‘Bands of Fellowship’: The Role of Personal Relationships and Social Networks Among Irish Migrants in New Zealand, 1861–1911

Utilising personal correspondence, this study explores the practical assistance and emotional benefit that newcomers derived from Irish expatriate kin and neighbourhood networks in New Zealand. These social networks frequently provided new arrivals with practical assistance relating to employment and accommodation, as well as enabling access to marital partners. Besides demonstrating the existence and operation of Irish migrant ties among correspondents, this study also explores the quality of these relationships. It is suggested that high levels of community solidarity rather than their absence, together with the ‘cultural baggage’ of migrants, may have had negative social consequences such as drunkenness and interpersonal conflict. Yet settlement abroad was not necessarily a crippling undertaking characterised by loneliness and maladjustment. Rather, the succour and support offered by informal expatriate ties helped alleviate feelings of dislocation and proved much more instructive than companionship provided by formal networks.