Boundaries and Belonging: Personal Interest In Irish Immigrants


 I have a personal interest in Irish Catholic migration, and settlement in the King Country between, 1883-1914. My great grandparents were such settlers who broke in a bush farm at Mairoa near Te Kuiti. An unpublished family memoir paints a part picture of the life and times of those settlers but leaves many questions unanswered. This project will investigate settlers’ interaction with the Kīngitanga and kūpapa Māori. It will explore any evidence of Irish Catholic sympathies for the Waikato tribes that were subject to invasion by British troops and land confiscation. 

I want to know: Did the Christian philosophy of the Kīngitanga have a bearing on the manaakitanga that settlers received? How was the settlement of the King Country marketed to migrants and did the reality meet the expectations? Were there any organised attempts at reconciliation between the races from the state, the church, Māori hapū or other players? I believe evidence may be gleaned from church records, sports club records, friendly societies, marae and other community groups of interracial cooperation or tensions. 

I am looking forward to meeting Deacon Leon Finn the archivist of the Waikato Catholic diocese who has records of the Te Kuiti Catholic Church from its beginnings.  My family' memoir reports that the Te Kuiti Catholic Church appointed a Maori missionary around the turn of the century.  I'm hoping church  records will reveal something of interracial relations in this period. This together with other repositories of yet unplumbed primary sources scattered around various archives offer the potential for some rich new data.

If you know of any sources I should explore please leave a comment.

PS. The photo above is of my Grandmother's older siblings taken  on the bush farm at Mairoa in the 1900s

Location: Dunedin NZ

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