Internal Colonialism by Michael Hechter

Author:Michael Hechter [Hechter, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780765804754
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2017-07-05T07:00:00+00:00

Belfast) as early as 1851 only 1 per cent of the population spoke Gaelic. The reason behind the low incidence of Celtic language speaking in all but the Welsh enclave has been previously sketched. Ultimately it reflects the fact that these had been culturally anglicized contexts for some time. Therefore, the relationship between industrialization and the decline of Celtic language speaking can be studied best in Wales, for Wales alone has a reasonably large proportion of Celtic speakers in its industrial enclave in 1891.

Table 6.8 presents the degree of association between manufacturing occupations and Celtic language speaking in each of the peripheral contexts over time. As is evident, for most of the observations the direction of the association is negative, save for Wales in 1891 and 1901, when it is weakly positive. The relationship is most negative in Ireland over all seven observations, then next so in Scotland, and least in Wales—at any rate until 1961. On the whole the direction of the Welsh statistics over time is weakly negative, and there is a slight resurgence of Welsh speakers in the industrial areas during 1931 and 1951. Both the Scottish and Irish statistics, on the contrary, gain in strength, though it must be emphasized that the actual proportion of Gaelic speakers in Scottish counties is very small. The data indicate that the distribution of this tiny minority is changing; there is apparently movement of Gaelic speakers from agricultural areas towards industrial sites. A similar movement is evident in Ireland. But a reverse process has occurred in Wales. How can this difference in trends be interpreted?

While the industrial enclave was culturally very Welsh in the midnineteenth century, it was becoming successively more anglicized through the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.1 If for no other reason, this was a consequence of the rate of English immigration during the period from 1861 to 1911 (see Table 6.6). A very great proportion of this current of English migration went to Glamorganshire, which was the center for the expanding coal industry. Brinley Thomas has estimated that of the five decades between 1861 and 1911, four had greater numbers of English migrants to Glamorganshire than Welsh migrants from hinterland counties.2 Thus a major part of the decline in the proportion of Welsh speakers

TABLE 6.8 The association between Celtic speaking and industrialization. Unstandardized b coefficients from the regression of Celtic speaking on manufacturing occupations

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