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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
The Birmingham congregation suggests what Manchester Catholicism might have looked like if Irish immigration had been a fraction of what it was.’ This remark of John Bossy points in the direction of a different view of the impact of Irish migration on urban Catholic congregations in England from that which has become familiar. The relationship between Irish and English Catholic population growth in Birmingham before 1850 was not straightforward and led consequently to an interesting pattern of social and religious interaction. What Birmingham illustrates in the period up to 1850 is the effect of relatively modest Irish immigration into an English Catholic congregation already well advanced in prosperity and organization. In the first half of the nineteenth century, Birmingham Catholicism was not over whelmingly Irish, but the reception of the Irish had significant demographic and social effects on the congregation. These can be used to highlight and illustrate urban Catholic population structure, industrial enterprise, and quasi-parochial organization.
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