This thesis is a study of the Irish in Birmingham and how their culture and identities are formed in relation to their place in contemporary Britain. It focuses on the central question of why a consciously hybrid Irish-English identity is so difficult to articulate and why the children of Irish migrants are obliged to choose between an Irish or English identity. By examining the discursive construction of migrant subjectivity and how this relates to their social, cultural, economic and emotional histories, the research finds that possibilities for acknowledging reciprocal hybridity are impeded by the invisibility of the Irish in academic, social and civic discourses, the formation of distinct Irish communities, the emotional experience of migration, and the unequal relationship between contemporary versions of Irishness and Englishness. It concludes that hybrid identities have always existed but cannot be articulated because both Irish and English people have a vested interest in maintaining existing patterns of differentiation. The Irish are alternately or simultaneously seen as 'insiders' within an overarching 'white community' or 'outsiders' to a superior English culture. They resist hybridity for fear of assimilation while dominant English identities resist it in order to maintain their position in cultural hierarchies.

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