Irishmen! Rally round... [against] the conduct of Government excluding Irishmen...[1857].

Text in protest at government's exclusion of Irishmen from the benefits of passages to Wellington Province. Report of meeting at Lyceum Theatre on Friday 9th inst. W. Bowler in chair, and the resolution moved by Mr W. Allen and seconded by Mr Atcheson "That this meeting express their marked disapprobation of the conduct of I. E. Featherston, Superintendant of this province, in instructing the Government agents in England to exclude Irish Immigrants from the benefit of passages to the Province under the Government Regulations".

New Zealand spectator and Cook's Strait guardian has a report of this meeting of Friday 9th October 1857, in its issue for the next day. Election campaigns were going on at the time, and Isaac Featherston and Dr Welch were Wellington candidates. From the report it is clear that the Irish question was one of several which had been debated regularly over the previous months.

Featherston was Wellington Superintendent from 1853 to 1871.

Kathleen Coleridge reports that W Bowler died in 1863. W Allen was prominent from the late 1850s onwards. The immigration programme began in about 1855.

Not to be confused with the later protests in the late 1860s. In the late 1860s the government wished to discourage Irish immigration, fearing that the unfavourable economic conditions in Ireland would otherwise mean a disproportionate number of Irish (to other British) immigrants. See speech by Henry Parkes (1869) in his "Political speeches" volume at ATL NZ&P 825 1869 PAR.

Exhibited in "I protest", poster exhibition in Alexander Turnbull Library foyer, Feb-April 1997. Displayed in exhibition "Shipping out", National Library Gallery, 19 November 2005 - 5 March 2006.

Other Titles - Erin-Gu-Braugh!

Quantity: 1 colour photo-mechanical print(s).

Physical Description: Letterpress on green paper 290 x 225 mm.

Alternative form available: File print and colour transparency in Ephemera Room.