In 1440, for the first and only time in the late middle ages, the Irish in England were treated as aliens for taxation purposes. At the Reading session of the parliament of 1439–40 the Commons had granted an alien subsidy. It was a poll tax, to be paid at the rate of 16d. per head by householders and at 6d. per head by non-householders, by all those either not born in England or Wales or who did not have letters of denization, that is, naturalisation. Men of religious obedience and children under the age of twelve were also exempted, as were alien women married to English or Welsh men. The grant was to last for three years, and the first assessments were to be made around Easter 1440 for a tax to be collected in two parts, at Easter and the following Michaelmas. Caught in the tax net were Gascons and Normans, Bretons and Flemings, Scots and Channel Islanders, French and Italians, Spanish and Portuguese, the occasional Icelander, Swede and Finn — and the Irish. Like all new taxes, it met with resistance, and pressure groups such as the Genoese and Hanseatic merchants were soon able to claim exemption by virtue of their charters. There were also protests from Ireland. The earl of Ormond, as head of the Dublin administration, pointed out to the king that this was something new and asked Henry VI that Englishmen born in Ireland should have the same rights and freedom as Englishmen born in England.

Most studies of Anglo-Irish relations in the middle ages understandably concentrate on the activity of the English in Ireland, and unintentionally but inevitably this can leave the impression that the movement of people was all one way. But this was not so, and one group who travelled in the opposite direction were some of the merchants and seamen involved in the Anglo-Irish trade of the period. Irish merchants and seamen travelled widely and could be found in Iceland, Lisbon, Bordeaux, Brittany and Flanders, but probably their most regular trade remained with their closest neighbour and political overlord: England. They visited most western and southern English ports, but inevitably were found most frequently in the west, especially at Chester and Bristol. The majority of them stayed for a few days or weeks, as long as their business demanded. Others settled permanently in England, or, perhaps more accurately, re-settled in England, for those who came to England both as settlers and visitors were mainly the Anglo-Irish of the English towns in Ireland and not the Gaelic Irish. This makes it difficult to estimate accurately the numbers of both visitors and settlers, because the status of the Anglo-Irish was legally that of denizen, and record-keepers normally had no reason to identify them separately. They may, therefore, be hard to distinguish from native Englishmen of similar name outside the short periods when governments (central or urban) temporarily sought to restrict their activities. However, the general context within which they worked is quite clear, and this article considers three main aspects of that context: first, the pattern of the trade which attracted Irish merchants to England; second, the role of the Irish merchants and seamen in the trade; and third, examples of individual careers of merchants and seamen who settled in England.

The enforced union of England and Scotland under the Cromwellian Protectorate has been extensively studied, not least because it stands half-way between the union of the crowns in 1603 and the Act of Union of 1707. Without this historical imperative, however, the way in which Ireland was incorporated into the English state remains largely neglected. When dealing with the theory and practice of union in the 1650s, historians have usually dismissed Ireland in a few lines before turning to Scotland — an approach which creates the impression that the English state had absorbed Ireland almost unconsciously. According to David Stevenson, ‘Ireland presented few problems as to her status once conquered ... When the English Parliament had abolished monarchy in England and established the republic, it had done the same in Ireland: the new Commonwealth was that of England and Ireland.’ Others have agreed. Ivan Roots has described the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland as creating ‘a de facto union’, while the Instrument of Government of 1653 (which provided the constitutional basis for protectoral government in England) ‘assumed a union’ between the two nations. By the end of 1653, as John Morrill asserts, Ireland was ‘presumed’ to have been ‘incorporated into an enhanced English state’. Thus, either by the mere fact of conquest, or by implication through the 1653 constitution, union had been achieved without any complications.

On 7 August 1837, the first day of voting in an election for two county seats, there was an altercation on the steps of the courthouse in Carlow town. This was not a typical Irish election riot, however, although large numbers of excited supporters of the rival candidates were milling around in the streets adjacent to the building. The altercation, which involved shouted abuse and a physical struggle, took place between two men only: one was the town’s sub-inspector of constabulary, and the other was its resident magistrate (R.M.) — in other words, Carlow’s two principal government-appointed upholders of law and order. The resulting scandal was to have significant implications. It led to a great deal of heated correspondence with Dublin Castle, more than one constabulary inquiry, several court cases, and many questions before a subsequent select committee, to say nothing of numerous petitions, newspaper articles and pamphlets; but, most important, it ultimately precipitated the resignation of Colonel James Shaw Kennedy, the first inspector-general of the Irish Constabulary. This article will attempt to explain why an apparently minor scuffle in Carlow town created a crisis in Irish policing in the late 1830s.

Throughout the course of the nineteenth century North America and Australasia were profoundly affected by the large-scale emigration of Irish men and women. However, by the eve of the First World War that great torrent of nineteenth-century emigration had slowed. The returns of the registrar general, though deeply and systematically flawed, suggest that in the period 1901–10 the level of decennial emigration from Ireland fell below half a million for only the second time since 1840. According to these figures, the United States continued to be the preferred destination for the new century’s Irish emigrants — 86 per cent of those who left between 1901 and 1910 journeyed to America. In contrast, Australia now attracted few Irish-born, with only 2 per cent of emigrants in this decade choosing to settle in Australasia. As the number of Irish emigrants declined from the peaks of the mid-nineteenth century, so the proportion of Irish-born in the populations of the United States and Australia also fell. By 1910 less than 1.5 per cent of the United States population were of Irish birth; in Australia in 1911 only 3 per cent of the nation’s population were Irish-born men or women. But, although the influence of the Irish-born was diminished, there remained in both societies large numbers of native-born men and women of Irish descent, New World citizens who retained strong bonds of affection for Ireland and maintained a keen level of interest in its affairs.

Concern with Irish affairs reached new levels of intensity in the United States and Australia between 1914 and 1921. In particular, from the Easter Rising of 1916 until the signing of the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 Irish immigrants and their descendants in both New World societies observed Ireland’s moves towards self-rule with keen anticipation. They publicly asserted the need for an immediate and just resolution to Ireland’s grievances and sought to obtain the support of their own governments for the attainment of that goal. However, this vocal support for Ireland was not without its own cost.

The 1930s in Northern Ireland was a period of rituals, performed for the population at large. Such unionist demonstrations and theatrical set pieces were unique manifestations of unionist culture. In a period of austerity and high unemployment in Northern Ireland, and increasingly aggressive nationalism in the Irish Free State, they were also a response to political developments. The demonstrations of the 1930s provided unionists with a common political tradition with which to identify, as well as an affirmation of the state, particularly through unionist involvement in royal occasions. The colour and drama of these ceremonies was forcefully conveyed through the pages of the main unionist papers, the Belfast Newsletter, the Northern Whig and the Belfast Telegraph, as the theatricality of the third home rule drama had been. The attention given to these rituals in the press in Northern Ireland is important because it was through the press that these often elitist events were made accessible to the population at large. Through press coverage, which was as comprehensive as it was dramatic, the masses were at least given a sense that they were participating in the collective life of their community. The major ceremonial festivals of this decade were those which celebrated Edward Carson: the opening of the Stormont parliament, which was presented as the first monument to the former unionist leader; the unveiling of the statue honouring him in 1933; his funeral in 1935; and the unveiling of a plaque in his honour in 1938. Andrew Gailey has already outlined the way in which Carson’s ‘performances’ were orchestrated in the period of the third home rule crisis. Carson’s appearances were, he argues, limited to ‘maintain an air of mystery’, while unionist meetings were made a ‘social occasion to remember, with large crowds, local bands and choirs and with the entertainment of theatrical parades, inspections, mounted escorts of lancers’. In the 1930s similar theatrical techniques were employed; unionist commemorations in this period were marked by distinctive ceremonial settings, formal speeches and, often, impressive dress. Loudspeakers were installed at the opening of parliament, and also at the unveiling of the Carson statue and during his funeral, in order to enable the audience to feel more intimately involved in the proceedings.