That this House has considered the Irish diaspora in Britain.
Lá fhéile Pádraig sona daoibh, a Leas-Chean Comhairle. Happy St Patrick’s day to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to everyone. That is the hard bit of my speech done. It is worth recording that, while there are around 600,000 people who declare themselves to be Irish living in Great Britain, the true figure, if we look at those who are first and second generation, is probably something like 10% of the population of this country—some 6 million people. There should be 60-plus MPs here today on that basis. Alas, there are not. In fact, there are proportionally more Britons living in Ireland than there are Irish living in Britain, which is an interesting statistic. I say that because we have a very complicated relationship between our two islands, and a complicated history that has been interwoven over not just a few hundred years but thousands of years, from St Patrick travelling one way and St Columba travelling another way.
Those of us who have some claim to an Irish background are very proud of that background. I grew up in the very Irish city of Manchester, and in an Irish part of that city, listening to Radio Eireann at breakfast every morning. It is instructive that I knew as much about the tallyman’s projections for an Irish election, and that I knew, long before it had been declared, that the last seat in Donegal would go Fianna Fáil, as it virtually always did. Even better, I knew at least the advertised prescription for worming cows.
I never used that piece of information but, nevertheless, it has held me in good stead.
Manchester was a very Irish city, and the Irish were everywhere. One of the players who died in the Munich air crash, Billy Whelan, was Irish, and one of the heroes was Northern Ireland’s goalkeeper Harry Gregg, who dragged people—Bobby Charlton among them—from the ruins of the plane, for which he became a legend. He was a legend on the football field, too, because a few months previously he had helped Northern Ireland to defeat England. Northern Ireland went on to play in the 1958 World cup.
When Manchester United won the European cup in 1968, slightly after Celtic—that team was partly Irish, too—four of its players, Shay Brennan, Tony Dunne, the very Scottish but very Irish Pat Crerand and, of course, the great George Best claimed Irish origins. The Irish in Manchester could not be ignored.
The image of the Irish in those days was of builders and nurses, which was true to a degree. My good friend John Kennedy, who is known to many hon. Members, came from County Mayo with nothing in his pocket and built a business that has allowed him, as an older man, to be a philanthropist. My equally good friend Rita Maher—God rest her soul—probably nursed more people back to life, and towards the end of their life, than I had mugs of tea in her kitchen.
They are the archetypal working-class Irish, but it would be a mistake to see the Irish as just that, even though there are 200,000 Irish people working in our NHS—the Irish are much more than that. Robert Boyle, the father of modern chemistry, was Irish-born but lived long parts of his life in England. Britain’s greatest general and the victor at Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington, was Dublin-born. The Brontë sisters are famed Yorkshire women writers, but their father was from Northern Ireland. Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw had Irish backgrounds and contributed to British society. I am proud to say that Denis Healey and Jim Callaghan were both of Irish origins. More recently, Danny Boyle, Caroline Aherne and Professor Teresa Lambe, one of the co-creators of the AstraZeneca vaccine, are all from Irish backgrounds.
The contribution is much wider than the image of builders and nurses. “McAlpine’s Fusiliers” declares:
“As down the glen came McAlpine’s men
With their shovels slung behind them”.
Nevertheless, we have doctors, lawyers, accountants and academics, everything the Irish contribute to this country. It is great to be able to record that.
These two islands have a complicated history that has caused problems. Although there is no doubt that the north of Ireland suffered most during the troubles, no part of these two islands did not suffer—my own city was bombed by the IRA in the late 1990s. The Good Friday agreement was a triumph not just for Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair, although their perseverance was instrumental in making it work, but for the many others who brought it into being. It was so important because it was not just about peace or even reconciliation; it was about a very different way of living together. It was about mutual respect between the people of these two islands, which is worth recording because the Good Friday agreement has taken a knock in recent years.
This is not the right time to rerun the Brexit debate, but Brexit has confounded and confused the relationship between these two countries. It has had an impact on the Irish living in Britain. We have to get back to getting it right. We owe it not simply to the Irish in Britain or to Britons in Ireland; we owe it to all our people to get it right once again. That is the big prize we have to pursue because, in the end, mutual respect is what we should be about.
Brian Dalton of Irish in Britain, who is alas stricken with covid—good luck to you, Brian—would say that the challenges facing the Irish in Britain are, of course, about making sure we live well together, but we face some challenges in common, such as dementia in an ageing Irish population and heart conditions in an Irish population whose diet in their youth probably was not always good. We face these things together.
It is about recognising Irish heritage and what it means in modern society, but there is something more important. The 6 million people of Irish origins are the template for this mongrel nation of ours. I say that with pride, because we are a mongrel nation brought together from many different strands. It is the template for how we treat and respect each other. If we can use the Irish in Britain as the template for how we respect heritage and how we respect each other, we will achieve something important for modern Britain and for the relationship between our two islands.
I am proud to be part of the hand-me-down Irish diaspora, and I am proud that colleagues are here to speak on this tremendously important issue. I am proud because the Irish in Britain represent the best of modern Britain, as do all those who weave the tapestry of what we are as a nation.
May the blessings of St Patrick be with us all this day, and may the blessings of St Patrick—I say this wearing a shamrock and a Ukraine badge on my lapel—be with the people of Ukraine, too. The peace we want between these two islands is the peace we want around the world.
It is a pleasure to follow my near constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd). I agree with every word he said.
To be bluntly honest, when I thought about what I wanted to say in this debate I was thinking about my dad and my memories of him. When we talk about the Irish diaspora in Britain, we do not see ourselves as different. The Irish diaspora is part of our everyday life. An estimated 6 million people in the UK have an Irish grandparent, which means people will probably have some form of relationship with somebody with an Irish grandparent—they will see them in the shops or at their place of work. We see the Irish diaspora, Irish history and Irish culture every single day.
I could not be prouder of coming from an Irish Catholic background. On my dad’s side, I have two Irish grandparents, Frank and Molly, who came to this country in the 1920s. My dad and his sisters would tell me stories of their early experiences in Lockwood when they first came to live in Huddersfield as native Gaelic speakers. They vividly remembered the abuse, the insults and how they were treated. My dad always told me the story of how his mum once had a bucket of water poured over her head from a house window while she walked down the street. Those early pioneers, certainly in my family, had to go through terribly difficult times, and I am very proud of everything they achieved. The fact that they took the step to come over here to find a job or to make a better life means that I am stood here, and my cousins are all over the country doing whatever they are doing in their lives. I am pleased to say they are all positive, lovely people, and their Irish heritage touches every person they meet, which is a wonderful thing.
On my mum’s side, my great-grandfather John was born in Athlone in Westmeath. He came over here, to Bradford, in the 1870s, so this migration is not just from the ‘20s to the ‘50s; it goes back over many years. He married a Yorkshire lady. Again, without those roots and without people being brave enough to come over here to a place and a country they did not know, without friends, in many circumstances, many of us would not be able to have the lives we have today. When I look at the contribution of the Irish diaspora in Britain, I think it is everything; there are no negatives and there is nothing else to say. Every part of our life as a nation has a little bit of Irish heritage and history within it, because we are all part of a wider story.
2:13 pm
Jon Cruddas (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab)
Like all Members, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) for securing this debate, which is possibly the first Backbench Business debate in this Chamber to focus specifically on the Irish in Britain. I have known him for more than 25 years and am acutely aware of his political skills, but to secure this debate on St Patrick’s Day, in the middle of the Cheltenham festival, which is promising another greenwash of wins for Irish trainers, and following the biggest Irish victory in Twickenham history says something about his tacit political skills of timing; it is an extraordinary gift and we appreciate it today, with this debate. On acknowledgments, I should also stress the role of my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), whom I know will be immensely proud to be replying for our party this afternoon. He performs incalculable work on behalf of the Irish in Britain today and wider UK-Irish relations. He does a great job, and long may it continue.
This is undoubtedly an important debate, allowing us to demonstrate our support for the Irish in Britain, and how the Irish are recognised and valued as a core part of British society, fundamental to its economic and cultural life. As has been said, that cannot be expressed simply in a numbers game of Irish nationals in the UK, given the countless millions of second and third-generation Irish who have shaped the character of this country, informed by their family identity, culture and heritage. Yet the importance of this debate goes beyond general statements of support, partly because it is more personal for those children of Irish immigrants, brought up within Irish families in this country, who have become Members of this Parliament. Let me give full disclosure: my family come from Donegal. My wife sits in the other place, and her family come from Mayo and Galway. They all came over in the 1950s, for reasons of work. Many of us also represent communities with very strong Irish traditions and cultures.
Much debate of this debate might well focus in on the needs of the Irish community in this country. Undoubtedly that is correct, given that, as my hon. Friend has mentioned, an estimated 10,000 Irish in England may be suffering from dementia and that death by suicide is disproportionately high in this community, as are some of the effects of cancer-related diseases. Those are all vital issues, but today is also an opportunity to highlight not just the community’s needs, but the fundamental contribution of the Irish in creating and shaping Britain’s economy and society over many decades. That extends throughout Britain and throughout this city—it is not confined to Brent, Camden and Islington. Dagenham, 13 miles from our debate, is a good example of that. For it is impossible to understand Dagenham without an intimate appreciation of patterns of Irish migration in the creation of community, which is a story played out over many decades and one that is still strong today.
I am grateful to be called, Leas-Cheann Comhairle—Madam Deputy Speaker—and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) for not only securing the debate but stealing my thunder: his Gaelic pronunciation is a wee bit better than mine. As a vice-chair of the all-party group on Ireland and the Irish in Britain, I am delighted to be here. I know that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, are also a member of the group and that you work with its chair, the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn).
As someone with probably one of the longest Irish names in history—Máirtín Seán O’Dochartaigh-Aodha—it would have been remiss of me not to have participated in this debate. I am a grandchild of Irish immigrants on my father’s side and have Irish great-grandparents on my mother’s side. Sarah Timlin—a very uncommon name in Mayo, if not in the whole of Ireland—was from Ballinglen in County Mayo, and John Doherty was from Stralongford, which is literally a big long road between Letterkenny and Convoy in County Donegal. A strange and complex family, just like the story of our heritage across these islands. Sarah and John met in Scotland and married back in County Mayo. Further back, Sarah’s big brother fell on the western front the week before the armistice was signed.
John’s family from Donegal—well, that is a completely different matter altogether. Let me say something about the complexity of John’s life when he came to Scotland. He was brought up by a single parent. His mother Ellen had 15 children and was designated in the 1901 census as illiterate—a stigma—because she only ever spoke Irish. Although she may have been illiterate in English, which she never spoke, she was able to bring up 15 children singlehandedly on a farm in the middle of Donegal in the early 1900s. Most of her children survived birth—unlike a lot of children at the time—and many went to the United States. I now have a lot of family around Philadelphia and in New York. Luckily for me, my relatives made their life in Clydebank.
I rise proudly to speak as the vice-chair of both the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly and the all-party group on Ireland and the Irish in Britain. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) for securing this debate.
In 2018, I spoke in one of the Brexit debates on the eve of St Patrick’s Day. I said then that, although we did not know where St Patrick was from, we knew that he was probably not Irish, but he did wander and roam across much of these islands. I also talked then about the Bristol merchants who, under Henry II, went to Dublin in 1171 to defend Dublin castle and were rewarded with the establishment of trading posts between Bristol and Dublin. The point is that the movement of people, trading to deliver economic prosperity, is what has fashioned our political relationships across these islands for centuries, and today is no different. In so many other respects, though, today is so very different and thank goodness for that.
My own parents were part of the post-war ’50s exodus of young people from rural Ireland to London. Their older siblings had to come, but my parents came for the craic, because, frankly, it was a lot more fun here than it was in rural Mayo or Cavan. We all know that they faced some challenges, but what fantastic opportunities England gave to them and has given to us, no more so than, in one generation, my being elected here as an English MP, of which the entire family is enormously proud.
Here in Britain, that post-war community established support networks. Since the 1970s, as we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale, the work of Irish in Britain, as an umbrella organisation, has supported individuals and groups throughout the country. Colleagues can check on its website, but, on average, there are at least 1,000 Irish people in each of our constituencies. The charity supports culture, heritage and health. I and the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), who is in her place, proudly supported the Green Hearts campaign a couple of years ago.
I am very grateful for this opportunity to take part in a debate to celebrate the contribution of the Irish in Britain and the very deep bonds of friendship and neighbourliness between our two islands. The other quote I remember from Edmund Burke was when he said that, for most English people, their ambition about Ireland was to hear no more about it, but I thank all the Members participating today for having a much wider ambition.
It is a pleasure to follow Members from across the House who have done so much to honour and deepen the contribution of the Irish to the fabric of Britain. In particular, I thank the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) for securing this debate and the others who have spoken. I also thank the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) who played such a key role in events yesterday and who has exemplified and represented the Irish in Britain for many years with inclusivity, practicality, confidence, wit—lots of wit—and stories, and we are very proud of him for it.
It was not always an easy landing for Irish people in Britain. We know that many faced discrimination and isolation, but Britain, and England in particular, provided refuge, acceptance and opportunities for people who, in many cases, had been rejected by Ireland. Perhaps that was because they were pregnant, because they were gay, because they were different in some way or because there was no work for them. Ireland, to our great shame now, pushed out many unwanted people to England, who then found acceptance, solace and opportunity here, and for that we are very, very thankful.
Irish people and their descendants have not only found a good home in Britain; they have helped to make it a good home for other people. The work of Irish people across all classes of work, skills, vocations, talents, enterprise, creativity and service is rightly a source of pride—from roads and buildings in decades past to those at the very top of industry and the creative sectors today, and throughout many decades and very much during covid’s curtailments, within the National Health Service. It was lovely to see that represented and celebrated in the parade at the weekend.
Go raibh maith agat, Madam Deputy Speaker —thank you very much. I, too, wish all right hon. and hon. Members and also all my constituents across Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill a very happy St Patrick’s day.
We all know that Ireland is Scotland’s closest neighbour and relation, and our often shared heritage and our historical bond run as deep today as the Rivers Clyde and Liffey combined. We in Scotland value immensely the relationship between us and our Irish brothers and sisters, and our bond remains ever strong.
The histories of the peoples of Ireland and Scotland are closely intertwined, with our stories of migration taking many forms at different times over the centuries. Whether Scottish or Irish, chances are we are all immigrants. Place names and family names and our traditions across both our lands are an ever-present reminder of our interlocked Gaelic past and, more importantly, our shared futures together.
My own family surname comes from an Irish heritage, and my roots can be traced back to County Donegal, itself an Irish county with its own unique story, being geographically in the north of Ireland but part of the 26 counties that make up the rest of the island. Today, my ties to Ireland allow me to visit frequently; just last week I was fortunate enough to be in the town of Drogheda, County Louth. The reason for that trip was to partake in one of those old Scottish and Irish traditions we share, wetting the baby’s head, as we welcomed Finn Martin Murphy into this world—born of a Scottish mother and an Irish father, so it is safe to say the connections between our families and countries are safe for at least another generation.
While there, I took the opportunity to visit the site of the Battle of the Boyne in Drogheda—a truly historic place that can be appreciated regardless of faith, creed or political persuasion. The profound consequences of the battle reverberate to this day in the to-ing and fro-ing over the withdrawal agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol, but it is always worth remembering there is far more that unites us than separates us. I was also able to indulge in Ireland’s greatest export, Guinness. I extend my gratitude to those kind persons of the St Laurence’s Club at McHughs for their warm hospitality. As they say in Ireland, the craic was 90.
As the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar) said, we are all a bit Irish today. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to speak in this debate because this is a subject that is important to me for many reasons. I would like to acknowledge all the Members here today who were either born in Ireland or are of Irish extraction, whatever party they represent. Of course, I salute all my constituents, everyone in this country and everyone around the world who is celebrating St Patrick’s day today.
I would like to pay a special tribute to our former Labour colleague and Member of this House, Jack Dromey, who sadly died earlier this year. I knew Jack long before he was an MP—in fact, when he was a firebrand trade unionist energetically involved in the Grunwick dispute. That dispute engaged Jack because it was about mainly Asian women striking against their extreme exploitation, low wages and terrible conditions in their factory, which led to them being sacked when they tried to form a union. As a proud Irishman, Jack was vehemently opposed to any idea that these women could not be unionised, and he was determined to fight for those mainly migrant workers.
That brings me to my first substantial point, which is why we, as immigrants or the children of immigrants, came to be here in the first place—because of course we are, all of us, descendants of the children of empire. It is a great credit to the people of Ireland that they have the honour of having set in motion the end of colonialism and the end of empire. I know that is a controversial view in some parts of this House, but my starting point is the position of a colonised people. My concern is not for the nostalgia and relics of the past, but the truth is that the people of India are only now recovering their former wealth and place in the world after the raj, and the people of China are recovering from having been effectively carved up by foreign powers. The people of Ireland now have a greater per capita GDP than this country. Yet before independence all these countries lived in abject poverty. I say that not to disparage anyone, but it confirms my view that no people can prosper while they are not free. In the approximately 100 years of British rule in India, the population fell substantially. We know that the Irish fared even worse. So all around the world there is a special place of pride reserved for the Irish, who began the end of empire, and there is a certain pride and a certain outlook that is conferred on many Irish people and people of Irish descent as a result.
Happy St Patrick’s day to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to colleagues across the Chamber and to friends of Ireland around the world. I give a big thank you to the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) for securing this debate. Anyone questioning the potency of outward-looking, culturally rich states with, by global standards, relatively small populations and their ability to penetrate the highest offices of the global system in Brussels and Washington need look no further than the Irish to see what can be done. It is great to celebrate the sons and daughters of Ireland in this Chamber, even though some of us would like to ply our political trade elsewhere. When I got elected two years ago, I was pretty confident that I would be the first double-o Doogan MP in this place, but sadly not. It turns out that in the late 19th century there was a chap from County Monaghan who beat me to it, but that is one for the record books.
I am Scottish. As you may have established over the past two years, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am very proud and motivated by that fact. However, I am of Irish stock, and I wear that complementary characteristic with great pride also, and this year I will take delivery of my Irish passport to underscore that I will not be stripped of my European citizenship, and I will also get through the airport quicker.
My family hail from Donegal, Ireland’s premier and most picturesque county with the tallest mountains, the finest golden beaches, the sweetest turf smoke and the wettest bogs. It is the Irish county against which all others are judged. My mother and father came to Scotland separately working in service and in agriculture respectively, settling in Perth to raise six children. It was a rich childhood experience being part of the Perth community and the Perth Irish community and being pals with the kids who lived around about, but also with the kids who went with me to the Catholic school across town.
I speak for many of those celebrating the feast of St Patrick today when I say that we share the values embodied by his story—solidarity, care, kindness and compassion. We stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine as they struggle to protect their right to live in freedom and peace.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) for securing this important debate to celebrate the strong cultural, political and business ties between Britain and Ireland and the immense contribution of the Irish diaspora in Britain. As he knows, as my local MP growing up, the contribution of the Irish community in Greater Manchester, of which we are both part, is immense. My mum is from Galway and my dad is from Belfast.
We await the most recent census data, but at the 2011 census, more than 430,000 people living in Britain identified themselves as Irish-born. That is only part of the picture: Bronwen Walter, emerita professor of Irish diaspora studies at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, estimated some years ago that the true figure for those with at least one Irish parent or grandparent was roughly 5 million. As we have heard today, the figure has now increased to 6 million. It is also said that, if someone’s family has lived in Salford or Manchester for more than a generation, the chances are that they have Irish ancestry.
The huge Irish diaspora across the north of England has been recognised by the Irish Government, who have opened the consulate general of Ireland for the north of England. Its establishment reflects a strong commitment to developing the British-Irish relationship and it will strengthen the political, commercial, community and cultural ties between Ireland and the north of England.
Niall Gallagher, chairman of Irish Heritage, described the contribution of the Irish to cultural life in Britain as incalculable. On the contribution of the Irish community in Greater Manchester, Irish President Michael Higgins said that it had given the area countless talented footballers, vibrant cultural festivals, and talented students, writers and businesspeople. Indeed in Salford, it is asserted that it was the Irish community who contributed to the creation of Salford as a city in its own right. During the mid-19th century, there was huge migration of Irish people into the Salford area, partly due to the great hunger in Ireland, and in 1848 Salford Roman Catholic cathedral was consecrated, reflecting Salford’s huge Irish population at the time.
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Sometimes the best way to elicit and highlight a point in this place is not by going on Google to find out facts, but by speaking from personal experience about the things that people have been through and how they shape the country that we are and the one we want to be. In my youth, I always used to hear stories in my family about Gerald Paddy Slavin—I am looking at the hon. Member for Rochdale, as he may not know this—who came over to Huddersfield, to Longwood, in the 1930s. He is my great uncle—the brother of my grandma—and was born in Aughnacloy. He came across, got a job, worked hard, got married and looked after his family. He served on HMS Nelson during the second world war as a gunner. He was a true hero and a man who served the nations of Great Britain and Ireland in every possible way.
When he was in the Army, he decided, or it may have been decided for him, that boxing was the thing for him, so a man who had worked in the mills of Huddersfield and brought up a family—a respectable man—in 1948 fought in Belfast for the heavyweight title of Ireland. He became the heavyweight champion of Ireland, and went on to fight Don Cockell, Brian London and various other people. Within my family and my personal experience of people who have come over to this country and been part of a wider story, here was not only a heavyweight champion, a man who fought the great boxers of the era, but a man who was a respectable, kind, caring father—a good man. Those qualities sum up my experience of the Irish diaspora in Britain. The Irish community where I grew up in Huddersfield, who were a central part of that town’s identity, could tell endless stories about what things were like in Huddersfield and I am sure that there are similarities with what was happening in Manchester.
I could not be more proud of the contribution made by Irish people, over many hundreds of years and continuing to this day. I am lucky enough to have that heritage, and these opportunities, from my relatives who came over from Westmeath in the 1870s. To my grandad Frank, the idea that he would have a Conservative MP as his grandson would be mind-blowing. When they are all looking down, I hope that when they see me, my cousins and all the rest of the family—this applies to everyone, all over the country, who is lucky enough to have Irish heritage—they will say that there was a complicated history, which we could talk about forever, and there were challenges and some awful times, but the sacrifices they made created opportunities for us, which we are enjoying today. I will be forever grateful.
I am fortunate to be writing a history of my community, and 7 November 2021 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of modern Dagenham. Exactly 100 years earlier, the first house was completed on the Becontree estate; 27,000 new homes, containing over 100,000 residents and spread over 4 square miles of marshland, would follow by 1935; this was the largest council estate in the world. In 1931, the Ford Motor Company relocated from Manchester’s Trafford Park to Dagenham. The site offered deep-water port access, allowing for bulk coal and steel shipments on a much larger scale than the Manchester Ship Canal did. The 475 acre riverside site became Europe’s largest car plant, with 4 million square feet of floor space. By 1953, it employed 40,000 direct workers, and 11 million vehicles and over 40 million engines have rolled off the line.
I raise that because when the plant first opened in 1931 so many men from Leeside in Cork got work there that some oral histories suggest that the county accent predominated on the factory floor. Later in the ‘30s, when tractor manufacturing in Cork was terminated and transferred to Dagenham, thousands more followed. When these Cork migrants returned for a holiday, with their trendy clothes and money, they were affectionately known as “Dagenham Yanks”. It was the beginning of a link between the two places that remains as strong today—it is an industrial link that uprooted Irish villages and planted them into what was then Europe’s largest factory and on to its largest estate. That pattern of migration continued throughout the whole of the last century; estimates suggest that well over 10,000 Irish migrants have worked for Ford in Dagenham over the years, laying down strong local roots and family connections.
One of the few private estates in Dagenham, the Rylands estate, just opposite the factory gates, was literally built to house thousands of Cork Ford workers. In the 1940s and 1950s, thousands more Dagenham Yanks were attracted to the expanding assembly plants. When the engine plant that Ford retained with Dunlop in Cork closed in 1983, many thousands more came across the water throughout the ‘80s. The social impact of this migration has been immense not least in the promotion of Irish culture and heritage. In the local pubs and drinking clubs, such as O’Gradys, the Casa and, right outside the plant gates, the Mill House Social Club, Dagenham was known as Little Cork, a place of tripe and drisheen, spiced beef, Beamish and Murphy’s. The term “Murfia” was coined to describe the Corkonian-controlled network of work and political connections, patterns of family and kinship, and extensive cultural, sporting and faith-based communities.
Local Gaelic Athletic Association clubs flourished, and there was a deep-rooted connection between the Ford paint shop and Tomas McCurtain’s GAA club. This was partly the product of an Offaly man named Bill Flanagan, who supervised paint contractors and was always eager to hire good hurlers and footballers for McCurtain’s. Many of them originated from Dromina in County Cork, through the influence of the legendary Timmy O’Sullivan, a main contractor who relocated half the village. Sadly, he died in 2014, but he is still a legendary figure. He even convinced the Cork hurling team, including Christy Ring, to travel over to play McCurtain’s in the ’60s, and Bertie Ahern regularly came down to present jerseys.
The wider character of Dagenham was informed by the GAA, the pipe bands, the Irish language classes, the music and the dancing, and they have remained enduring features of the Dagenham culture for decades. I make these points not out of some sense of romantic nostalgia but to acknowledge the extraordinary economic, social and cultural contribution of the Irish community in Dagenham and its wider role in powering manufacturing across this city and the manufacturing economy of the country over many decades. The Irish were indispensable in the creation of our community in Dagenham, which has helped to define the industrial history of this country and this city.
Locally, things have changed—car assembly finished in the early 2000s—but this debate speaks to what is being made in Dagenham today, with new industries emerging that promise once again to strengthen the economic links between the two countries. For instance, Hackman Capital Partners—the owner of what will be the largest film and TV studio in London when it opens in Dagenham in a few years—has just acquired two Irish film studios, in Wicklow and Limerick.
In recent years, Irish migration has slowed, yet the community retains a strong Irish identity, with extraordinary numbers of second and third-generation Irish alongside a healthy number of older Irish residents, who are well represented in the churches, the union branches and groups such as the Irish Pensioners Forum of East London, a social and cultural group for older Irish people partly funded by the Emigrant Support Programme, which does some fantastic work for communities up and down this country. Such networks of support, advice and kinship—in the local clubs, societies and groups—have been critical in the response to covid. The sense of fraternity that is the hallmark of the Irish in Dagenham has really been a blessing for us.
Today’s debate gives me the opportunity to acknowledge, in Dagenham’s 100th year, the role of the Irish in the creation and sustaining of Dagenham. They remain a cornerstone of the local community. I have told just one story to illustrate the indispensable quality of the Irish community in this country, which we can honour and treasure today.
I wish to say a few words about the heritage and sporting activity of the Irish diaspora not only in my community but across these islands, and specifically in Scotland. This year, the Gaelic Athletic Association celebrates 125 years of existence in Scotland. It is now based in the Clydebank community sports hub in Whitecrook, which has a rather large Irish diaspora. I was delighted that Minister Seán Fleming TD from the Dáil Eireann came from the Oireachtas yesterday to visit the GAA in Scotland, although I was sadly not able to attend myself.
I am grateful that on St Patrick’s day back in 2016 the House highlighted and supported my recognition of St Patrick as a guy fae West Dunbartonshire. At least as far back as the 13th century, Jocelyn of Furness wrote in his stories of the Celtic saints about Patrick being born in what we now know was a Roman fort in the village of Old Kilpatrick, where the well was reopened in the 1930s. Sadly, it is not like Knock these days—there are not thousands of folk coming for a shrine—but Members are more than welcome to come to Old Kilpatrick and taste the waters.
In modern times, there is Irish heritage through the industrial revolution not only in Dumbarton but throughout the shipbuilding in Clydebank. The Twitter feed of West Dunbartonshire Arts and Heritage reminded me today that the ships the Carrowdore, the Clarecastle and the Clareisland were all built in Scots shipyards in the village of Bowling by the Guinness family, for one reason: to ship Guinness fae Dublin straight to the heart of Glasgow and across the whole of Scotland.
Only last week, we commemorated the 81st anniversary of the worst aerial bombardment in the history of these islands: the Clydebank blitz of March 1941. The Irish diaspora were very much part of the rebuilding of Clydebank and the fight against national socialism, which crossed all communities, even in the difficulties of the 1940s. It was a very proud moment.
I am mindful that in the past five years the West Dunbartonshire Council administration took the unusual but welcome step to recognise the connections between West Dunbartonshire and Letterkenny, with the signing of the first ever friendship agreement between a Scottish local authority and an Irish local authority. I was delighted to be there to welcome the then mayor of Letterkenny—who was related, which was great.
It is not always a great story. As the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Gypsies, Travellers and Roma, I have to be mindful of the fact that for an Irish Traveller, St Patrick’s day is tinged with sadness, and of the challenges that the Irish Traveller community face across these islands in terms of their ethnicity and lived experience. I hope the Minister will take cognisance of that.
In summing up, let me perhaps ask a question of the Minister. It is appropriate that we mention today the complexity and history of these islands, which is an opportunity to build on the strength of diversity and for Governments across these islands to work together, as was noted in the St Andrew’s agreement. When the Minister sums up, will she give the House an idea of progress on an Irish language Act in the context of the new deal, and of opportunities to support and promote the Irish language in Northern Ireland?
Perhaps there is something to learn from Scotland, where the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act was introduced in 2005 by the then Labour Administration in Holyrood and unanimously supported. My own Government in Holyrood are now bringing forward a Scots language plan to develop a guid Scots leid. There is also an opportunity when it comes to Ulster Scots. The diversity of language is a great opportunity for the whole island of Ireland and, of course, the whole of these islands, to recognise the strength of diversity in language and culture.
I again thank the hon. Member for Rochdale for securing this debate.
The post-war exodus was facilitated by the common travel area—loosely defined, securing centuries-old exports of Ireland’s youth to the powering of Britain’s economy between the then separated countries in 1922. Covid has highlighted for most of us many, many difficulties, but, for me, effectively losing the common travel area was particularly difficult. Trying to visit my older family members, some in care homes, across the border in Cavan and in Northern Ireland with different rules, added needless bureaucracy, cost and stress to thousands of families. We were an afterthought for the Government in Dublin, and it took them a long time to listen to the pressure from us here and through the embassy here in London as they tried to balance their responsibilities to their greatest and oldest neighbour with their responsibilities within the European Union. This will continue to be difficult—we understand that. As we heard last week, Ministers mistakenly suggested that Ireland and the common travel area is an unchecked backdoor to Britain; it is not. None the less, we say to both Governments that, as the diaspora, we will continue to roam freely across these islands, and both Governments need to learn from our experience the social, political and economic benefits of the CTA.
Ireland has changed beyond recognition with membership of the European Union. I want to highlight briefly one area of particular importance that is joyful for me, which is women’s rights. Women were at the heart of Irish politics and culture throughout the battles for home rule and independence, but the consolidation of the Irish state, with the dominance of the Church, meant that very quickly women were relegated to the private sphere. Indeed, although much divides Unionists and nationalists, as the dust started to settle, there was one thing on which they could all agree and that was keeping women in the home. That is where I learned my formative politics: watching and listening to Irish women; learning that what was said in public was not the same as what was said in private.
My nan, sat by her peat fire in Mayo—I can still smell it—and the women would call round. She sat there talking. My Mum carried on this tradition in London, with women coming round for a chat. After a long night of talk on every conceivable subject, my mum passed on to me what she had heard at home, saying, “up the chimney with that now”. Up the chimneys and around the tables of thousands of Irish homes, women talked differently than they did in the public sphere from which they were effectively barred. It ill behoves any politician who does not know what goes up the chimney.
Once in the EU, Ireland, like the UK, had to accept the social change along with economic support: equal pay, maternity rights, non-discrimination on marital status, and finally those votes on divorce and abortion. What I learned from the private conversations around the chimney I also learned from women here in the British Labour party: individuals in private do not change the world. Women have to occupy the public space. Women have to have political power to secure our rights to equality with men and to change the laws that dictate the private sphere, and all legislators across these islands have a long way to go. It has been a privilege to be part of the solidarity among the women of these islands—north, south, east and west—and we still have much work to do.
Today, I have my slightly wilting shamrock and my British-Irish parliamentary brooch. As a child, I was sent to school with the shamrock, but I did not often wear it on St Patrick’s Day through the ’80s. That was due in part to my moving away from my childhood, seeking an identity of my own, and in part due to the fact that being Irish here in the late ’70s and ’80 was hard. We were expected to have a view and to take a side in the constant struggles, but we did not often have a side. I knew that there were many sides, and I knew that I had a stake in them all. The 1980s changed the narrative of having sides. That decade allowed us to have many sides, and we all wanted the same thing: to live in peace and prosperity.
The 1998 Good Friday agreement was not just about Northern Ireland, Ireland, or a border; it was about the freedom of movement of people across these islands, about our deep roots, about mutual interest and respect, and about shared security and prosperity. Our duty now is to build upon it in full.
Finally, one of my predecessors as a Bristol MP is Edmund Burke. I think he was Bristol’s last Irish MP, whose statue still stands proudly in the centre of our city—a city he apparently visited only twice. He lasted six years, which is a milestone that I have only recently passed. During that time, he had a somewhat acrimonious time with the Bristol Merchant Venturers whose patronage was needed in those days in order to be able to hold office. Burke, as is befitting the father of modern conservatism, recognised that restrictions on people—as with the anti-Catholic legislation at the time—and restrictions on trade from Ireland meant an ever-impoverished Ireland, and that, he felt, was economically unwise for England. His riposte to the anti-Irish protectionism of the Bristol merchants should be heeded by us all today:
“England and Ireland may flourish together. The world is large enough for us both. Let it be our care not to make ourselves too little for it.”
As a result of that contribution and mutual support, I have no doubt that the Irish centres and networks in Britain will be stepping forward to offer support, service and space to Ukrainian refugees in their time of need. While the common travel area privileges the Irish in Britain and the British in Ireland, as befits our close neighbourly relationship, the Irish stand in solidarity with others across the world who have had to leave their homes because their home was not safe or because they could not make a life there. We know how it feels to be cast at times as a suspect community, and to be at the bottom of the pile. That experience is reflected in the internationalism of the Irish community and the support that they offer to migrants and minorities from elsewhere.
The deep integration of Irish people on this island has not come at the expense of pursuing distinctive Irish sports, traditions and arts, which, as others have mentioned are flourishing. Indeed, in many parts, British TV presenters and journalists frequently claim some of Irish people as their own. The only surprise is that our current Home Secretary has not spotted British citizenship being conferred on people and come down on it like a house of bricks.
Fosta, Seo Seachtáin na Gaeilge, coicís go deimhin, agus tá imeachtái ar fud an tír, agus ar fud an domhain a thugann faillí dúinn cultúr, teanga agus oidhreacht na hÉireann a cheiliúradh. Indeed, what better opportunity than this to celebrate Seachtáin na Gaeilge, Irish Language Week, which is taking place now and is an opportunity to celebrate Irish language and culture across the island and across the world.
Irish people in Britain are a strong thread in British-Irish relations and a critical part of the ethos and architecture of the Good Friday agreement. John Hume always saw, and the Social Democratic and Labour party to this day have always seen, those three strands of the agreement as interdependent, indivisible and mutually reinforcing. Cherishing and nurturing the strand 3 relationship is core to the role of SDLP MPs taking up our mandated place in this House. That is something we take very seriously.
As others have said, the conflict playing out in Ukraine reinforces the need to protect what has been the most successful peace and reconciliation project in generations. It is a fact that the violence and at times the depravity of the troubles—all of it, and all that went before it—drove a wedge between people that has been difficult to bridge, but it is precisely because of those painful aspects of our history that we must continue to work to deepen and maintain friendship, co-operation and reconciliation, to put that cycle of mistrust in the past and to realise the reciprocal benefits of cultural, personal and trade ties. It is a statement of fact that a strong, pluralist Britain is in Ireland’s interests and vice versa. Nothing will change that.
Thanks to the Good Friday agreement, Irish people here have been able to step forward even more. We encourage them to keep doing that and not to be afraid to lead in British-Irish relationships at the many cultural, social, business and sectoral levels where they provide a natural nexus.
We live in the shadow and the shelter of each other, as President Michael D. Higgins acknowledged during his historic state visit and address here in 2014. Confident in our relationship as equals and with mutual interest, we can
“embrace the best versions of each other”.
The Irish in Britain are doing so every day; many are moving on from the traditional binaries of the past and embracing the “or both” part of the Good Friday agreement, not feeling that they have to decide between being British and Irish if they do not wish to do so. The tensions of the past five years, as the hon. Member for Rochdale said, are probably a topic for another day—indeed, we probably do talk about them every other day of the year, so I am happy to park them for today.
Though our relationship has been turbulent in the longer past and in the recent past, it can and should be mutually beneficial, warm and reconciled. I say thank you to the Irish people in Britain and the British people in Britain and in Ireland who make that so and wish everyone a happy St Patrick’s Day.
Both Scotland and Ireland are nations who have stood strong through both glory and tragedy, from the creation of Saint Columba’s monastery on the Isle of Iona—the Irish saint also lends his name to my local parish in my constituency—to the tragedies of the Scottish highland clearances and an Gorta Mór, the great famine in Ireland, which saw so many perish and thousands of Scots and Irish move between these lands. Millions of people worldwide today can trace their descendants back to these tough, resilient Irish and Scottish survivors.
The 2011 Scottish census revealed that almost 11,000 Irish citizens were living in Scotland, and Coatbridge in my constituency is long renowned in both Scotland and Ireland for its Irish diaspora. By the same token, many of my countrypeople live across the Irish sea—15,000 in the north of Ireland alone, based on the same 2011 census. A further 57,600 people were recorded as speaking an Gaeilge, so it is no surprise that our relationship across the sea remains vibrant and is vital to Scots and Irish alike.
With the current census in Scotland ongoing, and the ramifications of Brexit never far from the minds of the Scots or the Irish, I am entirely confident that the number of Irish passport holders in Scotland will have increased sharply over the past couple of years. Such drastic impacts on our identities and outlooks as Brexit will have a profound effect on the eventual make-up of these shared islands. Despite our no longer sharing membership of the European Union, the strong and enduring foundation of the common travel area and the structures created by the Good Friday agreement provide a stable foundation for the continued development of good relations between our peoples.
Ireland has a long tradition of diaspora engagement around the world, which was reinforced by the Department of Foreign Affairs appointing its first Minister for diaspora affairs in 2014. Scotland engages her global diaspora through GlobalScot, a worldwide network of almost 800 entrepreneurial and inspirational business leaders and experts. The Scottish Government will continue that good work with Irish colleagues on common issues and shared goals, particularly on diaspora affairs, to assess where lessons can be drawn from Ireland’s experience.
There is also scope for increased exchange and partnerships between different diaspora organisations. That is something I am eager to encourage, in the hope that it will allow us to provide greater support to Irish community organisations across Scotland—a community that, it cannot go unsaid, has not always been fully accepted into Scots society by all.
However, today is about celebration—the celebration of the feast of St Patrick—and we are all a wee bit Irish today, are we not? Together across this House we celebrate our shared heritage, our music, our traditions and our culture.
I would like to convey my own personal experience of growing up in a part of west London not too far from where Jack Dromey did—Kilburn, which had, when I was a child, a very large Irish community. Others who migrated to this country came from the east and settled in the east end of London, but Irish—and, to a great degree, the West Indians—came to west London. The infamous sign, “No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish”, came from that time and place. I grew up in that part of London when it was famous for its so-called race riots, but they were not race riots at all; they were rampages by white racist gangs and fascists. One even called itself the White Defence League, showing that it was continuing to play the same old tired songs.
My mother never tired of telling me about a time when one of those white fascist gangs came rampaging down our street knocking on doors to find out if black people owned the houses. Although our house, which was in Paddington, was a three-storey house, we only lived in one room—the rest of the house was occupied by tenants. That is how my parents could afford to pay the mortgage. In the basement was an Irish family headed by my Uncle Jimmy. The white racists were going up the street knocking on doors. Uncle Jimmy thought the absolute world of me; he adored me. I was a little baby. My mother used to give me breakfast and then she would take me down to Uncle Jimmy’s, and he would give me another breakfast. When he heard the white racists rampaging up the street, he said to my mother, “They’re not going to get our Diane”. He went up the stairs and opened the front door, and when the racists saw a white man there, they assumed he owned the house and went away. I suppose the pride and self-confidence that comes from slaying colonialism works its way down to the individual level, so even those rampaging white racists and white supremacists cannot frighten you. I will of course always be grateful to my Uncle Jimmy.
For 20 years before 1998, as some Members have mentioned, there were what were known as the troubles. To some of us observing at the time, it felt like low-level warfare, and l think the participants on all sides regarded it the same way. One of the features of war in general is that there is hardly ever a participant who looks back on it fondly. There is nearly always regret and sorrow, and I think that regret is true for the vast majority of the combatants in the troubles on every side, whether they were loyalists, republicans or part of the forces of the state. One of the reasons it took so long to get to the Good Friday agreement in 1998 was how the conflict was portrayed, including Britain’s own role in it. Many argue that there was a refusal to understand the Unionist population and their feelings, a denial of Britain’s role and a determination to demonise rather than understand Irish republicanism.
Well, we have come a long way. Irish republicans, such as Gerry Adams and his departed comrade Martin McGuinness, have both been invited to No. 10 many more times than most Members of this House. There is a reason for that. People may not like it, but Irish republicanism represents an ideal that harks back to at least the 18th century, based on ideas of anti-feudalism and national democracy. It was conditioned by the partial defeat of empire 100 years ago and transformed by the emergence of the civil rights movement. These were ideas with mass popular support, but successive Governments refused to see that or accept it, even after Bloody Sunday. Finally there has been an official apology for Bloody Sunday, but no prosecutions.
As we celebrate St Patrick’s day in this debate, I express my concern about the dangers to the Northern Ireland protocol from current political debate. It is as if some people have learned nothing and are determined to repeat their mistakes. This time it is different. In the words of the great Robert Emmet, Ireland has survived to take its place among the nations of the earth, and everyone who values freedom should rejoice in that.
My mum raised us with the heavily repeated expectation of “We could do well for ourselves”—that we could do better than those who went before us with the opportunities of employment and education that we had. As kids and young adults, we were repeatedly told, “You have the ability.” This immigrant ideology of ambition and betterment is not unique to the Irish diaspora—far from it—but it stood generations of us, the product of Irish immigration, in good stead.
Slightly contradictory, however, was the equal but opposite message that we also got from our parents, which was, “Don’t get too big for your boots or somebody will cut you down to size”—life could often be complex at home. Perhaps because of that advice from my mum and her contemporaries, the sons and daughters of the four families who I grew up with in Perth—sons and daughters of the Irish in Scotland—have gone on to Spain, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, the US, England, Colombia, Bahrain and the Netherlands and back to Ireland. That is limiting it just to my first cousins; I am sure there are more that I cannot recall. The bulk of us remain on these islands in Scotland and England, however, which I know is not uncommon.
My dad was an agricultural and building contractor who came to Scotland to work the land as a teenager in 1938. He stayed in Great Britain for most of the second world war, during which time he was employed harvesting sugar beet and constructing the new runway at Biggin Hill airport in Bromley, which became a key RAF location in the battle of Britain. In half a century of contracting across Angus, Perthshire, Clackmannanshire and Fife, he created wealth, employment and capital, as did thousands of other Irishmen through industry based on their labour and their business acumen. These enterprises, the length and breadth of Britain, changed the face of our streets, building sites, agricultural production, pub trade, literature, professional football and energy production in the hydro schemes in Scotland.
Right hon. and hon. Members have touched on the prejudice faced by the Irish in some quarters. That was a real and ugly struggle faced by the Irish community and others. I will not dwell on that except to note that the Tunnel Tigers are a legendary Irish tunnelling corps, many of whom hailed from Arranmore island off the coast of Donegal. They have been tunnelling their way under Great Britain for the last 75 years or more. They were a key component of the hydro schemes and dams in Scotland and of the tube lines in London, but strangely they received no mention in Scottish Hydro’s official social historiography of the tunnel projects in the central highlands of Scotland. I am grateful to my friend John O’Donnell for campaigning on the issue and to my colleague Annabelle Ewing MSP for raising it in the Scottish Parliament.
Here on the western shores of Europe, Scotland has many close friends and neighbours, all of whom, bar our friends in England and Wales, are across the sea. Of those, Ireland is our closest and that closeness extends well beyond the realm of geography. The symbiosis of Ireland and Scotland goes back more than 1,000 years with the Gaels and their culture reaching across the channel to the western isles and into almost the entirety of the Scottish mainland. Although Gaelic culture may have been forcefully driven out of Scotland to great effect, we value the Scotland-Ireland relationship very highly.
Scotland’s bonds with Ireland remain deep and strong. Ireland and Scotland are steeped in the tradition of education and shared learning that dates back to the time of St Colmcille, whose monastery on Iona provided the first centre of literacy in the region. For more than a millennium and a half, Ireland has been influencing life in Britain and I do not see any end to the positive influence of this proud independent nation.
It was also a huge proportion of the Irish community who built the Manchester ship canal, which spurred on the industrial revolution in Greater Manchester. Indeed, the same is true of the railways, the roads and even the channel tunnel. From the early days of industry to the present day housing estates and skyscrapers we see today, the immense contribution of the Irish diaspora to construction in Britain is undeniable. In our NHS, as of September 2021, there were 13,971 members of NHS staff in England reporting their nationality as Irish, including just under 2,500 doctors and 4,500 nurses.
The Irish diaspora has made its mark on culture, too. In Salford, from renowned playwright Shelagh Delaney, a pioneer in women’s writing, who challenged the accepted views of race, gender and class at the time, all the way through to Shaun Ryder of the Happy Mondays, the list of those with Irish ancestry who have made their mark is endless. Interestingly, it is also said that the famous song about Salford, “Dirty Old Town”, that many will be singing in the pub tonight, written by Salfordian Ewan MacColl, has all but taken on its own Irish citizenship. It is a staple favourite tune not just in Salford but in St Patrick’s night celebrations across the world.
In political life, as we can see today from Members of Parliament who are representing the Irish diaspora, Salfordians and Mancunians with Irish ancestry are found in abundance across our political and council chambers, transforming lives in our communities. One of my favourite historical figures is a lady called Eva Gore-Booth, a famous Salfordian suffragette who was instrumental in the creation of the trade union movement, which spurred on the creation of the Labour party.
In business, commercial ties between Britain and Ireland are stronger than ever. When President Michael Higgins came to Manchester 10 years ago, he said that over 55,000 directors who are Irish sit on the boards of British companies. Irish people are present in nearly all the listed occupations of the census in Britain. They have risen to distinction in all professions. That number is of course even greater now.
But leaving all of these achievements aside, it is the everyday actions of people within the wider Irish community that I am so proud of—those who seek to care, nurture and build relationships within their wider community. We have so many amazing charitable and social organisations, such as Irish in Britain, Irish Community Care, Irish Heritage, the Irish World Heritage Centre in Manchester, Irish societies and clubs right across the UK, sports clubs, radio stations, dance and music groups, festivals and even welfare advice services. Of course special mention must go to The Irish Post and The Irish World newspapers, which have been keeping the Irish community in Britain connected for decades—and I was forced to read them on a weekly basis by my mother to find out what was going on. So it is clear that the contribution of the Irish diaspora to all aspects of life in the UK is indeed incalculable, and that the warm connections between Ireland and the UK are going from strength to strength. As President Higgins himself said:
“The closeness and warmth that we laud today was founded to a large extent upon the lives and sacrifices of generations of Irish emigrants who settled in this country—generations of Irish people who came here and contributed so positively to nearly every aspect of British society, who did so much to make Britain what it is today while at the same time fostering understanding, tolerance and co-operation between our two countries.”
Long may this strong bond continue, and Lá fhéile Pádraig sona daoibh—happy St Patrick’s day.