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Who
are The Forgotten Irish?
In the decade following World War
II, hundreds of thousands of Irish men and women migrated
to Britain.
Economic circumstances forced then
to leave their families and communities and so, they took
the boat to England in search of work. Many worked as casual
labour on building sites building the motorways and the
London Underground. They also helped to clear and rebuild
bomb-damaged towns, many worked on the land, in domestic
service and in healthcare.
These people did not have a loving
family or caring community to leave behind. They sought
an escape from the misery, and often the abuse, of institutional
life; raised in orphanages and institutions, they had little
or no information about their family origins Their attempts
to create a life and an identity for themselves were often
hampered by hostility and rejection in Ireland and the
United Kingdom.
Their combined efforts however, helped
to rebuild Britain, and helped Ireland to emerge from one
of the darkest and most poverty-stricken periods of it's
history. Their labour built the foundations of the Ireland
we know today. We should not forget them.
Where
are they now?
• 2008
update >
At the end of their working
lives, many had a family and a community to return to in
Ireland, and the means to do so. But some are still here,
if we care to look, living out what remains of their lives
in isolation, poverty and deprivation in cities like Birmingham,
Coventry, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and London.
In spite
of the enormous contribution they made to Ireland in her
dark days, many of these elderly & vulnerable Irish people
now run the risk of becoming The Forgotten Irish. |
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