How can the experiences and identities of Irish people in Britain inform understandings of Irishness and questions of whiteness in Britain?
How can the experiences and identities of Irish people in Britain inform understandings of Irishness and questions of whiteness in Britain?
This essay focuses on experiences of Irish people in Britain. Until recently there has been little academic study on Irish migration and the Irish Diaspora and although the Irish are ‘the largest ethnic minority in Britain’s workforce and have been the most important source of migrant labour for British economy for 200 years’ (Hickman,1998, 288) studies of migration tend to ignore this fact. The first part of my essay will focus on why the Irish have been somewhat of an ‘invisible’ migrant group in Britain. I will then consider the notion of ‘whiteness’ in Britain/England in relation to race and racism, highlighting the notion of a ‘black white dualism’ in regards to race. In the third part of this essay I will to examine the fact that Irish people in Britain can be subject to the same types of racial discrimination as other ‘non-white’ ethnic minorities in Britain. I will look at ways the Irish have been constructed as an inferior race to the British and present some of the negative stereotypes of Irish culture. The final part of my essay will focus on experiences of the second generation Irish population living in Britain. I will address the questions of how they challenge the traditional view of Irish culture how they might identify themselves culturally and negotiate their ‘Irishness’ in Britain, creating a new form of Irishness and hybrid identities.
The Irish are the largest minority group in Britain, however this is rarely acknowledged in academic studies. The first major influx of Irish migrants to Britain/England was the post-famine migrants in the nineteenth century. At this time, Irish immigrants were perceived as a different race to British (Mac an Ghaill et al,2003, 387). Anti-Irish racism and anti-Catholicism was clearly present within Britain. ‘The 1830-40s was a time of social and economic transformation in which the Irish were visible as a migrant group whose presence was deemed a threat to the body politic and whose social habits, cultural attributes and political traditions were decreed to be as contagious as a virus and just as damaging to the political life of the nation.’. (Hickman, 1998, 291). The Irish were constructed as the inferior (Catholic) other in the home of the superior (Protestant) British. Religion and national identity distinguished the Irish experience in Britain at the time (Hickman, Walter, 1995, 6). Jokes about Irishmen became popular and ‘punch cartoons in the later nineteenth century regularly portrayed them as apes’ (Walter, 1995, 46). This imagery of the Irish as being animals clearly constructed them as an inferior race to the British. These are early British concepts of Irishness and the Irish for which the British can be held responsible
In the twentieth century Irish migrants have become invisible as a migrant group. This is partly because they are white. Skin colour became the primary marker in determining race and it is rarely considered that Irish people can experience the same type pf racial discrimination as non-white groups can. ‘The Irish are excluded from consideration in these terms because they are white, and the dominant paradigm for understanding racism in Britain has been constructed on the basis of a black-white dichotomy’ (Hickman, 1995, 289). The post war Irish migrants in the late 1940s were treated as ‘British subjects’. In the 1955 Eden Cabinet reports stated that ‘the Irish are not, whether they like it or not, a different race from the ordinary inhabitants of Great Britain.’ (Gray, 2002, 261). Immigration controls continued to increase towards non-white immigrants, however the Irish remained ‘a special case’ (Gray, 2002). The Irish were excluded from immigration controls in 1962. Was this simply due to the fact that the Irish were ‘white’? Many would argue yes, however Mary Hickman argues that there were a number of political reasons for the Irish to be excluded from these controls. She suggests that this exclusion however, reinforced the notion of the ‘black-white dualism’ that already existed in Britain (Hickman 1995 and Bray, 2002). Hickman also looks at the myth of British homogeneity, which developed in the 1950s. The myth ‘declared that Scotland, Ireland and Wales shared a common culture with England and consequently the peoples of these countries could be considered the same ‘race’’ (Mac an Ghaill et al,2003, 10). The construction of this myth along with the fact that the Irish are ‘white’ means that it was assumed that Irish people can easily assimilate in Britain. However, although on an official level, the Irish were treated as British, Irish people at the time were experiencing racial discrimination in Britain/England. Officials assumed that ‘An Irishman looking for lodgings is generally speaking, not likely to have anymore difficulty than an Englishman, whereas the coloured men is often turned away.’ (Hickman, 1995, 298). However, at the time there were numerous ‘No Irish, No Coloured’ signs outside lodgings. The fact that there were ‘No Irish’ signs seems to be forgotten however we are constantly reminded that non-white ethnic groups were subject to this type of discrimination at the time.(Walter, 1995, Hickman, 1995). It was assumed that because the Irish are ‘white’ they could easily assimilate into Britain. Some geographers have argued that what is needed is a ‘deconstruction of ‘whiteness’’ (Hickman and Walter, 1995) where ‘colour is not taken as the only marker of exclusion/inclusion.’ (Hickman and Walter, 1995 8). The black/white dualism does not acknowledge that there is no cultural difference within different ‘white’ groups, when there clearly is. The stereotypes of the Irish that were constructed in the nineteenth century were still present in Britain in the twentieth century. ‘English people continued to associate the Irish with drink, fighting and dirt and some of them blamed the Irish as much as, if not more than, the ‘coloured immigrants’ for the decline of conditions in their area’ (Hickman, 1995, 298). This shows that while at an official level, the Irish were ‘included’ in Britain, at a social level the Irish were excluded and thought of as troublesome and inferior. It is important to refuse the assumption that ‘racism and discrimination are a function solely of differences in skin colour.’ (Hickman, 1995 298)
