Irish, Catholic and Scouse highlights the complex interplay of cultural and structural factors experienced by the most significant ethnic group in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century pre-multicultural Britain: the Irish in Liverpool. Drawing upon new approaches to our understanding of diasporas, this study emphasises the role of ethnic agency as Catholic migrants and their descendants made Irishness their own. Belchem looks in detail at those who remained in Liverpool, the hub of the Irish diaspora, and contrasts them with their compatriots who continued on their trans-national travels. This path-breaking study will be required reading for those who wish to understand the Irish diaspora and the cultural melting pot of nineteenth-century Liverpool.

"No one has mastered the sources the way Belchem has - this is a mature scholar doing his style of history about as well as it can be done"

Don Akenson Source: Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario

"Belchem's deeply documented study will appeal beyond Hibernophiles to students of modern cities containing very large and often unruly minorities in their midst. Belchem is well versed in current theories of globalization and ethnicity; he concentrate on the 'essential' Irish identity and its preservation"

Source: American Historical Review

"There can be no doubt that here we have the definitive work, packed with detailed and carefully researched material. ...thorough research, a very high standard of writing, a subject of major local and regional importance, and a readable and fluent quality which eschews jargon and tells a gripping story firmly based on the reality of history."

Source: Northern History, XLVI