IRISH COLONISTS IN ENGLAND

New Zealand Tablet, 17 November 1910, Page 1873

IRISH COLONISTS IN ENGLAND

One of the • most interesting chapters in the newlyissued eighth volume of the Catholic Encyclopedia is that which undoubtedly deals with the distribution of the Irish race throughout the world. Mr. D. Moncrieff O’Connor is responsible for the account of the Irish of Great Britain, and in view of the quantity- of figures he supplies and the documents he cites to substantiate his facts, it is certain that he has devoted himself to his task with every thoroughness. Up to the middle of the sixteenth century, there was no Irish colony in Great Britain, but about' that period Irish traders began to settle in London, Bristol, Liverpool, and Manchester. . . Irish music had by this time begun to find high favor in England, and minstrels from Erin were very welcome among the great nobles. Penal enactments prevented, ' however, the free practice of religion, and the Irish drifted to such centres as enabled them, through the presence of foreign ambassadors and great officials from Catholic countries, to exercise their religious duties and inclinations. These foreign magnates were allowed to maintain their private chaplains. The well known Sardinia street , church in Lincoln’s Inn, Fields, London, owed its origin to the fact that it was once an ambassador’s chapel. By the year of the great fire (1665-6) a considerable Irish colony had gathered in London, and about this time an Irish present of fifteen thousand bullocks to relieve the distress in London brought the Irish people more into notice. Owing to the fact that the policy of the British Cabinet was to Britannicize all foreigners, the majority of the Irish incomers adopted the style and customs of the new country. By the year 1778, there “were sixty thousand Catholics in England, and of these from six thousand to eight thousand were Irish immigrants resident in London. In 1780 Burke ‘ supposed J there were not fewer than four thousand Catholics in Londonmost of them Irish. Half the sailors and petty officers in the Navy were then Irish and Catholic, according to Fronde, the historian. Liverpool has always been a Catholic centre. In 1788 there were seven thousand, a number that by 1829 had grown to fifty thousand, Irish all but a few of them. At this period, London had fewer than twenty thousand. In 1841, the Irish-born in Great Britain numbered four hundred and twenty thousand, a large part of them in Scotland. It has been said that ‘ the outward sign of the great impetus given to Catholicism in Great Britain by the immigration from Ireland was the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England.’ In 1908, the Catholic population (mostly Irish or Scotch) of Great Britain was 2,130,000. Of these over 400,000 were in Scotland. In 1909 there were 1,671,000 Catholics in England alone. There are now more than 1700 churches, chapels, and stations in England. The influence of the Irish-born, or persons of Irish descent, is important to-day in English social life. Of such in the Church there is one Archbishop and four Bishops, two abbots, a prior, two rectors of colleges, two provincials, an administrator of a cathedral, several domestic prelates. In the State there are several royal household officials, 24 army officers, 5 P.’s, and many judges. There are some fifty men of letters, editors, writers, and journalists of the first rank. In Scotland in 1874 there were 360,000 Catholics, a large percentage of them Irish. To-day there are 520,000 of them, and of these nearly 400,000 are in Glasgow alone.