Departure
As we left Dun Laoghaire there was
drunkenness. The younger men were drunk - not violently so but tragically so,
as I was, to forget the dreadful loneliness of having to leave home... For us,
as it was then, it was the brink of hell...
JB Keane Self-Portrait (1964)
Tools of the trade –
1
The first wave of
immigrants to reach London worked in the services industry mainly as cobblers
and tailors. They were an essential part
of the workforce but survived in hellish conditions.
Tools of the trade –
2
The Irish are best
known for their work in the construction industry. Over the years, the pub was the place to
organise ‘the start’ and a few simple tools either borrowed or begged was
enough to secure employment.
Navvies – Building
the waterways
Irish workers were in
demand from the late 18th century during the canal boom. Using spades and picks each cut or channel
was dug by hand. Today there are 2,200
navigable canals and rivers in the UK.
Navvies – The men who
built the railway
Tramping from job to
job, navvies and their families lived and worked in appalling conditions, often
for years on end, in rough timber and turf huts alongside the bridges, tunnels
and cuttings that they built. In the 1840s there was no compensation for death
or injury, and railway engineers like Brunel resisted all efforts to provide
their workers with adequate housing and sanitation, or safe working conditions.
Despite cruel
exploitation and extreme deprivation the navvies achieved amazing feats of
engineering, equipped with little more than gunpowder, picks and shovels.
An Gorta Mor (The
Great Hunger)
During The Great Famine (1846-51) the Irish population fell
by 25%. One million people died. One million people emigrated.
“The famine was a
defining event in the history of Ireland and Britain. It has left deep scars. That one million people should have died in
what was then part of the richest and most powerful nation in the world is
something that still causes pain as we reflect on it today. Those who governed in London at the time failed
their people.”
Tony Blair, British Prime
Minister 1997
Cead mile failte
"The Irish hate
our order, our civilization, our enterprising industry, our pure religion. This
wild, reckless, indolent, uncertain and superstitious race have no sympathy
with the English character. Their ideal of human felicity is an alternation of
clannish broils and coarse idolatry. Their history describes an unbroken circle
of bigotry and blood.”
Benjamin Disraeli
Living conditions
Due to London's high cost of living, many Irish
families frequently shared a single room. In 1849 a house in Saffron Hill was investigated by
Thomas Beames where he found 88 men, women and children living in a single five
room house.
Fancy a pint?
If music be the food of love, play on
“For you can't hear
Irish tunes without knowing you're Irish, and wanting to pound that fact into
the floor.”
Jennifer Armstrong,
Becoming Mary Mehan
Be fruitful and
multiply
The Roman Catholic
Church believes that contraception is “intrinsically evil” in itself. Catholics are only permitted to use natural
methods of birth control. As a result
the Irish migrant population continued to grow until the fear of God and the
Church diminished.
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