful interpretive frameworks for understanding the Orange Order’s role in the lives of Irish Protestant migrants. Brodwin’s (2003) ethnography of the minority of Haitian migrants in Guadeloupe who belong to Pentecostal churches suggests that church membership, in addition to its religious aspects, allows Haitian Pentecostals to escape the dominant cultural stereotypes of the general, predominantly Catholic, Haitian migrant population, as well as to offer a critique of more liberal aspects of Guadeloupian society. As illuminating is a recent comparative study of born-again Christian churches in the United States and Germany which points to their role in developing nonethnic networks, and ideology, among adherents, with the groups’ dividing lines not being envisaged as those between cultures or geographic backgrounds but between ‘those who sided with Jesus and those who stood with the devil’ (Glick Schiller et al., 2006, p.620). Both studies are suggestive of processes at play for Wellington’s Orangemen and women. Apart from the potential attractions of familiar rituals and the nostalgia for their former lives, membership of the Orange Order provided Irish Protestants with a forum for distancing themselves from Irish Catholics and contributing to a wider Protestant critique of New Zealand society. At the same time, this latter critique was one with an appeal beyond the traditional bounds of Orangeism. The implications of this latter point are twofold. Non-Irish Protestants were drawn into the organisation in increasing numbers, a fact which mirrored trends in Canada, Australia and parts of England, with the result that the social networks of Thomas Mawhinney, Stewart Morton and so on, overlapped more and more with other networks with few, if any Irish connections. At the same time, at an ideological level, the Order pursued a set of concerns which, although they might be construed as sectarian could not be construed as ethnically exclusive (Horn, 2010b). As with the more recent born-again Christians, the important group divisions for those devout Irish Protestants who frequently accessed the more obvious apparatus which might have supported an Irish Protestant identity, were not ethnicity, but adherence to a particular vision of Christianity. It was a Christianity, as one Orange sympathiser in the city, Rev. Kennedy Elliott put it, which was ‘opposed to Satan, to ignorance, to indifference, to intemperance, to Sabbath breaking and to all that is evil’ (KTPC, 1886–97: 7 May 1886).

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Conclusion Mawhinney exemplifies many of the life experiences of Irish Protestant migrants to nineteenth-century New Zealand. Like many such migrants, he was working class. His father Robert was a coachman and Thomas himself spent his life in New Zealand as a labourer (Kent Terrace Presbyterian Church, 1889–95). His world was one of active, tightly-knit social networks, based on ethnic identity, kinship and locality. Yet, his time in Wellington was to see these networks stretched and eventually broken. As with Irish Protestants elsewhere in New Zealand, Mawhinney’s life is suggestive of a paradoxical group at once conscious of itself while at the same time being drawn into a wider British Protestant culture that was emerging in the new world. There can be no question that the Orange Order in Wellington provided a formal institutional basis which supported Irish Protestant migrants and, for some, maintained a connection with old world identities, politics and attitude. Irish events and inward migration, especially from Ulster, provided the initial impetus for the establishment of the Order and buoyed enthusiasm at various points between 1870 and 1930, yet the Wellington experience was of an ethnic association that went beyond concerns with the homeland. This chapter has suggested that the Order was not simply a political, religious or sectarian organisation but one which, as well as being all of those things, met the diverse set of needs a migrant group. It has suggested that these activities were important building blocks in the way which the Order operated, attracted members and developed a sense of an Orange community within the city. When taken together with other research on the Order in New Zealand it adds to the complicated picture of an organisation which at once formalised and institutionalised an Irish Protestant communal identity, or at least one version thereof, while at the same time providing a mechanism whereby that same communal identity was absorbed rapidly into an emerging set of cultural and social norms for non-Māori New Zealanders. References Anon, 1880. History of a “Gift” Wanganui Herald, 20 Nov. p. 2. Anon, 1896a. Advertisements. Evening Post. 8 Sep. p. 6. Anon, 1896b. Advertisements. Evening Post. 2 Oct. p. 6. Anon, 1908. Orange Grand Lodge. Evening Post, 20 Apr. p. 9. Anon, 1914. Personal Matters. Evening Post, 26 Dec. p. 2. Akenson, D.H., 1989. The Irish in New Zealand. Familia: Ulster Genealogical Review, 2(5), pp. 7–12. Akenson, D.H., 1990. Half the world from home: perspectives on the Irish in New Zealand 1860–1950. Wellington: Victoria University Press. Akenson, D.H., 1993. The Irish Diaspora: a primer. Toronto: P.D. Meaney Co.

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Arnold, R.D., 1981. The farthest promised land: English villagers, New Zealand immigrants of the 1870s. Wellington: VUW Press. Belich, J., 2001. Paradise reforged:a history of New Zealanders from the 1880s to the year 2000. Auckland: Penguin. Borrie, W.D., 1991. Immigration to New Zealand 1854–1938. Canberra: Demography Program, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. Brodwin, P., 2003. Pentecostalism in translation: religion and the production of community in the Haitian diaspora. American Ethnologist, 30(1), pp. 85–101. Brosnahan, S., 1999. ‘The greening of Otago: Irish [Catholic] immigration to Otago and Southland 1840–1888’. In: N. Bethune, ed. Work’n’Pastimes: 150 years of pain and pleasure, labour and leisure: proceedings of the 1998 Conference of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists. Dunedin: New Zealand Society of Genealogists. pp. 33–64. Bryan, D., 2000. Orange parades: the politics of ritual, tradition and control. London: Pluto Press. Bueltmann, T. & Horn, G.E., 2010. Emigration and ethnic associational culture in a colonial capital: a comparative study of Wellington’s Irish Protestant and Scottish immigrant communities to 1910. In: R.V. Comerford, and J. Kelly, eds. Associational culture in Ireland and abroad. Dublin and Portland, Oregon: Irish Academic Press. pp. 85–104. Carlyon, J., 1998. Friendly societies 1842–1938: the benefits of membership. New Zealand Journal of History, 32(2), pp. 121–142. Carnahan, J., 1886. A brief history of the Orange institution in the north island of New Zealand from 1842 till the present time. Auckland: The Star Office. Carnahan, J., 1890. Life and times of William the Third and history of Orangeism. Auckland: H. Brett. Coleman, P.J., 1993. Transplanted Irish institutions. Orangeism and Hibernianism in New Zealand, 1877–1910. M.A. University of Canterbury. Comerford, R.V., 1981. Patriotism as pastime: the appeal of Fenianism in the mid1860s. Irish Historical Studies, 22(87), pp. 239–250. Cyclopedia Company Ltd., 1897. The Cyclopedia of New Zealand, Vol. 1, Wellington Provincial District. Wellington: Cyclopedia Company Ltd. Fairburn, M., 1989. The ideal society and its enemies: the foundations of modern New Zealand society 1850–1900. Auckland: Auckland University Press. Fairburn, M., 1991. A discourse on critical method. New Zealand Journal of History, 25(2), pp. 158–177. Fitzpatrick, D., 2005. Exporting brotherhood: Orangeism in South Australia. Immigrants & Minorities, 23(2–3), pp. 277–310. Fraser, L., 1997. To Tara via Holyhead: Irish Catholic immigrants in nineteenthcentury Christchurch. Auckland: Auckland University Press. Galbraith, A., 1998. New Zealand’s ‘Invisible’ Irish: Irish Protestants in the North Island of New Zealand, 1840–1900. M.A. University of Auckland.

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Galbraith, A., 2002. A forgotten plantation: the Irish in Pukekohe, 1865–1900. In: B.R. Patterson ed., The Irish in New Zealand: historical contexts & perspectives. Wellington: Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies, pp. 117–130. General Registrar of Ireland, 1879. Birth certificate Elizabeth Maxwell. Glick Schiller, N, Çağlar, A. & Gulbrandsen, T.C., 2006. Beyond the ethnic lens: locality, globality, and born-again incorporation. American Ethnologist, 33(4), pp. 612–633. Hearn, T. & Phillips, J., ca. 2007. Immigration study findings (part 4): the great migration 1871–1890. [Online] Available at: [accessed 22 May 2013]. Hill, J.R., 1984. National festivals, the state and “Protestant ascendancy” in Ireland, 1790–1829. Irish Historical Studies, 24(93), pp. 30–51. Houston, C. & Smith, W.J., 1978. The Orange Order and the expansion of the frontier in Ontario. Journal of Historical Geography, 4(3), pp. 251–64. Horn, G..E., 2010a A loyal, united and happy people’: Irish Protestant migrants to Wellington Province 1840–1930. Aspects of migration, settlement and community. Ph.D. Victoria University of Wellington. Horn, G..E., 2010b. The Orange Order in Wellington 1874–1930: class, ethnicity and politics. Australian Journal of Irish Studies, 10, pp. 55–80. Horn, G..E., 2012. The Irish revolution and Protestant politics in New Zealand, 1916–22. In: Irish Diaspora and Revolution Conference. National University of Ireland Maynooth: Ireland. 30 October – 1 November 2012, unpublished. Jenkins, W., 2008. Ulster transplanted: Irish Protestants, everyday life and constructions of identity in late-Victorian Toronto. In: M. Busteed, F. Neal and J. Tonge, eds., Irish Protestant identities. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp. 200–220. Kaufmann, E., 2007. The Orange Order in Ontario, Newfoundland Scotland and Northern Ireland: a macro-social analysis. In: D.A. Wilson, ed. The Orange Order in Canada. Dublin: Four Courts Press. pp. 42–68. Kent Terrace Presbyterian Church, 1886–97. Minutes of Deacons’ Court, 1886– 97. [manuscript] Manuscript Collection. MSY-0790. Wellington. Alexander Turnbull Library. Kent Terrace Presbyterian Church, 1885–9. Marriage register, 1885–9. [manuscript] Manuscript Collection. MSX-0907. Wellington. Alexander Turnbull Library. Kent Terrace Presbyterian Church, 1886–1921. Baptismal Register, 1886–1921. [manuscript] Manuscript Collection. KTPC MSX-0825. Wellington. Alexander Turnbull Library. Kent Terrace Presbyterian Church, 1886–92. Baptismal Register, 1886–92. [manuscript] Manuscript Collection. KTPC MSX-0824. Wellington. Alexander Turnbull Library.

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Kent Terrace Presbyterian Church, 1889–95. Marriage register, 1889–95. [manuscript] Manuscript Collection. MSY-0908. Wellington. Alexander Turnbull Library. Kent Terrace Presbyterian Church, 1896. Annual report 1896. [printed] Manuscript Collection. MS-Papers-1411-20/1. Wellington. Alexander Turnbull Library. Kent Terrace Presbyterian Church, 1916–7. Marriage register, 1916–7. [manuscript] Manuscript Collection. MS Papers 1411:3/20. Wellington. Alexander Turnbull Library. Kent Terrace Presbyterian Church, 1921–3. Marriage register, 1921–3. [manuscript] Manuscript Collection. MS Papers 1411:3/25. Wellington. Alexander Turnbull Library. Kent Terrace Presbyterian Church, 1925–9. Marriage register, 1925–9. [manuscript] Manuscript Collection. MS Papers 1411:3/28. Wellington. Alexander Turnbull Library. Khan, L., 1968. Immigration into Wellington province, 1853–1876. Ph.D. Victoria University of Wellington. Macdonald, C., 1990. A woman of good character: single women as immigrant settlers in nineteenth-century New Zealand. Wellington: Allan & Unwin. MacRaild, D. M., 2005a. Networks, communications and the Irish Protestant diaspora in northern England, c. 1860–1914. Immigrants & Minorities, 23(2– 3), pp. 311–37. MacRaild, D.M., 2005b. Faith, fighting and fraternity: the Orange Order and Irish migrants in northern England, c. 1850–1920. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. MacRaild, D.M., 2007. The associationism of the Orange diaspora. In D.A. Wilson, ed., The Orange Order in Canada. Dublin: Four Courts Press. pp. 25–41. McAnerin, W.H. (1934) The history of Lodge No. 16. [manuscript] Wellington: Wellington District Orange Lodge Archive. McCarthy, A., 2011. Scottishness and Irishness in New Zealand since 1840. Manchester: Manchester University Press. McCaskill, M., 1956. The goldrush population of Westland. New Zealand Geographer, 12(1), pp.64–86. Moores, H.S., 1966. The rise of the Protestant Political Association: sectarianism in New Zealand during World War I. M.A. University of Auckland. New Zealand Government, 1872. Census of New Zealand, 1871. Wellington: Government Publisher. New Zealand Ladies Loyal Orange Lodge 08, 1906–22. Minute book, 1906–22. [manuscript] Wellington: Wellington District Orange Lodge Archive. New Zealand Loyal Orange Lodge 16, 1874–1904. Roll book 1874–1904. [manuscript] Wellington: Wellington District Orange Lodge Archive. New Zealand Loyal Orange Lodge 16, 1885–7. Minute book, 1885–7. [manuscript] Wellington: Wellington District Orange Lodge Archive. New Zealand Loyal Orange Lodge 16, 1910–1920. Attendance book 1910–20. [manuscript] Wellington: Wellington District Orange Lodge Archive.

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New Zealand Loyal Orange Lodge 47, 1885–94. Minute book, 1885–94. [manuscript] Wellington: Wellington District Orange Lodge Archive. New Zealand Loyal Orange Lodge 47, 1908–15. Minute book, 1908–15. [manuscript] Wellington: Wellington District Orange Lodge Archive. Nolan, M., 2006. ‘Do your share, like a man!’: the issue of gender in the strike. In M. Nolan, ed. Revolution: the 1913 great strike in New Zealand. Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, pp. 237–260. Olssen, E., 1996. Friendly societies in New Zealand, 1840–1990. In M. Van der Linden, ed. Social security mutualism: the comparative history of mutual benefit societies. Berne: Peter Lang & Co., pp. 177–206. Phillips, J., 2006. Who were New Zealand’s Ulster immigrants. In: B.R. Patterson,ed. Ulster – New Zealand migration and cultural transfers. Dublin: Four Courts Press, pp. 55–70. Phillips, J. and Hearn, T., 2008. Settlers: New Zealand immigrants from England, Ireland and Scotland, 1800–1945. Auckland: Auckland University Press. Portes, A., 1998. Social capital: its origin and applications in modern society. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, pp. 1–24. St. Peter’s Anglican Church, 1880–91. Register, 1880–91. [manuscript] Wellington: Alexander Turnbull Library Sweetman, R., 2006. Towards a history of Orangeism in New Zealand. In: B.R. Patterson, ed. Ulster – New Zealand. Migration and cultural transfers. Dublin: Four Courts Press, pp.154–64. Valuation Office, 1863–80. Ballyconneelly electoral district, cancelled land books 1863–80. [Manuscript]. VAL/12B/3/3A. Belfast: Public Records Office of Northern Ireland. Valuation Office, 1881–96. Ballyconneelly electoral district, cancelled land books 1863–80. [Manuscript]. VAL/12B/3/3B. Belfast: Public Records Office of Northern Ireland. Webber, H. J., 1995. Emigration: Ireland to New Zealand 1850–1900. Genealogical Research Institute of New Zealand Yearbook, pp. 17–28. Wellington Central Baptist Church, 1880–97. Marriage register, 1880–97. [manuscript] Manuscript Collection. MSY-1158. Wellington: Alexander Turnbull Library. Wellington District Loyal Orange Lodge, 1905–15. Minute book, 1905–15. [manuscript] Wellington: Wellington District Orange Lodge Archive.

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Chapter 10

‘We Cannot Gather Without Eating’: Food, Authenticity and Socialisation for Filipinos in Ireland1 Diane Sabenacio Nititham2

Introduction ‘Does your mom make this?’, ‘Is this how your mom makes it?’ and ‘I made you Filipino food to make you feel at home’: these were all common questions I received while visiting Filipinas’ homes to ask them about their coming to Ireland. What would start as a scheduled interview would soon turn into a few hours of rounds of food, laughter, sharing our migration stories and sometimes I received (and accepted) invitations for future meals.3 Occasionally, we began our conversation at the kitchen table. At other times, we would move from the kitchen table to the sitting room, and after some time, return to the kitchen for tea. The initial offer of food may have been made as a gesture of hospitality, but sharing these experiences centred around food revealed more to me than just passing a pleasant afternoon or evening. In discussing the circumstances of their arrival to Ireland, the hardships of family separation and movement across the world, as well as their interest in my mother’s migration from the Philippines to the US and my own movement to Ireland, I began to understand food as a pathway which can ascribe and inscribe a shared sense of belonging. This created a sense of familiarity for ourselves – however fleeting.

1 Excerpts reprinted by permission of the Publishers from ‘Filipino Articulations of Community’, in Globalization, Migration and Social Transformation eds. Bryan Fanning and Ronaldo Munck (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 51–63. Copyright © 2011. 2 Special thanks to Dr. Alice Feldman and the Migration and Citizenship Research Initiative for research scholarships and seed funding towards the research in Ireland and the Philippines. I also extend my gratitude to Dr. Anne Mulhall, the research participants and to Unlad Kabayan Migrant Services Foundation. 3 The data was gathered from 2006–2009, with participant observation, 18 semistructured interviews with Filipina women, or Filipinas, and 22 men and women in a focus group in Ireland, and 15 participated in a workshop in Manila, Philippines. Names and details of interviewees have been changed to protect their identities.

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My research focused on the social practices and symbolic enactments of ‘home’ for Filipinas in Ireland amidst dislocations. I looked at the experience of women to highlight their complexities and multiple subjectivities in diaspora space: ‘the intersectionality of diaspora, border, and dis/location as a point of confluence of economic, political, cultural and psychic processes’ (Brah, 1996: p. 182). Most of the scholarship on Filipinos comes out of the US and maintains a focus on nurses, domestic workers, sex workers and racialized hyphenated identities (such as Filipino-American) (see for example, Parreñas, 2001a, 2001b, 2008; Espiritu, 2003; de Jesús, 2005; Bascara, 2006). A growing body of work has paid attention to the diversity of experiences in the diaspora, as well as the politics of identity and transnational relationships (see also Bonus, 2000; Parreñas 2001b, 2008; Ignacio, 2005; Faier, 2009; Gonzalez, 2009; Guevarra, 2009; Cruz, 2012; Pratt, 2012). Despite this growth of scholarship, Filipina women still largely remain underrepresented in the scope of migration research. This chapter fits within the body of transnational work on diasporic communities, activities and socialization patterns in the destination country, which reveal the changing dynamics of social networks and social practices (Van Hear, 1998; Laguerre, 2000; Manalansan, 2004; Massey, 2005). The increasing interest with regard to the integration of diasporic communities, however, needs more specific attention, particularly in the practices of making home in the destination country.4 Much of the past decade of scholarship still maintains a sedentarist bias where heavy focus is placed on rootedness to either one location or another. Along with work responding to this bias and the increasing interest on moving beyond ‘spatially bounded contexts’ (Skrbis, 2008), such as Ray’s The Migrant’s Table: Meals and Memories in Bengali-American Households (2004), Mooney’s Faith Makes us Live: Surviving and Thriving in the Haitian Diaspora (2009) and Galvéz’s Guadalupe in New York: Devotion and the Struggle for Citizenship Rights among Mexican Immigrants (2009), my discussion on Filipinas reveals that that social relationships are more complex than simply ‘here’ and ‘there.’ In this chapter, I examine how Filipinas use food as a means of creating and sustaining social relationships. I argue that day-to-day practices and the orientations that inform social practices such as these raise larger questions of inclusion and exclusion for diasporic communities ‘making home.’ Using the case of Filipinas in Ireland, I address how Filipinas make home through day-today social practices, highlighting the intersectionality of institutional barriers, transnationalism and belonging. As Filipinas experience this intersectionality, they orient perceptions, expectations, practices and social spaces to the homeland. This discussion of food for Filipinas in Ireland provides a small window into the 4 Although participants interchangeably used ‘host country’ and ‘destination country’, prefer destination country, as it reflects a ‘politics of destination’ (Chu, 2006). That is, a politics of destination accounts more for the choices behind migration and that migration does not end when one arrives in the host country. Destination is part of a constant ongoing journey.

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modalities of homemaking for the more than 18,000 Filipinos in Ireland. Because the circumstances of their arrival and settlement in Ireland, their immigration status and their experiences of race and ethnicity in public life shape their dayto-day interactions, I argue that their social practices reveal that orientations are linked to the cultural and political landscape in which they are embedded. Thus, an examination of attitudes towards food offers insight into the transformations of globalization, transnational activities and the politics of belonging in Ireland. Filipino Populations in Ireland The Filipino population in Ireland is geographically scattered. This can be linked to the circumstances of migrants’ arrival to Ireland; many of them came to Ireland through heavy recruitment in healthcare during the Celtic Tiger boom in the mid1990s to mid-2000s. Prior to this recruitment drive, an estimated 257 Filipinos lived in Ireland (Honorary Philippine Consul, 2008), mainly considered to be ‘romantic migrants’ who came to Ireland through marrying Irish people (Kennedy, 2009). The majority of the Filipino population arrived during the Celtic Tiger, in a second wave of migration, when Ireland recruited labour and encouraged immigration in order to sustain its economic development and fill gaps in many sectors. Ireland became ‘more dependent on market forces to achieve social outcomes and with a greatly weakened ability to provide quality infrastructure or services, or to counteract with any effectiveness the polarizing impact of market forces’ (Kirby, 2004, p. 33). Heavy recruitment in healthcare and domestic service reflected the growing trend of gendered reproductive labour not only in Ireland, but also across all EU labour markets (Immigrant Council of Ireland, 2003; Yeates, 2004, 2006). Many healthcare recruits came from the Philippines (Dundon, González-Pérez, and McDonough, 2007). The 2002 Census indicates that there were 4,086 Filipinos in Ireland (1,412 males and 2,674 females), and by 2006 there were 9,548 Filipinos in Ireland (3,933 males and 5,615 females) (Central Statistics Office 2002, 2006). In both 2002 and 2006, Filipinas made up 65 per cent and 59 per cent, respectively. A community of less than 10,000 Filipinos may seem like a small segment of the 420,000 nonIrish nationals (10.1 per cent of the total population of Ireland) living in Ireland on Census Day in April 2006. But, in 2008, key Filipino community leaders and the Honorary Philippine Consul estimated there were more likely 16,000 to 18,000 Filipinos in the country (Ancheta, 2008; Honorary Philippine Consul, 2008). There are a few possible reasons for this noticeable discrepancy. One, many interviewees said they did not fill out the census due to time constraints, citing long hours at work and prioritised other responsibilities. Two, a few interviewees believed that Ireland was only interested in their labour, and would not provide for them for the indefinite future. And three, other participants stated different conceptions of ‘citizenship’; some understood that citizenship is where one lives and participates, and so checked ‘Irish’ citizenship when filling out the census. A

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study by the Migration and Citizenship Research Initiative (MCRI, 2008) not only found that some study participants cited similar understandings of what constitutes citizenship, but the MCRI also found that non-governmental organisations, study participants, and the Minister of Integration expressed similar concerns regarding the under-reported number of migrants in Ireland. While the census numbers may not fully reflect the Filipino community numbers, the census is the only official source of data available on populations in Ireland and does provide some insight into demographics, however limited. Regardless, Filipino leaders agree with the census distribution of employment patterns, which indicate that: most Filipinos in Ireland are recruited women; 62 per cent of the Filipino population work in health and social work (4008); and the next highest sector is found in hotels and restaurants with 9 per cent (593) (Central Statistics Office, 2006). Despite some interviewees having different conceptions of citizenship and participation, all interviewees understood that many Filipinos in Ireland do not have or are not entitled to Irish citizenship. Citizenship, as a status that means full recognition, rights and entitlements and thus the ability to engage in society (MCRI, 2008), is a major factor in mediating one’s experience and levels of engagement in civil society. For non-EU/non-EEA migrants in Ireland, the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) has designated stamps that define purpose of stay, conferring different rights and entitlements. 5 These rights and entitlements are based on one’s immigration status and thus linked to profession, shaping migrants’ relationships to Ireland.6 These stamps are issued on a one or two year basis for non-EU migrants without long-term residency. Having to renew one’s immigration status on a one-two year basis, with no guarantee of security, means that non-EU migrants have difficulties making long-term plans and find settling a challenging process. Further, because immigration stamps are connected to one’s entry into Ireland and define purpose of stay, members of one family can have different statuses. This shapes one’s day-to-day and long-term experience in Ireland. Interviewees often felt stuck in a waiting game, confused over whose rights were whose and thus felt that they lived in a state of instability and vulnerability (see Nititham, 2011). The confusion over rights and entitlements, as well as the 5 These rights and entitlements include: access to social welfare, education and services; fair treatment in the workplace; the right to vote and for family reunification. See http://www.inis.gov.ie/en/INIS/Pages/Stamps for more information. 6 Before the introduction of the Green Card, Filipinos primarily entered under two different work authorisation schemes: working visa and work permit. Starting February 2007, under the Employment Permits Act 2003 and Employment Permits Acts 2006, there were four types of employment: Green Card permit, work permit, spousal/dependent permit and intra-company transfer permit. Green Card permits are available for occupations earning €60,000 annually, and restricted occupations between €30,000–€59,999 in information and communications technology, healthcare, industry, financial services and research. Those who were issued work visas before the introduction of the Green Card are able to renew their work visas without switching authorisations.

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distribution of Filipinos near places of employment, affects the social practices of Filipinos throughout Ireland. A Community of Communities As a majority of the Filipinos in Ireland came to work as healthcare professionals or domestic workers, or dependents of these, most chose to live close to or in their place of work to maximize earnings for remittances. As a result, the Filipino community is scattered across Ireland. Census 2006 revealed that 93 per cent of Filipinos had settled in urban areas, with 60 per cent in the Greater Dublin Area (Central Statistics Office, 2006). Despite this concentration, the rest of the community is geographically dispersed; this dispersal is also reflected in descriptions of the Filipino population. When asked if there is a Filipino community in Ireland, participants’ answers ranged from ‘Yes, there is one’ to ‘there are many’ to ‘No, Filipinos are divided.’ In 2008, I participated in a working group of different Filipino stakeholders that came together to establish the Filipino Community Network: an umbrella organisation to serve as a central connecting point for Filipinos throughout Ireland. However, even with this network, many efforts to assemble Filipinos in their dispersal and cultivate the recognition of their presence and contribution in Ireland were only partially successful and these efforts remain ongoing. Despite differing views on the existence of a Filipino community, all interviewees recognized concentrations of Filipinos, naming significant populations in the Greater Dublin Area, as well as around Cork, Limerick and Galway. Immigration status is connected to one’s profession, it is also linked to where Filipinos live in Ireland (Nititham, 2011). These circumstances thus shape the spaces in which Filipinos enact social practices. At best, Filipinos constitute an ‘imagined community’ (Anderson, 2006) or a ‘community of communities’ (Migration and Citizenship Research Initiative, 2008). Despite the variations and circumstances of their migration, their imagined sense of community and identification with each other in the diaspora are part of a ‘field of identifications’ that are ‘are forged within and out of a confluence of narratives from annals of collective memory and re-memory’ (Brah, 1996: p. 196). Research participants actively sought a sense of community, relying heavily on social networks and social practices to provide important support, relieving the homesickness associated with family separation. While many migrants experience pain and loss associated with migration, research participants felt a particularly strong sense of family separation. Filipinos have an extended notion of immediate family, which includes grandparents, in-laws, spiritual kin (godparents and god-siblings) and cousins through the multilineal and bilateral descent system (Parreñas, 2001). This notion of family places firm emphasis on a sense of reliance, allegiance and solidarity with members of the immediate family and also extended family. Thus, participants felt strongly detached from many people and expanded

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family separation to include cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and spiritual kin. This, in addition to the geographic scattering, led to the prominence of gathering in social activities. However, I do caution that it would be too superficial of a reading to say that being from the same country of origin or living in a cluster automatically fostered a sense of togetherness and community. It is too simplistic to assume that people emplaced in similar conditions have similar interests and practices (Bourdieu, 1989). Domestic workers and other interviewees with Irish spouses sometimes felt more isolated because they did not see other Filipinos as regularly as those who worked in hospitals or medical centres. One example to illustrate this is Annalisa. Her homesickness hit her hard after leaving a large and tight-knit extended family to move to Ireland with her Irish husband and his small family and small group of friends. Since she and her husband lived near a hospital, she sought out a number of Filipinos who lived in the area to try to develop a surrogate network. Many of the new friends she had made lived and worked together, and they were a tight group Annalisa felt she could not break into. She then joined a local Filipino choir, which also was made up of many Filipino nurses from the nearby hospital. Despite welcoming gestures, Annalisa still felt excluded because their group dynamic was so strong, especially since they saw each other during and often after work. In the end, she still felt excluded: They were all in the same jobs. You were either a nurse, or a wife or a husband of a nurse. I was neither. I was entirely different. No matter how hard I tried to penetrate, it was hard to get in. They were really nice, they invite me in things, but even though you are kind of there you are still not. You talk, but it’s not the same how they share everything else. I was still on the outside. (Annalisa)

Annalisa’s experience, one of many, further supports the argument that immigration status and profession affect social spaces. Because there is no specific enclave where many Filipinos reside, nor do Filipinos perceive themselves as one community, I argue it is best to analyse their social practices through what I call ‘connecting sites’. Connecting Sites Social practices occur within space. For Laguerre, space ‘is the niche where racial ideologies become embodied as racial practices as a result of the encounter between the guest-immigrants and the host-community’ (2000: p. 154). It is geographical (the location where diasporic subjects dwell, whether outside or in the margins of dominant spaces), social (the position of diasporic subjects within space), and ethnicised (the position of an ethnic group or enclave within a racial hierarchy) (2000). Laguerre’s reading of social space is useful as it considers space as a node to see the interrelations between home, belonging and identity. It identifies space

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as a location where social practices, symbolic and material attachments can be analysed against the ideological and institutional structures in which they take place. Regarding mobility and space, Ahmed argues that The politics of mobility, of who gets to move with ease across the lines that divide spaces, can be described as the politics of who gets to be at home and who gets to extend their bodies into inhabitable spaces, as spaces that are inhabitable as they extend the surface of such bodies. (Ahmed, 2006: p. 142)

In other words, institutional dynamics – immigration status and profession – operate as a form of exclusion, affecting the ways people take up space, make space, situate themselves, communicate and identify. Seeking a sense of home, therefore, should not be addressed simply as a physical space, but rather the focus should be on how people occupy and are oriented within spaces, as Ahmed argues. What is important, then, is the politics of destination (Chu, 2006) and how people use their orientations in order to make home in their diasporic communities (Kelly and Lusis, 2006). Building on these arguments, I introduce the concept of ‘connecting sites’. Connecting sites are physical and conceptual. They are both formal and informal. While there is some overlap between them, I differentiate formal spaces as principal spaces for public displays, any gathering within a recognised public building or establishments that have a specific ‘ethnic’ element. For Filipinos in the Dublin Area, these include, but are not limited to, ‘Oriental’ shops and restaurants. Some places I frequented during the research included prominent Filipino restaurants and a variety of Oriental stores in the greater Dublin area. I also often visited one of a few Filipino sari-sari stores (a convenient store, sari-sari meaning ‘variety’ in Tagalog) which primarily stocked products from the Philippines, although these had a smaller selection of products. These formal sites, more importantly, maintain transnational elements, as they continue relationships with businesses overseas through importation of products. For Laguerre, public spaces are ‘hybrid spaces’ where the ‘global shows its localized face or simply where the global becomes visible and situated in space’ (Laguerre, 2000: p. 24). Hybrid spaces are crucial sites for investigating how intersections of diaspora, migration and social practices take shape. These hybrid spaces also occur in informal connecting sites, which I designate as those spaces where Filipinos gather but which do not primarily operate as ‘Filipino’ spaces: churches, public parks, sports centres (used for tournaments and leagues) and people’s homes or offices. In Dublin, as there are no shared public spaces specifically designated for cultural gatherings (although at the time of the research, two migrant organizations operated in business offices), most socialization among Filipinos occurs in informal spaces. In these connecting sites, enactments of home, identity and belonging become visible and identifiable. They are underpinned by the relations of Irish society and institutions. These spaces are also open to people who do not actively participate in Filipino social organizations or activities. Connecting sites illuminate expressions

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of individuals and different groups, hierarchies within groups and differing values among Filipinos within ‘communities’. Highlighting connecting sites recognises people’s affinity to multiple locations and networks across physical and social boundaries. Moreover, it problematizes the objectification of diasporic workers as anonymous subjects. Feeling limited in their social spaces, many participants placed a special importance on gathering with other Filipinos. While the memory of a common homeland is one level of identification, it is not enough for people to sustain lasting social relationships in the destination country. And, because people react and respond in a myriad of ways to the dynamics of diaspora, looking at the ways in which people enact a sense of home in Ireland is much more useful than presuming that Filipinos developed relationships with other Filipinos simply because they shared a common origin. Without recognising the depth of enactments in connecting sites, it can be difficult to take into account the different reasons Filipinas develop social networks and articulate practices amongst their dislocations. Food as a Connecting Site Food serves as an integral connecting site to explore notions of authenticity and socialisation. Both notions reveal how participants use familiarity as a way to access a sense of nearness to home, to help understand how one finds a way to feel ‘at home’ (Ahmed, 2006). From ‘Oriental’ food shops to Filipino stores and restaurants, participants sought these specific places in order to find produce, seafood, sauces, spices and snacks as well as toiletries, trinkets and cookware. Such items are available only in these specialised stores. These sites evoke memories and a sense of comfort: nostalgia along with the components of day-to-day life in Ireland, mix together and mark a space of difference. The Oriental stores, mostly concentrated in Dublin’s city centre, stock specific goods and products from different parts of Asia, but mainly cater to the Chinese population, which has the largest population of immigrants from Asia, with 11,161 migrants (Central Statistics Office, 2006). A couple of participants shopped at other retail outlets, with large warehouses located in industrial estates outside Dublin’s city centre. Some of these businesses also provided services to send remittances. Many interviewees said they utlised these services, as well as frequented the businesses to check bulletin board postings to see news and current events in Ireland and the Philippines. At the time of the research, there were very few such spaces located outside Dublin’s city centre. Unlike in other countries such as the US, Oriental stores in Dublin are not located in areas in residential areas with high concentrations of Asians in order to cater to the population (see Bonus, 2000; de Leon, 2004).7 7 While there are historic Filipino enclaves and communities, many Filipinos in the US do not live in ethnic enclaves. Because of this, Filipinos mark social spaces through

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Further, Filipino stores and restaurants opened only in the last decade. Because of the limited access to places that offered Filipino or Asian food products, interviewees noted their efforts to go to these businesses. For example, Marisol, who did not have a car for the first few years of living in Ireland, would take a large suitcase into Dublin twice a month to fill up on food from the Oriental food stores. Overall, the travelling time would take 3 hours. The long journey exemplified the importance of specific types of products. Restaurants also were important sites of interaction. Restaurants offered a site to engage with those that shared similar cultural capital as well as circumstances, even if these shared aspects were not discussed. Interviewees also liked that they saw ‘non-Filipinos’ in restaurants, offering others the opportunity to try Filipino food. Two prominent Filipino restaurants in Dublin both maintain a Filipino specificity through their bamboo decorations and pictures of the Philippines. One of them adds even more of a touch of ‘home’ with a direct feed to the Filipino Channel on a big screen TV on the back wall of the restaurant. Some interviewees remarked that the décor gave them an opportunity to enter the Philippines for the time they spent there, even if it was only in their imagination. The specificity of décor is particularly important for Eleanor, who also decorates her house with objects that remind her of the Philippines. Taking things she has found at the Oriental, Filipino and local hardware stores, she has recreated the inside of her kitchen to look like the walls are covered in bamboo, resembling a native hut. She stocks her freezer with food from Asian markets, spacing out the time she eats food so that she can go to her freezer when she is feeling homesick. Eleanor says of her arrival in Dublin, ‘It was very hard, really. Asides from the weather, and before, there was no like, much Filipino foods, there wasn’t a shop before, so it was totally strange. You need to eat what Irish are eating [laughs], you’re looking for your own tastes.’ Eleanor’s house, and in particular, her kitchen, becomes a site for seeking home, with a feeling of longing heightened by the difficulties to access familiar food. She says: Oh yeah. It’s really nice; we’re really feeling at home now. Especially they recently have an Asian store here, you know, the Indian store with Filipino foods here, so it’s better now. We feel really at home because you can buy fresh vegetables that you cannot get in Tesco and the major shops here. So at least…and you can buy real Filipino foods and Filipino goods coming from Philippines, not only from other Asian countries. It’s really from the Philippines. At least we can cook what we want. You know, we’re feeling at home. (Eleanor)

Eleanor arrived in 2001 during the early years of nurse recruitment from the Philippines. Like many interviewees, she found adjusting to life in Ireland very challenging. She said that, with the geographical spread of Filipinos around Dublin ‘Oriental’ stores. Many are in suburban strip malls, following the trend of migration to the suburbs in the 1970s (de Leon, 2004).

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and only knowing a few Filipinos with whom she worked, she felt isolated from the larger Filipino population. This feeling of isolation, added to an unfamiliarity with Ireland and the difficulties in obtaining Filipino food products, exacerbated her homesickness. Knowing that their primary reason for being in Ireland is to remit earnings to Eleanor’s siblings to send them to college and to pay for her late father’s medical bills, she and her husband decided to raise their six year old and infant sons with a blend of perceived ‘Filipino values and Irish values’. The negotiation of perceived Filipino and Irish values, however, was not always easy. As their older son attends Irish schools and plays with Irish friends, he draws on a wealth of Irish cultural capital and customs. Eleanor works hard to find a balance between Filipino values and the social codes of Ireland, which sometimes clash with what is or is not acceptable in the Philippines. She does not want to punish her children for preferring ‘Irish values over Filipino’ values, but still wants to raise her son as ‘Filipino’. As they wish to raise their children in Ireland, Eleanor says that they are the ones who have to adjust. In order to handle this adjustment, Eleanor aims to provide continuity and consistency for her children. She insists that Sundays are family days where they can spend time together and eat food, ‘because we used to have like that in the Philippines, and that Sunday is our special day, our family day for us’. She wants her children to understand the importance of family to her, especially because supporting her family is the driving reason that she left the Philippines in the first place. Orientations towards food – whether through Oriental or Filipino stores, restaurants, or the preparations one makes at home – are linked to the social and political landscape of Ireland. Practices of sharing food also help to maintain relations over distances, especially the geographical scattering of the community. Because these transnational activities maintain ongoing material and symbolic relations with the Philippines, and help to sustain a collective imaginary of ‘Filipino’ these activities serve as crucial connecting sites. An ‘Authentic’ Filipino Experience? While the decorations in her kitchen help with homesickness, Eleanor recognizes that they only partly contribute to feeling rooted: You know, there are a lot of things that can help you feel at home. But, it’s yourself, really. I have that kind of plant at home [pointing to the tall palm plant in the corner]. When I saw it here, it’s a bit expensive, but I bought it. I really wanted it. So it’s just feeling at home.

She invested emotional and psychic stock in the material objects, her children’s upbringing, and the regularity of family day, anchoring her in her recreation of the homeland. These investments reveal how Eleanor used familiarity as a way to feel near to ‘home’ (Ahmed, 2006). Her sense of home is constructed ‘precisely

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(in part) through the specificity of the mix of links and interconnections to that “beyond”’ (Massey, 1994: p. 5, author’s emphasis). She fills the space of ‘here’ with good memories of ‘there’ so as tuck away the challenges of her dislocations, knowing that a physical return to the Philippines would not give her and her family the economic mobility that Ireland provides. Many participants sought ways to reach that ‘nearness’ to home. Gladys, who arrived in 2002 on a work visa, said that she misses food in the Philippines, but because the Filipino stores are much smaller than the Oriental stores, which carry more varieties in produce and canned goods, most of the time she can only come close to cooking Filipino dishes: ‘I know that we can eat, we can cook Filipino food, here. But it’s very limited because the vegetables that you find in the Philippines, you can’t really find a whole lot here. So you can just cook variations, like compared with the ones in the Philippines’. Both Eleanor and Gladys, despite not being able to get the exact products from the homeland, rearticulated home with the products available to them. These portrayals of the homeland are important in the construction of the narrative of a coherent identity and history (Abdelhady, 2008). Bonus, writing on Oriental stores, shows that his interviewees found that recognisable products and specific types of food carry a specific association with and for the Philippines. These products are seen as more genuine, and labels such as ‘Made in the Philippines’ help Filipinos feel closer to home in the diaspora. To say that the products are genuine because they come from a certain place (the “homeland”) invites a sense of relationship to such products that one does not have with “other” products that one can buy from other, bigger stores… [T]he assignment of certain values and properties to specific commodities (according to their perceived qualities and referents) becomes a point of articulation of otherness – transcending what may be the “objective” properties of such commodities. (Bonus, 2000: p. 63)

Bonus argues that these objects ease separation from the homeland, providing levels of comfort (2000: p. 64). On the other hand, Ahmed argues that these objects are not about nostalgia but rather they ‘make new identities possible in the “textures” of the everyday’ (2006: p. 150). However, I argue that Filipinos find comfort through nostalgia and rearticulate their habitus through buying recognisable products, finding comfort in familiarity. Nostalgia and new identities mix together as Filipinos make sense of the borders and dislocations around them. Oriental shops allow spaces for the marking of difference: ‘Space offers a means by which identities and counter-identities can be articulated publicly, and not vocally’ (Bonus, 2000: p. 71). When I first started here, I thought there was no rice. Because I started here, I don’t know much Filipinos here, of course, we just move in here, we’re 13 Filipinos, batch mates. We shared a house, five of us […] And then we thought,

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Heritage, Diaspora and the Consumption of Culture ’Oh my God, how are we going to buy rice?’ So I rang my mom in the Philippines, “Oh, I can’t survive here. We don’t have rice, here. It’s only potatoes, chips, like that. You know, after a week or so, we met Filipinos and they said, ‘Oh, you have to buy your rice here in that kind of shop’. They’re very helpful as well, and know we know everything. [laughs] Even when we go to America, maybe I don’t know where to buy this kind of stuff. (Gladys)

The attachment to cultural products and objects is an embodiment of memory, change and seeking continuity: ‘For diasporic communities, objects gather as lines of connection to spaces that are lived as homes but are no longer inhabited. Objects come to embody such lost homes’ (2006: pp. 149–50). Practices of identity, whatever form, allow diasporic subjects to negotiate the memory of the homeland and dislocation in diaspora space. Furthermore, these practices are constantly negotiated within transnational social fields and continue to occur after settlement (Kelly and Lusis, 2005). Filipinas continually seek a sense of familiarity and belonging as they navigate their dislocations. Food, whether prepared with products and materials directly from the Philippines or not, provide a strong marker of identity. The reminders of the homeland point to the elusiveness of home, for what people try to achieve through décor and sharing food is a cultivation of the need for security and familiarity. It is more than nostalgia; it is finding products and relationships to ease the pain of separation and the challenges migration brings. Workshop participants concurred. Their shared relationships and kinship were maintained through gatherings in order to ease their troubles. Through an emphasis on cultural and social aspects rooted in kinship and reliance on each other, rather than on their shared economic circumstances, participants portrayed their activities in terms of togetherness. Seeking each other to share food and socialise was a way to seek a sense of ‘home’. However, I do not want to set up the false idea that one can replicate home. Homes are constantly changing and contingent. Nevertheless, Filipinas constantly embroider a sense of belonging through cultural practices. These enactments of belonging are not universal, but rather we can examine them for markers of how Filipinos fashion their identities towards the Philippines. Enactments tells us how bodies are oriented and how dislocations orient one’s sense of direction: ‘Directions are instructions about “where,” but they are also about “how” and “what”: directions take us somewhere by the very requirement that we follow a line that is drawn in advance’ (Ahmed, 2006: p. 16). These lines ‘drawn in advance’ are migrants’ habitus and their cultural capital shaped by axes of differentiation, separation and adaptation. Their migration stories, their language, values and beliefs, their foods, products and materials, their gestures and activities are manifestations of their orientation to the Philippines. These manifestations show how food serves as a pathway to fill existential needs. Their orientations function as a psychic glue that holds them together.

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Gathering and Socialising Gathering around food and socialising provides ways to examine the importance and the role of food in sustaining as well as creating social relationships. Sister Maria Lourdes, a religious contemplative recruited by a monastery, was surprised when she arrived to a Filipino welcoming party. Even though she did not know the 30 or so Filipinos that attended the party, having a Filipino gathering upon arrival was a warm welcome. She also said that the nuns were so happy to hear laughter, remarking that usually they are ‘so dry’. The nuns were also amazed at the amount of food that the welcome-party brought, asking how it was possible to prepare such a huge amount of food. Sister Maria Lourdes said: I said, “You know, it was not prepared by a single person only, it’s a pot-luck. Yeah, you know? They just agree with themselves, “I will cook this…I will prepare this…” and so on. Because you know, there is plenty of food. I said, “You know, that’s the joy of Filipinos…eating.” [Laughs] Fiestas, party, you know. Just about anything, eating…We cannot gather without eating. (Sister Maria Lourdes)

The welcome-gathering created a sense of place and community for Sr. Maria Lourdes. In their informal and borrowed spaces, activities become a series of moments that reveal a transience of belonging for migrants. Welcoming Sr. Maria Lourdes, and other activities for welcoming new migrants, is part of a discourse of recognition and expression as an Overseas Filipino Migrant (OFW).8 Alma’s quote supports this, adding that food is a great way to socialize as well as greet new arrivals from the Philippines. She says that many gatherings involved several people and a great deal of effort: And you know what we did before, you know, we would go countryside picnic. All Filipinos love picnics, and if it is picnic, you have food, you have pack lunch, you know, stay at the seaside. Just socialise, you know the way, and the kids have time to get along with each other as well, a form of socialisation, and they will be playing whereas we will be talking, you know the way? Yeah. We always do that, you know. And it would be convoy, [laughs].

Welcoming activities are used to articulate recognition and expression which forms part of the collective imagination as Filipinos in the diaspora. Sometimes, meeting around food was accompanied by symbolic markers. When an interview took place in an interviewee’s home, I also asked about items typically found in a Filipino household, such as religious images of the Last 8 OFW is shorthand for Overseas Filipino Worker, a term used by Filipinos, publicly and institutionally. See Nititham (2011), for a discussion of overseas migration as a social norm and part of Filipino cultural capital.

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Supper, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Our Lady of Fatima, or a large wooden spoon and fork hanging on the wall (see Ignacio, 2005 for a checklist on ‘You Might Be Filipino If…’). These markers, alongside the sharing of Filipino food, claimed a boundary of ‘Filipino’. In other words, the same products, décor and images are in the Philippines, they are not necessarily ‘Filipino’, but become Filipino in a transnational context. In contemporary Ireland, while international products are much more common than in previous years, these materials and practices retain their Filipino-ness. In Filipinas’ social gatherings, food helped to inscribe identity. I think food is very important. Sometime you don’t care about anything bothering you as long as you have your food, you feel at home. (Eleanor) And, like, you know, for the food, the timings…their food, their food is really different as well. And, because you know, for us, it’s rice, rice, rice. For Filipinos, it’s rice, rice. And we always eat. For them, it’s not. We’re fond of food, actually. It’s part of our culture, that, yeah, food. If we are in the party, food, you’ll see loads of food in there. And they were really amazed, you know? The way we celebrate. (Alma)

Interviewees often brought food to work to share with colleagues or invited them along to birthday parties and house parties. Food was primarily about feeding nostalgia and then cultivating kinships and friendships in the development of feeling ‘at home’ in the spaces around them. Finding a community is incredibly important, but, as aforementioned, being Filipino or of Filipino descent does not give one an automatic ticket to belonging. Belonging must be actively cultivated. As well, developing Filipino networks as surrogate family does not mean that people do not socialize with Irish or other non-Filipinos. Many participants regularly socialised with Irish people, particularly work colleagues. For Fe, she felt that most of her friends are Irish because when she arrived in 1999 there were few Filipinos in Ireland. However, she remembers the feeling of excitement of seeing other Filipinos on the street soon after she arrived: If we see some Filipinos, we go running after them, ‘Are you Filipino?’ So we’re excited, and they’re excited, too. But now, there’s a change. Even you met some Filipinos face-to-face and you are smiling at them, they can hardly notice you. But not all Filipinos, anyway, it’s sad, because they don’t realise it sometimes. I think the majority of Filipinos that are here are nurses, and they say that nurses are more kind of snobby, but it’s not that, you know?

While Filipinos are socially and culturally heterogeneous, participants still sought unity for a common voice. Filipinos do not see themselves as a unified group. Much to the dismay of some participants, the lack of unity among Filipinos represents the main reason that they cannot form one community. Despite the happiness that a lot of participants have with other Filipinos, research participants

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also discussed that there is a strong amount of discord, regionalism or personal issues that get in the way of socialization. This is well documented in studies on Filipino Americans (Bonus, 2000; Espiritu, 2003; Ignacio, 2005). Additionally, Filipinas hold different levels of power and abilities to exercise agency, given their dislocations such as immigration status, migration circumstances, and professional opportunities: ‘Different social groups have distinct relationships to this anyway differentiated mobility: some people are more in charge of it than others; some initiate flows of movement, other’s don’t; some are more on the receiving-end of it than others; some are effectively imprisoned by it’ (Massey, 1994: p. 149). This is evidenced through many participants claiming that once Overseas Filipino Workers (or OFWs) earn money, some display their newfound wealth through purchasing expensive cars or renting homes that are at or beyond their earning level. This display of wealth is a source of power and a mark of status both on the individual’s terms and to be held in comparison with other OFWs. Melinda, for example, is happy to be part of a Filipino social group. Yet, she recommends to newcomers, especially domestic workers, that they be wary of those who are boastful of their euro earnings: ‘Filipinos try to be something or somebody when they really can’t, they can barely afford it, just to show the people, that you know’. For Melinda, she perceives this as a negative Filipino trait that Filipinos have brought to Ireland which helps prevent the establishment of a cohesive Filipino community. The divisions and tensions that occur because of these displays of wealth are an expression of inter-group classism: ‘As individuals without class privilege come to believe they can assume an equal standing with those who are rich and powerful by consuming the same objects, they ally themselves with the class interests of the rich and collude in their own exploitation’ (hooks 2000: p. 77). These intergroup class divisions shape their understandings of their positionalities. In so doing, this can further intensify the differences in upward economic mobility for different immigration status/professions and reify constructed dichotomies of skilled/unskilled workers. Manuela said, ‘Filipinos tend to be – to group where they are. You know, you can only mingle, I think, with Filipinos who are around you’. Manuela, who has been involved in different levels of community organising for Filipinos in Dublin, said that there is nothing wrong with having so many organisations to celebrate one’s culture or region, but that it is difficult to unite people and prevents a barrier for political movement. She adds that, because Filipinos may speak different dialects, they may prefer to stay with people from their own region. This creates a further barrier to developing a sense of one Filipino community. Despite the various challenges to move towards a perceived community, the driving factor to seek relationships with other Filipinos (even if selectively) was to deal with varying levels of inclusion and exclusion. One workshop participant said that she tried her best to avoid those who brought out the worst part of their migration experiences. For her, it was important to emphasise the positive things about working abroad, such as being able to support her family financially, send

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her siblings to college and help her parents build a house. She said, ‘…instead of being friends, [some Filipinos] tend to see the negative side of an experience. […] They…bring out the worst part of the experience’ (Workshop participant, Group 2). However, what underlies most of the participants’ issues with unity is that they feel they lack political recognition from the Irish government. Some participants felt that they do not need to invest time in a political movement because they felt personally slighted by the Irish government. They felt that the active recruitment of Filipinos meant that they were welcome to Ireland, but they faced multiple problems with the GNIB and the inconsistent application of regulations. Participants wanted recognition of their complex migration experiences, to allow them to do their job without barriers from immigration laws, and to be fully recognised as human beings. For most of the participants, unity is only in name and identification, for they are aware of the different circumstances of Filipinos across time and space. The meaning of these gatherings exists within a landscape of dislocation and labour emigration from the Philippines. In sharing their struggles of adaptation and family separation with fellow Filipinos, participants sought respect and equality from others in shared circumstances. Filipinas in Ireland, as well as other Filipinos in the diaspora, are part of a global community. For research participants, their inability to make long-term plans and feel fully part of Ireland heightened their sense of Filipino identity and Filipino-ness. Conclusion Knowles argues that to be with others who share affinity is not necessarily a primitive or inherent need, but rather feeling at home is about being in the world (2003: p. 164). Memories of the homeland are made real within and through economic, social and cultural structures (see also Fortier, 1999; Jazeel, 2006 and Bhattarchaya, 2008), taking root in the concrete, in spaces, gestures and images in objects, (Nora, 1989: p. 9). For Filipinas in Ireland, their social practices around food, oriented to the homeland, served as a basis to feel at home. One could argue that these practices and performances operate out of their original context and are consequently different. Whether these practices are ‘authentic’, reappropriated or not is not the concern. Rather, practices in diaspora space are not merely re-appropriations, but re-articulations that are politically and historically contingent. What I am interested in here is the orientation towards home and how the homeland becomes a pivot point of identification for diasporic subjects. This marks the important difference of being place-based and not necessarily place-bound, as origins are multiple (Fortier, 1999: p. 47). Therefore, memories of and identification with the homeland, through these rituals, can occur anywhere. They stretch across locations, over borders and through constructs of inequality, calling attention to identity, community and home in diaspora space.

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Researchers must not forget that these are not exactly the same practices, nor are they entirely different because they are in the destination country. Rather, what is important is how cultural capital is mediated and given meaning, how activities are repeated and oriented. Brah writes: ‘The question of home, therefore, is intrinsically linked with the way in which processes of inclusion or exclusion operate and are subjectively experienced under given circumstances. It is centrally about our political and personal struggles over the social regulation of “belonging”’ (1996, p. 192). Even if there is no physical return, the act of not returning is still oriented toward the homeland, for diasporic subjects return in the minds, actively engaging notions of home (Ahmed, 2006). In order to mitigate their challenges, participants sought other Filipinos as they sought a sense of continuity. These enactments and articulations were not simply transferred to Ireland, but were re-enacted and re-articulated in transnational social fields. Through their shared landscapes of dislocation and circumstances, Filipinos redefined traditional notions of rootedness and belonging in Ireland. In their connecting sites, Filipinas negotiated varying levels of inclusion and exclusion. Their negotiations did not always happen smoothly, and conflicts and different motivations of individuals made it difficult to form a unified community. Regardless of the contradictions, the practices and the formation of social networks of Filipinas in Ireland are strongly tied to the memory of a real and imagined homeland. Filipinas were not always yearning to return to the homeland, but rather expressed orientations to the homeland, driven by nostalgia, familiarity and a sense of belonging. Filipinas made clear that their get-togethers and employment of cultural capital are not place-bound, but place-based. What underpins their connections is the socio-economic and political economy of migrant culture, of being able to make-do while they face the reality of why they left the Philippines in the first place. References Abdelhady, D., 2008. Representing the homeland: Lebanese diasporic notions of home and return in a global context. Cultural Dynamics, 20(1), pp. 53–72. Ahmed, S., 2006. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham: Duke University Press. Ancheta, M., 2008. Personal Interview. Interviewed by: D.S. Nititham, January 2008. Anderson, B., 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Revised Edition. London: Verso. Bascara, V., 2006. Model Minority Imperialism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Brah, A., 1996. Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. New York: Routledge.

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Bonus, R., 2000. Locating Filipino Americans: Ethnicity and the Cultural Politics of Space Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Bourdieu, P., 1989. Social space and symbolic power. Sociological Theory, 7(1), pp. 14–25. Central Statistics Office, 2002. Census 2002: Principal Demographic Results, [online] Available at: http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/census/documents/ pdr_2002.pdf [Accessed 10 December 2013] Central Statistics Office, 2006. Census 2006: Non-Irish Nationals Living in Ireland. [online] Available at: http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/census/ documents/NON,IRISH,NATONALS,LIVING,IN,IRELAND.pdf [Accessed 10 December 2013] Chu, J. Y., 2006. To be ‘emplaced’: Fuzhounese migration and the politics of destination. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 13, pp. 395–425. Cruz, D., 2012. Transpacific Femininities: The Making of the Modern Filipina. Durham: Duke University Press. de Jesús, M. L., ed., 2005. Pinay Power: Peminist Critical Theory: Theorizing the Filipina/American Experience. New York: Routledge. de Leon, L. M., 2004. Filipinotown and the DJ scene: cultural expression and identity affirmation of Filipino American. In J. Lee and M. Zhou, eds., 2004. Asian American Youth: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity. New York: Routledge. pp. 191–206. Dundon, T. González-Pérez, M., and McDonough,T., 2007. Bitten by the Celtic Tiger: immigrant workers and the industrial relations in the new ‘localized’ Ireland. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 28(4), pp. 501–522. Espiritu, Y.L., 2003. Home Bound: Filipino American Lives Across Cultures, Communities, and Countries. Berkeley: University of California Press. Faier, L. 2009. Intimate Encounters: Filipina Migrants Remake Rural Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press. Fortier, A.M., 1999. Re-membering places and the performances of belonging(s). Theory, Culture & Society, 16(2), pp. 41–64. Galvéz, A., 2009. Guadalupe in New York: Devotion and the Struggle for Citizenship Rights among Mexican Immigrants. New York: New York University Press. Gonzalez III, J. J., 2009. Filipino American Faith in Action: Immigration, Religion, and Civic Engagement. New York: New York University Press. Guevarra, 2006. The balikbayan researcher: negotiating vulnerability in fieldwork with Filipino labor brokers. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, (35)5, pp. 526–551. Honorary Philippine Consul, 2008. Personal Interview with Honorary Philippine Consul. Interviewed by: D.S. Nititham, 2 February 2008. hooks, b., 2000. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. 2nd edition. Cambridge: South End Press. Ignacio, E. N., 2005. Building Diaspora: Filipino Cultural Community Formation on the Internet. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

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Immigrant Council of Ireland, 2003. Labour migration into Ireland: study and recommendations on employment permits, working conditions, family reunification and the integration of migrant workers in Ireland. Dublin: Immigrant Council of Ireland. Jazeel, T., 2006. Postcolonial geographies of privilege: diaspora space, the politics of personhood and the ‘Sri Lankan Women’s Association in the UK’. Transactions, Institute of British Geographers, 31 (1), pp. 19–33. Kelly, P. & Lusis, T., 2006. Migration and the transnational habitus: evidence from Canada and the Philippines. Environment and Planning, 38, pp. 831–847. Kennedy, V. (2009) Good News, Bad News. Filipino Forum: The Filipino Voice in Ireland. Kirby, P., 2004. Globalisation. In B. Fanning, P. Kennedy, G. Kiely and S. Quin, ed, 2004.Theorising Irish Social Policy Dublin: University College Dublin Press. Knowles, C., 2003. Race and Social Analysis. London: Sage. Laguerre, M.S., 2000. The Global Ethnopolis: Chinatown, Japantown and Maniltown in American Society. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Manalansan, M., 2004. Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora. Durham: Duke University Press. Massey, D., 1994. Space, Place and Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press. Massey, D., 2005. For Space. London: Sage. Mohanty, C.T., 2003. Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham: Duke University Press. Migration and Citizenship Research Initiative, 2008. Getting On: From Migration to Integration: Chinese, Indian, Lithuanian and Nigerian Migrants’ Experiences in Ireland. Dublin: Immigrant Council of Ireland. Mooney, M.A., 2009. Faith Makes us Live: Surviving and Thriving in the Haitian Diaspora. Berkeley: University of California Press. Nititham, D.S., 2011. Filipino Articulations of Community. In: B. Fanning and R. Munck, eds. 2011. Globalization, Migration and Social Transformation eds. (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 51–63. Nititham, D.S.. 2011. Migration as Cultural Capital: The Ongoing Dependence on Overseas Filipino Workers. Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies, 48 (2), pp. 185–201. Parreñas, R.S., 2001a. Mothering from a distance: emotions, gender, and intergenerational relations in Filipino transnational families. Feminist Studies, 27(2), pp. 361–390. Parreñas, R.S., 2001b. Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work Stanford: Stanford University Press. Parreñas, R. S. & Siu, L. C. D.,2007. Introduction: Asian diasporas – new conceptions, new frameworks. In: R.S. Parreñas and L.C.D. Siu, 2007. Asian Diasporas: New Formations, New Conceptions. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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Parreñas, R.S., 2008. The Force of Domesticity: Filipina Migrants and Globalization. New York: New York University Press. Pratt, G., 2012. Families Apart: Migrant Mothers and the Conflicts of Labor and Love. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Ray, K. 2004. The Migrant’s Table: Meals and Memories in Bengali-American Households. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Skrbis, Z., 2008. Transnational families: theorising migration, emotions, and belonging. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 29(3), pp. 231–246. Van Hear, N., 1998. New Diasporas: The Mass Exodus, Dispersal and Regrouping of Migrant Communities. London: UCL Press. Yeates, N., 2004a. A dialogue with ‘global care chain’ analysis: nurse migration in the Irish context. Feminist Review, 77, pp. 79–95. Yeates, N., 2006. Changing places: Ireland in the international division of reproductive labour. Translocations: The Irish Migration, Race and Social Transformation Review, 1(1), pp. 5–21.

Chapter 11

Movement, Consumption and Choice in Neoliberal Reproductive Health Discourses: An Irish Case Study Tanya Saroj Bakhru

Introduction Globalisation is an integral part of everyday life for diverse societies across the globe. The effects of globalisation reach into the social, political and economic facets of our existence. Popular and mainstream discourse on the effects of globalisation tend to center on the economic factors such as the global economy itself, the structure of markets and the movement of goods, services, capital, technology and sometimes people (Pearson, 2000). Occasionally, it focuses on the choices people make in regard to their health. Similarly, in the realm of feminist studies, literature on gender and globalisation has been extensive, targeting, for the most part, women’s labor migration or women and development. However, scholarly inquiry into the influence of globalisation on women’s reproductive health experiences remains to be sufficiently explored. This chapter examines the relationship of globalisation and women’s reproductive health in light of a case study in Ireland during the first decade of the 21st century. Contributions to reproductive politics by women from the Global South have articulated that reproductive bodies are invested with social and political meaning (Roberts, 2000). Such theorisations also show that laws, policies and cultural or religious practices are frequently shaped by neo-liberal understandings of reproductive “choice” and convey how particular women’s bodies and lives are perceived and valued, both as individuals and within their communities. In my own research on globalisation and reproductive rights, I have been drawn to investigate the ways in which global capitalist ideologies migrate across both material and ideological borders. I also consider how such economic paradigms shape the reproductive health experiences of women migrants as well as the constraints and policies of the advocacy organisations working with them. In this chapter, I will explore how consumer based notions of “choice” have influenced reproductive rights in Ireland within the context of globalisation during the period known as the Celtic Tiger. I will discuss how notions of reproductive choice informed by global capitalism impact reproductive health NGOs and influence the reproductive health experiences of their constituents: in this case

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asylum-seeking women living in Ireland. Both asylum-seeking women living in Ireland and the reproductive health non-governmental organisations who work with them, such as the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA), must traverse various borders in the complex and shifting landscape of the journey to realise reproductive rights. These borders are both material and ideological. For the IFPA this means negotiating with ideas of consumption, choice and rights within an era of globalisation and working in coalition with migrant rights groups as they carry out their advocacy work. For asylum-seeking women living in Ireland, such border crossing means navigating through complex and contradictory elements of movement, consumption and choice. I feel that such perplexing and challenging issues are underexplored both in migration studies and globalisation studies. Consumer-based Notions of Choice and Reproductive Rights Rather than viewing globalisation as a homogenous phenomenon, it is more illuminating to regard it as a complex and multifaceted process of integration. From this perspective, globalisation is a political, social and economic series of connections in which physical proximity is no longer a strongly determining factor. From such a vantage point, people increasingly identify the world as a single place rather than as a set of localities with strictly defined cultural and national borders (Baylis and Smith, 1997). Social relations in a globalised world are commonly discussed in terms of neo-liberal ideology such as privatisation of public services and deregulation. Upon close examination, we can see that these relations are not exclusive to economic activity; they also encompass a complex and contradictory web of power dynamics within and between communities and individuals in terms of ideology and culture. Furthermore, feminist scholars have pointed out that globalisation does not exist identically for individuals across gender, class, sexuality, nationality, religion etc. As V. Spike Peterson (2003) states, globalisation is “mutually constituted (therefore coexisting and interactive) systemic sites through and across which power operates” (Peterson, 2003, p. 1). The ways in which processes of globalisation manifest depend upon a dynamic integration of factors that describe individuals’s and community identities. Using these multidimensional frameworks, I perceive globalisation as interconnected processes between people, ideas, societies, cultures, knowledges, markets and politics; these mutually reinforcing processes of relationships which create a seemingly borderless world for better and for worse. Between 2003 and 2006 I conducted research with the reproductive health NGO, the Irish Family Planning Association in Dublin, Ireland. Using participant observation and qualitative interviews my aim was to investigate and better understand the unique relationship between reproductive health NGOs and processes of globalisation. Reproductive health NGOs hold the potential to be actors for social change. They provide multifaceted services, working simultaneously as

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advocates, educators and service providers. Reproductive health NGOs in general have a unique opportunity to access differing levels of social change such as policy makers, politicians, reproductive health activists, service providers and service recipients. It is also worth noting that NGO-driven reproductive health organising transnationally has become much more prominent in recent decades and continues to grow (Knudsen, 2006). As a visible transnational women’s health movement emerged and gathered momentum over the last 25 years, non-governmental organisations have played an increasingly important role in the advocacy of reproductive health, rights and justice, as well as in the provision of reproductive health services. This participation parallels an overall movement over the past two to three decades of socially marginalised groups entering into political debate at the grassroots level over social justice issues in ways that were traditionally reserved for state officials (Gordenker and Weiss, 1996). Philosophically, NGOs along with some intergovernmental organisations have moved towards global politics and global governance to engage in social and political issues that are minimised or ignored by the state or are beyond its capacity. Of course, this shift away from state responsibility to NGOs is indicative of globalisation. For diverse groups of women around the globe, the state’s relinquishment of responsibility for social services has been problematic because the burden of service provision has fallen on the backs of individual women committing their own time and resources to achieve care and services. The increasingly marked shift of public service responsibility to the private sphere (Weigersma, 1997) created an increased burden for women in many contexts, placing responsibilities that should belong to the state on the shoulders of individuals. In relation to reproductive health specifically, it is clear that NGOs have become not only the implementers of promises made in Cairo at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development [ICPD] and Beijing in 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women. They are also monitors of the Programs of Action which are the key bases for the international reproductive health agenda, at the ground level (Petchesky, 2003). In effect, women’s reproductive health NGOs are in a position of having to take up the slack of service provision. NGOs continue to be key contributors internationally to the advancement of reproductive health, rights and justice, not least of which is a local knowledge base of issues and grassroots connections. The UN conferences such as the ICPD in 1994 and World Conference on Women in 1995 and the NGOs associated with those conferences recognised reproductive health as a crucial and complex concept, including control and decision-making over one’s body, and the full materialisation of gender equality. These conferences strengthened connections between gender equality, justice, education for women and girls’s empowerment and reproductive health. They were a turning point in NGO activity in these fields. Because non-governmental organisations hold a unique position within reproductive health activism and organising as advocates, educators and service providers, they have access to a variety of players including

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politicians, policy makers, other service providers and service beneficiaries. For these reasons, I chose to focus my case studies on NGOs. The ICPD and Beijing conferences moved discourse and policy-making further in the direction of women’s participation in decision-making processes. There are reservations, however. Critiques have been made regarding the absence of certain key constituents at the conferences as well as the argument that for all the advancements of the Beijing and Cairo documents, the political will to implement recommendations and agreements alone is insufficient. Lack of political desire has created a huge obstacle to the full realisation of reproductive health. Contemporary crisis situations of war and conflict as well as heightened religious fundamentalism push issues like reproductive health, the elimination of poverty or gender equality to the sidelines and serve to construct them as marginal issues. Petchesky sums this up by saying: “Amidst this grotesque explosion of masculinist militarism, feminist visions for social and gender justice embodied in UN documents come to seem utopian and futile, and the regime of international law and the UN agencies responsible for global health and conflict resolution are consigned to irrelevance” (2003, p. 250). Reproductive health advocates transnationally have come to rely even more heavily on human rights discourses as a tool and language that acknowledges the existence of women’s lives and needs and allows participation in international dialogues. My research took place in Ireland during a period of economic growth known as the Celtic Tiger. The beginning of the 1990s marked a significant change in the landscape of the Irish economy and in Irish culture. Since the growth of the Irish economy beginning in the early 1990s and continuing until the global economic crisis in 2008, many international bodies recognised Ireland as an exemplary model in economic performance and the most positive effects of globalisation. Praise from the Globalization Index in 2004 ranked Ireland “as the most globalized country in the world, according to their criteria of economic integration, technological connectivity, personal contact, and political engagement” (Bacik, 2004, p. 15). In short, the globalisation of the Irish economy caught the attention of an international community. Along with this swift economic change in Ireland, came rapid social change. This included the integration of homogenised cultural images and messages, often produced by American based multinational corporations and institutions. In her work, Klein (1999) refers to a globalisation of ideas, which is not restricted to pop music, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, but extends into political and moral ideology as well. She refers to the proliferation of corporatisation as “American cultural imperialism” (1999). Within a context of global capitalism, the commodification of cultural messages and meanings extended “free market” and “consumer choice” ideology to areas of society that have traditionally been seen as outside the market (Jackson, 1999). For example, just as one associates personal choice in purchasing products with a brand or logo, in the case of reproductive health, many have come to view reproductive choices as purchasable products: in other words, a consumer’s choice.

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Of course, configuring reproductive health matters from such a commodity perspective impacts and hinders the ways in which individuals and communities perceive and negotiate their sexual and reproductive freedoms. Notions of reproductive rights informed by capitalist ideology which are reliant on concepts of “free” choice do not take into account all the social, political and economic factors that surround a woman’s process of making a reproductive health related decision. Such “free choice” ideology also fails to enforce the idea that women have inherent rights, but rather implies the idea that women should be able to make choices if they can afford them or if they are deemed legitimate choicemakers (Smith, 2005). From such a perspective, it is not clear what should happen to those individuals and communities who are limited or have restricted access to the free market such as asylum-seeking women, women who are incarcerated or women who are dependent on the state in some way through government subsidies for housing or food. Such communities of women are deemed “illegitimate” choice makers since they do not rely on the market to exercise their “rights” or fit into a “brand culture” of choice. The conflation of reproductive rights with global capitalist notions of “choice” also proved problematic for organisations advocating for reproductive rights, such as the IFPA. For the IFPA the word “choice” and “rights” featured heavily in their policy formulation and implementation. Within reproductive rights activism, more generally, the word “choice” is pervasive. While the language within the organisation of reproductive health service, access, and provision was almost exclusively rights based, consistent with transnational trends in non-governmental organisation advocacy and policy, this discourse held the potential to become heavily conflated with neo-liberal market ideology. Consequently, the rights based language on which the IFPA relied so heavily stood the risk of becoming depoliticised and the notion of empowered reproductive choice making was made vulnerable for the most marginalized of IFPA constituents. In my research interviews, IFPA administrators were highly reflexive about the potential pitfalls and problematic nature of constructing reproductive rights as an item to be consumed, taking notions of reproductive choice outside the political realm and simultaneously creating a sense of community around branding or consuming reproductive health choices. Although they did not use this language explicitly, their interviews demonstrated an awareness that the commodification of cultural messages and meanings had indeed aided in extending market ideology to areas of society that have traditionally been, and from a feminist perspective, should remain, outside the market such as healthcare and social services generally. My interviewees were also aware that as reproductive choice becomes subsumed by capitalist notions, the ways in which individuals perceive and negotiate their reproductive freedoms is left invisible as are the material realities that circumscribe their choice making. For several of my interviewees at the IFPA, taking a political and active stance towards women’s liberation was an essential element of realising one’s reproductive health and rights. They echoed a position rooted in notions of women’s

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empowerment and addressed the need to transform overall social, economic and cultural systems in which women’s subordination is embedded (Petchesky, 2003). In addition, an emphasis on women’s empowerment appears repeatedly in The International Conference on Population and Development’s Platform for Action. During my time in Dublin, the prominent transition of cultural messages into commodities was a relatively new phenomenon and had begun to take place slowly over the previous decade (Keohane and Kuhling, 2004). The economic development in Ireland that occurred during the Celtic Tiger significantly influenced the ways in which women approached their reproductive lives. To illustrate this point, one of my interview respondents, Sharon, articulated her awareness of the commodification of reproductive choice and its contradictory impact on her work as a service provider in the Ireland of the Celtic Tiger. She stated: But now of course I mean one of the things that changed is that ahm … you know, women ah … people in general, Irish people travel a great deal more. They’re much more comfortable traveling as I said earlier, people go on shopping trips to London or Paris. So women may come in and those kinds of things may not be as big an issue as they were, all of which is absolutely great because in terms of counseling it gives you more time to look at the real issues. Fifteen years ago you know, we didn’t even know what a cappuccino or a latte was here, you know? (Bakhru, 2007)

Later in the interview she said: I don’t know if it connects with this idea of contraception as consumer right. Because when people talk about consuming, people want things to be right and easy and you know, I personally like that fact that even though I’m small I can buy trousers the right length for me now; whereas I grew up taking my trousers up because they all came in the one length. Now there is consumerism, now great, they do trousers in short and long now and I am all for it. It’s great. So when I go out I don’t want to buy a pair of trousers that are too long now, I want to buy them that fit me. That’s consumerism. I find that [to be one] side of contraception. You get people, lots of women, particularly young women in their late teens, early twenties, mid twenties, early thirties who mess around and don’t use a method of contraception because they can’t find one that’s … you know perfect. Ahm … and I find that really interesting because we certainly viewed contraception as empowering in my day and I think there is a lot of work to be done and in terms of ahm … ah [preventing] the spread of STI’s and HIV that’s where I would start. I would start by talking to people, talking to young women and young men about the empowerment of contraception and I think that’s missing. (Bakhru, 2007)

For Sharon, understanding contraception as a commodity rather than as a right meant that its ability to empower women’s lives was diminished. Seeing

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contraception as a commodity limited its availability to those who could afford it rather than linked to a sense of inherent bodily autonomy. She noted that a consumer and individualist approach to using a contraceptive method, one that seeks to find a contraceptive method individually tailored or designed, hinders the ability of young women to protect themselves against STIs or HIV. Sharon’s response signals a shift from a pre-Celtic Tiger era, symbolised as a time without trends such as drinking cappuccinos or lattes, to one in which more women have access to travel and information as a result of globalisation within Ireland. These aspects positively impacted her work in providing counseling services. The underlying tension of negotiating gains and losses in terms of cultural practice as a result of economic transformation is apparent (Keohane and Kuhling, 2004). This tension is also reflective of the contradictions that occur when rights based language is circumscribed by acts and perspectives which seek to commodify those very ideals and depoliticise the rights based language that was once used for women’s reproductive empowerment. Consumption, Choice, and Asylum-Seeking Women in Ireland The sexual and reproductive experiences of women seeking asylum in Ireland is informed by the intersection of the various aspects of both their geographic and social transcendence of borders. It is shaped by the multiple, complex and often contradictory spaces that they occupy. For asylum-seeking women in Ireland, immigration status and economic dependence limit their ability to negotiate reproductive health decisions freely. An asylum-seeker is an individual who seeks to be recognised as a refugee in accordance with the terms of the Geneva Conventions. Ireland became a member of the United Nations in 1955 and has signed and ratified the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the UN Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. A refugee is an individual who, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality or membership of a social or political group, is outside the country of his nationality and unable or, owing to such fear, unwilling to avail himself/ herself of the protection of that society (AkiDwA, 2010). The influx of refugees and asylum-seekers to Ireland in recent years is a byproduct of globalisation, in that individuals seeking asylum are responding to the negative outcomes of economic restructuring and crisis and conflict that exacerbate the already existing gap between social minority and social majority and displace millions of people (Lubheid, 2004). In response to the increase of asylum-seekers to Ireland and the demand of meeting their needs, starting in 2009 “reformed” Irish legislation excluded asylum-seekers from social assistance. Under the new legislative initiatives, asylum-seekers were denied the right to work and required to live in direct service provision, whereby the Irish government provides those seeking asylum with room and board, basic health care and a weekly allowance of €19.10 (AkiDwa, 2010).

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Due to the extended processing time of applications for asylum, people typically spend several years living in government facilitated housing, although initially the facilities were intended for stays of roughly six months. AkiDwa (2010) states that: Residents are usually required to share bedroom and bathroom facilities with other residents. Families are often housed in one room without a bathroom, and are not allowed to cook their meals. There are no centres that accommodate single women exclusively, and there are no dedicated facilities for vulnerable women who have suffered gender based violence in their countries of origin or who have been trafficked to Ireland.

The gendered experience of female asylum-seekers creates significant health barriers for women including vulnerability to crisis pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, HIV, unsafe abortion and gender based violence (IFPA, 2010a). Women seeking asylum have reported feeling isolated and vulnerable due in part to their isolation and sense of invisibility. They may be living in accommodation centres far from town or face obstacles to integration because of limited or no English speaking skills (AkiDwa, 2010). Asylum-seeking women regularly use IFPA services (IFPA, 2010a, p. 5). Consistent with my own research findings, the IFPA Sexual Health and Asylum Report (2010) states that asylum-seeking women “often report difficulties in accessing appropriate, confidential and sensitive SRH [sexual and reproductive health] services” (AkiDwa, 2010). In my own work, IFPA administrators identified critical areas for immigrant women seeking reproductive health services. These included the need to overcome language barriers, which affect both the ability to gain information from printed materials and the quality of the interactions between clients and staff. For example, one of my staff respondents, Mary, stated: Of course there is a feeling of commitment to all those individuals who access our services. Lately we have been encountering more and more non-English speakers in the clinic and this is a problem for us, because we don’t have adequate resources to respond to their needs and there might be a major barrier. (Bakhru, 2007)

Other issues included limitations on travel due to immigration status in order to access sexual and reproductive health services both within Ireland and abroad, as in the case of using abortion services (Bakhru 2008). Since the time of my research, the IFPA has worked together with AkiDwA, a network of migrant women living in Ireland, to “develop a program that would inform women seeking asylum of the available SRH services, empower women to exercise their rights to SRH services and raise awareness among service providers of the barriers experienced by women seeking asylum” (IFPA, 2010a, p. 5). This grass-roots program was called the Majira program. Together in 2009 and 2010,

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the participants produced a handbook to help service providers understand the multiple and overlapping barriers that asylum-seeking women face in making and carrying out their reproductive health decisions. In the handbook, cross cutting issues that affect asylum-seeking women were identified. These include awareness of SRH services; unfamiliar health system; communication; interpreting; informed consent; privacy; confidentiality; assumptions; poverty; sex of health care provider; child care; transportation; support networks; limitations on health consultations; LGBT stigma; awareness of laws and regulations; female genital mutilation; gender based violence; and sexual exploitation/prostitution (IFPA, 2010a). In addition, areas in which these issues play out are discussed, such as family planning and contraception, cervical cancer screening, sexually transmitted infections, crisis pregnancy and post-abortion care. Although all the issues mentioned above are significant, crisis pregnancy best exemplifies asylum-seeking women’s embodied experience occupying complex and contradictory spaces in terms of movement, consumption and reproductive choice. In Ireland abortion is only legal when there is a “real and substantial risk to the life of the pregnant woman” (IFPA, 2010a). However, no guidelines currently exist to determine whether a woman’s life is at risk from her pregnancy. In cases of rape, incest or to protect the health of the pregnant woman, abortion is illegal. Irish law has established that the state cannot stop a woman from travelling outside of Ireland to access abortion. Service providers can legally give information on safe and legal abortion in other countries at the request of the client and in the context of one on one counseling. However, service providers cannot make appointments for abortion services on behalf of clients and they may not withhold medical or personal records from a woman travelling abroad for an abortion (Department of Health, 2012). For asylum-seeking women, the experience of a crisis pregnancy brings with it a host of problems unique to their position as asylum-seeking. For example, lack of knowledge about crisis pregnancy services and support can cause delay in seeking services, the utilisation of unsafe abortion and extreme stress and anxiety. Agencies that do not work specifically on sexual and reproductive health may not know what to do when a woman approaches them with a crisis pregnancy, potentially resulting in a delay in accessing the crisis pregnancy services that are available. Furthermore, the criminalisation and consequent stigma that surrounds abortion in Ireland has an impact on a woman’s decision making process, her emotional well-being and her ability to gain support from those around her (IFPA, 2010a). To compound this situation further, the travel restrictions that asylum-seeking women face because of their immigration status as well as the cost of travel for an abortion outside Ireland are huge barriers to overcome. Although those seeking asylum are generally not permitted to leave Ireland while their case is being processed, women may be allowed to do so to terminate a pregnancy. However, the process is expensive, complicated, and takes time. The IFPA (2010a) describes the process:

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Heritage, Diaspora and the Consumption of Culture Women must apply for a re-entry visa from the Department of Justice and Law Reform and a visa from the country to which they will be travelling. Both visas cost approximately 60 Euro each and processing times can take up to 15 working days, depending on which country the woman will be travelling. Furthermore, documentation from the abortion clinic abroad and the crisis pregnancy service attended in Ireland is required to support the visa applications. While the bureaucratic and administrative hurdles are enormous, the cost of visas, flights, accommodations and the termination procedure is impossible for most women living on the direct provision allowance of € 19.10 a week. If a woman is unable to borrow or raise the necessary funds and adoption is not an option for her, she will be forced to parent against her will or may resort to illegal methods to terminate her pregnancy in Ireland.

Pregnancy is, of course, a time sensitive experience. The obstacles to terminating a pregnancy that asylum-seeking women face, as do any other group of women with restrictions to travel, add to increased emotional distress and anxiety. Along with issues such as language barriers, lack of privacy, racism and discrimination, to name a few, the journey for asylum-seeking women to realise their reproductive rights and exercise bodily autonomy is treacherous. The circumstances outlined above not only reflect the well-documented shortcomings in Irish abortion law surrounding the state’s refusal to legislate clearly on abortion, but also represent the conflict that arises when reproductive health is thought of in terms of consumption of individual choices rather than inherent rights. If an individual can afford to travel free of interference from the state, the obstacles to obtaining an abortion are reduced. Even if travel is restricted, entering into the market can expedite the process and reduce barriers, for example through hiring legal aide to hurry the paper work along. The irony here is that asylumseeking women often come from regions of the world negatively impacted by globalisation. In seeking refuge from the dire circumstances of their home of origin, they are placed in positions of reliance and almost forced dependency on the Irish state through direct service provision and therefore are limited in their ability to act within the market. Hence, the framework of globalisation and global capitalism reinforce the idea that only those who can afford, or who already have the power and resources, to make reproductive choices are entitled to do so. In Andrea Smith’s 2005 article, “Beyond Pro-Choice vs. Pro-Life: Women of Color and Reproductive Justice,” the author identifies the problematic nature of the pro-choice movement in its reliance on consumerist notions of “free” choice. She argues that reproductive politics, as framed within notions of choice, do not take into account the various social, political and economic factors that surround a woman’s “choice.” Smith argues that a reproductive health movement must be part of a larger social justice strategy and must make central the dismantling of capitalism, white supremacy and colonialism. The context of a global culture that focuses on the freedom of the market, weakening of the state and prevalence of profit-making ideology provides a real

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challenge for individuals as well as the reproductive health non-governmental organisations working with them to realise reproductive health. It is in part because of this global context that transnational women’s health advocates have relied so heavily on rights based language, even while at the same time they recognise its shortcomings. In terms of the transnational reproductive health movement, the convergence of human rights discourse and NGO involvement in social justice movements is the foundation of the current framing of reproductive rights. As Petchesky (2003) points out, “The human rights framework of the documents [Cairo and Beijing] as well as their emphasis on NGO and civil society participation strengthened the authority of women’s groups to inform and empower grassroots women about their rights and to hold their governments to account” (Petchesky, 2003, p. 190). The use of human rights frameworks surrounding reproductive health should not obscure the highly prevalent and legitimate critiques of such discourse. Despite the existence of disagreement over the use of rights based strategy within transnational women’s health movements, very little open debate on this topic actually occurs. Many activist groups as well as academic commentators feel that a “women’s rights as human rights” strategy is useful at the international level, and those who may disagree are hesitant to challenge this stance for fear that it might be used against the aim of the overall movement towards the betterment of women’s lives (Bunch, 1990). Critics of human rights as a strategising tool point to its limitations as a tool for social change. Feminist and non-feminist critics assert that the problems and limitations arising from the use of human rights discourse are embedded in the way that the human rights construct enforces already established norms rooted in Western traditions, stemming from Greek philosophy, the French Enlightenment or the American and French constitutions (Galtung and Ikeda, 1995). This has the potential to re-inscribe the oppressive structures that subjugate already marginalised populations. Nonetheless, I assert that we cannot totally disregard human rights as a tool for social change, but rather we must engage with it, push its boundaries and voice our concerns for its limitations. The co-optation of rights language by global capitalist interests creates a situation where many of the social, political and economic factors that surround a woman’s process of making a reproductive health related decision are obscured. Relying on the concept of “free choice,” as it becomes conflated with the idea of rights, fails to recognise that women have inherent rights, but asserts that women should be able to make choices if they already have the resources to carry those choices to fruition. We must recognise the significance and prominence of human rights discourse and use it as a tool in the most effective way in order to work against the negative effects of globalisation in women’s lives. For example, it was assertions by women of color in the United States in the 1970s and early 80s that utilised the term reproductive rights in contrast to abortion rights to signify a more inclusive movement that moved beyond the single issue of abortion. Contributions that U.S. women of colour made to the debate around

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reproductive and sexual health articulated the need for women to exert both “the right to limit their fertility and the right to reproduce regardless of race or income” (Nelson, 2003, p. 137) in order to realise reproductive autonomy. Reproductive rights activists from this perspective clearly saw the connection between one’s ability to assert their self-determination over their fertility and one’s economic status in a capitalist context. They asserted that economics was at the heart of reproductive choice-making. The agenda of reproductive rights groups during this time included issues such as “welfare rights, subsidized child-care for low income women, workplace safety, and an end to sterilization abuse” (Nelson, 2003, p. 137). Contemporary discussions of the reproductive rights approach must assert that when notions of choice are rooted in neo-liberal ideologies, the individual social, economic, political and environmental factors to women’s circumscribed access to free choices are largely ignored (Silliman and Bhattacharjee, 2002). Asylum-seeking women in Ireland are both on the move and unable to move. While reproductive health challenges are literally rooted in their bodies, these women often experience a sense of disconnection from their bodies in their challenge to be self-determined. Race, nationality and religion from their country of origin, juxtaposed against that of their experience in Ireland, as well as the movement in location and quality of their living arrangements all work together to shape what decisions are available with regard to reproductive health. As AkiDwA (2010) states, “They can be in a situation of “enforced helplessness,” having to depend on the State, even for their most basic needs, sometimes for years” (AkiDwa, 2010, p. 12). Asylum-seeking women’s life experiences, such as fleeing persecution and violence coupled with the uncertain nature of their migration status (AkiDwa 2010), contribute to their limited access to power and resources, dependency on the state and position as being at odds with the market and global capitalism. Conclusion All of these factors work together making asylum-seeking women’s embodied experiences complex and contradictory in terms of movement, consumption and choice. For asylum-seeking women, movement and the ability to realise their reproductive health is restricted only if they are unable to enter into the market. Their experience is exemplary of all those whose movement is restricted, such as poor women or women under the care of the state. Their experiences emphasise all the more the need to base reproductive health in an intersectional and rights based framework. For these reasons, the work that the Irish Family Planning Association does in coalition with immigrant focused organisations is significant and represents a kind of border crossing that tries to mitigate the limitations of realising reproductive rights within the context of global capitalism and the need to talk about SRH in terms of inherent rights. The IFPA (2010a) states:

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Sexual and reproductive health rights are considered basic human rights. A rights-based approach means integrating human rights norms and principles in the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of health-related policies and programmes. These include human dignity, attention to the needs and rights of vulnerable groups, and an emphasis on ensuring that health systems are made accessible to all. The principle of equality and freedom from discrimination is central to a rights-based service. Integrating human rights also means empowering people, ensuring their participation in decision-making processes which concern them and incorporating accountability mechanisms which they can access. (IFPA 2010a)

Asylum-seeking women sit at the cross roads of the debate around health as a human right versus health as a consumable product. Their challenges and advances in reproductive health care may well be a bellwether to the health progress of other vulnerable and marginalised women whose choices are inevitably touched by complex and contradictory pressures of globalisation. References AkiDwA, 2003. Assessing the needs of African women in Ireland. Dublin: AkiDwA. AkiDwA, 2010. Am only saying it now: experiences of women seeking asylum in Ireland. Dublin: AkiDwA. AkiDwA, 2011. No place to call home: sexual harassment in direct service provision settings in Ireland. Dublin: AkiDwA. Bacik, I., 2004. Kicking and screaming: dragging Ireland into the 21st Century. Dublin: O’Brien Press. Bakhru, T., 2007. Globalization and reproductive health: a cross-cultural study. Ph.D. University College Dublin. Bakhru, T., 2008. Migration, development, and reproductive health. Gender and Development, 16(2), pp. 301–312. Baylis, J. and Smith, S. eds, 1997. The globalization of world politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Berer, M., 2004. Sexuality, rights, and social justice. Reproductive Health Matters, 12(23), pp. 6–11. Brah, A., 2002. Global mobilities, local predicaments: globalization and the critical imagination. Feminist Review, 70, pp. 30–45. Bunch, C., 1990. Women’s rights as human rights: toward a re-vision of human rights. Human Rights Quarterly, 12, p. 486. Charlesworth, H., and Chinkin, C., 2000. The boundaries of international law: a feminist analysis. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

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Nelson, J., 2003. Women of color and the reproductive rights movement. New York: New York University Press. Pearson, R., 2000. Moving the goalposts: gender and globalization in the 21st century. In: C. Sweetman, ed. 2000. Gender in the 21st Century. Oxford: Oxfam. Petchesky, R.P., 2003. Global prescriptions: gendering health and human rights. New York: Zed Books. Peterson, V.S. 2003. A critical rewriting of global political economy: integrating reproductive, productive and virtual economies. London: Routledge. Roberts, D. 2000. Race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty: building a social justice vision of reproductive freedom, New York: Othmer Institute at Planned Parenthood. Silliman, J., and Bhattacharjee, A. eds., 2002. Policing the national body: sex, race, and criminalization. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Silliman, J., Fried, M., Ross, L., and Gutierrez, E. eds., 2004. Undivided rights: women of color organize for reproductive justice. Cambridge: South End Press. SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, 2005. Reproductive rights are human rights. Collective Voices, 1(3), pp. 6–17. Smith, A., 2005. Beyond pro-choice versus pro-life: women of color and reproductive justice. NWSA Journal, 17(1), pp. 119–140. Wiegersma, N., 1997. Introduction Part 4. In: L. Duggan, L. Nisonoff, N. Visvsnathan, and N. Wiegersma, 1997, eds. Women, Gender, and Development Reader. London: Zed Books. pp. 254–257.

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Index

Achill Island, 34, 39, 42 Activism, 43–4, 221, 223 Advocacy work, organisations, 84, 87, 219–221, 223 Afri, 28–9, 31, 43–4 Africa, African, 79, 87, 88, 96, 113, 118, 127, 131 African heritage, 87, 127, 130 Agency, 2, 213, see also choice AkiDwa, 225–6, 230 American Civil War, 105 American Revolutionary War, 52 Anglican, Anglicised, Anglicisation, 54–5, 162, 167, 188, 191 Anglo-Irish, 115, 140, 141, 159 Anglophone, 168, 173 Animal, animals, 5, 15–7, 22, 41, 60, 136, 142–3, 144–5, 151–4 animal-human relationships, 136, 142, 144, 153–4 bats, 136, 143, 148 deer, 136, 141, 145, 147, 152 starling, 150–52 Art, 1, 40, 59–61, 63, 66, 86, 135–146, 148–9, 151, 154, 173 Art history, 4 Irish artists, 5, 6, 43, 135 Time-based art, 5–6, 135, 138, 140 Artefacts, artifact, 14, 105, 173 Argentina, 102 Asylum Seekers, 4, 6, 77–83, 88, 220, 223, 225–8, 230–31, see also migrants Auckland, New Zealand, 181, see also New Zealand Australia, 103–4, 144, 167, 181, 192 Authentic, authenticity, notion of, 120, 138, 142, 206, 208 Avalon Peninsula, Canada, 3, 49–56, 58, 60, 62–71, 164, 171–2, see also Canada

Ballymena, 188–9 Beara Peninsula, 99–101 Beaver Island, 102 Belonging, 2–6, 12, 19, 29–30, 50, 78, 85, 88, 137, 139, 140, 142, 147, 150, 152, 199–201, 204–5, 210–12, 215 Bog, bogland, 28–9, 32, 34–7, 39–41, 43 Borders, 40, 77, 80–82, 102, 169, 200, 209, 214, 219, 220, 225, 230 barriers to movement, 16, 20, 143, 200, 213–4, 226–8 boundaries, 2, 3, 7, 13, 15–16, 18–23, 139, 160, 206, 212 ditches, 17, 19 fences, 14, 16–23 Body politics, 142, 147, 219, 221, see also embodiment Boundaries, see borders Bourgeois, 60, 69, 191 Brah, Avtar, 147, 200, 215 Bretha Comaithchesa, 16–17, 20 British Empire, 13, 131, 141, 144, 164–5, see also imperial Butter Pots, 67–8 Canada, 5, 56, 62, 64, 87, 104, 144, 159–75, 179, 189, 192 Capital, capitalism, 34, 37, 60, 101, 136, 219, 223, 228–30 global capitalism, 6, 219, 222, 230 linguistic capital, 163, 167 social, cultural, economic and political capital, 50, 183, 207–8, 210–11, 215 Caribbean, 4, 86, 113–16, 118–20, 123, 130–1, see also Montserrat Castledawson, 188–90 Catholic, 4, 28, 33–4, 37, 50–6, 67–71, 94–8, 100–2, 104–8, 113, 115–6, 124–30, 166, 168, 171, 181–3, 186, 192

236

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Celtic Tiger, 5, 31, 43–4, 78–82, 85–87, 135–6, 138, 153, 201, 219, 222, 224–5 Charity, 6, 29 mutual aid, 179, 184, 185 Choice, chose, 2–6, 21, 23, 34–5, 64, 161–2, 167, 172, 180, 200, 203, 219–220, 222–5, 227–31, see also agency Church, 15, 66, 85, 97, 100, 104–8, 120, 122, 125–6, 128, 130, 183, 186–92, 205 church notices, 122 Citizenship, 201–3 Citizenship Referendum, 79 Clachan, 33 Colonial, colonialism, 28, 31–2, 34–39, 43, 54, 79, 114–6, 118, 119, 124, 126, 128, 130–31, 140, 142, 144, 164, 166, 180, 186, 228 Commemoration, 3–5, 7, 27–31, 34, 43–4, 119, 122–3, 126–8, 130, 138 Commodity, commodification, 3, 12, 31, 49, 61, 69, 88, 209, 222–5 Communal, 18–19, 33, 50, 54, 69, 124, 136, 143, 151, 193 Communication, 34. 36–7, 41, 43, 121, 136, 138, 142–3, 170, 202, 227 Community, communities (in general), 3–6, 11–13, 18–9, 22–3, 27, 30, 33, 40, 50, 58, 59, 62–4, 69, 70, 85, 95, 98, 108, 120, 125–6, 140, 148, 153, 160–61, 171, 180, 186–7, 190–91, 193, 200–206, 208, 210–15, 219–220, 222–3 Arts community, 61 Filipino communities, 202–3, 213, see also Filipino French-speaking communities, 168 German communities, 167 Imagined community, collective imaginary, 27, 203, 208 international community, 126, 222 Irish communities, 97–8, 101, 103–4, 115, 164–5 migrant, multiethnic communities, 77–8, 81, 83–88 mining communities, 4, 167, see also miners

Norwegian communities, 167 Connemara, 36 Consumer-based notions, 4, 5, 219–20, 222, 224, 225, 228 consumption, 1–2, 6–7, 43, 85, 220, 227–8, 230, see also commodification Conversion, 54–5 Copper Country, see Michigan Corrib, 28, 29, 30, 43–4 Countryside, 3, 12, 23, 37–8, 40 County Antrim, 172, 188–9 County Derry, 37, 170 Londonderry, 188 County Donegal, 102, 170 County Fermanagh, 170 County Kerry, 170 County Leitrim, 170 County Mayo, 3, 27–31, 33–37, 39–41, 44, 168 County Tipperary, 99, 101, 169 County Tyrone, 170, 172, 188, 190 County Waterford, 19, 53, 66, 99, 101 Cross, Dorothy, 138–9, 142 Delaware, 102 Destination country, 4, 152, 200, 206, 215 Diaspora, 1–7, 12, 27, 31, 43–4, 94–5, 97, 102–4, 107, 119–20, 130, 136, 138, 160–61, 165–7, 169, 172, 184, 186, 200, 203, 205–6, 209–11, 213–14 diasporic affect, 29 diasporic experiences, 131 diasporic groups, 69 diasporic identity, 147, 160 Diaspora space, 200, 210, 214 Direct Provision Accommodation Centres, 80–82 Dislocation, 147, 152, 167, 200, 206, 209–10, 213–5, see also location Displacement, 4–15, 32, 35, 62, 115, 130, 138, 140, 151–3, see also place Domestic work, 200, 203–4, 213 Doolough, 3, 27–31, 34, 43–4 Dublin, 3, 5, 7, 11–9, 21–3, 44, 66, 82, 86–7, 135–6, 138, 140–43, 203, 206–7, 213, 224 County Dublin, 37, 205

Index Dublin Zoo, 136, 141, 143 Economics, 3, 13, 22, 29, 30, 33, 36–7, 50, 54, 59, 69, 77–82, 85, 87–8, 107–8, 114–5, 135, 137–9, 159, 163, 167, 179–80, 200–1, 209–10, 213–15, 219–20, 222–5, 228–30 economic boom, 77, 136, 153, 222, see also Celtic Tiger economic crisis, 88, 153, 163 economic development, 63–4, 69 economic injustice, 29 Elizabethan, 32 Emancipation, 123 Embodiment, embodied, 3, 41, 142–3, 204, 210, 222, 227, 230 Employment, see labour England, 1, 11, 34, 40, 51, 56, 122, 179, 181, 184, 186, 192 Erris, 28–30, 34–43 Exclusion, 4, 6, 50, 78, 81, 88–9, 200, 205, 213, 215 Family Separation, 1, 199, 203–4, 214 Famine, Great Potato Famine, 1–4, 7, 27–36, 41–44, 68, 95–97, 99, 131, 137–8, 140, 163–4, 166–7, 170 Famine Walk, 27 Farm, Farming, 16, 19, 20, 29, 30, 37–8, 87, 115, 124, 172, 180, 189 Festivals, see Heritage Festivals Filipinos, Filipinas, 6, 199–215 Fish, fishermen, fishing, 3, 16, 29, 33, 35, 40–41, 51–5, 61–5, 67–70, 164 Food, 6–7, 11, 16, 33, 41, 80, 82–3, 87, 130, 199–201, 206–12, 214, 230 Foreign, foreigner, 1, 35, 62, 78–9, 81, 141, 150, see also Other France, 102, 107, 164 French colony, 164 French presence, 41, 53 Franco-Anglophone, 173 French language see language Freud, Sigmund, 136, 139–40, 148 Gaelic, 33, 55, 100, 173 Gaelic culture, 64, 173 Gaelic society, 115 Gaelic words, language, 168, 172–3

237

Scottish Gaelic, 173 Gaelic Athletic Association, 81, 84–6, 88 Gaelic games, 84–5 Gaelic Irish rebellions, 31 Gaeltacht, 160, 170 Gaeltacht Thuaisceart an Oileáin Úir, 160, 161, 174 Galway, 34, 42, 128, 203 Gender, 2, 79, 121, 142–3, 201, 219–22, 226–7 Geneva Conventions, 225 Ghosts, 31–2, 34, 41–3, 67, 139 haunt, 33, 67, 70 spectre, 31–2, 37, 42–3, 67 Ghost estates, 80, 153 GI Bill, 106, 108 Globalisation, globalization, 1–3, 5, 31, 120, 151, 219, 201, 220–2, 225, 228–9, 231 Habitus, 22, 209–10 Halifax, Canada, 159, 164 Health, 6, 64, 80, 82, 201, 219–223, 225–231, see also reproductive health Healthcare professionals, 203, see also Labour Hebredians, 168, 172 Hegemony, hegemonic, 41, 43, 44, 57, 88 Heritage, 1, 3–5, 7, 49, 62–4, 66, 69–71, 78, 87–8, 113, 118–9, 122, 127, 129, 130, 159–60, 173 heritage language, 159 see also language Heritage Festival, 49, 62–4, 66, 78, 81, 84, 119–120, 126–8, 130 Africa Day, 81, 84, 86–8 Festival of World Cultures, 86–87 Hiberno, Hibernian, 104, 183 Hiberno-African, 114 Hiberno-Norse, 18, 23 Home, 1–2, 5, 11, 13, 20–4, 36, 51–53, 61–2, 65, 67, 77, 81, 93, 101, 106, 120, 135–40, 142, 145, 147–8, 151–3, 163, 165–7, 169, 180, 184, 199–200, 204–12, 215, 228 Household, 3, 12–15, 19–23, 54, 71, 211

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Home country, see origin Host country, 78, 200, see also destination country Hunger, 29, 42–3, 68 Hurling, 84–5 Hurricane Hugo, 119, 128 Identity, identification Black-Irish, 96, 119, 131 Canadian, 57–8 cultural identity, 33, 77–8, 137 Englishness, 50, 55, 57, 70, 140 Ethnic identity, 49–50, 54–5, 67, 69, 78, 94, 106 hybrid identity, 22, 119, 129 Irishness, Irish identity, 5 49, 50, 54, 57, 59, 65, 70–1, 77, 79–80, 84–5, 104–5, 107, 115–131, 135, 137–8, 147, 165 migrant identity, 5, 141, 152 Scotch-Irish, 94, 96 self-identification, 94, 107, 173 Ideology, ideologies, 30, 32, 33–4, 39, 43, 79–80, 120, 123, 126, 166, 179, 192, 204–5, 129–220, 222, 223, 228, 230 Immigrant, see migrant Immigration, see migration Immigration status, 4, 201–5, 213, 225–227 Imperial, imperialism, 33, 40, 123, 142, 181, 222, see also British Empire and colonial Inclusion, 50, 78, 84–8, 121, 135, 200, 213, 215, see also belonging Indentured servants, 114–5, 131 Injustice, 29, 31, 43–4 see also oppression Integration, 4–5, 77–8, 80–4, 86, 104, 136–7, 168, 172, 200, 220, 222, 226 Internet, 98, 103, 119–20 Irish Aid, 87 Irish American, 93–6, 98, 104–6, 128, 163, 165 Irish Descendants (music group), 65 Irish descendants (people of Irish descent), 57, 61, 94, 173 Irish Family Planning Association, 220, 230

Irish language, see language Irish Loop, 49–50, 58–9, 63–5, 69 Irvine, Jaki, 135, 140–1, 144–9, 151, see also The Silver Bridge Islandbridge, 141 Isolation, 19, 20, 41, 136, 145, see also exclusion Labour, 1, 11, 33, 36–7, 51, 62–3, 102, 115–6, 172, 192, 201, 214, 219 employment, 51, 53, 62–3, 78–80, 179, 202–3, 215 labour emigration, 214, see also Emigration semi-skilled, 186, 108 skilled labour, 67, 99, 102, 108, 186, 213 unemployment, 78–80, 88 unskilled labour, 98–9, 186, 213 Labrador, 57–8, 60–3, 65, 135 Lake Michigan, 102 Landscape, 1, 3–4, 6, 20–1, 27–32, 34–7, 39–41, 43, 50, 55, 59, 67, 69–70, 81, 83–4, 87, 93, 113–4, 119, 130, 138, 141–2, 153, 201, 208, 214, 220, 222 Language, 5, 41–2, 55, 64, 78, 81, 100–1, 159–67, 169–74, 210, 222–3, 225–6, 228–9 bilingual, 167–8 French language, 162, 168 Irish language learners, 159–60 Irish language, 5, 100, 101, 159–61, 163, 165–7, 169–74 Linguistic behaviour, 161, 163, 171–2 Lieux de mémoire, 30 Liminal, liminality, 3–6, 41, 81, 138–9, 153 limbo, 78, 81, 83 Literacy, 166 Local, 2, 7, 11–3, 27, 30–1, 36–7, 39–40, 49, 54, 60, 62–7, 69, 71, 85, 100, 104, 108, 115, 118, 120, 125–7, 136, 151, 153, 162, 168, 181–3, 185, 187, 189, 191, 204, 207, 221 Location, 2–4, 13, 15, 28, 36, 40, 43, 137, 14–5, 150–1, 180, 200, 204–5, 230 see also dislocation, see also place, see also space

Index Lodge, lodges, 6–7, 27, 44, 82, 179, 181–7, 190 Marginalised, marginalisation, 68, 78, 79, 83, 137, 139, 148, 221–3, 229, 231 Marine or maritime culture, 30, 39, 115, 173 Market, 4, 11–2, 15, 29, 33, 34, 61, 63, 65–6, 89, 96, 113, 131, 167, 201, 207, 219–20 housing market, 79, 82 labour market, 63, 201, see also labour marketing, 85–6, 113 neoliberal market economy, free market, 77, 222, 223, 228, 230 Massachusetts, 97–8 Masterless Men, 67–8 Material culture, 2, 60, 116, see also culture McKenna, Patricia, 139 Medieval period, 11–6, 21, 32 Memorial, 1, 3, 43, 69, see also commemoration Memory, 1, 5, 30–1, 44, 50, 66–69, 136–9, 141, 144, 150, 153–4, 206, 210, 215 Collective historical memory, 50, 67, 69 Collective memory, 3, 68, 137, 203 Cultural memory, 161 Michigan, 4, 6, 99 Copper Country, 99–101 Upper Michigan, 4, 98 Migrant, migrants, 1–2, 4–6, 12, 18, 22, 36, 54, 61, 77, 79, 84–5, 87–8, 93, 99, 131 135–42, 147–8, 150–4, 164–72, 179–183, 186–93, 201–3, 205–6, 210–1, 215, 219 asylum seekers see asylum seekers; refugees, see refugees emigrants, 1, 5, 31, 51, 95–6, 99–100, 102, 136, 138, 142 immigrants, 1, 53–4, 57, 59, 88, 97–9, 100–1, 104, 106, 159–60, 163, 168, 173, 186, 188, 204, 206, 230 Migration, 1–7, 11, 22, 27, 33, 51, 54, 56, 69, 77, 79, 84, 88, 95, 97, 103–4, 135–9, 142, 147, 151–3

239

emigration, 1, 2, 5, 27, 30, 43, 77–80, 93, 95, 101–3, 105–6, 136, 138, 153, 161, 163–165, 167, 189, 214 immigration, 2, 28, 31, 51, 57–8, 68, 77, 79, 81, 83 85, 88, 97, 103, 162, 165, 170, 172, 180, 201–5, 213–4, 225–7 return migration, 5, 135–7, 139–40, 142, 147–8, 150, 152–4, 209, 215 Military, 32, 53, 106, 183–4 Miners, mining, Mining town, 4, 99–101, 102 Mobility (in general), 2, 11, 77, 136–8, 144, 151, 153–4, 163, 205, 209, 213 economic mobility, 101, 213 social mobility, 97–8 Montreal, Canada, 159, 168 Montserrat, 1, 4, 5, 113–131 Movement, 2–3, 6, 11–2, 16–7, 19, 29, 36, 44, 54, 68, 81, 114, 120, 138, 143, 169, 182, 189, 199, 213–4, 219–221, 227–30 Neoliberal, Neo-liberal, 4, 30, 37, 43, 44, 77, 83–84, 88, 219, 220, 223, 230 New Brunswick, Canada, 165, 170–2 New England, 105 New York, 98, 100, 103, 105–6, 135, 138, 163–4, 171–2 New Zealand, 1, 5, 103, 104, 144, 179–183, 186–8, 190–3, see also Auckland and Wellington Newfoundland, 3, 49–69, 71, 135, 164, 171, 173, 181 Newfoundland Regiment of St. John’s, 52 Nigeria, Nigerian, 79, 86 Nochtaile, 16–18 Non-governmental organisations (NGO), 27, 83–4, 202, 220–1, 223, 229 Nova Scotia, Canada, 60, 165, 170 O’Kelly, Alanna, 138 Ontario, Canada, 160, 164–5, 168, 170, 172, 181 Oppressors, oppression, 2, 68, 123–4, 229 Orange Order, Orangeism, 5–7, 56, 179–184, 186, 191–2 Ordnance, 15, 43, 141

240

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Origin, 6, 20, 50, 52, 54, 56–9, 67, 69, 115, 138, 140, 150–2, 160, 168–70, 188, 206, 214, 226, 228 birthplace, 13, 123 country of origin, 5, 136, 204, 230 place of origin, 15 Other, Othering, 6, 42, 50, 54, 70, 79, 136, 138–43, 150, 154, 173, 209 savage, savagery, 28, 32–6, 41, 66 Penal Laws, Penal Code, 53, 68, 115–6, 162 Persecution, 2, 68, 118, 127, 225, 230, see also oppression Phoenix Park, 87, 136, 141, 145 Place, sense of, 12–3, 19, 21–2, 30–2, 50, 78, 211 Postcolonial, 77, 119, 120, 123 Poverty, 29, 42, 87–8, 163, 166, 222, 227 Power, 3, 6, 27, 29–31, 34, 39, 44, 54, 98, 105, 107, 115, 124, 162, 185, 213, 220, 228, 230 Property, 13, 15–23, 53 Protestant, 1, 4, 32, 34, 37–40, 50, 54–5, 67, 69, 71, 94–7, 104–5, 107, 115 165, 166, 169–71, 179–82, 184–193 Protestant Ascendancy, 162 Reformation, 32 Ulster Protestant, 1 Race, 79, 81, 107, 125–6, 141, 200–1, 225, 230 Reception and Integration Agency, 82 Refugees, 4, 6, 68, 77–82, 107, 225, see also migrants Remit, Remittances, 203, 206 Reproductive health, 219–223, 225–231 abortion, 226–9 contraception, 224–5, 227 pregnancy, 226–8 reproductive social justice, 221, 228–9 Rights, 1, 19, 27, 162, 202 human rights, 27, 78, 222, 229, 231 reproductive rights, 142, 219, 220, 223, 228–230 women’s rights, 229 River Liffey, 14, 141 River Poddle, 14

Rural, 12, 20, 40, 63, 96, 98–9, 101, 103, 106, 108, 162–3, 166, 180 St. John, Canada, 49–52, 54, 59–60, 63, 66, 135 Saint Patrick, 11 Saint Patrick’s Day, 1, 4, 7, 104–5, 114–5, 118–131 San Francisco, California, 98 Sari-Sari Store, 205 Savage, see Other School, schools, 81, 83, 97, 100, 106, 108, 168, 171, 191, 208 Sectarian, sectarianism, 31, 124, 166, 179, 182, 192–3 Settlement, 1–2, 5, 12–4, 18–9, 21, 33, 39, 68, 70–1, 100–1, 104, 162–3, 168–9, 172, 180–1, 201, 210 Shamrock, 49, 63–5, 98, 116, 129 Shell Oil, 29–30 Shell to Sea, 3, 43–4 The Silver Bridge, Jaki Irvine, 135–6, 140–154 Slaves, slavery, 11–2, 96, 105, 113, 116, 118, 122–9, 131 Social networks, 3, 5–6, 137, 179–80, 187–88, 192, 200, 203, 206, 215 sociability, 179, 183–4 social relationships, 3, 186, 200, 206, 211, 220 South Africa, 29, 103–4 Southern Shore Folk Arts Council, 63, 70 Space, spatial, 1, 4–6, 12, 17–19, 21–3, 27, 38, 64, 78, 80–3, 85–6, 119–20, 131, 135, 139, 141, 152, 165, 169, 174, 184, 200, 204–6, 210, 214 social space, 1, 6, 200, 204, 206 spatial limbo, 78, see also liminal Spectator, spectatorship, 87–8, 136, 143 Statoil, 29 Subaltern, 44, 60 Subjugation, 142 Suffering, 3, 27–31, 34, 36, 41, 43–44, 82 see also oppression Surveillance, 4, 80, 83, 88 Symbol, symbolism, 18, 29, 33, 36, 49, 118, 138, 141, 152–3

Index Temple Bar West, 16–9 Temporal, temporalities, 3, 147, 152, 154 Tourism, 29, 43, 49, 59, 61–2, 64–6, 69, 82, 122, 127, 131 Town, 3, 11–7, 19–20, 22–3, 27, 51, 86, 102, 118, 188, 226 Tradition, 18–19, 22, 27, 60, 63, 65, 69, 78, 85–6, 105, 126, 128, 130–1, 142–3, 192, 215, 229 oral tradition, 60, 68 traditional dance, 60, 63 traditional music, 66 Transnational, 5, 77–9, 81–2, 86, 140, 200, 201, 205, 208, 210, 212, 215, 221–3, 229 Trauma, traumatic, 27, 29, 138

241

Ulster, 1, 32, 36–7, 162, 166, 172, 180–182, 188, 190, 193 Uncanny, 34, 136, 139–40, 143, 148–9 Unconscious, 31, 34, 140 United Nations, 225 Urban, urbanisation, urbanism, 1, 3, 11–23, 69, 96, 106, 108, 145, 153, 163, 203 Vampire, vampirism, 140, 143 Victorian, 23, 33–6, 39, 139, 144, 187 Viking, 1–3, 11–5, 18–21 Wellington, 6, 179–93, see also New Zealand Women, 5, 6, 53, 79, 104, 106, 108, 121, 136, 140, 142–3, 148 186, 192, 199, 200, 202, 219–31