Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Editorial notes
- Introduction
- 1 ‘It is well to gain that shore’: Irish migration and New Zealand settlement
- 2 ‘Very perfection of a letter writer’: an overview of Irish–New Zealand correspondence
- 3 ‘Seas may divide’: the voyage
- 4 ‘How different it is from home’: comparing Ireland and New Zealand
- 5 ‘No rough work here like at home’: work in New Zealand and Ireland
- 6 ‘Bands of fellowship’: familial relations and social networks in New Zealand
- 7 ‘I must have you home’: return migration, home, and relationships in Ireland
- 8 ‘Never denie your country’: politics and identity in the Old and New Worlds
- 9 ‘Out of darkness into light’: the importance of faith
- Conclusion
- Appendix: Letters
- Bibliography
- Personal name index
- Place name index
- Thematic index
2 - ‘Very perfection of a letter writer’: an overview of Irish–New Zealand correspondence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Editorial notes
- Introduction
- 1 ‘It is well to gain that shore’: Irish migration and New Zealand settlement
- 2 ‘Very perfection of a letter writer’: an overview of Irish–New Zealand correspondence
- 3 ‘Seas may divide’: the voyage
- 4 ‘How different it is from home’: comparing Ireland and New Zealand
- 5 ‘No rough work here like at home’: work in New Zealand and Ireland
- 6 ‘Bands of fellowship’: familial relations and social networks in New Zealand
- 7 ‘I must have you home’: return migration, home, and relationships in Ireland
- 8 ‘Never denie your country’: politics and identity in the Old and New Worlds
- 9 ‘Out of darkness into light’: the importance of faith
- Conclusion
- Appendix: Letters
- Bibliography
- Personal name index
- Place name index
- Thematic index
Summary
Between 1886 and 1921 the Keane family of Clashmore, County Waterford, sent eleven surviving letters to their migrant sister Mary, who had settled at Wellington. These letters placed a range of obligations on Mary. Both Mary and another migrant sister, Bridget, residing in Otago, were clearly expected to communicate regularly with the family: ‘I hope Bridget will write and let us know how she is getting on & if she dont tis the most she can do as not’ (Ke 1). The consequences of Mary's silence were also keenly felt. A friend ‘was very mad as you did not write to her’ (Ke 1). Another sister, Kate, who settled in London, also conveyed her deep disappointment in Mary, some two decades after Mary's departure: ‘All the years you have left home you have not written to me’ (Ke 4).
Mary Keane's communications, however, may have been subjected to the precarious transmission of correspondence. In 1886, her brother John puzzled, ‘you spoke about writing so many letters home to Ireland. All the letters ever I read from ye was four two from Bridget & Two from Your-self’ (Ke 2). Alternatively, Mary may have exaggerated her writing activities to counteract these complaints from home, leaving her family to surmise as to the whereabouts of so many letters. When, eventually, Kate received word from Mary, she exclaimed gleefully, ‘Words in writing fail to express my joy to receive a letter from you after all these years’ (Ke 5).
Apart from news, the exchange of correspondence among the Keane family also contained photographs. In 1918, approximately forty years after Mary’s departure, Kate sought a photograph for the purposes of recollection:
I have one of Bridget taken when she first went to New Zealand & a photo taken with her husband & children when John was a little one. He resembles his mother but I have not a single photo of you Mary. If you have an old photo do send me one just to remember you as I used to in the old days & one taken with the children. I am having some taken & will send you one. (Ke 10)
In response to this letter Mary sent a photograph of her son, prompting Kate to claim enthusiastically, ‘I could at once recall your face Mary as I knew you at home, the same expression’ (Ke 11).
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- Information
- Irish Migrants in New Zealand, 1840-1937'The Desired Haven', pp. 81 - 96Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2005