In 1801 contemporary reports noted that very few people originated from Hull and that the then town’s population had grown enormously in the preceding decade thanks to large scale migration from the surrounding rural hinterland. Most families in the modern city are thus descended not from ancient stock but instead from a multitude of different white migrants who settled in the port town during the last two centuries. Whilst the story of continental migration to Hull has received a large amount of attention in recent years the influence of Celtic migrants – the Irish fleeing the potato famine, the Scottish medics and Herring lassies, the industrial migrants from the Welsh valleys and the Cornish fisherman – have been largely ignored. They collectively revolutionised the economic, political and social make up of Hull. This illustrated talk demonstrates how so much of Hull’s contemporary identity was shaped by these Celtic migrants.