The Irish abroad: Better questions through a better source, the Canadian census

Abstract

A considerable body of writing on the Irish abroad now exists and it is possible from this literature to identify certain patterns of inquiry. For the most part the British studies of the Irish abroad are confined to actual emigrants and little attention is devoted to the issue of acculturation of second and third generation Irish in Britain. It is apparent, also, that many of these studies treat only the Catholic Irish. In the Canadian context, however, it is possible, using religious and ethnic census data, to identify the relative fortunes of Catholic and Protestant Irish emigrants in both the first and successive generations. A method of analysis is described and it is suggested that, employing alternative sources, a similar approach might be feasible for studies of the Irish in countries other than Canada.