To tara via holyhead: the emergence of Irish catholic ethinicity in nineteenth-century Christchurch, New Zealand.

I

On a spring day in September, 1886, Patrick Henley, president of the New Headford branch of the Australasian Hibernian Society, offered a purse of sovereigns to a man of 'sterling and undying' patriotism whom he described as 'our dear Soggart Aroon'. The recipient of the gift was Thomas Walsh, a young secular priest born in Mooncoin in the diocese of Ossory and educated at the University school, Waterford, and the Missionary College of All Hallows, Dublin, prior to his ordination for the New Zealand diocese of Wellington in 1883. (1) Appreciative of the generosity and deference displayed towards him, Walsh phrased an eloquent reply in language that struck a deep chord with the Irish audience gathered to witness this symbolic exchange: "What an apt and striking appellation your society bears! Catholic would not be sufficient--Hibernian is enough. Both united embrace everything of which a Catholic Irishman should be jealously proud ... Hibernian is your name, Catholic is your sirname." (2)

The explicit synonymy of the terms 'Irish' and 'Catholic' in Walsh's rhetoric has much wider significance for migrants who made their way to Christchurch in the nineteenth century than this stylised encounter suggests. During the 1870s and 1880s the language of ethnicity penetrated immigrant perceptions to an unprecedented degree, constituting something of a 'grand controlling metaphor' that located whole bodies of social practices on an intelligible experiential map. (3) In the city and its environs, the parish church became the central institution in local Irish Catholic life, and around it a wide variety of formal, ethnic associations were erected to nourish the cultural, spiritual and social needs of its members. For the majority of newcomers, religion emerged as the primary origin and expression of Irish identity, a source of comfort and continuity that held forth a promise of spiritual and political redemption in the future. This lay interpretation of Irishness was reinforced with varying degrees of int ensity by clerical leaders, who viewed the metaphor of Irish nationality within a predominantly religious frame of reference and extolled the virtues of a holy and cruelly oppressed 'Isle of Erin'. By the late nineteenth century, the creative synthesis of formal religion and Irishness had enveloped Irish Catholics in a comprehensive network of personal relationships, parish organisations and ethnic institutions which provided some unanimity of communal purpose and obscured potential class conflict. Notwithstanding the diversity of outlooks and interests within the group, religious identification offered a useful resolution of ethnic tensions and traditions, while ensuring the continuing vitality of a separate spiritual, educational and social life alongside the dominant local system. In this sense, 'the shortest way to Tara was via Holyhead' because it led to the development of a shared identity that fused the potent elements of 'Irishness' and 'Catholicity'. (4)

The transition "from immigrants to ethnics" requires critical dialogue with the process of group ethnicization. In carrying out this difficult analytic task, I want to draw on the substantial insights of recent scholarship in the field of Irish migration history, which has shown that ethnic identity 'is both a matter of self-identification and of taxonomies developed by the host society'. (5) This expanding international literature provides invaluable guidance for scholars keen to supplement the slender historiography on the Irish in New Zealand. (6) It also serves as a useful corrective to the essentialist emphases found in the earlier work of some Irish-American historians. (7) One of the major problems with these historical writings is that they were based on the mistaken assumption Irish emigrants arrived in the New World with a well-developed national spirit and a patterned system of communal affiliation that was either pre-destined or static over time. We cannot take cultural continuity for granted in t his way, nor should we attribute innate organisational powers to an underlying subculture. Ethnic identity, after all, is a culturally constructed set of usages adopted by people in their day-to-day relationships with one another and the society around them. (8) We would do well to remember that it is a contested choice, defined by people as they live their own history, and not, in the final analysis, a primordial 'given' of social existence.

In what ways were aspects of an inherited Old World culture 'handled' by the Catholic Irish immigrants in Christchurch? How do we account for the process of ethnic consciousness-making in a colonial context? In this paper, I want to suggest that the formation of heightened ethnic awareness among the group was a complex phenomenon shaped by the constant interaction of Old World cultural resources and expressive symbols with colonial social settings. After moving from one place to another, migrants needed to re-establish networks of personal affiliation, a project that entailed a choice between the people that they left and those that they met. There was nothing inevitable about this process. Pre-migration classifications belonged to various points of origin and newcomers did not simply transport a collective identity across the oceans in their cultural baggage. (9) Rather, their self-definition, at first, reflected a range of regional and village loyalties, or kinship ties. Which of these attachments they chos e to pursue, and what meaning they gave to other affiliations, depended upon a number of critical factors, including patterns of migration, local opportunity structures, and external discrimination.

II

Nineteenth-century Irish migration to Christchurch differed markedly from movements to North American and Australian destinations in its timing and composition. (10) The city itself was not established, let alone settled, prior to 1851 and though small numbers of Irish migrants drifted into the provincial capital during the first decade, significant groups did not arrive until much later. The cost of passage to the colony, which ranged as high as [pounds sterling]18 to [pounds sterling]24 in the mid-1850s, was beyond the scant resources of most Irish emigrants, even when subsidised by the provincial government, and it compared poorly with existing fares to North America. Moreover, provincial leaders and administrators displayed considerable ambivalence toward immigration from Ireland, fearing that an influx of Catholic Irish would introduce a plethora of social problems including higher rates of drunkenness, violence and sectarian animosities. Successive Emigration Agents appointed to act for the province of Canterbury in London did little to attract, select or arrange for the transport of immigrants from Ireland and concentrated their limited recruitment efforts of districts located in north-east Ulster. (11)

Nonetheless, the supply of labour in the province seldom equalled the demand, particularly during boom periods such as 1857-64. As a result, rigorous selection criteria underpinning provincial immigration programmes were periodically relaxed to attract sufficient numbers of agricultural labourers, shepherds and domestic servants. In addition, intending immigrants were encouraged to sail to Canterbury by various financial subsidies designed to alleviate the hardship and cost of the journey. These inducements held obvious appeal for impoverished Irish men and women who were better able to raise the few pounds towards their fares. Once in the city, they could then take advantage of a nomination system to secure passages for relatives or friends. These changes not only made Canterbury more competitive with North American destinations and other Australasian colonies, but opened the gates to significant numbers of Irish immigrants.

The rural character of the receiving society that these newcomers entered distinguished their experiences from those of their countrymen and women who settled in the large north-eastern cities of the United States. Whereas impoverished Famine-era refugees formed the basis of Irish population in these localities, corresponding movement to the province of Canterbury was almost wholly a post-Famine phenomenon. Immigrants who arrived in Christchurch were more religiously engaged than their American counterparts, which included unchurched remnants of the pre-Famine flow as well as emaciated survivors of 'the misery'. Moreover, as many as one half of local Irish had had experience of colonial life at other migrant destinations in Great Britain, the United States or Australia prior to their arrival in New Zealand and were much better equipped to deal with the demands of a new society. Although poor in comparison with their co-residents, as least initially, these immigrants experienced nothing approaching the terribl e poverty and insecurity suffered by Irish settlers in the north-eastern United States at mid-century, nor the opprobrium heaped upon them by hostile native-born Protestants. By contrast, the expansion of extensive pastoralism and mixed-crop-farming in Canterbury, along with a low pressure of population on land supplies, a relatively buoyant labour market, and the provision of assisted passages opened the possibility of land ownership for newcomers already accustomed to the requirements of seasonal labour migration and the modernising forces of agrarian capitalism. In short, the province offered land-hungry Irish migrants far greater opportunities to acquire an independence on the land and an environment that was less bewildering to penniless, unskilled newcomers. As a consequence, theirs was an easier accommodation to new realities, but not one actuated without its moments of tension, external discrimination or ambiguity.

Few Irish-born Catholics ventured to the province before 1859. Census figures from 1854 indicate that only 2.8 percent of Canterbury's inhabitants subscribed to the Catholic faith, and of these nearly half were French-born settlers and their children residing in the district of Akaroa. By contrast, English colonists comprised 84.5 percent of all inhabitants, a figure almost matched by the proportion of Anglicans (82.8). Still less than 3.0 percent of the province's population at the end of the preceding decade, the bulk of Irish Catholic movement to the region took place during the period 1860-80, with particularly large infusions between the years 1862-65 and, more especially, 1871-79. The Census of 1861 reveals that the group constituted around 5.0 percent of the provincial population, a figure that had increased to 10.3 percent by 1878. Thereafter the proportion of Catholic Irish and their offspring remained relatively steady, increasing only marginally by the turn of the century. (12)

In terms of its Irish regional origins, over two-fifths of Christchurch's Catholics were associated with districts in Munster (see Table 1). Emigrants from County Tipperary were numerically greater than elsewhere, but Cork, Limerick and Kerry all ranked in the first five sending counties. Although the proportion of persons from Connaught was relatively light (14.4 percent), County Galway was only marginally second to Tipperary as a source of emigrants and maintained close ties with Christchurch throughout the nineteenth century. Leinster, like its western counterpart, contributed a small share of total numbers (17.3 percent), but Dublin proved an exception to the wider picture and forged enduring links with the city by the early 1860s. In Ulster, on the other hand, Counties Antrim and Tyrone were well represented among the immigrants, but movement from the north does not become apparent until after 1862. From this point onward, the composition of Christchurch's Irish population acquired an increasing infusion from the north, while retaining a south-western orientation forged during the period 1859-65.

Initially, at least, these newcomers displayed few signs of intensified ethnic awareness. The migrant stream comprised quite distinct elements, each of which had different backgrounds, loyalties and attachments according to their regional origins, time of exodus and position in the life cycle. Diverse and disorganised, they brought with them a wide variety of perspectives, motivations and opinions. Moreover, the majority of immigrants were absorbed in building lives of their own within rather narrow boundaries, and lacked either the numbers or socioeconomic resources to provide a strong basis for Irish ethnicity. Scattered widely, internally factionalized and without effective clerical or lay leadership they confronted obstacles which mitigated against the maturation of group consciousness or shared interests that could be used to effect group mobilization. Significantly, the rise of a heightened ethnic consciousness in the 1870s and 1880s coincided with the arrival of Irish clergy and the emergence of a thin middle class of farmers, hotelkeepers, and shop owners who had come from humble stock and shared the sympathies and experiences of their countrymen and women.

During the early years of Irish Catholic settlement in Canterbury the casual, intermittent nature of wage labour encouraged newcomers to adopt an itinerant way of life, and people moved from location to location, and job to job as circumstances or seasons demanded. The need for constant geographical mobility was especially pressing for unlanded male workers, whose services were eagerly sought after from spring to autumn on the larger farms, estates and runs, but no longer required during the bleak winter months. (13) With few marketable skills or capital upon their arrival, Irish men secured only a tenuous foothold in the province's secondary labour market, working as labourers, harvesters, ploughmen and general farm hands. (14) The instability and irregularity of these low-paying jobs restricted the range of opportunities available to male immigrants and led to the adoption of various strategies to supplement meagre incomes, including a willingness to move about regularly in search of work.

Persistent insecurity also obliged a greater reliance on the paid and unpaid activities of women, whose contributions to the domestic economy formed part of a larger pattern of familial and kin mutual support with its origins in Irish custom. Irish housewives not only took responsibility for household chores, but cared for the family dairy cow, and took in boarders. Their labours, meanwhile, were further supplemented by their daughters who went into domestic service from an early age, considerably boosting household incomes with their wages. The emergence of a strong female role within the Irish Catholic family considerably extended the range of strategies available for coping with economic uncertainty in a new environment and was a crucial factor in facilitating group social mobility.

A perpetual shortage of domestic servants in the province meant that there was much less variation in demand for the services of Irish women over the course of the year and from year--a pattern that held even in times of economic recession. (15) Single Irish women on assisted passages, like those of other nationalities, were quickly engaged by affluent Canterbury families, sometimes less than twenty-four hours after their arrival at the immigration barracks. (16) Moreover, the level of remuneration which they could expect to receive for personal service remained steady throughout the 1860s and 1870s. Girls aged from twelve to fifteen years of age, for example, earned between [pounds sterling]12 and [pounds sterling]15 per annum, while their counterparts aged sixteen to eighteen obtained up to [pounds sterling]25. (17) In general, wages during the period ranged from [pounds sterling]15 to [pounds sterling]40 per annum depending on the age, experience and quality of an individual worker. (18)

Domestic service in the homes of the well-to-do may have placed Irish Catholic women under the close scrutiny of their employers, but their position was relatively secure compared to the chronic fluctuations of the male labour market. In consequence, these women were able to accumulate savings with which they brought over relatives from Ireland, supported devotions in the Catholic church, and provided a nest-egg for marriage. Furthermore, live-in help furnished important fringe benefits such as full board and lodging, or gifts of discarded clothing and furniture which were no longer of use to their employers. Although ties of affection sometimes developed between employers and their servants, Irish Catholic women seldom stayed in a situation for long. Many single women married within the first two years of residence in the colony, while most eagerly took advantage of the demand for female workers by changing engagements frequently in response to working conditions and familial obligations. (19)

Transience was a pervasive facet of immigrant life for both sexes but it did not lead to atomisation or a breakdown of familial co-operation. Irish migrants were well accustomed to patterns of temporary itinerancy and responded to situational exigencies with resilience and tactical virtuosity. Although recurrent economic uncertainty may have sharpened feelings of ambivalence toward colonial life, it also promoted a dependence on collectivist strategies. In particular, migrants made extensive use of informal ethnic and kinship networks which provided advice and information about work and accommodation, and material assistance in times of need. (20) During the summer, for example, Catholic Irish families and individuals maintained close contacts with kinsfolk as they moved together around the countryside in search of employment, while newly arrived settlers were often met by relatives with whom they went to live as boarders.

Throughout the early years of Catholic settlement, informal patterns of social bonding came to be expressed spatially in rural neighbourhoods on the periphery of the city, where localised, Old World loyalties were maintained in small, clustered settlements. At Broadfields, for example, a tightly woven group of colonists settled in an area which extended along Shand's Track as far as present day Lincoln. The first Catholic arrivals in the district had made the voyage out on three ships, the Clontarf, the William Miles and the Chrysolite, and most had strong associations with Nenagh, County Tipperary. These bonds were strengthened subsequently as newcomers brought out by family and friends joined the pioneering cohort, a process that spanned a period of fifteen years. Similar settlement patterns emerged in other rural and semi-rural areas, with particularly strong contingents of Catholic Irish clustering around Halswell, Leeston, and Bingsland. (21)

Neighbourhood communities like these drew immigrants together in tangled webs of kinship relations and mutual support, enabling fragments of older social networks to be re-established in the colony. In many cases settlers had known one another quite intimately prior to the moment of migration, while some had forged connections with receiving networks through information acquired at home or in Australia. Once in the community, all had their social relations sharply prescribed by membership of the group. Clustered settlements of this type fostered a high degree of cultural continuity and may even have imparted a profound sense of detachment from the host society. Yet, residential bonding represented

more than a defensive strategy. Engaged in small-scale dairying or subsistence agriculture on holdings that were seldom greater than twenty acres, most of these newcomers eked out a very precarious existence even with the assistance of relatives and friends. A reliance on familial ties, together with the nascent fus ion of ethnicity and kinship, was a purposeful activity that allowed the immigrants to bring a constraining environment into closer conformity with their purposes.

Indicative of this larger pattern of mutual support was the high esteem with which localised kin ties were held among the group. This preference is clearly reflected in the baptismal registers of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament at Barbadoes Street, founded in 1864. (22) The grant of godparentage implied a great deal of trust on behalf of parents toward certain named individuals who agreed to provide for the child in the event of anything happening to them. It is significant that immigrants invariably chose Irish Catholic friends to act as sponsors where immediate relatives were unavailable, thereby placing these fictive ties on the same level as familial mutualism. (23) Such types of interaction created sets of enduring social relations shaped by very specific values and beliefs, which in turn strengthened an emergent ethnic subculture.

The effectiveness of the inter-personal connections which bound immigrants together in tangled webs of mutuality were further extended by high rates of in-group endogamy. The selection of a marriage partner not only entailed the formation of certain loyalties and moral obligations, but also represented a vital means for the development of primary relations or alliances between groups and individuals. In their matrimonial behaviour, Catholic Irish immigrants constructed and maintained a clear social distinction between those who belonged to an inner circle and those who did not. Not surprisingly, Catholic clergy actively encouraged and perpetuated this pattern within their administrative boundaries, using both the pulpit and the weight of their spiritual authority to inhibit exogamous unions with members of other groupings. (24)

While it is difficult to calculate the precise degree of endogamy among Irish Catholics, data adduced from vital events sources and church registers indicates a strong preference for endogamous unions (Table 2). In a sample of 296 marriages from the period 1860-89, nearly all single male immigrants selected partners from within the group (96.6 percent), an extraordinary level of endogamy considering that Catholic men outnumbered women in the province until the mid-1880s. (25) By contrast, a larger proportion of women chose partners outside their ethnic marriage field (28.3 percent), though about one-quarter of these still married Roman Catholic men. As many as one-half of the remainder sought and obtained dispensations for mixed marriages before a Catholic priest. In these cases, the non-Catholic partner promised to respect the faith of the Catholic and agreed to bring up the children as Catholics. Overall, the marriage behaviour of immigrant women was still highly endogamous throughout the period under consi deration, even though a significant minority were prepared to cross ethnic boundaries and select mates from outside the emerging group.

The analysis of Catholic Irish marriage behaviour indicates the existence and maintenance of a remarkably strong sense of social identification based on ethnicity. By selecting companions from within their own group, immigrants both sharpened the distinctiveness of the emerging ethnic community and cemented alliances across and between diverse social networks which were consequently redefined and reshaped. Ethnic endogamy greatly deepened informal social interaction among Irish Catholics and facilitated the development of group endo-culture. As a result, older existing kinship and associative fragments were superseded by more solidified, expansive social networks encompassing major segments of the new community.

Informal group activities of this kind constituted an important prerequisite for the subsequent rise of ethnic association patterns and institutions. The establishment of churches, sectarian schools, confraternities and mutual-aid organisations not only widened the structural separation of Irish Catholics in a formalistic sense, but also furnished public bases for a flourishing ethnic social substructure. (26) The construction and support of parochial schools, in addition to the costs of churches and convents, demanded a great deal of pecuniary sacrifice from migrants who were already heavily burdened by the reality of daily expenses. That a congregation composed largely of unskilled labourers, domestic servants and young families had managed to sustain the burden of church property already valued at [pounds sterling]20,000 in 1878 and to maintain a system of private schools is clear testimony of the strength of ethno-religious bonds in the city. (27) By 1887, the total annual cost of supporting local schools was [pounds sterling]1,765 per annum, a sum that proved difficult to collect during the depression years. (28) As one parish priest, Father Le Menant des Chesnais, later confided to his bishop, "it was impossible to draw blood out of a stone." The laity, he argued, could not realistically be expected to shoulder a greater amount of the debt facing the diocese of Christchurch at this time as "they have done all they can and are unable to do more." (29)

Despite the privations of the late nineteenth century, however, the schools remained open and were financed by various means. At the Pro-Cathedral in Barbadoes Street teachers were secured for the boy's school through seat rents supplemented by church offertories and school fees, while the girls' school relied principally on school fees for the same purpose. (30) Similarly, seat rent formed the basis of payment for teachers at St. Mary's, Manchester Street, and St. Joseph's, Papanui, with additional funds being generated by private offerings and entertainments. (31) At both Halswell and Addington a committee of parishioners was organised to take charge of raising the necessary money for maintaining local schools, a task that would have undoubtedly required a great deal of work. (32) Although the available data do not permit reliable estimates of the number of children attending these schools, the clergy seemed generally satisfied with the provision and quality of Catholic primary education in the city but had reservations about the failure to establish a secondary school for boys. For the laity, hard times can only have added weight to their complaint that New Zealand's Education Act of 1877 had forced them to subsidise the 'godless' education of others through taxation while they received no direct benefit for themselves or their children. (33)

The prominence of lay associations such as the Hibernians in local parish life, along with the belated development of confraternities and sodalities like the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Living Rosary, were crucial in the development of a sense of community among Irish Catholics in Christchurch. (34) But the cement which inextricably bound immigrants together and made them distinctive was their religion. Within Catholicism itself the fundamental and most sacred act of worship was the Mass. Although the seasonal labour market militated against a high level of attendance, the fact that local clergy expressed satisfaction with the degree of religious fervour in the city suggests that most Catholics were prepared to do their duty and receive communion one or twice a year. (35)

Reliable figures for weekly attendance are difficult to ascertain. (36) Nonetheless, a rare glimpse at church life in the late 1880s is offered through the testimony of Father Lemant des Chesnais in a letter to Archbishop Redwood of Wellington in 1887. On a typical Sunday at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, Le Menant noted, three Masses were preached in the morning, the first at seven o'clock, followed by another at nine-thirty and another solemn ritual at eleven. In addition to these morning Masses, catechism was taught at three o'clock in the afternoon and early evening services at six-thirty featured Vespers and Benediction. During weekdays one Mass took place in church for the benefit of the convents and a further Mass was said for school children each Thursday morning at nine-thirty. Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament was offered on Wednesdays at seven o'clock, and Baptisms took place every Sunday and Wednesday at two o'clock. The clergy adopted a weekly roster system, and a priest on duty was requ ired to attend sick calls and preside at evening devotions throughout the period. (37) During Lent, a traditional time of fasting and preparation for the sacrament of penance and communion at Easter, special devotions and conditions were usually prescribed, and strenuous exertions were made to nourish the piety of the people.

The extraordinary receptiveness of the laity to missions demonstrates that they made good evangelical material. During the 1877 mission of Father Henebery, an Irish-American priest of the Order of the Precious Blood, for example, crowds became so large that children under twelve had to be prevented from attending Mass in order to accommodate a congregation that swelled inside the altar rails of the sanctuary, around the Bishop's throne and right up to the altar steps. (38) The mission began each morning with a Mass at five o'clock, followed by a second at nine-thirty and rosary in the evenings at seven with instruction. On the first Saturday of his visit, Henebery instructed the married women and widows of the parish and exhorted those who wanted 'good husbands' to send them along for a session early on Monday morning. Single women over twelve years of age received instruction on Tuesday morning, while their single male counterparts did so on Wednesday. Confessions were heard in Gaelic, French, German, Spanis h, and Italian, as well as English. At the conclusion of two weeks of daily Masses, Rosary and instruction, some 3000 persons had been induced to take a pledge of temperance, and most of these took part in a procession through the city wearing green sashes on which were emblazoned their temperance medals. (39) Clearly, sustained efforts to stimulate the shared ethno-religious heritage of the immigrants in this way could be remarkably successful, leaving a lasting legacy on which to build a more cohesive community.

III

How, then, can we account for these expressions of ethnicity in the patterning of Irish group relations? A plausible explanation for this process is that it constituted a defensive reaction against anti-Irish prejudice. As I noted earlier, there was considerable ambivalence toward the Irish in Canterbury and they were generally regarded as undesirable immigrants, especially during the 1860s. The settlement's founders, the Canterbury Association, had sought to establish a balanced, agricultural settlement restricted to members of the Church of England which they hoped would replicate the social and economic hierarchy of the English rural community. (40) Such a scheme had little use for the sons and daughters of west Munster tenant farmers or Connemara labourers. Nonetheless, the aspirations of leaders of the Association were not realised and religious exclusiveness was an ideal soon abandoned by provincial administrators who needed to satisfy a persistent demand for agricultural labourers, shepherds and domest ic servants. (41) While immigrant recruitment was never intended to extend 'beyond the pale', the attraction of subsidised passages, reasonable wages and cheap land lured a steady stream of Irish Catholics to the colony throughout the 1860s and 1870s.

To what extent, however, did Catholic Irish immigrants face unfair discrimination in the cradle of Protestantism? Many non-Catholic settlers no doubt brought with them a vast reservoir of distorted, negative stereotypes about Irish Catholics, and looked upon their fellow colonists with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. Some evidence for this assertion can be found in shipboard diaries. English-born Fanny Horrell, for example, sailing to Lyttelton aboard the Piako in 1878, described her co-travellers in this way:

My mess mates are all English girls and respectable, but there are some queer looking characters here. I don't think I should be very comfortable if I had to mess with some of them. There a great many Irish Roman Catholics. They do make a fuss over their prayers, saying 'Mother Mary of God pray for us'. (42)

Emma Hodder, on the other hand, alluded to more serious inter-ethnic tensions in the single women's compartment of the Hydaspes: Friday 16 July [1869] - Magnificent morning only very hot - a disturbance last night with the Irish - we were very much frightened - watches appointed now all night - I and Grace Campbell begin tonight - we are afraid they will give rise in the night and do for us. I have spoken to the Minister this morning and he is going to conduct prayers for us every morning also a Bible Class Sunday afternoon - I am quite pleased - it is something to look forward to and also it will break the monotony of the day - I feel very anxious about the future - Oh that I could leave it all to Jesus lean entirely on him.

Thursday 5 August [1869] - a great stir this morning - 2 Girls very rude put in Prison and fed on Biscuits and water ...

Friday 6 August [1869] - they are still confined not at all sorry I find I am very much disliked because I will not associate with them but I cannot help it - they are a low lot ...

Saturday 28 August [1869] Oh what a night - gales all night - we indeed all thought that the morning would find us in eternity ... the Irish fell on their knees and the others wept ... (43)

In general, Victorian Protestants deeply distrusted Roman Catholic clerics and institutions, particularly the convent and the confessional, and could neither accept nor understand the ideal of priestly asceticism. As Philip Ingram has convincingly argued, the idea of a celibate priesthood seemed to contravene the authority of marriage and the family for those exposed to tales of clerical promiscuity in popular essays and novels such as Maria Monk. (44) Anxieties about priestly intent permeated all social classes in Victorian Britain and provided fertile ground for the growth of anti-Catholicism. Moreover, the rituals of the church and its religious pageantry offended fragile Protestant sensibilities, and fostered a widespread view that these aspects of Catholicism blunted the moral feelings of its adherents and blighted them with the stain of idolatry.

There is no evidence to suggest local immigrants faced prohibitions of the type encountered by Irish-Americans along the eastern seaboard of the United States, where the 'NINA' ('No Irish Need Apply') syndrome was firmly entrenched. But it is clear that a certain amount of anti-Irish and anti-Catholic prejudice and bigotry existed in Canterbury throughout the nineteenth century. The provincial government, for example, attempted to stem the flow of assisted migrants from southern Ireland during the 1860s, while attentive audiences gathered to hear 'reformed priests' like the apostate Catholic, Pastor Charles Chiniquy, who visited the region in 1880. (45) Provincial leaders castigated the Irish as a particularly troublesome, disorderly people, prone to excessive drunkenness and rowdyism. (46) Moreover, employers of domestic help sometimes complained bitterly about the inability of single Irishwomen to carry out the duties associated with their position. The Press, for example, noted in 1867, that a householder

is compelled either to do without a servant at all, or to pay for idle, ignorant, unskilled ... [h]ousemaids who have never handled a broom, cooks who scarcely know the difference between roast meat and boiled, and whose highest practical achievements in the art have been limited to preparing potatoes ... for the Sunday dinner in the wilds of Connemara--these are the domestics who an unhappy householder in Christchurch is expected to take into his home, and pay [pounds sterling]30 a year for the privilege of teaching them the first rudiments of service. (47)

A similar view of the defective, witless Irish female domestic is evident in English writer Sarah Amelia Courage's depiction of her 'stolid and faithful' maid. (48) 'Mary' was a "respectable farmer's daughter, too proud, she said, (or too incompetent) to go to service at home." Courage considered her to be 'clean' but lacking method in her work: "[s]he was very willing and warmhearted, like all the Irish, and those good qualities coveted a multitude of sins." (49) Equally revealing is the narration of Mary's 'many blunders' at Cashel Street, 'On one occasion', Courage wrote,

not feeling very well, I went to my room to lie down, and told Mary if anyone called that afternoon to say I was not at home. Two ladies called together, and Mary said I was not at home. They asked if she knew how long I should be away. Mary said no, but she would go and ask me; and, suiting the action to the word, she left them standing on the doorstep and, knocking at my bedroom door, asked me when I should be in. I was vexed, but I had them shown in and explained matters. (50)

This passage is worthy of closer examination. On one level, the incident is amusing and trivial. But on another it is contingent upon prior categorisation of stereotypical Irish behaviour which is then empirically verified and given 'objective' existence by Courage's observations. Many local Protestants would have readily identified with this satirical portrait. Some might also have found a great deal of explanation for Mary's deficiencies in her refusal to venture "up country [because] her people ... didn't like her to go so far from the Roman Catholic church." (51)

These negative images of Irish Catholics show that sectarianism constituted an important subterranean influence in daily relations between these immigrants and the dominant local culture. For members of the latter, a visible Irish presence served as a constant reminder of what colonial society must not become. This opinion gained credence on those occasions where newcomers appeared to engage in sporadic outbursts of antisocial behaviour. The eruption of Old World hostilities in Christchurch's Boxing Day riot of 1879, when about thirty Irish males armed with pick handles attacked an Orange procession, greatly heightened anti-Catholic sentiment in the colony. (52) The increasing number of Irish arrivals, the problematic nature of Irish male drinking, and the initial concentration of migrants in unskilled occupations were also factors which contributed to Protestant fear and antagonism. At the same time, predominant representations of Catholic Irish as a wayward people--as something distinctly 'other'--delineate d the outer edges of local social life. (53) By interpreting the group as a social threat, Protestants exacerbated the cultural distance separating these newcomers from the wider community and thereby increased the likelihood of sectarian conflict.

What was the effect of these negative attitudes on the immigrants themselves? The reaction of Protestant settlers to the religion, cultural background and social values of their neighbours catalysed a significant degree of ethnic group defensiveness. Whether real or imagined, anti-Catholic and anti-Irish prejudice played a major role in the process of ethnicization. It led to more assertive Catholic agitation over religious issues such as denominational schooling or the defence of Catholic doctrines. And, it sustained a mood of suspicion which was expressed in a reflexive turning away from the surrounding non-Catholic society.

This siege mentality was intensified in the 1870s and 1880s by the demeanour of Irish secular clerics such as Bishop Patrick Moran of Dunedin. The polemical style that these men introduced to New Zealand was deeply influenced by Old World historical analogies, traditions and emphases. A backdrop of centuries of economic and political domination by English Protestants, of failed uprisings, grinding poverty and religious suppression, had bestowed an image of historical misfortune on the island's Catholic masses. When linked with a passionate commitment to Roman Catholicism, this legacy was not an affliction but a strategic tool capable of being transformed to serve new purposes where the need arose. Moran, especially, skilfully manipulated powerful myths and symbols associated with Ireland's subjugation and reinterpreted perceived threats to the group as a continuation of historic wrongs suffered at the hands of the hated English. This was particularly evident in relation to education. In his Lenten Pastoral of 1873, for example, the Bishop castigated the provincial education ordinances of Otago and Canterbury as "so many penal laws, and virtually a repeal pro tanto of the Emancipation Act. We cannot regard them in other light than as a re-enactment of some of the provisions of the odious, impolitic, and cruel penal code."

The battle of faith and morality was to be fought in the classroom. At stake, Moran believed, was not simply the principle of distributive justice, which required that those who were taxed for these purposes should have their taxes spent on the schooling of their children. More importantly, education entailed an initiation into a holistic view of life that was, in turn, part of a wider preparation for death and therefore a proper function of the Church. In developing these aspects of his religious ideology, Moran drew especially upon the Syllabus of Errors, published by Pope Pius IX in 1864, which specifically condemned the proposition that the entire administration of public schools belonged to the civil authority. In the course of mobilising Irish colonial Catholicity, however, he relied so heavily on a brooding sense of oppression and impending crisis that other, more subtle emphases were almost completely obscured. The tone of the Catholic weekly, The New Zealand Tablet, founded by Moran in 1873 to defend the faith and argue a case for government support of parochial schools, extended the influence of this brand of militant Irish Catholicism and provided an important forum for debate over the direction of the Catholic Church in New Zealand.

That an overwhelmingly Irish-born laity in the city were receptive to this brand of strident Catholic triumphalism, as well as its evocations of Irish spiritual superiority, attests to the reactive dimension of their ethnicity. Yet the temptation to explain group ethnicization solely in terms of prejudice and discrimination would be misconceived. In light of the social circumstances of Irish daily life in Christchurch, the emergence of a workable Irish Catholic identity was as much a positive accomplishment as a retreat from hostility and contempt. This does not mean that it was entirely self-created, because this process owed a great deal to the perception and ascription of outsiders who simply lumped the newcomers together as 'Catholic Irish'. Rather, I am suggesting that examination of the group's inner experience and development leads to a richer understanding of how this self-definition converged with the views of others. Inter-ethnic conflict was certainly crucial in heightening a sense of shared ethnic ity. But so too were the role of informal social networks, the limits imposed by the local economy, and the controversies which raged within the nascent Catholic community itself. Internal friction, in particular, helped to sketch the basic parameters of group life and stimulated ethnic self-understanding by effectively deepening the involvement of immigrants in Irish ethnicity.

IV

A long struggle by Christchurch laity for Irish priests and bitter divisions between religious and secular clergy over the control of church affairs played an important role in fostering and reinforcing group identities. Essentially, these disputes arose from a fundamental cleavage within Catholic circles over the shape that Roman Catholicism should assume in the colony. On one hand, Irish secular priests and lay leaders sought to assimilate colonial Catholiciry into an Irish spiritual empire and envisioned a religion that primarily expressed Irish interests and Irish attitudes. Theirs was an undeniably narrow and parochial faith, but it resonated with an extraordinary degree of richness and its religious style and leadership held a great deal of popular appeal. Advocates of this position creatively fused Tridentine Catholicism with Irish nationalism and vigorously emphasised the ethnic needs of local communicants. To achieve their goals they sought to erect the structure of a strong, fully active Catholic co mmunity centred around an Irish Bishop, a network of parishes with permanent churches and a school system run by Irish teaching orders.

The Society of Mary, which had held responsibility for the spiritual needs of the region since 1849, considered a strident Irishness incidental to setting up a missionary Church in a new environment. The Marists did not differ in theological or doctrinal understanding from their clerical opponents, but they stood resolutely within the mainstream of international Catholicism and generally embraced a broader, more ecumenical approach to the Canterbury mission. Furthermore, they viewed themselves as itinerant missionaries whose task was to prepare the ground for the establishment of a diocese. After this goal was accomplished the Marists intended to withdraw from parochial work and undertake pastoral responsibilities more in keeping with their spiritual vows. In theory, this approach should have been complementary to that of their secular co-workers. In practice, however, the transition from mission to diocese was not accomplished without considerable acrimony. By the late 1870s, the Society of Mary elected to r etain control over the direction of Christchurch, rather than surrender it to a rival tradition of ultra-Irish bishops and domineering Irish clerics.

The roots of controversy over episcopal control of the province's flourishing entrepot were deep-seated and represented part of a wider on-going, adamantine struggle between rival Catholic traditions. In Australia, a succession of ultra-Irish bishops had been appointed through the influence of Paul Cullen, Cardinal Archbishop of Dublin, and all were openly contemptuous of religious orders earlier in the field. Fired by grandiose visions of an Irish spiritual empire, these newcomers triumphantly seized control of the Australian Catholic Church from the English Benedictine pioneers and defined the religious scene in terms of Irish experience. (54) The resolution of this conflict in favour of secular priests and Irish episcopal authoritarianism had clear implications for New Zealand. Indeed, the appointment of the Irish bishops Patrick Moran and Thomas Croke to the sees of Dunedin and Auckland in 1869 and 1870 seemed to indicate that Rome intended to establish a distinctly Cullenite hierarchy in the colony. Unli ke their Benedictine counterparts across the Tasman, however, the Society of Mary was not so easily superseded.

A central issue in the evolving dispute was the fact that the region's spiritual affairs were administered from Wellington. In 1849 Congregatio de Propaganda Fide had sought to end a protracted dispute between Bishop Pompallier and the Marist General, Father John Claude Cohn, by dividing authority in the colony at the thirty-ninth degree of latitude. (55) The Marists were removed to the newly-created diocese of Wellington, encompassing one-half of the North Island and the whole of the South Island, while Pompallier was established as resident bishop in the northern diocese of Auckland with responsibility for the Maori mission. This instruction effectively left a French bishop, Philip Viard, in charge of a large southern pastorate that was rapidly being peopled by Irish migrants and for which he had insufficient resources at his disposal. Between the years 1850-59 there were no resident priests stationed in Canterbury, and though visits were taken to the region by French clerics these were infrequent. It was n ot until mid-1860 that Viard obtained the first resident priests for Christchurch, following repeated petitions to Rome and the arrival of additional Marists for the first time in sixteen years. (56) Fathers Seon and Chataigner took charge of Christchurch and began a long period of pastoral labours by genteel French clergy, whose spiritual control of the region remained unbroken until 1877. (57)

These pioneer churchmen received co-operation from local congregations, but they were unable to achieve the degree of sympathy and close identification that the laity reserved for priests of their own nationality. (58) In short, the encounter between French apostolic labourers and their Irish flock forced the latter to confront the idea of their ethnic identity. By the 1870s underlying tensions within local Catholic circles were such that lay critics felt compelled to agitate for an Irish bishop and the provision of a sufficient number of Irish priests. Why, they asked, was Christchurch the only one of four main centres without a bishop at a time when the province had emerged as the colony's prime arable region, with a flourishing commercial centre?

Lay dissatisfaction with distant Marist suzerainty and its 'foreign clerics' was understandable. Whether or not they had sailed directly to the colony, most of the immigrants had left Irish communities at a time when these had become increasingly defined in terms of religious belief and emotion. (59) The state of spiritual affairs in Canterbury, in comparison, must have been a considerable disappointment, even for those who had experienced colonial life at other points of destination. Priests were encountered infrequently and the institutional structure of local Catholicism was much less effective and enclosing than that of Irish communities. No doubt there were some newcomers who appreciated this lack of clerical interference. Under the circumstances, it was relatively easy to drift away from the church, confident in the belief that familiar spiritual services were always available should the need arise. Among some sections of the laity religious practice became more instrumental in character and emphasised concrete ends rather than ceremonial observances. Quiet devotional aspects of faith were retained and Catholics remained firmly attached to the rites of baptism, marriage and extreme unction. But many placed considerably less importance on regular attendance at Mass, confession and communion except during Missions, when church-going tended to increase dramatically. Others were simply unable to approach the sacraments on a regular basis because of the nature of their work or the location of their residence. (60)

Despite these problems it would be wrong to characterise the laity as indifferent to their spiritual duties. Neither docile nor subservient, ordinary immigrants were capable of extraordinary creativity and personal initiative. They responded in various ways to the situation that confronted them and played a major role in shaping the Catholic churches, private devotions and institutions that developed in the province. Local historians have too easily obscured the fact during the 1860s, in particular, a predominantly Irish laity working in seasonal, unskilled occupations provided the resources necessary to construct a rudimentary Catholic institutional presence in the colony. (61) At the same time, members of local congregations generously donated what little spare time, money and labour they had to assist their priest practitioners in meeting spiritual objectives and providing essential services. When the efforts of local clergy fell short of immigrant expectations the laity articulated deep-seated local griev ances against the Society of Mary and its administration of the region. By engaging in the debate over the future direction of colonial Catholicism and enthusiastically fashioning an ethnic stance toward the group's internal difficulties, parishioners belied the notion that they mindlessly accepted the counsel of their priests. As emigrants they had left Ireland for something it could not give, but as colonials they recognised in the strong affirmation of Catholic Irishness an invaluable mechanism with which to shape outcomes and interpret the group's problems and obligations.

The common concerns of ordinary parishioners were voiced with increasing confidence during the 1870s by an emerging, self-conscious ethnic leadership. For the most part, lay leaders emanated from petty-bourgeois occupations, while still sharing the social universe of the immigrant rank-and file. They were invariably married men, with families, and all were prominent members of local Hibernian branches. In many cases, these men had risen from quite humble origins to secure modest proprietorships within the local economy. Daniel McGuiness, John Barret and Daniel McNamara, for example, had begun colonial life as labourers before gaining sufficient resources to become hotel-keepers, while others, like Thomas O'Connell and William O'Shaughnessy ran petty dealing enterprises. The efforts of these men were, in turn, supported by a small group of skilled workers, among whom a Belfast-born blacksmith, Patrick Pope, was especially prominent, and a handful of professionals, including Dr. Patrick Doyle, John Ormsby Jones and James Taafe. Although lay leaders came from a wide variety of regional backgrounds within Ireland, it is noteworthy that Galway-men, like the school-master, Edward O'Connor, and the farmer, Patrick Henley, were disproportionately represented within the Catholic Irish leadership. On appropriate occasions the sources of this nascent ethnic consciousness were sufficiently wide to embrace sympathetic non-Irish Catholics. But in the main the influence of these persons was quite limited because they lacked a substantial constituency among the laity. Irish-born leaders, on the other hand, were able to draw upon a vast reservoir of cultural materials to interpret the group's experience in the colony and were in a much better position to articulate lay grievances against the administration of the Canterbury mission than were their wealthy English counterparts. They displayed an acute sensitivity to the ethnic needs of local parishioners, and cogently expressed prevailing discontent at a time when large numbers of assisted immigrants had swollen existing parish congregations in the 1870s. (162)

Lay protest over alleged Marist incompetence was further heightened by Bishop Moran's persistent criticisms of the order's spiritual labours in New Zealand. (63) Soon after his arrival in Dunedin in 1871 Moran expressed outrage at the state of affairs in his diocese and concluded that the Society of Mary had been negligent in handling a transplanted Irish church. (64) This view was reinforced by his perception of the Marist mission in Canterbury which appeared to have been less than satisfactory. Prior to Moran's appointment as episcopal administrator of the Wellington diocese after the death of Bishop Viard, local Catholics had been served by French clergy rather than Irish priests. The joyous reception accorded the Irish bishop upon his visitation to the province in 1873, and his continued attacks on the Society of Mary, can only have acted as a catalyst in provoking the hasty recruitment of priests from Marist endeavours in Ireland. (65) The arrival of Fathers Ginaty and McNamara to staff the district in 1 877 was intended to be a clear signal of change in policy. But it had been implemented too slowly to be entirely convincing. (66)

Moran's Catholicism of grievance and crisis vividly captured and reinforced the mood of dissatisfaction which pervaded church life in Christchurch during the 1870s. This disquiet was increasingly directed at Francis Redwood, who was consecrated as Bishop of Wellington in 1874. Born in Staffordshire, Redwood had spent most of his childhood in New Zealand before leaving for Ireland in 1854 to prepare for the priesthood. The new bishop returned to the colony with impressive academic credentials, but lacked experience and tended to deal with problems in a manner that did little to endear him to the laity or disgruntled members of his own order. (67) More importantly, Redwood committed a serious error of judgement following his first visitation to Canterbury when he recommended to Propaganda that a diocese not be erected in the region. (68) This action dealt a cruel blow to the welfare and aspirations of the laity who could no longer silently suffer 'absentee rule' from Wellington. Much to Redwood's chagrin, Chris tchurch parishioners responded to what they perceived as his failure to adequately perform his social function by imposing the sanction of reducing his income from dues. (69)

In early 1877 a lay petition to Rome was circulated throughout Canterbury in which various allegations were made about the Marist administration of the region. Redwood dismissed the document as "a tissue of exaggerations and untruths" and instructed Father Ginaty to quash the "strange composition Nonetheless, he was sufficiently in agreement with its general thrust to request that Propaganda appoint a bishop for Christchurch and erect a new diocese in the South Island. (70) In a letter to the Marist Superior, Father Letterier, he lamented the inability of the Society of Mary to supply a requisite number of priests for Canterbury and conceded that an Irish Bishop residing at Christchurch would contribute more than the occasional visits of the Bishop of Wellington. (71) This was a dramatic volte-face, but it came too late to achieve a positive outcome and was quickly eclipsed by Marist efforts to retain control of the city.

Lay leaders, meanwhile, expressed their frustration with existing arrangements through a variety of media. In particular, critics pointed to the lack of Catholic institutions in the city and its environs. By 1877, when Father Ginaty took direction of the station, only one church, a convent, two schools and a presbytery of a 'rickety nature' existed to serve local requirements. There had been little encouragement given to individual religious practice through the formation of lay confraternities or sodalities, and auxiliary services such as benediction, processions or retreats had not been provided regularly. Formal devotional practices, the bulwark of church discipline in Ireland, were barely stimulated by the drab physical setting of worship in the Church of The Blessed Sacrament at Barbadoes Street, which was not furnished with such necessary accoutrements as shrines, stained glass windows or blessed altars. Ginaty acted with urgency to meet the crying needs of his flock, providing chapels of ease where mas s was said once a fortnight on land purchased at Papanui, Addington and Halswell. (72) But there was a world of difference between the provision of makeshift amenities and the creation of parishes with resident priests. It was a distinction not lost on the laity, who felt compelled to complain of spiritual neglect, notwithstanding the acknowledged zeal of their clergy. (73)

Such grievances were voiced by anonymous members of local Hibernian branches in a lively chain of correspondence to The New Zealand Tablet during the 1870s and 1880s. Typical of these impassioned jeremiads was a letter published by a regular Christchurch correspondent in 1886. 'Breffnicus' referred to a joint pastoral of the Plenary Council at Sydney published earlier that year which expressed a desire for the organisation of various Catholic sodalities throughout the parishes. Local clergy, he suggested, had not seized the opportunity provided by the formation of the Australasian National League to found such associations in the city. It was dangerous to try to meet the spiritual needs of the Irish without willing priests, for without clerical guidance, he argued, they were indolent, and without their 'soggarth aroon' they would become 'timid and fainthearted':

Take away the Irish portion of each congregation, and Church and priest will die out together. The one must fall to ruins, and the other starve. But strip an Irish Catholic of his nationality, stifle in his heart those congenial inspirations that are the breath of his daily existence, and you tumble down the bulwark that shelters his faith in a foreign and infidel land. With him to be thoroughly Irish is to be intensely Catholic. I hail, then, the motto, Catholicity, charity and Hibernianism. (74)

The shortage of priests and the deficiency of Catholic institutions were prominent thematic motifs in contemporary discourse. A delegation of lay leaders dealt explicitly with both issues in an 1886 petition to Cardinal Moran, the Papal Legate of Australasia and Archbishop of Sydney. These men claimed they were deeply troubled by the degree of discontent existing throughout Canterbury and requested Moran's intervention on their behalf. The petitioners noted that the Plenary Council held in Sydney in 1885 had already recommended that a new diocese be created at Christchurch, but asked that a Bishop be appointed immediately to avert 'serious consequences' that would attend any lengthened delay. They complained parishioners were continually called upon to contribute large sums of money for the promotion of Catholic interests in the region, citing Marist financial mismanagement and the order's reluctance in rendering periodical accounts as matters deserving immediate attention. (75) Furthermore, clergy gave no en couragement to lay organisations such as religious confraternities or voluntary societies. Catholic Schools, they argued, were badly supported and in the case of boys 'deplorably inefficient' when compared to the "good instruction ... given in the State schools, at no cost to parents." (76) The majority gradually dropped away from attendance at the Churches on leaving school because they were not brought into regular contact with priests or kept under Catholic influences. (77) While not wishing to cast aspersions on the zeal of their clergy, the petitioners suggested "that such a population scattered over such an area with schools, convents, hospital, gaol, lunatic asylum, in addition, could not be properly served by twice the number of priests." (78)

Similar sentiments were expressed by newly arrived Irish secular priests. In an address to Bishop Moran of Dunedin, for example, a group of seculars expressed sadness at the predicament of Irish Catholics "cast on foreign lands without a shepherd of their own race." (79) Without strong Irish clerical leadership, they surmised, the laity would become "lukewarm in the practice of their faith, timorous and faint-hearted when the enemy assails them, unequal to the duplicity of those who plunder and deceive them." (80) These priests were invariably given charge of the least attractive parishes or seconded to serve as curates to the Marists at various locations. (81) They emanated from a similar social backgrounds to their flock and shared common models of respectability and attitudes toward politics and drink. Looking to Bishop Moran of Dunedin for support, the seculars sought to negate local problems by the introduction of a more independent, combative stance to New Zealand Catholicism, asserting the primacy of H ibernian interests in matters of church policy. (82) It was an agenda that was mutually reinforced by the sense of resentment that pervaded the parish of Christchurch.

In their dealings with the seculars, Marist clergy mistakenly gave the impression that they were 'empire building'. This was an opinion overwhelmingly shared by the former, who complained with some justification that they were being relegated to the more distant, poorer parishes of the diocese. (83) These priests had travelled to New Zealand with the expectation that they would enjoy a leading profile in Church life. The decline in status that colonial life entailed must have dealt a severe blow to their aspirations. Whereas religious orders of priests played only a secondary position to the secular clergy in the Irish Church by virtue of canon law, this situation had effectively been reversed in Wellington ever since the first seculars had arrived to assist in the diocese. The Marists viewed themselves initially as itinerant missionaries, prepared to answer spiritual needs wherever they might arise. But it became increasingly clear that they were keen to develop their missions into parishes in which they wou ld assume the role of parish priests. It was perhaps understandable that having spent so long working the missions, they felt they were entitled to reap the benefits of their labours. However, their treatment of secular clergy and the orchestrated campaign to secure a controlling interest in the newly erected diocese of Christchurch did little to dampen existing tensions.

There is little evidence to suggest that the Marists intended to retain control over whole dioceses in the colony prior to 1878. In a request for the priests that his own order was unable to supply, Redwood told Father Fortune, president of All Hallows College, "it is the wish of [the] Society to assume the status which religious orders have in most countries, viz, to give up the management of parishes, by degrees, to secular priests, and limit their efforts and zeal to establishments for education and other kindred objects." (84) This objective was re-expressed in correspondence to the Marist-Superior, Father Letterier, in 1877. Significantly, Redwood referred to an agreement between himself, Rome, and the Society of Mary, whereby the latter was to surrender certain parishes to the seculars while retaining certain districts or educational establishments for themselves. In this way, he believed, the Marists could enjoy 'the advantages of religious life' without suffering the 'inconveniences' of parish work.

By 1878, however, it was clear that the Society of Mary would not withdraw from Christchurch. Writing to Father Ginaty, Redwood described the Marists as the 'chief interested party' in the new diocese and instructed the mission rector to maintain his silence on the matter. (85) This cautious tone was replaced subsequently by strident affirmations of beneficent Marist dominion in Canterbury. Redwood vindicated an agreement to make over a parish in the north of Christchurch to the Society of Mary as 'a matter of justice' given that "the Marist fathers are the founders of the present parish or mission of Barbadoes Street and the originators of well nigh all the good done in the past and present throughout the Canterbury district." (86) Such lofty views were not shared by Christchurch laity, who continued their campaign of resistance by refusing to contribute a single penny a Bishop's house collection in 1881. (87)

The appointment of an English-born Marist bishop, John Joseph Grimes, to Christchurch and Archibishop Francis Redwood's subsequent demotion of a popular Irish secular priest, Father James O'Donnell, for organising a secular petition to Rome merely intensified Irish antipathy to the Marist order in Canterbury. (88) Yet, these on-going controversies did not diminish the position of the parish church as the central social and spiritual focus of Irish Catholic life in the region. On the contrary, internal conflict greatly strengthened immigrant solidarity around a reified Irish Catholic identity and successfully overrode possible class antagonisms. The struggle between clergy and parishioners formed an integral part of parish life, just as it had in Ireland, and demonstrated the limits of clerical authority. Moreover, persistent criticism of the Society of Mary forced the order to adopt a position that one historian has described as "more Irish than the Irish themselves." (89) The introduction of Irish-born Maris ts and teaching orders was an important step in this direction. Most importantly, however, Marist clergy were increasingly inclined to appeal to the ethnic sensibilities of laity in order to sustain some influence over their activities. (90) This, in turn, further deepened involvement in Irish ethnicity by encouraging greater intimacy with the Catholic church, as well as a greater degree of social isolation and structural separation.

V

"Ethnicization" did not unfold evenly among Catholic Irish immigrants in Christchurch, nor indeed was it a sudden eventuation. Instead, the process involved a gradual self-realisation of a shared ethnic heritage that was sharpened in the course of daily interaction with the host system. This growing perception of peoplehood was not without some undesirable features. It was, above all, introspective and frequently fostered attitudes of mistrust and antagonism toward 'outsiders', even where they professed the same faith. The prevalence of dichotomous us-against-them thinking was only intensified in public life, where sectarian animosities drove Irish Catholics together into defensive organisations. Immigrant leaders, meanwhile, depicted their rank-and-file clientele as an embattled minority and manipulated nationalist symbols in the practical defence of Catholic interests against real and imagined adversaries. Efforts to unite the immigrant community in this way, however, had the unintended consequence of mould ing a mental ghetto which reinforced Orange kinds of Protestantism and erected barriers that proved difficult to dismantle.

Nonetheless, there was a more positive side to the flowering of ethnicity. When they arrived in Canterbury newcomers had little to offer other than their labour, but they brought with them an essential resource for group formation in the shape of their religion. Roman Catholicism was primarily a system of beliefs buttressed by an appeal to supernatural realities which supplied its adherents with a coherent world-view and morality. But it also provided the foundations of a stable institutional structure capable of supporting popular mobilization and thus represented a powerful means to effect a creative response to the situational exigencies of the present. Its efficacy was overlayered by Old World folk memories of exploitation, suffering and persecution under English colonial administration, an image of historical misfortune that belied a long-established tradition of defensive unity in face of external threat. This shared ethno-religious heritage, along with the similarity of immigrant life-styles, a fundame ntal concern with familial security and the high degree of interpersonal association engendered by work relations and strong kinship ties, facilitated the development of group awareness in Christchurch. These informal ties proved a vital prerequisite for a more militant brand of ethnic consciousness that arose during the 1870s and 1880s in the context of sectarian tensions and an internal dispute over the direction of Roman Catholicism in the colony. As a consequence, the immigrants gradually discarded narrow regional affiliations and began to perceive themselves in terms of a broad ethno-religious grouping that was intelligible, if more than a little worrying, to outsiders. And, from this perspective, the crystallization of ethnic awareness among Irish Catholics in the city was an example of 'emergent ethnicity'--in the process of becoming. (91)

Table 1

Provincial proportions of Irish Catholic immigrants by date of arrival
in New Zealand, 1855-1918

           1855-61  1862-65  1866-71  1872-79  Post-1880

Ulster      14.7     24.8     26.9     33.1      21.7
Leinster    34.5     14.0     16.0     13.9      20.5
Cannaught   10.3     22.1     17.9      7.8      22.4
Munster     40.4     39.2     39.1     45.2      35.4

Notes: Table 1 is based on a prosopographical study of all Irish
Catholic immigrants whose deaths were registered at Christchurch between
the years 1876-1918. This sample comprised a total of 1434 individuals,
of whom 700 were male and 734 female. Systematic record linkages were
undertaken between death certificates, probate files, passenger lists
and church registers, while additional qualitative information was
gathered from genealogies, newspapers and archival repositories.

Birthplace data were unavailable for 232 persons, or 16.2 percent of the
total sample (N = 1434), while details about date of arrival were not
established in 150 cases (10.5 percent). 1. Sources: Christchurch
Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages; Probate Files, CH 171,
National Archives, Christchurch; Passenger Lists, Im-CH4 and Im-15,
National Archives, Wellington; Transcript of the Baptismal and Marriage
Registers of The Cathedral of The Blessed Sacrament, Lyttelton and
Shand's Track, Canterbury Public Library.

Table 2

Irish Catholic Marriage Patterns, Christchurch, 1860-89

Sex                1860-69               1870-79               1880-89

             N          %        N          %        N          %

Female

 Endogamous  44        69.8      57        73.0      28        71.8
 Exogamous   19        30.2      21        27.0      11        28.2

Male

 Endogamous  38        95.0      50        98.0      24        96.0
 Exogamous              5.0       1         2.0       1         4.0

Sources: Transcript of the Marriage Registers of the Church of the
Blessed Sacrament, Canterbury Public Library; Christchurch Registry of
Births, Deaths and Marriages; Passenger Lists, Im-CH 4 and Im-15,
National Archives, Wellington.

ENDNOTES

(1.) Kevin Condon, The Missionary College of ALL Hallows, 1842-1891 (Dublin, 1986), p. 347.

(2.) New Zealand Tablet, 1 October 1886.

(3.) For a brilliant discussion of 'metaphor' in historical erhnography, see Rhys Isaac, "A Discourse on the Method," in The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790 (Chapel Hill, 1982), pp. 323-25, 347, 349-51.

(4.) James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (New York, 1976), p. 250.

(5.) Donald Harman Akenson, "No Petty People: Pakeha History and the Hisroriography of the Irish Diaspora," in Lyndon Fraser (ed.), A Distant Shore: Irish Migration and New Zealand Settlement (Dunedin, 2000), p.22. The best introductions to the Irish diaspora are David Fitzpatrick, Irish Emigration, 1801-1921 (Dundalk, 1984); Kerby Miller, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus in North America (New York, 1985); P.J. Drudy, ed., The Irish in America: Emigration, Assimilation and Impact (Cambridge, 1985); Richard Keamey, ed., Migrations: The Irish at Home and Abroad (Dublin, 1990); Donald Harman Akenson, The Irish Diaspora: A Primer (Belfast and Toronto, 1993); Andy Bielenberg, The Irish Diaspora (Harlow, 2000). For a valuable compilation of recent work, see especially the multi-volume Irish World Wide: History, Heritage, ldenitity series edited by Patrick O'Sullivan: Volume 1, Patterns of Migration; Volume 2, The Irish in the New Communities; Volume 3, The Creative Migrant; Volume 4, Irish Women a nd Irish Migration; Volume 5, Religion and Identity ; Volume 6, The Meaning of the Famine, (London and Leicester, 1992-1997). For surveys of the current state of scholarship on the Irish diaspora, see Alan O'Day, "Revising the Diaspora," in D. George Boyce and Alan O'Day, eds., The Making of Modem Irish History. Revisionism and the Revisionist Controversy (London and New York, 1996), pp. 188-215; David Noel Doyle, "Review Article: Cohesion and Diversity in the Irish Diaspora," Irish Historical Studies 31(1999): 411-34.

Important recent studies on the Irish in North America include David Noel Doyle, "The Irish as Urban Pioneers in the United States", Journal of American Ethnic History 10 (1990/1991): 36-59; Michael A. Gordon, The Orange Riots: Irish Political Violence in New York City, 1870 and 1871 (New York, 1993); Malcolm Campbell, "The Other Immigrants: Comparing the Irish in Australia and the United States," Journal of American Ethnic History 14 (1995): 3-22; Thomas H. O'Connor, The Boston Irish: A Political History (Boston, 1995); Ronald H. Bayor and Timothy J. Meagher, eds., The New York Irish (Baltimore, 1996); Kevin Kenny, The American Irish: A History (Harlow, 2000), David T. Gleeson, The Irish in the South, 1815-1877 (Chapel Hill and London, 2001).

For an entry into the extensive literature on the Irish in Britain, see Roger Swift, "Historians and the Irish: Recent Writings on the Irish in Nineteenth-Century Britain," in Donald M. MacRaild, ed., The Great Famine and Beyond: Irish Migrants in Britain in die Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Dublin and Portland, 2000), 14-39. Recent work dealing with the formation of Irish ethnic identity in Britain includes Steven Fielding, Class and Ethnicity: irish Catholics in England, 1880-1939 (Buckingham, 1993); Donald M. MacRaild, "Irish Culture in an English Context," Labour History Review 58 (1993): 44-48; Ruth-Ann M. Harris, The Nearest Place that Wasn't Ireland: Early Nineteenth Century Irish Labor Migration (Ames, 1994); Donald M. MacRaild, "Irish Immigration and the 'Condition of England' Question: the Roots of an Historiographical Tradition," Immigrants and Minorities 14 (1995): 67-85; Kathleen Paul, "A Case of Mistaken Identity: the Irish in Postwar Britain," International Labor and Working-Class History , 49 (1996): 116-42; Donald MacRaild, Culture, Conflict and Migration: The Irish in Victorian Cumbria (Liverpool, 1998), and Irish Migrants in Modem Britain, 1750-1922 (Basingsroke, 1999). See also Enda Delaney, Demography, State and Society: Irish Migration to Britain, 1921-1971 (Liverpool, 2000).

(6.) The main works in Irish-New Zealand history are Richard Davis, Irish Issues in New Zealand Politics, 1868-1922 (Dunedin, 1974); Donald Harman Akenson, Half the World from Home: Perspectives on the Irish in New Zealand, 1860-1950 (Wellington, 1990); Patrick O'Farrell, Vanished Kingdoms: Irish in Australia and New Zealand: A Personal Excursion (Kensington, 1990); and Fraser, (ed.), A Distant Shore. Other studies include Lyndon Fraser, "Community, Continuity and Change: Irish Catholic Immi rants in Nineteenth-Century Christchutch," PhD thesis, University of Canterbury Christchurch, 1994); Lyndon Fraser," 'The Ties That Bind': Irish Catholic Testamentary Evidence from Christchurch, 1876-1915," New Zealand Journal of H istory 29 (1995): 67-82; Sean G. Brosnahan, "The Greening of Otago: Irish [Catholic] Immigration to Orago and Southland 1840-1888,' in Norma J. Berhune, ed ., Proceedings of the 1998 Conference of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists held at the University of Otago, Dunedin, 10-13 April, 199 8 (Dunedin, 1998), pp. 33-64; Alasdair Gaibraith, "New Zealand's Invisible Irish: Irish Protestants in the North Island ofNew Zealand, 1840-1900," MA thesis, University of Auckland, 1998; Angela McCarthy, "'A Good Idea of Colonial Life': Personal Letters and Irish Migration to New Zealand," New Zealand Journal of History 35 (2001): 1-21.

(7.) See, for example, Oscar Handlin, Boston's Immigrants 1790-1865: A Study in Acculturation (Cambridge, Mass., 1959); William V. Shannon, The American Irish (New York, 1964); Lawrence J. McCaffrey, "The Irish-American Dimension," in Lawrence J. McCaffrey, Ellen Skerret, Michael J. Funchion, and Charles Fanning, The Irish in Chicago (Urbana, 1987).

(8.) Gordon Darroch, "Half Empty or Half Full? Images and Interpretations in the Historical Analysis of the Catholic Irish in Nineteenth-Century Canada," Canadian Ethnic Studies 25 (1993): 1-8; Kerby M. Miller, "Class, Culture, and Immigrant Group Identity in the United States: The Case of Irish-American Ethnicity," in Virginia Yans-McLaughlin, ed., Immigration Reconsidered: History, Sociology, and Politics (New York, 1990), p. 98.

(9.) I am indebted here to Charles Tilly, "Transplanted Networks," in Virginia Yans-McLaughlin (ed), p. 85 and passim.

(10.) On Irish migration to Australia, see especially Patrick O'Farrell, The Irish in Australia (Sydney, rev. ed., 1993) and David Fitzpatrick, Oceans of Consolation: Personal Accounts of Irish Migration to Australia (Melbourne, 1995). An excellent introductory survey is found in Akenson, The Irish Diaspora, ch. 4.

(11.) Fraser, "Community, Continuity and Change," ch. 1.

(12.) Canterbury Gazette, Vol. 1., 1 July 1854 and Vol. 9., 4 June 1862; Statistics of New Zealand, 1859, pp. iv-v; Census of New Zealand, 1878, Table vi, p. 257, and 1901, Table vi, p. 88.

(13.) R.H. Silcock, "Immigration into Canterbury under the Provincial Government," MA thesis (University of Canterbury, 1964) pp. 70-71. Compare, for example, Immigration Officer's Report, 31 December 1874, Im-CH 5/2, with Immigration Officer's Report, 31 March 1876, Im-CH 5/4, National Archives, Wellington (hereafter NA-W).

(14.) See Immigration Officer's Reports, ICPS 1491/1861, 760/1865, 1501/1867,59/1869 and 170/1871, National Archives, Christchurch (hereafter NA-CR); Marshman to Provincial Secretary, 25 July 1861, ICPS 1739/1861, NA-CH; Provincial Secretary to Duncan, 29 August 1873, ICPS 1447/1873, NA-CR. The level of remuneration which they could expect to receive varied according to prevailing seasonal rates and the age, quality and marital status of an individual worker. At the height of the harvest in 1869, for example, wages for single men ranged from [pounds sterling]60 and [pounds sterling]78 per annum with full rations, but had bottomed our to between [pounds sterling]30 and [pounds sterling]40 at the corresponding time in 1871. Boys were paid around [pounds sterling]15 in the late 1860s and married couples without children consistently earned between [pounds sterling]50 and [pounds sterling]70 with rations throughout the period 1860-80. This latter group was in continual demand in the colony, a situation that did n or pass unnoticed among attached Irish migrants whose securement of assisted or nominated passages represented a shrewd response to labour marker conditions at the point of destination.

(15.) Charlotte Macdonald, "Single Women as Immigrant Settlers in New Zealand, 1853-187 1," PhD thesis (University of Auckland, 1986) pp. 43-4.

(16.) Immigration Officer's Reports, ICPS 1950/1864, 1117/1866, 946/1868, 59/1869 and 460/1871, NA-OH.

(17.) Ibid., ICPS 1117/1866, NA-CH.

(18.) Ibid., ICPS 1491/1861, 112/1866, 323/1867, 1095/1867, and 946/1868, NA-OH. See also Immigration Officer's Report, 31 March 1876, Im-CH 5/4, NA-W.

(19.) Macdonald, "Single Women," pp. 206-45. For an entry into the literature on domestic service in the nineteenth century, see Leonore Davidoff, "Mastered for Life: Servant and Wife in Victorian England," Journal of Social History 7 (1974): 406-59; Faye Dudden, Serving Women: Household Service in Nineteenth-Century America (Middletown, Conn., 1983). Recent scholarship in this area includes Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (London, 1995), and Leonore Davidoff, Worlds Between: Historical Perspectives on Gender and Class (Cambridge, 1995). Irish domestic servants in Britain and the United States receive detailed attention in Bronwen Walter, Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place and Irish Women (London and New York, 2001).

(20.) A substantial body of scholarship in international migration studies emphasises the importance of personal networks in explaining the origins, composition and dynamics of migrant flows. For a useful introduction to the literature, see Monica Boyd, "Family and Personal Networks in International Migration: Recent Developments and New Agendas," International Migration Review, 23 (1989): 638-70; Stephen Castles and Mark Miller, The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World, (London, 1998).

(21.) Im-CH 4/29, 4/31 and 4/35, National Archives, Wellington; Land Registry Office, Chrisrchurch.

(22.) Transcript of the Baptismal Registers, Church of the Blessed Sacrament, Canterbury Public Library.

(23.) This practice is comparable to that described by Maureen Molloy in a study of the Highland Scors community in nineteenth-century Waipu, "Friends, Neighbours, and Relations: The Practice of Kinship in Waipu, New Zealand, 1857-191 7,"Journal of Family History 14 (1989): 313-30.

(24.) Circular of the Right Reverend Dr. Redwood, Bishop of Wellington, to his Clergy, 6 June 1876, Marist Archives, Wellington (hereafter MAW); Redwood to Chareyre, 23 January 1877, Wellington Archdiocesan Archives; New Zealand Tablet, 12 April 1878; Redwood to Ginaty, 11 January 1878, MAW.

(25.) In 1867 there were only 519 Catholic females for every 1000 males in Canterbury, a ratio that had increased to 785 per 1000 in 1878, and 962 per 1000 by 1886. Census of New Zealand, 1867, 1878 and 1886.

(26.) The distinction between formal and informal social organisarion in relation to ethnic communities is discussed by Raymond Breron, "Institutional Completeness of Ethnic Communities and the Personal Relations of Immigrants," American Journal of Sociology 70 (1964): 193-205.

(27.) Archbishop Redwood to Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda, 9 April 1878, MAW.

(28.) Le Menant des Chesnais to Redwood, 24 October 1887, Christchurch Diocesan (Archives (hereafter CDA).

(29.) Le Menant des Chesnais to Grimes, 1 March 1890, MAW.

(30.) Diocesan Return for the Pro-Cathedral, Christchurch, 30 June 1892, CDA.

(31.) Diocesan Return for the Parish of St. Mary's, 27 June 1892 and 28 Ju1y 1895, CDA.

(32.) Diocesan Return for the Pro-Cathedral, Christchurch, 30 June 1892, ODA.

(33.) On education and Irish Catholic identity in New Zealand, see Akenson, Half the World from Home, 159-90.

(34.) See Fraser, "Community, Continuity and Change," ch. 3.

(35.) Redwood to Ginaty, 15 October 1881, MAW; Le Menant to Grimes, 1 March 1890, MAW.

(36.) Le Menant's Sunday attendance fogures of around 2000 persons for Barbadoes Street, with another 400 attending churches at Papanui, Addington and Halswell, would appear to indicate that church-going among Christchurch Catholics averaged between 45 and 60 percent in then 1880s. See Le Menant to Redwood, 24 October 1887, CDA.

(37.) Ibid., CDA.

(38.) New Zealand Tablet, 16 and 23 November, and 7 December 1877.

(39.) Ibid., 7 and 21 December 1877; Francis Redwood, Reminiscences of Early Days in New Zealand (Wellington, 1922), 20-22.

(40.) L.C. Webb, "The Canterbury Association and its Settlement," in James Hight and C.R. Straubel (eds.), A History of Canterbury, Volume 1: To 1854 (Christchurch, 1957), 135-233.

(41.) Silcock, 5-10, 23.

(42.) The Journal of Fanny Horrell, 129/64, Canterbury Museum Archives; Im-CH 4/172, NA-W.

(43.) Emma Hodder, Diary, Hydaspes, London to Lyttelton, June 30 to September 29, 1869, MS 1192, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.

(44.) Philip Ingram, "Protestant Patriarchy and the Catholic Priesthood in Nineteenth Century England," Journal of Social History 24 (1991): 783-97.

(45.) Michael O'Meeghan, Held Firm By Faith: A History of the Catholic Diocese of Christchurch, 1840-1897,) (Christchurch, 1988), 135-39.

(46.) R.L.N. Greenaway, "Henry Selfe Selfe and the Origins and Early Development of Cantetbury," MA thesis (University of Canterbury, 1972) 200-201; Henry Selfe Selfe to Provincial Secretary, 24 April 1861, ICPS 1378/1861, NA-CH; Provincial Secretary to Marshman, July 9 1862, CP 605/2, NA-CH; John Marshman to Provincial Secretary, 24 January 1863, ICPS 647/1863, NA-CH.

(47.) Press, 12 April 1867, 2.

(48.) Sarah Amelia Courage, Lights and Shadows of Colonial Life: Twenty-Six Years in Canterbury New Zealand, (Christchurch, 1976), 31.

(49.) Ibid., 26.

(50.) Ibid., 26.

(51.) Ibid., 34.

(52.) See Sean G. Brosnahan, "The 'Battle of the Borough' and the 'Saige O Timaru'," New Zealand Journal of History 28 (1994): 41-59.

(53.) I am indebted here to Kai Erikson, Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance (New York, 1966).

(54.) See Patrick O'Farrell, The Catholic Church and Community: An Australian History (Kensington, 1985), esp. chs. 2 and 4. See also O'Farrell, Vanished Kingdoms, ch. 4.

(55.) O'Meeghan, 53. Father Colin wanted better spiritual and material care of his men than the Bishop was providing, and refused to send more Marist priests until the situation was resolved.

(56.) Lillian C. Keys, Philip Viard, Bishop of Wellington (Christchurch, 1968), 124-30. Father Petitjean said the first Mass at Christchurch on Pentecost Sunday, 31 May 1857.

(57.) Seon to Provincial Secretary, 28 June 1860, ICPS 420/1860, NA-CH.

(58.) Neil Patrick Vaney, "The dual tradition: Irish Catholics and French Priests in New Zealand--the West Coast experience, 1865-1910," MA Thesis (University of Canterbury, 1976) 117.

(59.) On the "devotional revolution" see Emmet Larkin, "The Devotional Revolution in Ireland 1850-1875," American Historical Review 72 (1972): 625-52; David W. Miller, "Irish Catholicism and the Great Famine," Journal of Social History 9 (1975): 81-98; S.J. Connolly, Religion and Society in Nineteenth Century Ireland (Dublin, 1985), 7-14, 47-60.

(60.) See, for example, Diocesan Return for the Parish of Darfield, 13 August 1892, CDA.

(61.) See Barry Samuel Allom, "Bishop Grimes: his context and contribution to the Catholic Church in Canterbury," MA thesis, University of Canterbury, 1968; Brendan P. Daly, "The Founding of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Christchurch, 1840-1887," PG Dip. Theology, Christian Thought and History (2), CDA.

(62.) See New Zealand Tablet, 27 April 1877, 13 July 1877, 11 January 1878, 11 June 1886 and 13 August 1886; Press, 18 March 1874; The Will of Edward O'Connor, 7355/1911, NA-CH; Death Index, 546/1911; The Will of Patrick Henley, 9036/1916, NA-CH.

(63.) Ibid., 27 May 1887; Moran to O'Donnell, 19 December 1887, CDA; Redwood to Grimes, 14 December 1888, CDA.

(64.) Moran, Pastoral, 3 March 1871, Dunedin Diocesan Archives (hereafter DDA).

(65.) Lyttelton Times, 5 February 1873; Press, 4 February 1873; The Diary of Bishop Moran, DDA.

(66.) Redwood to Ginaty, 1-3-1877, MAW. Between the years 1870-1903, 25 priests and two brothers were sent to New Zealand from Marist training centres at Dublin and Dundalk. See Vaney, 66-67.

(67.) Redwood to Cummins, 14 January 1876, WAA.

(68.) Redwood to Letterier, 29 May 1877, MAW.

(69.) Redwood to Ginaty, 14 May 1877 and 26 May 1881, MAW.

(70.) Ibid., 14 May 1877, MAW.

(71.) Redwood to Letterier, 29 May 1877, MAW.

(72.) Patrick Francis Moran, History of the Catholic Church in Australasia, from authentic sources (Sydney, 1897) 938-39; Redwood to Ginaty, 20 March 1878, 31 May 1878, 25 November 1878 and 12 September 1879, MAW. For a useful summary of Ginaty's contribution to the diocese see J.J. Grimes, The Late Very Reverend Dean Ginaty: Panegyric By His Lordship Bishop Grimes (Dunedin, 1911).

(73.) Address by the Christchurch Laity to Cardinal Moran, Papal Legate of the Australasian Colonies, and Lord Archbishop of Sydney, 1886, CDA.

(74.) New Zealand Tablet, 11 June 1886. Similar sentiments were forcefully expressed by "Rathkealensis" in the same issue: "But above all other men on earth, the Irishman is peculiar in this, that when he loses his love for Ireland, his faith, that faith for which his fathers died and suffered, soon follows after. The loss of nationality to the Irishman is but another name for his loss of faith."

(75.) While some of the financial troubles facing the parish were possibly the result of too rapid expansion by the Society of Mary, there was little alternative other than to resort to borrowing large sums of money to ensure the maintenance of essential community services. The annual cost of providing Catholic schooling, for example, cost around [pounds sterling]1,765 in 1886, and seat rent was insufficient to pay the salaries of teachers and nuns. When Le Menant des Chesnais was appointed to replace Ginaty as Mission Rector in October 1887, the latter had incurred a debt of [pounds sterling]600 simply to keep the schools open. By the beginning of 1888 the Bank of New Zealand refused to allow Ginaty to withdraw any further funds on the parish account as the existing overdraft had already reached enormous proportions. The heavy burden of repayment, that had begun to cause much ill-feeling in the parish, would fall on the shoulders of Bishop Grimes. See Le Menant to Redwood, 24 October 1887 and 18 January 1888 . CDA.

(76.) Address of the Christchurch Laity to Cardinal Moran, 4.

(77.) This concern appears to have been shared by Le Menant des Chesnais, who confided to Archbishop Redwood, "Our boys and young men are not what they ought to be, because there is no one to take an interest in them after the school hours or days work, the fathers being otherwise already overworked." Le Menant to Redwood, 24 October 1887, CDA.

(78.) Address of the Christchurch Laity, 4-5.

(79.) Address of the Secular Clergy To Bishop Moran, c. 1886, CDA.

(80.) Ibid., CDA.

(81.) Kickham to Grimes, 25 November 1889, CDA: "I myself was told more than once by some of the Marist fathers that we secular priests were only auxiliaries to help the Marist Fathers to manage the diocese."

(82.) Address of the Secular Clergy, CDA: "On your arrival here you found them sinking in courage their patriotism blasted assaulted on every side. With the defiant attitude of the true Soggarth and the brilliant substantial learning for which the Irish Episcopacy has ever been famous you mounted the Pulpit and the Forum and by cheering exhorting and encouraging raised them once more to the level of their moral excellence--You taught them to fight for their countrys rights to glory in her triumphs and to sympathise with her suffering children. As a consequence they are now better Catholics better citizens, a credit to their nature and adopted country ... And if in the past your Lordships fearless advocacy was providentially given them at a seasonable hour much more is there need of it now. Religious indifference is increasing, antipathy to Christianity daily growing more rampant. To sustain our nationality to foster our national aspirations is to nurture our faith and make us fearless in the profession thereo f."

(83.) Kickham to Grimes, 25 November 1889, CDA. Vaney, pp. 176-212; Allom, 51-67.

(84.) Redwood to Fortune, 29 August 1875 and 11 January 1876, WAA. Redwood urged Father Fortune to dispel from the minds of prospective priests "the notion that this diocese is exclusively under the care of religious" and claimed that the latter would "gradually give up parochial work to seculars."

(85.) Redwood to Ginaty, 22 June 1878, MAW

(86.) Redwood to Ginaty, 15 October 1881, MAW.

(87.) Redwood to Ginaty, 26 May 1881, MAW.

(88.) James Joseph O'Donnell, born in Glenroe, County Limerick, in 1855, was educated at Mr. Melleray and All Hallows and ordained by the Bishop of Cork on June 24 1880. He was demoted from the parish of Ahaura and sent to Christchurch by Archbishop Redwood for his part in organising the petition. Le Menant to Sauzeau, 3 November and 17 November 1887, CDA; Le Menant to Redwood, 22 December 1887, CDA; Redwood to Grimes 21. July and 27 October 1887, MAW.

(89.) Rory Sweetman, "The Catholic Church in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand," unpublished paper delivered at the Canada-New Zealand Comparative Seminar, University of Edinburgh, 10 May 1985, p. 13.

(90.) See, for example, the address to Bishop Grimes prepared by a French priest, Le Menant des Chesnais: "We are truly jubilant today to have you in our midst ... The devotedness of the Irish race to their pastors is proverbial all over the world, and the numerous assembly which now fills the walls of this Cathedral is a manifest proof that, in these Canterbury Plains, the spirit of the great Patriarch of Ireland is still alive, and as strong as in the beautiful but most cruelly oppressed Isle of Erin." Le Menant, Address, 31 January 1888, CDA.

(91.) William L. Yancey, Eugene P. Eriksen, and Richard N. Juliani, "Emergent Ethnicity: A Review and Reformulation," American Sociological Review 41 (1976): 391-403.