ABSTRACT
This chapter compares Irish rural settlement in the American state of Minnesota and the south-west region of the Australian state of New South Wales in order to scrutinize and assess the validity of these propositions. As in the case of Minnesota, several crucial features stand out in the process of Irish settlement in south-west New South Wales. First, the migration was a staged one, where the Irish gained substantial opportunity to adjust to the conditions of New World farming. Second, the concentrated Irish presence ensured that settlers entered into a region in which strong networks of family and kinship existed, and where those connections ensured the maintenance of a remarkably confident and assertive rural immigrant community. Third, as in Minnesota, early Irish rural settlement in south-west New South Wales was remarkably unaffected by the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. Many of these Irish immigrants entered farming communities in which they appear to have had at least initially communal ties.
