Anti-irish riots in Tredegar, Wales. 1882

jonniebgood1

I recently came across this reference to difficulties between working classes in Wales where there developed anti-Irish riots in 1882

19th century: England: the Irish were treated with hostility because: -Irish were Catholics, English were Protestants, -emotional Irish nationalism roused irritation, -English considered the Irish to be inferior because of British domination over Ireland, -the Irish held the image of heavy drinkers, -conflicts between English Catholics and Irish Catholics, the Irish were more puritan and there belief was connected with nationalism. An example of violence against Irish: In 1882: Irish possessions damaged at Tredegar-Wales. The cause of this violence was the competition between Irish and English workers in the iron-industry. There was much unemployment and the Irish were the scapegoat. http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/migration/chapter3.html

Tredegar is a town in south Wales that had an influx of Irish workers during the industrial revolution. This instance of looting and discrimination against the Irish was queried in the house of commons :

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he can confirm or deny the statements made in the "Cardiff Western Mail" and the "South Wales Daily News," in reference to the anti-Irish riots at Tredegar, to the following effect:—That the houses of at least sixty Irishmen were completely gutted, and that all the furniture in these houses was burned in the public streets; that not only men, but women and children were attacked by the mob; that, in the house of Patrick Harrigan, the mob set fire to the bed on which his youngest child, a few months old, was sleeping; that a woman was, in one case, stripped naked, dragged through a street, and beaten to a pulp; whether many of the women and children had to take refuge on the mountains at Sirhowy, and remain huddled together there for the night under severe showers of rain, and whether others had to hide in the churchyard of the town; whether, in many cases, owing to the entire destruction of their furniture and the robbery of all their provisions and money by the mob, a number of women and children were left without food for twenty-four, and sometimes forty-eight, hours; whether one woman has already died from the shock, and what is the total of persons killed and wounded; whether a bad state of feeling was known to exist for a considerable time between the Welsh and Irish population of the town; and if any precautions were taken to meet a riot such as afterwards occurred; if he could explain why the fifty or sixty special constables who were sworn in on Saturday night were not employed in the early part of Sunday; and whether, if, when they were brought into action on Saturday night in defence of Mr. Spooner, in the Circle, they did not succeed in immediately dispersing the mob; whether it is true that the military sent from Cardiff were sent back in consequence of a telegram, and, in consequence of this delay, did not reach the town until three o'clock on Monday morning, when the rioters had completed their work; and, if so, who was the author of this telegram; how many of the ringleaders in this riot have been arrested; and, if a Special Commission 443 will be employed to deal with this outburst of crime?

§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

Sir, although I have had several Reports since last Sunday upon this matter, there are some details which I shall not now be able to answer. I can, however, answer the more important points. In the first place, it is unfortunately true that a very serious and disgraceful riot has taken place at Tredegar, in which a large number of houses of the Irish and their inhabitants have been attacked and injured. I am happy to say that it is not true that any person has been killed directly in consequence of these attacks; but there has been an unfortunate case of a woman who miscarried and died, it is supposed, from fright and alarm caused by those proceedings. It is true that there has been for some time a strong feeling of exasperation in that district against the Irish population. In consequence of the knowledge of that ill feeling, precautions were taken on the Friday and Saturday preceding that Sunday by increasing the Police Force and swearing in special constables. These precautions did not, unfortunately, prove adequate on account of the extent of the riot, and on Sunday morning I received an application for military assistance, and orders were given and a force sent accordingly. It seems there was some delay in the arrival of the military, into the cause of which I shall inquire; but I am sure it was not due in any way to the action of the local authorities. I am informed that 10 persons are under arrest for taking part in the riot, and that proceedings against them will take place on Monday next, when, of course, the facts will be more accurately ascertained than at present. As regards further details in the Question, I think it better to postpone them until that investigation has taken place. Since Sunday tranquillity has been preserved, and the precautions taken have proved adequate.
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1882/jul/14/law-and-police-the-tredegar-riots-south

Does anybody know of more specific reasons for these problems,
i.e. what was the spark for the rioting.
Was this situation repeated in such a visible way in other British towns?

Fratton Fred

I wouldn't put too much faith in an article that doesn't know the difference between England and Wales.

Fratton Fred

I will try and get details, but there were similar battles/riots in Slough when Welsh workers were flocking to the town and working for a shilling an hour less than the locals.

I presume the Tredegar incident was the same, it was about protecting jobs, not nationality.

Monty Burnz

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I wouldn't put too much faith in an article that doesn't know the difference between England and Wales.

Hansard seems like a pretty good source, on the other hand.

Fratton Fred

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Hansard seems like a pretty good source, on the other hand.

No arguments there.

ejmaztec

I met a 90 year-old misery in the UK years ago, who made a special point of mentioning his hatred of the Irish. He had been working on the building of the Birkenhead tunnel, and he and a whole bunch of others were sacked when some Irish immigrants straight off the boat offered to do the job for less. He didn't mention riots, so I assume that there was a lot of swearing and moaning instead.

dave2pvd

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Was this situation repeated in such a visible way in other British towns?

Yes: Boston, Massachusetts.

jonniebgood1

For clarification purposes what I am referring to here is specifically in relation to Britain and the era of post- famine 1850-1914. I think Fred is correct that it was mainly about protectionism of local jobs. It is though an extreme reaction and one particular nationality were singled out and I wonder what it took to provoke this. The town of Tredegar is also known for anti-Jewish riots in 1911, the anniversary of which has just passed.

What started with a handful of miners leaving a Tredegar pub on Saturday night, upset at the poverty caused by the year-long Cambrian Combine strike, rapidly descended into 250 people attacking Jewish-owned businesses; unpopular for their perceived high prices and sharp practices. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-14582378

CDfm

An interesting note on Irish emigration

Irish immigration

Last updated: 15 August 2008
The Irish began arriving in Wales in the 1840s. They were the largest single group of immigrants to play a part in the story of Wales.
Those who arrived in Wales were fleeing the Irish potato famine, and often arrived in a very desperate state. The Wanderer docked in Newport in 1847 and deposited 113 destitute men, women and children in the town, with 20 of them said to be close to death.
This prompted comment in Parliament, and the Monmouthshire Merlin newspaper commented on "the alarming and lamentable appearance of the streets of Newport, crowded with many hundreds of famishing Irish".
The emotional impact the famine had on the escaping Irish was so great that they built a Famine Memorial in a Cardiff cemetery.
From 1841, the Irish kept coming to Wales, to reach a high point of almost 30,000 people by 1861 - a 344% increase. They settled primarily in the four largest South Wales towns - Cardiff, Swansea, Newport and Merthyr.
But not all Irish immigrants to Wales were poor and unskilled. Among the new arrivals were also doctors, businessmen and other members of the professional classes. As the population dwindled at home, they too had to look for opportunities elsewhere.
Uneasy neighbours

However, the arrival of the Irish caused tensions between neighbours, and led to Cardiff's first race riot in 1848. Cardiff's very first policeman, Jeremiah Box Stockdale, found the dead body of Welshman Thomas Lewis in Cardiff's Irish quarter, which was the area around Stanley Street. He had been brutally stabbed by Irishman John Conners.
Prior to this, in some quarters there had long been a suspicion about the Irish - in earlier times there were rumours that the immigrant Irish sucked the blood of sheep, murdered children and ran "faster than any dog". In those days, Stanley Street was not a very inviting place - it wasn't uncommon for over 50 people to occupy a single room.
Catholic churches and homes were assaulted with some venom as Welsh mobs rampaged through these streets looking for John Conners.
In the end, he was arrested at Pontypridd, found guilty of manslaughter, and shipped off to Botany Bay in Australia.
At the funeral of the murdered man, Irish railway workers apparently lined these streets, armed with pickaxes, ready to protect the Irish population against any further Welsh reprisals.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/sites/themes/society/migration_ireland.shtml

Snickers Man

... he was arrested at Pontypridd, found guilty of manslaughter, and shipped off to Botany Bay in Australia.
At the funeral of the murdered man, Irish railway workers apparently lined these streets, armed with pickaxes, ready to protect the Irish population against any further Welsh reprisals.





Is that a direct quote from the BBC? Tsk tsk. Sloppy!!

If Mr Conners was guilty of manslaughter, then it is just not correct to refer to his victim as a "murdered" man.

CDfm

Tsk tsk BBC Wales

HellsAngel

Well Glasgow would be well known for secterian and anti Irish fighting, a tradition happily carried on to this day by Celtic and Rangers fans. Here's an interesting article on a release from the Church of Scotland in 1923 "The Menace of the Irish Race to our Scottish Nationality" of which the present C of S. have apologised
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/2014961.stm

I think I once heard that their was some serious rioting in Liverpool (after Glasgow, Liverpool has probably the most orange lodges in Britain) during the 1918 election as a Home Rule candidate called TP O'Connor was elected their.

A bit off topic but appearently those known as the Nativists in America who were vehemently anit Irish for economic reasons used to call a black man a "smoked Irish man"

CDfm

Here is a bit more on the Irish in Cardiff

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]

[/FONT]Murder and Transportation: Cardiff 1848

Some of the worst riots ever seen in Cardiff took place in November 1848 after a street fight which led to an Irishman killing a Welshman in the shadow of the only Catholic Church in the then growing town of Cardiff.
Squalor and death were constant companions in the warren of narrow streets which surrounded St David’s Church, on the corner of Stanley Street, a church built in the 1840s by Fr Patrick Millea, known as the father of the Cardiff Catholic mission.
The small, unventilated, brick houses were built with indecent haste to accommodate the refugees from the Irish potato famine, which lasted from September 1845 to 1849. Most had been shipped to Cardiff from Ireland as a cheap form of ballast. Their homes in Cardiff were slums from the start.
A Government health inspector named Rammel carried out a survey in the area in the late 1840s and described the Irish refugees as the most wretched members of the society from which they had been cast out. The head of the town’s 12-man police force, Superintendent Stockdale, told the health inspector of a visit he made to No. 17 Stanley Street, just a few doors from the church.
In one room, measuring just over 17ft by 16ft, he found no fewer than 54 men, women and children, eating and living and sleeping. The room had no windows or rear entrance and the only furniture comprised a few boxes where babies were placed so they would not be crushed. The stinking, unwashed, ragged inhabitants kept their few paltry possessions about them, including salt fish, bones and rotting potatoes.
They shared an uncovered privy which was full to overflowing, flooding the outside yard with raw sewage. The street in front of the house was littered with offensive decaying vegetable matter and other rubbish dumped by those who lived in the ghetto.
It was on the corner of this street that Fr Millea built the church and it was in the shadow of the church that an Irish navvy, John Connors, stabbed a Welshman, John Lewis, to death in a street fight on November 11, 1848. It was too much for the locals who were still protesting over a decision not to hang two other Irishmen who had admitted killing two Welshmen in a fight earlier that year.
On the morning of November 12, 1848, the police interrupted Mass to take away a man suspected of harbouring the Irishman who had killed John Lewis. Connors was not found at that time but some weeks later the man who had been taken from the church admitted hiding the wanted fugitive for nearly a week at his home in nearby Mary Anne Street (where the Irish-owned Jury’s Hotel now stands).
It was not surprising that Connors was not found by the police. Four or five large families would have been living at the house which may well have been the one where the health inspector found a stone being placed over the privy under the stairs to provide a pillow for one more head at night.
As the hunt went on for Connors, a chanting group of Welshmen, armed with stones, demanded that the church and presbytery be searched. They forced the doors but found no sign of Connors. The incident led to a sensational headline in The Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian, the main newspaper in South Wales at a time when all type was handset and when some of the treatment given to stories was every bit as shocking as some of the tabloids of the late 20th Century.
The 1848 headline read: DREADFUL RIOT IN CARDIFF: MILITARY CALLED OUT: HORRIBLE STATE OF EXCITEMENT: FURIOUS ATTACK OF WELSH UPON THE IRISH: FLIGHT OF THE CATHOLIC PRIEST:
DEMOLITION OF CATHOLIC CHAPEL AND PRIEST’S RESIDENCE:
TWO HOUSES BURNT: INTENSE EXCITEMENT OF THE PEOPLE AND VERDICT OF THE JURY
These and other rumours were about in Cardiff today....
The newspaper did not carry a correction the following week when it was revealed that the damage to church property was no more than a few smashed windows. The scenes were nevertheless frightening, especially on the day of John Lewis’s funeral when 150 Irish navvies, armed with pick handles, marched into Cardiff to protect their fellow countrymen from the angry Welsh.
After the funeral the Irish contingent surrounded the police station and persuaded local officials to give Fr Millea the £6 needed to repair the church and presbytery. Earlier in the week, Fr Millea avoided trouble by dressing in old clothes – some reports suggested he dressed as a woman – and seeking refuge with the Hemmingway family who lived near where St Peter’s Church now stands.
The rumours continued and the driver of a mail coach is reported as having told people in Chepstow that Cardiff was under siege. Cardiff’s Mayor, Walter Coffin, published handbills calling for peace and calm. He also swore in 20 local tradesmen as special constables and armed them with mop handles sawn in half.
A reward of £50, a substantial fortune in those days, was offered and Connors was eventually arrested at Newbridge, now known as Pontypridd, where he was working as a navvy laying the railway line.
At Swansea Assizes he was cleared of murder but found guilty of manslaughter and ordered by the judge to be transported beyond the seas for the rest of his natural life. So Connors went off to Australia in the hold of a convict ship, leaving his countrymen to wallow in the Cardiff slums where the killer diseases of cholera and typhoid went unchecked for many more years.
In the outbreaks 349 people died of cholera – the potato disease – brought about as a direct result of the Irish Famine.
Fr Millea moved from Cardiff at his own request but continued his great work for the Church at Dowlais where he laboured for 20 years before his death at the age of 68 on May 7, 1873. He is buried just inside the main gate of Pant Cemetery, Merthyr Tydfil. The grave is marked by a memorial cross, erected by the parishioners of St Iltyd’s, Dowlais:
In affectionate and grateful memory of a much loved pastor.
It would be fitting if the words Father of the Cardiff Mission were included on the weather beaten stone which stands at the last resting place of the priest to whom Catholics in Cardiff and South Wales owe so much.



http://www.ballinagree.freeservers.com/murder.html

And here on Newtown or Little Ireland - A Slum

Newtown: Gone but not forgotten

Written by Delme Parfitt
Thursday, March 11
AMID the patchwork of communities that make up our Cardiff today, there lies a memorial to a suburb with a rich Irish heritage that was literally wiped from the map of the capital city.
Newtown, or Little Ireland as it became known, sprang up in the early 19th century and sprawled from just south of the University of Glamorgan’s Atrium building adjacent to Cardiff prison down to the Great Bute Dock, the busiest port in the world the days when coal was king.
The memorial, located off Tyndall Street, was opened by Charlotte Church in March 2005 following years of campaigning for something to mark the old community by the Newtown Association, a group of former residents and those with family connections to the area.
The Newtown Memorial on Cardiff's Tyndall Street

Newtown grew around Irish immigrants who came to Wales to escape the Irish potato famine of 1845. They came looking for work and – some things don’t change – were accused of undercutting the wages of locals and taking the most menial jobs.
The new settlers were brought over as “ballast” on coal ships returning from Ireland without any payment for their passage and according to an 1850 report on sanitary conditions in Cardiff, “they brought pestilence on their backs, famine in their stomachs”.
Rows of terraced houses were built for them, turning Newtown into an instant slum where homes were frequently flooded by sewage, had no proper water supply and often saw two or three families living like sardines in a couple of rooms.
South Wales Echo columnist Dan O’Neil recalls the days when Newtown still stood before it was raised to the ground in the 1960s to make way for industrial units, with the families moved out to new estates on the outskirts of the city that boasted houses with central heating and indoor toilets.
O’Neil has researched Little Ireland for numerous publications and said: “Newtown was truly a ghetto, but a lively, friendly place, a real community based on religion and race.
“The only escape fro the dire conditions was drink and every street owned its own pub or beer parlour.
“At one time Ellen Street had five beer shops.
“They kept to Irish customs in Newtown, always a wake after one of the frequent deaths, the corpse kept in the house, toasted by neighbours stepping in and out.
“And there were tales of mischievous lads tying string to the stiff old fingers and raising the hand in greeting when yet another mourner arrived – to quickly depart.
“That’s why Father Henry Parling, the parish priest a century ago, banned beer at the wakes in his parish.”
O’Neil tells of a darker side to Newtown life though, that of resentment of the Irish immigrants by the locals, so much so, that that they were ostracised in the job market.
“There were times when notices went up on factory and dock gates saying No Irish Need Apply,” he added.
“And Cardiff’s first real race riot came in 1848 when Thomas Lewis, a Welshman, was stabbed to death by an Irishman, John Connors.
“Welsh mobs stormed through Newtown but Connors was caught in Pontypridd and transported for life, for manslaughter.”
At Lewis’ funeral, Irish navvies carries pickaxes to deter any attacks on their fellow countrymen.”
But the residents of Newtown left a lasting mark.
There was Peerless Jim Driscoll, the champion boxer declared the best in the world by those in his city and beyond.
The statue of Peerless Jim Driscoll

When Driscoll died in 1925, 100,000 mourners lined the streets from Newtown to Cathays Cemetery.
Descendents of those early Irish settlers would include politicians like Charles Hallinan and son Lincoln, the great sportsman MJ Turnbull and the finest of full-backs Jim Sullivan.
O’Neil continued: “Newtown was designated a slum area in the 1960s – 120 years too late, some said – and that meant the end for Little Ireland.”
The end maybe, but while Newtown is gone forever, the memorial garden and the recollections and research of organisations like the Newtown Association and individuals like O’Neil ensure it will never be forgotten.


http://mycardiff.wordpress.com/adamsdown/history/newtown-gone-but-not-forgotten/

A bit about police and crime

http://www.southwalespolicemuseum.org.uk/en/content/cms/visit_the_archives/history_of_cardiff_p/history_of_cardiff_p.aspx

Snickers Man

There is a huge Irish influence in South Wales. You can sometimes see it in the names of Welsh rugby players. In my lifetime, Welsh internationals whose names provide evidence of an ancestral link to Ireland include:
Donovan, Keen, Moriarty, O'Connor, O'Shea, Ring and Sullivan.

The sing song Welsh accent has certain unmistakeable similarities to the Cork accent too. And that was the region from which a lot of immigrants went to WAles.

ejmaztec

Snickers Man wrote: »

There is a huge Irish influence in South Wales. You can sometimes see it in the names of Welsh rugby players. In my lifetime, Welsh internationals whose names provide evidence of an ancestral link to Ireland include:
Donovan, Keen, Moriarty, O'Connor, O'Shea, Ring and Sullivan.

The sing song Welsh accent has certain unmistakeable similarities to the Cork accent too. And that was the region from which a lot of immigrants went to WAles.

I wondered whether the old snooker player, Ray Reardon, has Irish heritage? According to Wiki he was actually born in Tredegar. His family could have been keeping a low profile during the riots.

CDfm

ejmaztec wrote: »

I wondered whether the old snooker player, Ray Reardon, has Irish heritage?.

Off topic , but not a patch on Patsy Hoolihan.

http://www.snookerisland.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=77&t=21

A good article that probably describes Reardons attitude too. I remember reading somewhere that he has also mentored Ronnie O'Sullivan.