“Ilegant Natives of Erin”: The Irish in Cheltenham 1801-1861

A local study of the Irish in Cheltenham was conducted along the lines of the “mixed methods” paradigm suggested by Swift. The Irish-born population, as recorded in the census of 1841, 1851 and 1861, was subjected to a biographical survey, and census data were obtained (from I-CeM) in order to allow the characteristics of the Irish in Cheltenham to be analysed statistically in the context of the wider demographic profile of the town. Topics investigated quantitatively include: population growth, migration levels, geographical distribution, occupations, socio-economic diversity, permanence/transience of residency, integration or segregation, and origins in Ireland. The lived experiences of these people were then investigated further from a variety of thematic perspectives. Subjects considered qualitatively include: housing, community relations, alcohol and disorder, social mobility, religion, politics, and education. Incidents of Anti-Catholic sentiment and violence, enflamed by Francis Close’s rabid evangelical rhetoric, are examined. The Great Famine and its effects, reaching even as far as Cheltenham, are discussed, as well as the response of the local Poor Law Guardians to the problem. An interesting conundrum relating to apparent, but unexplained, connections between members of the Cheltenham working-class Irish community and two of Feargus O’Connor’s Chartist colonies is explored. Two very different groups of Irish people in Cheltenham were distinguished, from diametrically opposing ends of the socio-economic scale, one of extremely high status, the other of particularly low status. Cheltenham was identified as being highly unusual, possibly unique, in having roughly equal numbers of Irish-born people from these diverse social classes living in close proximity to one another. The characteristics of the low-status Irish were found to be very similar to those of working-class Irish people in other British cities, and, like the Irish in other places in South Wales and South-west England, they were predominantly from County Cork. The high-status Cheltenham Irish, who included numerous absentee landlords, on the other hand, hailed mostly from Dublin, Ulster and other parts of Ireland, and were more closely aligned with their British-born neighbours from similar backgrounds than with their working-class compatriots.