The Reynolds Letters: An Irish Emigrant Family in Late Victorian Manchester (Irish Narrative Series) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1859182003 ISBN 13: 9781859182000

Publisher: Cork University Press, 1999

Synopsis

Personal letters are now recognized as the richest source for understanding the process and experience of migration. After the death of her husband, a victim of the Great Famine in Mohill, Co. Leitrim, Mary Reynolds settled her young family in Lancashire. Those who stayed there maintained an affectionate and informative correspondence with Laurence Reynolds and his family, who went on to Chicago.

This collection of forty-nine letters sent from Manchester (1877-1904), chronicles the growing wealth and respectability of Irish emigrants making good in industrial England, offering an interesting counterpoint to more familiar stories of poverty. They show that the Irish in England did not always experience the squalor and degradation depicted by Carlyle and Engels.

The editor’s introduction illuminates the social history of England as well as Irish emigration.

About this title

About the Author:

David Fitzpatrick is Associate Professor of Modern History at Trinity College, Dublin. His books include "Oceans of Consolation: Personal Accounts of Migration to Australia" and "Politics and Irish Life, 1913-1921: Provincial Experience of War and Revolution". He is also the series editor for Irish Narratives, all published by Cork University Press.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cork University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1859182003
• ISBN 13: 9781859182000
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96
• Editor: McBride Lawrence