Researchers have collated an oral history of the last half century of Irish migration to Britain
Sean Cloherty pictured with his brothers. Cloherty moved to England from Lettermore, Co Galway before his 16th birthday and now lives in Liverpool, 50km away. Life was hard all those decades ago on the windswept island on the southwestern fringe of Connemara. Cloherty, now aged 74, was second eldest of nine children.
Coffins, Alan Rickman’s desk and Seán O’Casey’s pram: Inside the curious world of the Abbey Theatre’s props warehouseCloherty’s words were taken from the story he told to researchers working for Irish in Britain, an umbrella group for the Irish diaspora. His is one of 120 stories that have been collated into an oral history project and an exhibition, ‘Look Back to Look Forward’, covering the last half a century or so of Irish migration to Britain.
When Mayo woman Margaret Carolan arrived with her husband in London’s Victoria station about four decades ago, she couldn’t understand how people slept in the city with all the lights. “There were no lights in the street out the country where we lived ,” she says. Yet as some of the green cohort turns grey, a new generation of Irish immigrants has arrived in more recent years with different attitudes. Many are highly educated, mobile workers. “We really wanted to capture this newer generation. They haven’t been driven out of Ireland. They have come on their own terms,” says Susan Cahill, a Cork-born writer and former academic who has overseen the oral history project for Irish in Britain.
“I was more timid, almost apologetic to be here. I felt London and England was this powerful, impressive place, but maybe the balance has shifted now on that a little bit,” he said. “The don’t feel ‘less’ in any way. They just barge their way through and they get stuff done and make themselves successful.”
“But is home with a small h,” he said. Howard often eats Irish food in England, but more to feel a connection with his family than with his homeland. He said he likes to be around Irishness, Irish banter, but “not as a performative thing”.
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