Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
This article questions the prevalent assumption that prior to 1914 the Irish in Britain were unquestioningly attached to the Liberal party. It suggests that Home Rule forced the Irish into wider political sympathies which embraced both radical Liberalism and Labour. The Irish in Manchester are highlighted and the “progressive” nature of local Nationalism described. It is also denied that the transfer of Irish loyalties to Labour was proof of the emergence of a class politics or of their integration into the unskilled working-class. It is suggested that this was, in fact, evidence of their continued cultural and political distinctiveness.
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22 Salford Census; Religious creed registers for New Bridge St. workhouse, M4/11/1–31, Archives Department, Manchester Public Library.
23 Manchester Studies Oral History Collection, Manchester Polytechnic [hereafter Manchester Studies], tapes 122(1), 266, 823(1), 1024.
24 Manchester Faces and Places [hereafter MFP], vol. X (1899).
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