The Irish Abroad

I. Overview

Irish population growth

c. 1300 675,000 - 1.4 million
1500 c. 1 million
1600

1.4 million

1641 2.1 million
1672 1.7 million
1712 2 - 2.3 million
1791 4.4 million
1821 6.8 million
1831 7.8 million
1841 8.2 million
source: Oxford Companion to Irish History


18th vs. 19th c migration patterns

the Irish exile


Estimates of Irish migration, 1815-1910

Destination
No. of emigrants
%
USA
4,765,000
61.7
Great Britain
1,468,000
19.0
British North America
1,057,000
13.7
Australasia
361,000
4.7
Africa
35,000
0.5
Other
34,000
0.4
Total
7,720,000
100

source: Bielenberg, The Irish Diaspora, 224.


II. New South Wales (1788) - the empire's gaol

1788-1867    160,000 convicts to NSW/ over 25% Irish born

Defenders and United Irishmen

The Minerva and The Friendship (1800)

convict priests

Governor Philip King

Castle Hill Rising (March 1804)

Parramatta    

Battle of Vinegar Hill: 300-400 rebels vs. 70 soldiers and volunteers; 24 rebels killed/executed and 300 arrested (re-arrested?)

official reaction

Reverend Samuel Marsden (1764-1838)

“The number of Catholic convicts is very great in the Settlement, and these in general composed of the lowest class of the Irish nation, who are the most wild, ignorant and savage race that were ever favoured with the light of civilization, men that have been familiar with robberies, murders and every horrid crime from their infancy. . . . Many of the Irish convicts are well acquainted with the art of war, and all the secret intrigues that can work upon the minds of the ignorant and unwary. . . . All the Catholics want is some legal sanction to assemble together. . . [but] so long as the Catholic religion is not tolerated, they can never meet in sufficient numbers without awakening the jealousy and suspicion of the Govt.”
 

           castle
  

early 19th c Irish migration: forced (1788-1867: c.40,000) + voluntary

25% of the NSW population by 1830s

 

III. The Orange Order: a transAtlantic perspective

A. Ireland

Battle of the Diamond (1795)

General Declaration of the Orange Order (1800)
"We associate to the utmost of our Power, to support and defend his Majesty,King George III, the Constitution and Laws of this Country, and the Succession to the Throne in his Majesty's illustrious House, being Protestants; for the defense of our Person and Properties; and to maintain the Peace of the Country… [and] in honour of King William the Third."

200,000 Orangemen in Ulster (1835)
  

B. British North America

1815-1845    500,000 Irish to BNA (the Maritimes and Upper Canada)
           
1820s  New Brunswick and Upper Canada

1829     Ogle Gowan founds the Grand Lodge of British North America

Orange Oath (1830): I, A---- B----, do solemnly and voluntarily swear, that I will, to the utmost of my power, support and defend Her present Majesty, Queen Victoria, and her lawful heirs and successors . . . so long as she, he, or they, shall support and maintain the Protestant Religion . . . that I will to the utmost of my power, defend her against all traitorous conspiracies and attempts whatever, which shall be made against Her person, crown or dignity; . . . that I will steadily maintain the connexion between the Colonies of British North America and the Mother Country, and be ever ready to resist all attempts to weaken British influence, or dismember the British Empire.

Irish > British North American association

official attitudes

suppressed (1830s)

success in BNA

social and political functions

response to 1837 rebellions

900 lodges in Ontario by 1870


orange
Orange Parade, 19th-c Manitoba [Grand Orange Lodge of Western Canada]