A demographic, economic and social analysis of the immigrant Irish community in the township of Birkenhead, 1841-1877
The substantive content of this thesis is the data obtained from 30,000 individual census enumerators' records, transcribed from the census years of 1841, 1851, 1861 and 1871. The issues addressed include the size of the settlement, household size and structure, age profileand occupational structure. To facilitate comparison with the host population, a 10 per cent random sample of non-Irish households has been collected from the same census years and similarly analysed. In addition to quantitative evidence of the Irish settlement, a qualitative assessment has been made of the existence of an Irish community, considering such questions as what is meant by'community', whether or not an Irish Community existed in the Township of Birkenhead in the period under review; did the Irish in Birkenhead conform to the popular, contemporary views of the Irish as violent, anti-social and concentrated in the lower income, labouringoccupations?Attention has been paid to the question whether or not by the end of the period of study, the Irish in Birkenhead were integrated into local society or had been assimilated. In this context, the role of the Catholic Church in the shaping of an Irish Community has been examined.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations