The idea of Britain has been understood largely in terms of sectarian conflict and state formation, whereas emigration has most often been explored in terms of economic and social history. This book explores the relationship between two subjects normally studied in isolation, and includes emigration from Ireland as a social phenomenon which cannot be understood in isolation from modern British History, as well as the impact of British emigration on the ethos and identity of the British Empire at its zenith at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.