ABSTRACT
Much has been written and even more has been speculated on those Irish men and women (conservatively estimated as 200,000 in all) who went into exile in Europe, and in European places of settlement within the Atlantic basin and further afield, during the interlude 1580–1750. The recurring themes in the business correspondence were how normal trade might be maintained in wartime, and how the danger posed by English and French privateers might be averted. Despite being preoccupied with business matters, most traders paused in their correspondence to make enquiries concerning the health and familial well-being of their contacts in Ireland, and, in exchange, they supplied information on their own personal and domestic circumstances. Changed political circumstance seem to explain why particular Irish colony in Bordeaux acted differently from previous generations of Irish expatriate merchant communities.
