The Forgotten Irish

this is your country our country we have to live in it unless like so many of our sons and daughters we emigrate to a land which offers more opportunity to earn a living wage than does our own country a school was run by the parish priest he would say regular he would go around he would say never pulled for you fritter would for you he'll burn for you the actual heartache of leaving a place where you knew for somebody that you didn't know and some way that you had been told was the enemy of Ireland was a godless country was a place where only riffraff went it seemed extraordinaires only 60 miles across the water but there was a sense of loss of stages fear not quite sure who you were anymore they came to England in August of 52 1952 and in 60 authority to July 1954 62 1963 greenest grass at are coming out with the country of his greed a lot of young people in Ireland don't don't know what we're done you know about the mass emigration from from England do younger generation don't don't know anything about our Authority they really want to know you have to leave Ireland because we will be families there's nothing in it it was for his destitution sorry top the saved as destitute is the best country in the world under the greatest people in the world the went to the states that make good but the won't make Gordon England because when the time to start in England they're not wanted they know they come to England we come over under princess mother and I'd never been on a ship in my life you know and it was really really rough you know we arrived and bare me I'm that someday they'll tell you it was the authority to July 1954 the day the World Cup for West Germany and Hungary and we were gone beyond occupied eggs and everywhere we went eyelet it was digs for two men but no worries no worries and that frightened me it really did Freud me the second day I was there I went over for war they finished up that night I was rolling a crowing I told me mate I was going to go home because nothing appealed to me I was frightened by the police for one thing and you know it felt like because you were always they were watching every every step of the way my name is Bill McGregor I come from which law which littell Ireland's I was I would probably want to shows people that ever come out of Ireland you know I worked with Iris naturally being in the building trade but I never ever joined in their way of life I never went to the Irish club so see I always had this in my head people who ask questions where will it come from what did I do what school I went to we had this visiting shame shall we call us since all this came out about the institutions and that I'd made contact with some other lads and I thought it would be nice to go back visit them talk to them about their lives good satisfaction just having to bring the old the old time you know and talking about how our life has panned out since like you know we survived we weren't then classed as survivors we were guys that had done something wrong and we were punished first and of course when we came out of these institutions they these people thought like that you know they treated us accordingly and that's why a lot of the lads went abroad went to England I started off worked in a factory this factory was predominantly women then just one woman she kinda took me under her wing and eventually we struck up a relationship and we had a we got married a couple of children two boys because of my experience in institutions found it very very difficult to settle down into married life eventually our relationship broke up predominantly because of my by the way I was there were crowds of people standing on the platform weeping the squat of their daughters and sons were leaving and they weren't quite sure whether they'd see them again we believe in Ireland in droves written with every ferry to come from de leiria north wall was packed with people not going back to our did you come over here to work because the work wasn't in Ireland hello along this platform in a minute will come the Irish male the train from Holly head bringing hundreds of Irish people to England they spent the night on the boat and on the long train journey across Wales in the West of England they've come perhaps to seek a job to start a new life in England what sort of a crossing idea chandi a beer cleaner off but we made us out with a beer I've done a lot of pictures of immigration and the idea of arriving early in the morning in the 1950s the trains packed and that sense of apprehension of what it was like to arrive as a woman or a man young man and not really have anywhere solid to go to if you went to England the door closed after you in fact the standard greetings rather comic in a way the standard greetings that when you came back at holidays people say to you when are you going back I come to London 60s in 1963 not it okay I sent a visit to brother Michael I only come over than a holiday see and death I forgot to go back to enjoy I sports like a lot of people at Arthur grass was greener no I'd never marry you I lived at a few green with a course naturally no yeah yeah why three to tomorrow's and payback now since the mother's funeral I was working in Swindon when mother went to heaven yeah she does suppose we'll see clerk heat up the speech 14 15 years ago when did you keep in contact with all with it I'd all did phone numbers and addresses on the diary and the sheep on the city and the cushions I hate me diary India course I forgot and all the phone numbers and the addresses gone so I I couldn't I couldn't phone then really hello you have seven years surely you need to settle them they'll be a bit more comfort that's right hey looking forward to moving to say new jeans well yeah yeah it'd be a lot better for you you know what I can't it said say it like that I haven't wonderfully yeah yeah yeah no I did happen I'm just still puffing around here oh yeah in the pasture nervous not nervous no oh you know yeah yeah I was in jail when you do feel fun but I was 26 years down Wales I was generated own wheels then you're working with contractors like and contact I might use to work the Needham Britain was after the war was to rebuild Britain all the bomb towns all the bomb cities and they also at least needed to lay down the infrastructure of the new motorways and therefore they needed people who could be trained fairly easily who was jumping on the wagons always doing the walk in this country there are Irishmen every one of them they're Irish contractors on the Irish labor who bid the Lord at the night his head John Murphy a man from Dingle in the County Kerry we were going to go there and some buns of mussels and that was all what you wanted for because he had no education he had no skills all you could do was demolition you're a piece of meat at the Dungeness atomic plant alert that steel electon callin like a human fly and always when you came over you brought over a few mates with you you were lonely remember homesickness is operating so many builders employ their friends and cut corners and had what was called as a lump in other words a group of guys with all work and building sites without paying any weight any pension money and in a tional insurance and attacks burn eggs job I've worked on was they gonna drain I moved up the trench like a big diesel train back in the 50s and 60s that's it kept your skull in Uganda people actually lived there while sending money back home and it should be a recognition around them you know I still get older in Lodge they probably do need more support you know they do need that more help by taking the lay that on my own we just go down the street I get the Buster and I know all the shops that were owned to get it a bit every day you know and not ticked off a bit of time they take me table and ruin the shop and then I I do a bit of cooking and cleaning and then I do a bit of wood walk where I call it I have a spare bedroom there a thorn isn't okay no a walk shop never clapped or tutors and and walk away that I make the things that they don't have much useful to him I was sad no fleein yeah hmm think I'd be I think I'd be about 50 years here no I think yeah thank you I think this year would be 50 years here entertain em fave motor we had just started and started driving machines then you know you couldn't actually settle anywhere because it because of the world either on the move where you had to take the job up and play another one you never you never could say that you had family and friends because because once that job finished you you never want to see the me you might run across and again but you could never really have or keep in touch even with family and friends I was out in the world of my own and had to make the most of it so I wasn't as nice as I thought it would be when you're off whoa all right you go back to your lodgings you when you get your dinner and you get a wife and didn't want you hanging about you had a goat yeah right you could go to the cinema a couple nights or someone in a week but you you couldn't keep going to that all the time so I mean what are we gonna do you couldn't walk the street so you'd end up going to the pub just to talk to someone announcing in the 50s here you know that the orders had nowhere to go except ant no atonement he finished walk well a lot of that subcontractor this was one most of the pubs and Stafford road they took their men in there and he paid him in the Pope you know because we get paid the Pope began to drink a lot more in you know that was the carry on but the relationship was it you know as I said you get 24 points for the pound you won saying to help stuck in the four walls o you come down here for company's sake more than anything else but then we finish up heavy under dream and a washdown mods with pints and quarts of beer you could argue that these legs were exploited by their employers who tended to be a fellow Irishman they knew they could entice them in to the pub to pay them the wages the pub's tend to be owned by these people as well so as a self-financing sort of industry going on they never drank in Dublin before they come over so I started here the only frequented Dublin pubs like it was a few yet the Clifton the wagon and horses the Shakespeare which we pop in the town and he carded the oldest labor exchange to Windsor that's just reopened so if you come over from Dublin and he went to Windsor to the Windsor you got a job somebody at Arby's Dublin for the dog was get you fixed up in a job oh the Dublin people were very very close you know he'd say we go into this pub it's a dublin pub you know and i mean i was in the pop one night and we called this one literally owned the dublin buyer and you know was out of the country lads you know and I had a mate jam Griffin and someone said it was very quite endure the cold sea by a tonight and he said where we still start REO you know and put the comple lads the Alps took together as well and they walk for their own people subcontract but you see only work for some contract he didn't get he got money into the hand so you didn't get your carrots down to anything like that it was quite a definite splitting and Dave lads who seems coming from Dublin had appear to have a higher level of education and and a bit more about themselves which names I was disabled you know that's that's how he appeared and the lad tsukumo from doubling seems to have survived a bit better the turbulent fellas yeah none of them had good jobs a double imam was known he was either a pipe fitter or a painter people just say there must be the prettiest city in the world because the alien that comes over as a painter and that's in our fight the job boy he got the anointed war whoops and out of these three people from chromed and wrote letters to me asked me to get the sun's now I'm not exaggerating I said I've got sixteen people from Dublin jobs and our Factory I have to say that he made a good they have made a good lawyer from himself in England I honestly say I don't think it had done as well in order it was there I was my own boss I had my own pub and I have had to pay up for over six different pubs I don't really run out of it you know so as the stories of England began to feed back they began to transform Ireland and obviously if your brother went out to England and was coming back now with sending remittances back coming back twice a year with nice suits and hiring a car and Dublin he thought well I I I mean it can't be all that bad but it's bringing back to Ireland new sets of values values about how you can live in England how what you've been told before isn't true and and how for instance instead of waiting for your poor mother to give you a pound to go in and enjoy yourself on a Friday night in the town you now have 40 pounds which you would know mother to tell you when you should stop when they came over here to dance halls and all the rest some guys had difficulty they were shy and difficulty they needed our mommy so they would come to a dance hall and they'd walk across the floor to a girl and he said he wanted dance and she looked at her friend she'd say I think I'll sit this one out and he'd walk back across the floor even more dejected a bit angry but frustrated he'd gone would have a couple of pints to kind of get ease feelings going and be able to walk by this time for the second walk across the floor he might be able to walk quite a straight line and he was no hope at all the trinken fight that's at the image we've got an a women last quarter so these male guys were often allowed to drift further and further into an isolated world of depression drink homelessness fetishes without the structure of life when the work drydock under became - it'll they worked a family or base it's a living and it's almost as if they've been stuck in a time up and and between being a young active lad on the building site in the know sixty seventy eight-year-old vulnerable people and when we go into the properties it is like going back in time you know it's like they've shut the door 30 40 years ago and haven't opened it again don't name this year what the color roosters the glue the monotony Ellen they're good sports it's just a matter of curiosity did you see for many a get out of that you know actually could buy them a lot cheaper than be bothered but it's it's something to someone talk if I remained in it a lot of the clients we find we find in very poor conditions now Patrick Patrick was was an extreme case split but by no means an exception it's a sort of day that will live long in my memory it was a big old Victorian house and we walked in through the front door and on the side was was was a little room which I thought was just a broom cupboard we sort of opened the door and from from the floor to the ceiling was rubbish in the corner of the room all you could see was two piercing blue eyes coming out from beneath this part of rubbish and it wasn't so we made was a bit closer so we moved some of the rubbish away and actually found out that it was it was a person which we now know was was Patrick and he didn't say much he didn't really need to say much because he's always the saddest eyes you've probably ever seen um and he started crying and then after a few minutes he just said you know can you help me and we rolled on from there then support worker started working with him working on his confidence and his health and then he's gone on onwards and upwards and into the accommodation that he's in today it wasn't easy it wasn't easy for for all I went through I was expecting a lot better but Ashley sweeties I suppose this one's a lot worse off than me I had a bit of a rain one time and I think I'm eight remembered a man stood at the Golden Gate his face was not an old he looked towards the manifest for admission to the fold what have you done sunfilter asked to seek admission here I don't heavy machines for many a year the golden get free open wide when Peter touched the Bell step in to see and choose your prove you have served your table health those groups of us over there in England they're being incarcerated in institutions that I've got together since all this has come out we've become a little community and and it's sad in a way that that it's come to this really because we were never to blame him for what happened to us I was in our town only for a very short period of time so looking at and a plate a little awkward for them and at night you got a little bit of leeway we brother run away three times over today and was once home he grew up in the middle of the noise and he got she got the rest and he sneaked out and anybody cut him down or have you packed and he brought him by Kerala's shaved Alice hello and he put him standing at a wall and he was selling that that wall for nearly three years only recreation time we go he had to stand at that one it was just very sadistic it was really I played against marina one day the parallel park and I played very well and brother Drude he said to me well done on the Eddie said you were really good today anything I could do for you let me know so I said let me brother after chance he said what's yours they choose forgotten Annabelle room and he was standing at that world for nearly three years that haunted me more than our day and than anything they don't to me it's terrible but he don't to the kid the one thing I noticed when I came over time we neighbors but a bit funny toes would you know what I mean don't be playing with him you know or he failed his head if you ask the guilty for the day that are nowhere you know that's one of the things that made me leave talking cuz when did you have enough it was like a micro everything that was put down with me no no I know who my existence are my time that I spent here in Baltimore I suppose I wanted to see what it was like if my memory had failed me or or was it was it real did I actually go through that experience that is a dormitory come down you got the refectory de lor didn't you but it was a guy there called teacher called Foley he grows a classroom to smoke and he put this other kid in one of his favorites like you know it put him in charge of us and even a bully and I was no bully he picked on me I was only a little fella low you know two fresh-faced guy he took me up the back of the school one day and took his private so took his tea in ourselves and asked me to masturbate him this went on for maybe seven or eight times like you know but anyway this one one day took me over the back and there was a lot of ferren's like thorns and ferns and I remember he took me Gansey off and he threw me down on top of the Gansey and he he he raped me although you know I was I was I was in a terrible state I was crying and I was in pain and athen anyway it finished I remember I remember was finished and I came came away I don't know how I don't remember much about I remember staggered and down towards Foley's car and Foley was standing by the car and I must have been in a state because he said to me what's wrong with you and and I said to him that he'd hurt me like you know that cuz I didn't know the ins and outs of but Foley guessed what had happened I thinking and he said he your memory he caught me by the ear and he walked me so far up the lane and he said you get talent people stories like that causing trouble for OCC G you'll have me to answer for I felt guilty that I was put into an institution like this he couldn't settle back into life in their own area so they came to England together basically get away from us and I felt for a few months that I stayed in Wicklow after I came out of the institution we kind of stigmatized we've known James our question some time now - take some time and you just once there hope you remain that way this is looking I will try to get close to God it was daddy get up say new Jesus came about from research that was done back in the late nineties and identified seven or eight hundred older Irish moment in Burma they were living in the poor quality landlord accommodation bed suits were basically being socially excluded once they come in here dual access GPS the fact is somebody's having two meals a day don't say you know the personal hygiene can improve we could provide care within here that in a sense starts that improvements in the quality alive it's called the atrium and other plants in here all the residents they get plants and they look after them themselves and then a lot of the corn here with their papers and have a bit of a read and a relaxed and honest it's nice and cool can you smoke you can't smoke in any part of the building except your real and this is also it's a no smoking area you can't smoke in your room you can't smoke in your in James painted he was sherry James and the hot water everything is in our it's a dense 814 and where they live like to guarantee you that you're not alone anymore we need a way to support you any way we can are crazy is blue for in big windows good really pleased with our worldview I was 18 before ever touch the truth I never taken out Cosby so moody since and we held nearly a lot of people I think when they stop work and they give up the work they get fed up then start start on the Dream Center filling the time of the book I was drinking awful Eddie mr. sober with a card it you don't realise yourself you think you're okay you think you're great you are how much other people could see it like now the terseness a No you have me home in 15 years so I know it's when you stop thinking and you know get your head together but then as I said now get knotted it until I know you're coming home no no I suppress it the two pub explosions were so devastating that the police have spent much of today establishing that no more bodies were lying under the rubble denied denied that happen I went into my own Club and I was under committee and nobody spoke to me and he misses and the next thing Behrman come they only said another pub gone up another explosion in detail I said what's wrong said the bastard no array is at a blown up two pubs into town you know while the forensic experts examined the wreckage of this the worst peacetime bombing in Britain scores of detectives were raiding known Irish addresses in the Midlands Oh some deaf people don't particularly not to talk about that much but in a sense is a an ethnic group within a city could set them back twenty years you know politically socially culturally you know it was so like you know a recognition in more second generation or so a lot of them didn't want to be recognized as or as the anti Irish feeling has been increasing today the other two did change a lot towards the orator have to say that I went in to walk the next mornin and the chap who was amazed among the water and for about three years before that walking under saying courage together he told the forum and he said I'm not walking with him so she did I want to walk me so I put on me Covenant home Peabody would have been driven but he did just he knows you know didn't what about the delusion and I went down for a long time it drew the Irish community closer together they became quite an insular community quite a private community you could argue wouldn't even know they're there half the time the communities that the Irish used to live in when they first came over and said all they're probably in the last ten years that's broken down now they've because of the aging population in the Irish community they've moved out of those accommodations this was predominantly orders all this that was a great already shopping center are the scouts world is now book and far as he spoke two times that it all around here there was an uptick you've gone up to shady and other shops up there and down here there are the government liaison but all these houses now these would our Lord is sterile there are Asians about all these they only fired the antelope and even down to can tell the aura should be only ethnic minority within Britain where the actual the health actually worsens from first generation it's a second generation took around heart disease and it's actually getting worse in third generation as well every other ethnic group that seek health improves from first to second to third it's the reverse with the origin so did for what have you got love this group of people have done really well here there's a group there's a big group of people who have us and he'd say again that seem to have got worse as a generations ago they started off by having good friends in the pub abandoning the hope of getting your wife or settling down and hoping they could go back to her I'll never eventually been able to go back to Ireland and then finding that nobody else wants to join the conversation because it was marinated in Guinness and it depended upon nostalgia that you would talk about the great things you did in the past a hard life you had and how you bested the opponent and that is a conversation that you can't join in too i'ma stop in here to contact the family you know I always used to keep in touch when I last the day or the other contact yeah must be 15 years they'd be delighted to see me well I hope so that's a common event to call her loved ones move this would either yeah I was enacted all right North Jetty means well awesome but the few sticks you surely huge event a wonder we up the road a landfill or that's on our side okay yeah you'd have attained it was John Wayne didn't didn't know me Tom D director son with a person look in the mirror you think you're still the same but other people see you like thinking I've ever seen all right here fifteen or more yeah twenty years no you just decided up the smoke of the moment indeed need and he'd come yeah yeah nor will be over the long term are you know give it up you lose my dear day I made it you mean made in the finish exactly exactly yeah I choose in Birmingham you have near wizard it is can mean yeah yeah I love the whole thing it's a deal it's like heaven on earth way through all the traffic in the Horsell and abortion when you tell me the way to King like Thomas please ah that's great I bet you don't know me I'm Jim Shannon who taught this is Eileen Bailey really yeah I couldn't believe who's 20 years yeah you'd be amazed too at the time I'm gonna try you've done it yeah have you got someplace to stay I'm staying with Kathleen why you're going to stay we carry yeah yes I would like to come back I would when you're walking lake and numa you don't take with notice that you get on it's great to be back in the home I've got a patriotism like you know I am patriotic to Ireland but I like our little of Ireland puts a little back to bury me I've gone home a lake idea and I would like to spend the last years would ever have at home Oh more acidic oh you know everybody knows that because I always say if we versus their dam the dome tonight and he asked me up the same they all know what we ought to say could be the fields of aten dry Dublin in the rare at all time my favorite song as the oldest national anthems am I go back for good but not for now life very so many years time like everything heals so handy and he gets so used to it like when I look back you know I give up the drink between yourself well agreement full of us you know who would yeah what a waste ruination if I hadn't left they to know things how to say whether they'd have turned out different would I have done the same things when I went back in again and I tapped on the door she said are you gonna become a nun I said no sister I just want to know where England is what came out in the last 10 or 15 years with the abuse and the rest of it I think that has maybe clouded my view of Ireland how we look in ourselves is through the Irish eyes in Ireland we're concerned about how you see us

Channel: Animo TV

Views: 1,272,160

Rating: 4.7843423 out of 5

Keywords: Animo, The Forgotten Irish

Id: N-bw8rVdF9M

Length: 52min 11sec (3131 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 11 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Angel6363]

Thank you for posting this! ♥️

[u/me2269vu]

Thanks for that. Just watched the first 5 minutes and will watch it later. Heartbreaking stuff