John Belchem's chapter on the Irish in Liverpool, also sees ethnicity as defensive, emphasising that it was not a primordial attribute but a constructed identity, and that ethnic networks provided the benefits of security. This study is an explicit statement of the limitations of the census enumerators' books for understanding the social networks of the Irish. He identifies successful migrants as 'culture brokers', a group which tends to be obscured by aggregate census statistics. The theme of ethnic networks of mutuality is continued by Martha Kanya-Forstner in her fascinating study of notions of Irish Catholic womanhood as revealed through the activities of lay networks in Liverpool, especially the work of the St Vincent de Paul Society. The distinction between deserving and undeserving poor acquired new resonances, the former being the poor who performed their religious duties, with the priest as final arbiter of the issue, thereby extending his influence in the community.
Poverty is revealed here as a gendered phenomenon.
Given the paucity of studies of Irish women in nineteenth-century Britain, this essay stands out as a seminal contribution to the field. In the smaller towns, it has been suggested, the Irish failed to develop all-encompassing ethnic networks and gradually 'faded' into the host society. By contrast, this volume redresses the balance in favour of the cities. Besides Liverpool, both London and Glasgow would surely be excellent candidates for this kind of study. Methodological questions of a different kind are raised by several contributors who make use of oral testimony and autobiography to shed light on the nature and persistence of ethnic identity.