A Local Study of Culture and Identity

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Delivered to the Conference Ireland and The Irish Antipodes: One World or Worlds Apart?
9-12 July 2009, Wellington

During the past 5 months I have been on a Royal Society Technology, Maths and Sciences teacher fellowship funded by the NZ Government. I have been able to leave my usual role as a secondary school teacher, and been able to begin a history of the Hutt Valley Irish Society.

I should outline how I became involved in this study. I grew up living with an Irish grandmother. My mother was unfailingly a New Zealander, despite having been taken by her mother to visit another branch of the extended Irish family in Sydney for her twenty-first birthday.

Perhaps the interest in the Irish roots skipped a generation and is due to the way Grandparents inspire an interest in one's History. My grandmother would tell me of the grand house in Connemara in which she lived in and how she could see the bullet holes in the wood of the house, and how she emigrated when she was six because her father had married his housekeeper after her mother had died.

In New Zealand she lived not far from Mount Taupiri on the banks of the Waikato River. She told me of seeing canoes paddled by groups of Maori coming down the river, and of her brother who drowned while rowing the milk across the river.

She was the one who demonstrated Irish dance in the kitchen, after which my brother and sister and I fell about laughing. This is in direct contrast to the experience of Patrick O‘Farrell, who says he never had any sense of being Irish conveyed in his upbringing, or of Sean Brosnahan who spoke of the lack of identification with Ireland among his forbears.

I was also brought up in the family tradition of going to a Catholic boarding school, where some aspects of Irish culture were preserved, such as the keeping of a vigil with the dead in the chapel.

I had also fallen in love with Irish scenery through films such as "Ryan's Daughter" and music courtesy of The Chieftains in the film "Barry Lyndon", and more recently "The Commitments".

Where I could I had studied Irish History while at University as part of a British paper offered by Professor Hamer at Victoria University.

After My Grandmother's death, and that of her sister Kathleen, I began to research my family history. When my niece went to Ireland she went with a copy of this of the Tree I had been able to construct. When hitch-hiking in Connemara she was picked up by a young man who proved to be a relation. On his realizing this, she was taken home to stay in the family's Bed and Breakfast in Leenane.

This event was a coincidence which I liken to the experience of Arthur Koestler who spoke of "The library Angel", where coincidence and luck seem to collide.

That same niece married an Irishman from Antrim. On their arrival to live, they settled in the Hutt Valley near us and joined the Hutt Valley Irish Society. This circle of events demonstrates the endogamous nature of the marriage culturally. It was they who introduced me, and my own family to the Irish Society. It is another factor explaining my involvement with Irish culture and identity.

My new, Antrim-born nephew asked "Where is the culture, the music, the song, the community?" He felt lost in NZ. I suppose this sounds obvious. However I was baffled until I also joined the Irish Society.

I was interested in the history of the Irish Society and the strong identification with Irish culture from those of first, second and third generation immigrants. I talked to the older members and was interested in their varied life stories and their reasons for emigration, their experiences in New Zealand, why they had formed an Irish Society, and how that Society had changed over time.

The main method of research I chose was to use the medium of oral history. Not only was this an interest of mine but it fitted with the Irish love of story-telling and oral traditions. I also used local and national archives and was given early minute books and newspapers by a member.

I adapted the process of oral history to suit my interests, using a questionnaire which developed as the interviews continued in response to the interview responses.

I interviewed a sample of people who represented the earliest members, as well as those who represented the different eras of immigration to include those who were second- and third-generation Irish in New Zealand. I interviewed women and men, teenagers and children. I also interviewed members who represented a cross section of the major interests of the society, from music to Gaelic football to Irish dancing and the Rose of Tralee.

Their stories of life in Ireland were varied. One interviewee spoke of her father who was a great reader. "He did not have a long education as it was the time of the Black and Tans and he was a young boy, a message carrier of messages for the IRA. His mother would sew them in the lining of his hat. If he was caught he was shot. He left Ireland at the time of the 1930's depression to get work in NZ and he and his wife started their lives in Napier where an Uncle lived, only to be jolted by the Hawkes Bay Earthquake of 1931."

Their daughter also related to me the way her father - a founder of the Hutt Valley Irish Society - wished dearly for the end to the troubles in Ireland and joined a march through Wellington to protest during the 1970s.

A number of my interviewees commented that the 1950s in Ireland was an era of 'innocence' and simplicity of their lives. Alice Paul talked of how in the 1950's in Monaghan her mother would sing while she milked the cow and would make all the bread, and would also churn the butter.

The children would help churn the butter and sing a song as they did so. However they would always hope that the single woman of the village would not walk past as then they believed the butter would not come. She also described how she was always encouraged to sing and perform and gain an education.

Peg Shields, who grew up in an Irish speaking area remembers the richness of the music and the language and how they would block off a local crossroads and erect a dance floor and have a local dance there for the community. This was also the era in which Frank Shields recalled Galway having segregated beaches for men and the women, a dictate of the local bishop.

However some stories of life in Ireland before emigration were more sad. Two brothers spoke of being orphaned by their parents who had died of tuberculosis. They were then being cared for by a young 17 year old girl. The social services heard of this and arranged to take them out of the town, leave them by the road and allow a policeman to pick them up as they were seen to be without care and attention. They were then able to be taken into care. Thus began their education and life in an orphanage for the boys.

One brother soaked up all the knowledge, reciting to me the poem he learned at six. His brother had poor eyesight which went undiagnosed, to the extent he could not see the black board in class. In one orphanage they worked in lofts after school and made nets. Luckily, despite being in different orphanages at various times, the three brothers kept in touch across the years.

The same could not be said for another subject. Austin O'Carroll's life changed when his parents died and he went to live with an older sister and her family. In the process, however, he lost touch with one brother, Tomas, who he never saw again.

Another member who grew up in Dun Laoghaire, belonged to a large family with not a lot of money coming in. He worked as a barman to get through school. He does not want the same life for his children.

Throughout the stories of emigration, there was the theme of the attraction of better jobs and money enticing Irish to leave Ireland. The post-World War two years were also a time of great rural-urban migration in Ireland itself. It paralleled the population shift that took place at this time in New Zealand.

Most of my interview subjects came to New Zealand after working in another country first. England was often the first port of call, then Australia, as part of the 10 pound Pom immigration scheme. One couple came to NZ via Canada, another in the 1980s via the USA.

For some, arriving in New Zealand was part of a process of finding new experiences, rather than as a carefully thought-out, fully articulated plan. This however was different if they had a Kiwi partner. Irish men emigrated with their Kiwi wives, but only one Irish woman came out with her Kiwi husband. This latter couple had met before they came to NZ. They, and the others, settled here, but have been able to make occasional forays back to Ireland. Only one of the Irish, an airhostess at the time, came to New Zealand and travelled here before settling here some years later.

Even for an immigrant from Northern Ireland in the 1990s, NZ was still a place with more employment opportunities and NZ offered more opportunities to own a house, than existed in Ireland.

The first impression of New Zealand for most immigrants was interesting .The McGrath's passed on their memories of the story of the Napier earthquake: "They lost everything. Their little car was buried in sand. Their little shack came down … Mum had crawled over a crack in the ground which had widened to get the baby who was under a tree. She jumped over the crack which was widening and got the baby out."

An immigrant in the 1950's could not believe how empty the NZ shops were. Her husband brought her home a sewing machine to augment the lack of clothes to buy. Another arrival in the 1980s recalls being shocked by how small Wanganui airport was, and shocked by his first experience of racism as a house in bright colours was described as a "Maori house" by his new father-in-law. Another more modern immigrant couldn't cope with the small town experience of Eketahuna, but coped better when they moved to a bigger town. Over all they found jobs easily with better wages and loved the greenness and scenery.

One immigrant in the assisted migrant scheme who came to NZ for the adventure in the 1950s, has bad memories of the immigrant huts in Seatoun. He found them full of fleas, and hated the food they were served. He was employed by the government, and found later that his employer had thought he was Dutch. "I had fair hair in those days" he said. His employer loudly announced to the office about a subsequent applicant "I would never employ bloody Irish"!

Apart form the newly immigrant Irish, there were second generation Irish who kept in touch with their culture in the early days by joining the Wellington Irish Society. At this time they used to have dances on a Sunday night at the Star Boating Club and the St John's Hall, and it was well situated to receive a group of girls in the 1950's from the train from Lower Hutt.

One of those girls was Ann Coffey who grew up in the Hutt Valley as the daughter of an immigrant Irishman who farmed at the base of the Wainuiomata Hill. She remembers driving cows over the Wainuiomata Hill and losing one cow in the bog of Parkway, "… sucked into the swamp." She introduced a Kiwi friend to these dances at the Wellington Irish society

For three of the women interviewed this was a local social event, and the way in which they met their future husbands, young migrant Irish workers.

In this way the Irish of the Hutt Valley Irish Society people had experience of the Wellington Irish Society. But they decided to start their own society in the Hutt Valley. The genesis of the Hutt Valley Irish Society was in the socializing of a group of young immigrant Irish who would get together to share some drinks in a flat in Petone. They formed the Irish Society in 1961, meeting at first in each other's houses.

The objects of the society were, and still are, to "Maintain and promote Irish traditions and culture." They asserted that "Membership is open to persons of Irish birth or descent, and those with close interests in the objectives of the society"

The first patron was the Rev, Fr. Faherty, President was Frank McGrath, Vice President Patrick Kelly, Treasurer, Richard Ives, and Secretary Tommy Mee. The initial committee consisted of a range of Irish from the district. It also included a priest and a policeman, and one Englishman.

$Rel\da Familton$ In the second year of existence they gained publicity on St Patrick's day by staging a tug of war with an Elephant, visiting the district at the time with a local circus. Perched on top of the elephant was the new Television sensation, and local, Relda Familton.

The birth of the Society coincided with a time of expansion for the Hutt. There were new suburbs - Wainuiomata, Stokes Valley, Maungaraki - being built and many Society members were in the building, contracting and related trades.

They also had a loyalty as working people to the Labour Party, and some of the early members of the Society were photographed with former Prime Minister Walter Nash at the Labour party Ball

Someone has suggested they just enjoyed a good social event however.

Nash was the member for the Hutt Valley electorate and always attended the Rose of Tralee Balls run by the society. One member, Anne O' Carroll, shared his birthday, and in true Nash style, he always sent her a birthday card. This would be in addition to the 3000 Christmas cards he would send annually in the 1960's.

The society included as secretary our present Patron, and Englishman, Dick Ives, who was an assisted immigrant in the 1950's and transferred from Dunlops in England to their subsidiary company in Upper Hutt. His Irish wife then joined him, settling in the expanding suburb of Stokes Valley. He suggested one of the major reasons for having an Irish Society was as a focus for social interactions. Although he found New Zealand beautiful and loved it here, he found it slow socially – "All they would do is go to the movies," he complained.

The Irish Society set out to remedy this. They would at first meet in each others homes and then hold dances in local school halls, where they would have a live band and serve beer. These dances attracted many, and were the cause of debate in the Society about whether they should serve alcohol at all; some members being totally against drinking. Even when Dr McWhyte, an Irish ambassador visited, they hosted him in a school hall.

Austin O'Carroll described how they came to get their own clubrooms.

"The club bought a house in Raroa Road in the mid 1970s. Before that we had land in Puauatahanui, and we would go out and have picnics and play around as we all had young kids. Then they bought the house. John Mahn was the President … We were on the committee. It was important because you got around six o clock closing, but that was finished by then, you went for the friends and culture. You could go and you'd meet people you knew. We would sing songs. We were in a pub once and sang and were told to stop singing. The law said that you had to have a licence to have a sing-song. We thought that was a bit odd."

This created problems of its own, however, as Anne O' Carroll explained about a brush with the police. "The police raided on one day when the (Gaelic football) game was cancelled and they said they would still meet at the club on the radio. We never said for a drink. A woman rang after hearing this on the radio who had complained that they were illegally drinking. [They] took Eileen Kelly to the police station and we waited there. But we continued and just sold tickets to get a drink. Fintan Downes was President at this time and he was very concerned as he thought he would be put into prison."

Anne describes how the Society expanded "You could meet, drink, sing, (go to the) feis." The O'Carrolls revived Gaelic football in the area in 1987, after an influx of Irish arrivals, many of whom had been recruited by Fintan Downes after a trip to Ireland to bring out more young workers. "They were brought out to build the Angus Inn in Lower Hutt, so we could field teams in 1989 when the new club building was opened." This continued to develop, extending to Camogie, and teams would go to Australia to compete in the Australasian Games.

As well there was Irish dancing and regular attendance at the Feis, parades, and St Patrick Day balls.

In 1988 it was decided more substantial premises were needed. A dispute emerged about how to achieve this, which has left a bitter taste for some today. However, by dint of hard work, fund-raising, and the hire of car parks, the Society is mortgage-free and, with it's own premises, has a strong base from which to continue to promote Irish Culture.

The Society has always tried to maintain a diverse range of activities, with, for many years, a highlight being the staging of a concert for St Patricks Day, organized by Alice Paul and a committee, with performers like Deidre Starr, Sue Iken and her husband Kevin, Alice's sons, and other young people. "We also had Geraldine Brophy one year. She did an amazing performance on the stage, and had people rolling under their seats, laughing." They also established a music trust to benefit young Irish musicians.

Today regular activities range from Pot Luck dinners which involve member families and guests, a musical night once a month, Glor na Nog - a Children's choir - and speaking classes for the children

The society has become the accredited Rose of Tralee Centre for New Zealand. This is held in high regard by members as a strong connection with Ireland. The Society is proud of it's record in winning the National Rose Title in 4 of the last 8 contests.


2008	2006	2005	2002

As they head to their 50th Anniversary they are conscious of their heritage and enriched by their many connections to Ireland. They, as much as the Royal Society, have made it possible for me to undertake my research over the last 5 months, and I am indebted to them for their support and privileged to share their story.


	POT LUCK DINNERS - last Sunday of each month
	Adults' Xmas Party Friday 9 December - RSVP by 4 December
	Seniors' Xmas Afternoon Tea 11 December
	Kids' Xmas Party with Santa 18 December


	HVIS 50th Birthday celebrations October 2011 - Check the photos, videos
	HVIS 50th Birthday celebrations October 2011 - Order your own copy of the book or the DVD


© Copyright Hutt Valley Irish Society	Developer: Cavanman

A Local Study of Culture and Identity

Delivered to the Conference Ireland and The Irish Antipodes: One World or Worlds Apart? 9-12 July 2009, Wellington

Delivered to the Conference Ireland and The Irish Antipodes: One World or Worlds Apart?
9-12 July 2009, Wellington