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Remarkably little is known about the processes and extent of educational and occupational assimilation, convergence of social mobility experiences and patterns of intermarriage of England's largest immigrant community, the Irish. In this paper assimilation is regarded as a process in which both cultural and structural differences between the immigrant group and the indigenous population are progressively reduced over an extended period of time. Using nationally representative data from the General Household Surveys of 1979 and 1980, first and second generation immigrants from the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland were compared with a control sample of 'English', with all analyses run separately for men and women. It is concluded that, while there is generally a substantial measure of assimilation of the Irish in England by the second generation, there are important differences between immigrants from the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland -- the former showing much higher levels of educational and occupational achievement by the second generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]