Irish Migration and Settlement in Early Nineteenth Century Manchester, with Special Reference to the Angel Meadow District in 1851

Abstract

By 1851 there was a centuries-old tradition of linkages between north-west England and Ireland. There was also a long-established resident Irish population in Manchester, attracted by economic opportunities in the world's first industrial city. The city attracted detailed analysis by observers from Britain and overseas. The Irish in particular received a great deal of attention, and one of their districts. “Little Ireland” became fixed in the public mind as the stereotypical Irish ‘ghetto’, characterised by segregation, squalid housing and low-skilled occupations. In view of its relative neglect compared with some other towns and cities of nineteenth-century Britain, a modern examination of Manchester's importance to an understanding of Irish settlement is long overdue. Detailed study of one working-class district using contemporary documents and the census enumerators' returns for 1851 reveals that, while there was quite marked segregation, it was not total, the Irish did not invariably live in the worst housing and not quite all were to be found in the least skilled and lowliest occupations.