An investigation into the presence and opinion of the Irish population in Greater Manchester

Abstract

Ireland reached a peak population of 8.2 million in 1841, and then came under hardship from “The Great Famine” of 1845, causing a significant drop in its population down to around 5.8 million in 1861. This decline was primarily down death brought on by the famine but it was also largely down to large percentages of the Irish population immigrating to other countries, England was one of those main countries. Infact Manchester alone saw an increase in their Irish born population increase by 22,700 between the years of 1841 and 1851. Tis influx of Irish caused a small community to appear by the name of “Little Ireland”, this was a physical community. There were tensions between the host population (British people) and the new immigrants; this was mainly thanks to the process of mirroring, where the host nation projected their negatives onto the new community. This along with alcohol tarred Irish heritage.
The study being undertaken in this dissertation will try to establish if there is still an Irish community within Greater Manchester, and it will then try to calculate what the modern “Mancunion” opinion of the Irish actual is. The way that this will be done is through the use of surveys.
The outcome of this dissertation was as follows, it was establish that there is an imagined Irish community within Greater Manchester; however the data was not enough to see if there was a physical one. It was also discovered that the opinion of the Irish has changed dramatically since the 19th century.