Power, C. (1999) Our Histories, Our Futures (Homelessness Report) more

O U R H I S TO R I E S OUR FUTURES IRISH CENTRE HOUSING CONTENTS WHAT IS IRISH CENTRE HOUSING AND WHAT ARE ITS AIMS? WHY THIS STUDY AND HOW WAS IT CARRIED OUT? ICH AND ITS ROOTS IN IRISH EMIGRATION TO BRITAIN THE ICH ENTERPRISE FROM THE 1950S TO THE 1970S THE 1980S: THATCHERISM, TERRORISM AND IRISH ECONOMIC RECESSION ICH RESIDENTS’ LIFE EXPERIENCES: GREG AND MICHAEL IRISH ELDERS IN LONDON’S COMMUNITY IRISH MALE ELDERS SPEAK: DENNIS, TOM AND EDDIE IRISH WOMEN ELDERS SPEAK: KATE AND MARY THE UNDER BELLY OF THE TIGER: CONTEMPORARY IRISH EMIGRANTS SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PUSH FACTORS: IRISH RESIDENTS EXPERIENCES THE ‘TROUBLES’ IN NORTHERN IRELAND: MALACHY ANONYMITY AND HOMELESSNESS IN LONDON: JAMES ECONOMIC AND EDUCATIONAL PULL FACTORS CLARE, DEE AND WENDY LOOKING FOR A FRESH START: RODDY, NED AN IRISH TRAVELLER: TERRY AND IN 4 4 5 7 9 11 16 17 21 LONDON 24 25 28 29 30 31 33 36 38 40 42 45 DES REFUGEES AND OTHER ETHNIC GROUPS HOUSED BY ICH: AHMED AND PRAKESH ‘HOUSING PLUS’: JOB POWERHOUSE, THE TRAINING AND GUIDANCE INITIATIVE ICH: PRESENT AND FUTURE BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SOURCES Author’s note STRATEGIES I would like to thank all the residents past and present (especially those I interviewed), the entire staff and management of ICH for their patience, support and co-operation during this study. All interviewees’ names are pseudonyms to protect their anonymity. Unless specifically identified by caption, the people photographed in this study are not the interviewees or ICH staff mentioned in the text. Given the frank nature of some of the interviewees’ accounts, the author and photographer have had to strike a balance between representing typicality and respecting the wishes of some participants for anonymity. I would also like to express my thanks to Dr Lance Pettitt at the Centre for Irish Studies for editing the text and Ruth Mellor in Print and Design, both at St Mary’s College, Strawberry Hill. Joanne O’Brien’s skills as the project’s photographer have made an immense contribution to the final product and it was a pleasure working with her. Go néirigh an bóthar libh! Colm Power © Irish Centre Housing. Text: Colm Power. Photographs: Joanne O’Brien (unless otherwise indicated). Telephone: 0973 326 942 Design and Printing: Aquatint Print & Graphics Ltd, The Old Cinema, 77-81 Station Road, Hampton, Middlesex TW12 2BJ Telephone: 020 8941 6363 –3– WHAT IS ICH AND WHAT ARE ITS AIMS? Irish Centre Housing Ltd. (ICH) is a charitable housing association, run by a committee of voluntary members and registered with the Housing Corporation and the Registry of Friendly Societies. ICH provides affordable and supported, culturally sensitive short-term accommodation in hostels and housing for newly arrived single Irish female and male immigrants and other needy people in London. It prepares them for, and directs them to, employment opportunities through its Job Powerhouse initiative (the service is open to all homeless people in London). This ICH initiative also offers customised and socially enabling training and development to excluded ethnic groups like Irish Travellers. ICH also provides permanent and supported culturally sensitive self-contained housing primarily for Irish elders, and for people with alcohol related health problems and former street sleepers. WHY THIS STUDY AND HOW WAS IT CARRIED OUT? This study serves to document the historical roots of ICH as an organisation which is justly celebrating thirty years of considerable achievement in serving people in need. The manner in which this study was carried out differs from most in that it is based centrally on the oral testimonies of present and former residents. While there are formal historical sections, statistical details, quotations from ICH staff and secondary sources, residents’ accounts form the back-bone of this book. This approach was chosen because it best exemplifies the philosophy that ICH has developed over the years and aims to carry forward into the future. Our Histories, Our Futures covers three main complementary themes and methods. Firstly, it traces the historical roots of ICH and charts the extreme foundation, social and welfare deprivations that prompted the development and expansion of ICH over the last thirty consulted in this process and no residents declined to participate in the research interviews some when have requested, though past history. Accordingly, the final part of Our Histories, Our Futures discusses the consolidation and possible modification of existing ICH achievements. This reflective process is coupled with the task of identifying and developing an appropriate holistic response to newly identified areas of need in housing, resident support and related welfare issues that form the core of ICH’s mission statement. ICH aims to implement culturally sensitive policies and practical strategies to enhance the empowerment of all residents, whether on short-term or permanent housing contracts. In Director Antonia Watson’s own requested anonymity for personal reasons. No attempt is made to claim that this is a quantitative, scientific cross-section of ICH residents’ views. These personal interviews, presented as ‘mini-biographies’ and using the subjects’ own words where possible, give powerful insights into the lives and feelings of the many human beings ICH. These interviews attempt to probe beyond the usual plethora of facts and figures to locate ICH in its of diverse age and background that are catered for by words, ICH wants ‘to get people more involved in the management of their homes’. This highlights the centrality of this customer-oriented approach to ICH policy and practice by featuring residents’ lives and experiences through their own narratives - a particularly pertinent approach to the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of a unique housing association’s historical, and future development. “In short, ICH is changing with the times, but it is doing so having reflected on its past history” years. Secondly, the study employs qualitative research methods based on in-depth interviews and participant observations to gather knowledge of ICH residents’ lives, experiences and social needs. Interviewees were chosen by the researcher based on a number of participant observations carried out during periods of residence over a five month research period. Some residents and staff were also Finally, this study considers the future development of ICH in the context of rapid societal change and the need for responsive expansion strategies, enhanced operational practice and service delivery. In short, ICH is changing with the times, but it is doing so having reflected on its –5– essentially human, supportive and enabling context in relation to the people it serves. ICH AND ITS ROOTS IN IRISH EMIGRATION TO BRITAIN The origins of ICH lie in the mass migrations from Ireland to Britain in the early 1950s. A brief outline of the economic, demographic and political legacy of Ireland and Britain’s shared histories is necessary in order to appreciate the origin and need for specialist housing associations like ICH. Political and armed activity by Irish nationalists in the 1916-21 period led to a degree of independence for the ‘southern’ twenty-six counties of Ireland in 1922. ‘Irish Free State’ governments pursued isolationist economic policies from the 1930s that failed to stem historically endemic emigration. This became a particularly serious haemorrhage by the 1950s, reaching the figure of 1,000 per week in 1957 (Irish Centre, 1975). From 1920, the six counties of ‘Northern Ireland’ remained politically, economically and culturally connected to Britain, particularly through its shipbuilding and linen industries. In the post-1945 period, these declined and Northern Ireland became increasingly dependent on monetary subventions from the British exchequer which continue to this day. Despite this financial cushioning, Northern Ireland has sustained significant loss of people to Britain, especially from its rural areas. Migrations have also been prompted by periodic bouts of sectarian strife. Malachy and Roddy’s stories below show how factors other than economic continue to force people to leave even today. Politically divided, both parts of Ireland have shared the common function of suppling human labour to larger industrial economies in Britain and the USA. Between 1939 and 1946 nearly a quarter of a million Irish people emigrated from both North and South to work in the war economy of an embattled Britain. This is evidenced in Dennis and Tom’s stories in this study. Between 1945 and 1948 many of the 350,000 Irish people who had served in the British armed forces were demobilised and remained in Britain. While the ‘Free State’ became a fully independent ‘Republic’ in 1949, the social price exacted for its economic policies of self-reliance was high. It was paid predominantly by the poorer (mostly rural) sections of Irish society. Jerry Kivlehan charges that ‘the Irish government exported its people in order to prop up the economy at home’. Catholic priests working amongst the poor in London during the 1940s and 1950s witnessed the massive exploitation of many newly arrived Irish immigrants by unscrupulous landlords and employers. Much mainstream accommodation and employment in Britain was off-limits due to deep and widespread antiIrish prejudice within the host community (see Greg’s story below). Adaptation to the intensely alien experience of urban London proved difficult for many Irish people used to a more relaxed rural and communal style of living. Consequently, ghettoisation and its attendant welfare problems resulted for many Irish immigrants. Extremely poor, cramped –6– accommodation contributed to a deteriorating health profile among a previously one of relatively the few healthy accessible, population. The public house became comfortable and affordable social and entertainment sanctuaries for Irish people. The pub often also became an unofficial employment exchange for sub-contractors and labourers. Alcohol dependency often provided a psychological refuge for those Irish who couldn’t cope with the realities of poor conditions, urban culture prejudice. In 1948, seventy Catholic priests based in the London area met to discuss Irish immigrant deprivation and recommended the establishment of an Irish Centre in order to alleviate immigrant welfare accommodation problems. and Hierarchical shock and anti-Irish approval followed and a committee was formed to expedite the scheme. Public collections were held in Ireland to finance the project. A letter to the Catholic hierarchy from a probation officer based at Middlesex County Sessions in 1950 pleads for Irish immigrant support: ‘Many of these offenders have been in this country a very short time and I feel had steps been taken on their arrival to acclimatise them to life in a large city, it is unlikely that most of them would have committed the offences for which they are indicted. A large number are short of money and they must necessarily obtain the cheapest and unsanitary lodgings... unsuitable for these impressionable and inexperienced youths’ (cited in Irish Centre, 1975). developing hostel accommodation for young Irish emigrants in London. This response to the problems of homelessness, discrimination and hardship experienced by Irish emigrants was led by the Catholic Mass Cardinal Heenan (cited in Quex Road Yearbook, 1974) underlined the religious and spiritual purpose underpinning the hostel: ‘It will give young people a sound footing when they arrive in London homeless and will help save them from drifting away from the faith. It is said today that young people are a great problem. There’s nothing new about that. The big difference today is that young people are growing up in an atmosphere hostile to religion, particularly hostile to the Church. But here is a very practical example of what the Catholic Church is really like. It cares.’ As with Camden Irish Centre, this hostel would be managed by the Catholic religious order, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI). It was later renamed as the now familiar Conway House. The original residents were expected to be ‘generally under thirty’, and short stays of between ‘three and four weeks until they find a job and a home’ were envisaged (Fr. Carolan Interview, August 1999). Fr. Pat Carolan OMI managed the hostel with the support of volunteers. ICH’s next acquisition came in 1975. Originally opened in 1933 by the Daughters of Charity order of nuns, the St. Louise hostel in Victoria catered for young women coming to London for the first time. It was about to close in 1975 due to the Order’s diminishing membership. ICH, together Corporation with who the Housing the funded THE ICH ENTERPRISE FROM 1950S TO THE 1970S THE Church and the Irish community in London. The original Irish Centre hostel lasted twenty years but its capacity proved inadequate due to the large numbers In of 1974 Irish the 5 In 1953 Fr. Tom McNamara, a committee member, bought a house in Tollington Park North London with financial support from some local Irish people and converted it into a hostel using voluntary Irish labour. This hostel soon proved inadequate to the numbers of Irish homeless encountered and the new arrivals also required a place to meet and socialise in a comfortable cultural environment. In 1955 Fr. McNamara established the Irish Centre providing recreation space and accommodation for thirty men at Camden Square. Fr. McNamara also purchased two houses in Hornsey providing hostel accommodation for thirty young Irish women. During this period lay people were co-opted onto the management committee and the Camden Square complex was progressively expanded. The hostels continued in this vein until the Oblate Fathers were requested by Cardinal Heenan to assume the management of the Irish Centre and its hostels in 1968. In 1969 a Housing Association was formed to instigate a development program dealing specifically with immigrants requiring support and accommodation. Housing Association was registered with the new Housing Corporation and became known as Irish Centre Hostels Limited. The present name was adopted in 1995 when it became Irish Centre Housing Limited. The welfare and cultural services are now a separate charity known as The London Irish Centre. Whilst the two organisations work closely together on welfare related issues, they are now constituted as independent entities. Hope House, formerly a nursing home run by the Holy Family Sisters in Quex Road Kilburn, was purchased with a grant of £75,000 from the Irish Episcopal Commission for Emigrants (IECE) and £85,000 6 from Camden Borough Council in 1974. The building was deemed architecturally and geographically suitable for a male hostel, being located where the greatest concentration of new Irish emigrants in London had resided since the 1950s. This former nursing home was converted into a one hundred bed male hostel. At the inaugural hostel –7– the hostel’ (Conway House, 1988; Fr. Carolan Interview, August. 1999). The standard of hostel accommodation in Conway House was improved greatly by a grant of £750,000 from the Housing Corporation. ‘An Caislean’, meaning ‘the Castle’, a new building in the Quex Road complex, was constructed Second from right, Fr. Pat Carolan PHOTO: ICH purchase price and refurbishment cost, rescued and redeveloped this hostel situated near Victoria station in Westminster7 (The Irish Post, 16 May 1981). Sr. Anthony of the Daughters of Charity became the first ICH manager at St. Louise women’s hostel. Sr. Catherine (Interview, June 1999) a former manager, recalls that ‘an important aspect of the sisters’ work was to meet the trains at Euston, most of them came from Ireland. There were always the improvident ones who arrived without making any arrangements and with nothing but a small case and a few belongings. These always had to be looked after and catered for as the risks and responsibility for not doing so were grave.’8 The key to ICH’s success in the 1970s was its ability to provide both accommodation employment and immediate for many advice weeks they were moved on as Conway House was for working men. In those days there was a very constructive working atmosphere in to accommodate seventeen elders in individual bedsits with shared cooking and bathroom facilities, twenty-four hour support and the option of prepared meals. This much needed project aimed at single male elders living in extremely poor accommodation cost recently arrived homeless emigrants. Residents were given time to come to terms with living in London,‘ but if they failed to find work after a few –8– £600,000 and was wholly funded by the Housing Corporation. A Conway House Report (1988) reiterates a recurring complaint from Irish voluntary organisations in Britain: ‘It is rather ironic that we should succeed in obtaining £2,350,000 from British Government sources when appeals to the Irish Government has not even recouped the cost of making the appeal.’ THE 1980S: THATCHERISM, TERRORISM AND IRISH ECONOMIC RECESSION The accession of a Thatcherite Conservative government in 1979 impacted adversely on employment, particularly in primary industries such as construction - the traditional preserve of the Irish. Racial and dominant socio-political ideology. Thatcherite economic policies abolished investment controls and State funding for welfare and social services was drastically cut and impacted disastrously on the most disadvantaged people in society. The conflict in the North of Ireland escalated and the IRA carried its bombing campaign to Britain with renewed ferocity. Internal and external migration to the still prosperous south-east of England forced many attracted to London in the hope of employment into homelessness as house prices and rents rocketed. Public sector house building came to a virtual standstill as the government cut subsidies and ethnic tensions rose as exclusive English nationalism and monetarism replaced post-War welfarism and multiculturalism as the British State’s instituted indigenous deforced local authorities to sell off their stocks of housing. Huge cuts were initiated in social service budgets and local authority house industrialisation policies resulting in massive unemployment, and worse conditions for those within work. –9– “State funding for welfare and social services was drastically cut and impacted disastrously on the most disadvantaged people in society” building, impelling vulnerable groups to the margins of society and overburdening voluntary agencies unprepared for the State’s withdrawal from many areas of welfare provision (Hutton, 1996). A severe economic recession hit the Republic of Ireland in the 1980s, causing another wave of emigration to Britain and the US. An internal ICH report (Conway House, 1988) states that in the early 1980s ‘when there was full employment and the house [hostel] was full it was possible to run the hostel with a manager, deputy and voluntary staff. The situation has since drastically changed’. Jim MacLaughlin (1994:49) estimates the annual average emigration rate from Ireland between 1981 and 1986 at 14,400 people. For the specific year 1986, this rate leapt to 28,000. An annual average of 51,000 people emigrated from Ireland in 1987-88. Some of these emigrants were very different from those who during the period from Second World War through to the 1960s. Many were educated up to secondary school level and beyond, though, as always the poor and uneducated were still leaving. The 1980s recession had ‘changed the ground rules for survival. In order to cope with a clientele whose age was becoming younger and condition more vulnerable it was necessary to adapt –10– the building and install surveillance and safety devices’ (Conway House, 1988). The high levels of unemployment in ICH’s hostels during the 1980s and early 1990s led to the initial development of employment and training initiatives by the ICH Director from that period. Fr. Carolan comments: ‘we saw them [ICH residents] hanging about with no motivation, no self-esteem’. The founding of Job Powerhouse in 1995 with the aid of funding from the European Social Fund brought all these initiatives together into a coherent strategy. ICH RESIDENTS’ LIFE EXPERIENCES GREG & MICHAEL Frieda has been a housekeeper with ICH for twentyfive years: ‘It unbelievable that I’m here that long. I got a crossed line with the dentist next door [to Conway House] and Fr. Carolan asked if I wanted a job. It was all Irish at the beginning - mostly young men, just a few older men for many years. It was mostly building workers in the past, and [they were] only allowed six months at a time. Many are not [working] on the buildings now - it’s all office work and computers.’ Irish Ambassador to the UK, Edward Barrington (cited in Irish Housing Forum et al, 19 November. 1998: 2), outlines the disproportionate representation of Irish born people among those who are neglected by, or are invisible to, mainstream welfare networks in Britain: ‘In housing, the largest minority group in homeless and severe weather shelters in London were Irish (fifteen per cent). Only four per cent of Irish-born Londoners were homeowners. Poor Irish people in Britain had worse health, even when age and social class were taken into account, than the rest of the population. There are more Irish people in social class five.’ “Poor Irish people in Britain had worse health, even when age and social class were taken into account, than the rest of the population” Jerry Kivlehan OMI believes many Irish people had never taken out a mortgage because ‘they needed to send the money home. Many Irish people never chose to leave Ireland. Because of that there’s always been a restlessness. Many never integrated into life here, never wanted to. I think one of the tragedies of life is to have to live one’s life in a place or space that you never ever wanted to be [in]’ (Interview, August 1999). In the 1990s ICH developed housing schemes for rough sleepers and people with alcohol problems, at Hackett House, Caulfield Court and Highgate Road in North London. The following accounts illustrate in a personal manner the sense of dislocation, the social, health and work safety pitfalls encountered by Irish immigrants in London spanning the existence of ICH. from the south-west of Ireland. He now lives in a one bedroom flat run by ICH as part of the government funded RSI program:10 ‘I came to England in 1957 - I was sixteen. I met a bloke on the boat and he’s been my friend up to this day. When I was in hospital in later years he was always there to help me out - a very good friend. I had me home in Ireland for twenty-six to twenty-seven years. It’s twenty-seven years since I was back in Ireland to stay. When my mother died I never went back after that, ya know. That was 1974. Anyway, we came over to London and straight to the Irish Centre in Camden - it was his idea. I didn’t know about the Irish Centre, but he’d made enquiries about coming over here. It now transpires that people are advised to make enquiries before coming to London for accommodation. Years ago, men and women, used to come unprepared and many of them were destroyed afterwards. They met the wrong people at the boat, who gave them the wrong things. People were exploited - prostitution, etc. These tablets make you talk.11 Stayed at the Irish Centre for three months altogether. It was alright - there was four to a room - roughly about fifty people from all over Ireland. Within two to three days they got jobs - lots of labourers, some tradesmen, professional people. Moved into digs after three months - you shared with about two or three other blokes. The Irish Centre was a godsend - you’d get two meals a day. Closed at 11 p.m. Get to bed, get to sleep, behave yourself. Some would stay out late at night going dancin’, come home late Greg Greg is fifty-eight years old and hails –12– and we’d try to open windows or doors to get them in. They were very strict; they were too strict, but there you are - and at that time we accepted it. In the weekday I’d go to the pictures. Very few had problems with drink - no drugs around at that time. Fr. McNamara was the local priest there. He said the rules are these, you’re here for a couple of weeks to get a job and eventually find a place of your own. You got a couple of weeks to breathe while you got on your feet.’ [How did you find English people?]12 ‘They were alright - a bit prejudiced, ya know. I often seen on the wall “no Irish, no children, no blacks” - things like that. You’d look for a room and they’d say “Oh! That room has been taken yesterday”, something like that. I’d say, why didn’t you take down the fuckin’ notice then and make me walk up here. “Don’t you speak to me like that. This is England.” Go stuff yourself, I’d say. There was no DSS at that time, like now. When Pat came over here: get to work, get a job. DSS didn’t mean a thing. Some people think money is God. When I did go for help all they did was ask questions. I worked for contractors. 13 my ears. Years ago you could damage your health and you never knew it. When you’re getting older, all of a sudden you’re getting these pains and aches all over. Worked on the parks we’d have landscape gardeners, landscape managers, and they’d tell us what to do. Very pleasant type of work.’ [What happened to the LCC work?] ‘I did it for eight years, then I’d had enough of it. Then I worked with building firms around here. Went for the money, from £30 to £40 a week, but it was much harder - more travelling, more changes. Then I was on the dole for three to four months. A bit of lazyitis got into me bones - I just didn’t feel like it. Then did a bit of casual work - washing up in restaurants and things. If you get the right kind of restaurant you’d get a bit of milk, sugar, coffee, tea, washing powder - you’d save yourself quite a few pounds. You weren’t breaking the law, just bending the law. Things like that you just get used to after a while. Still living in bed-sitters, shared first - then on my own.’ ‘Famous people get broke. I want to go to a pauper’s grave. I want to go up to Golder’s Green, put me in an urn - that’s it! I don’t want no grave - I don’t want anyone coming to see me, like ya know.’ [Wouldn’t you want to go back to Ireland?] ‘No, my interest has gone out of Ireland when me mother and father died. I wasn’t there, and I should have been there. My father went first, then my mother –13– died - I should have been there. It’s like you were in England; working in England; working in England; working in England; working in England. Sometimes, fuck England and everything belonging to it always in England working - I should have been at home. There’s things that go wrong and it plays on your mind sometimes. Working, working, you’re always working. What else have you got? All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy - well something like that!’ ‘I was on the street around Marylebone, Paddington, Hammersmith, Richmond for a while. That was debts and everything like that, and my nerves weren’t very good - I’d had enough of it like. Life lost a bit of interest to me, ya know. I neglected myself really. I just lost me way in ’82 or ’83.’ [Greg had also undergone a series of medical operations and split up with a girlfriend.] ‘I went back to work for a while, but strength-wise I couldn’t do it’. What was it like on the streets? ‘You had your good days and bad ones. Even your own kind, Irishmen, would try and rob you. You’d get wise on the streets after a while. So have we progressed? Have we? In the early 1950s there was bad poverty in Ireland. People went to England and settled down and they sent their parents money home. In the 1970s many Irish immigrants, including subbies and publicans, returned to Ireland. It didn’t last, they came back. They [subbies] exploited Go to the pub, see a fella looking for workers, get in the lorry in the morning. I also worked for the LCC14 down by the Houses of Parliament as a compressor driver for seven to eight years, breaking out concrete. No earplugs, now you have gloves. Earplugs - I sometimes get pains in the Irish way back - now they have two refugees for one paddy. Publicans and pubs - they robbed blokes years ago, left, right and centre.’ Greg refers here to the Irish Republic’s economic mini-boom of the 1970s when many emigrants returned home, having to emigrate again when the economy collapsed in the 1980s.15 I spent three months in a cold weather shelter in Victoria - nice place. There was two or three hundred men and women in it - three to a room, two good meals a day. It’s a great idea. [Some voluntary organisations working with the homeless] offer you a chance to get outa there. They have one in Camden now - open January to March. I’m happy as Larry here when I look out that window - going back seventeen years I was building those houses there [Greg points across the street to a small housing estate]. I went to a hostel on the Harrow road. They said “we’ll put your name down for a flat of your own.” They say “drink within reason”. What’s reason when you’re drunk and depressed or something like that. There’s no reason then, is there? You get careless. You like a bit of stupidity now and then - it does you good! You need your mind relaxed, or something like that.’ An agency ‘sent me up to Quex Road [ICH]. I sat down there and they asked me all the questions. The first two or three years in London, I was happy. But then after that reality started getting a hold on you. Going for a drink, goin’ smokin’ and actin’ the fool, changing jobs and things like that. Next week I’m going to go dancin’ to the Blarney, the Buffalo, the Gresham.’ [How did the police treat you?] ‘We were a nuisance in their eyes, especially on Saturday night. They gave as good as they got, but they abused blokes as well ya know. I knew guys got hidings off the police and three or four weeks later their health failed. You had a quiet life in Ireland, then you come over to England rush and tear, rush and tear. English people, you see them sometimes rush and tear, two jobs or something. They’re worn out before their time. You walk around Camden Town, you see many Irishmen standing there looking over the railings and you say - why are you not married? “Ah! [they reply] The woman let me down.” I’ve met some nice women, but it ends up in piss-ups and all that. Then the novelty wears off.’ [ Greg has an extensive collection of models, toys and bric-a-brac displayed around his flat. He settled down to roll another cigarette.] ‘I can make myself a palace in here because my imagination flows. I’m going to go back to Cork city, have a few weeks on my own this summer.’ Michael The veteran Conway House housekeeper Frieda reflects that: ‘we used to have a lot of Irish students come over in the summer in the 1970s and 1980s - but we have none of them now.’ In his late forties now, –14– Michael stayed in the original hostel at Camden Square in 1972. He had arrived in London for the first time to work for the summer months, coming from south-east Ireland and studying in Dublin at the time. Having graduated in 1973, Michael spent the next six years labouring on construction sites in London, while also trying to organise union representation for building workers. Then a serious accident on a building site prompted a radical change of career. He now resides in the USA and runs his own computer software company. ‘I stayed in the Irish Centre hostel, just off the Camden Road between Camden Town and Kentish Town, a couple of blocks from the Eagle. The date was, I think, 1972 (it’s hard to believe it’s twenty-seven years). I would have been nineteen at the time on my first foray to London. A personal goal was to check out a large variety of strip clubs, especially on Sunday mornings for some reason. I’d heard of Camden Town and the Irish Centre so, after I checked around for work, registered with Manpower, etc. I headed over there to get a place to stay. “no problem”, they said. I forget how much it cost but it was very reasonable. It turned out to be a good place to stay because I was talking to another resident and he said “Come down with me in the morning. The council are looking for people.” I started sweeping the streets of Swiss Cottage next morning. I was at that a couple of weeks when a couple of Cork lads staying in the same room said I was wasting my time there when big construction firms were paying great shillings out the road. I got the start there next day. The accommodation was dormitory style with very elementary facilities as regards bathing or eating. There was a pub on the premises at night - (I think it was weekend nights only but I usually preferred to go elsewhere) which was turned into a chapel on Sunday morning (when I also preferred to go elsewhere). I was immediately advised by a long term resident to sleep with my clothes under the pillow and my boots under the legs of the bed. I believe he was paranoid (or maybe an only child). There were the usual tensions you into a chaplain which was one of the main drawbacks of the Irish Centre. At that time, the heyday of squatting in London had passed (the late 1960s I think), so it was just becoming fashionable among the Irish. You know the work conditions yourself. Short term jobs, mostly not unionised. A lot of sub-contractors. Mostly subsistence work until you were around long enough to find something better. Culturally, the Irish Centre was a slice of rural Ireland of the fifties through to the seventies. The aforementioned chaplain did the rounds, there would be a long line of people standing outside for a few strategic minutes on Sunday morning to “get Mass”, Country music ruled the pub on Saturday “it was a much better start in a strange place than Euston Station” could expect from a crowd of men living in close proximity but no major trouble that I can remember. There were stories of theft but most of us had nothing worth stealing except the few bob in the back pocket.’ ‘I stayed there four or five weeks, I think, and left for a squat in Kilburn, having met my old buddy, Joe Whelan, who convinced me that squatting was the way to go. The price was definitely right, I suppose, and there was no chance of running –15– night. The main social event was the Saturday night piss-up followed by (if you were sufficiently inebriated) a trip to the Buffalo Ballroom on Parkway, in Camden Town, which always had some Larry Cunningham/Big Tom type of outfit playing. Overall, though, it was a much better start in a strange place than Euston Station a few which I experienced times subsequently as a temporary lodging when my pride as a veteran emigrant wouldn’t let me settle for a rookie hostel, but that’s another story. I haven’t written this much not related to work in years. It’s surprising the things that come back to you when you start into them.’16 IRISH ELDERS IN LONDON’S COMMUNITY When not ignoring anti-Irish racism and discrimination altogether, studies of ethnic issues in Britain assume that Irish assimilation into British society has occurred relatively smoothly due to their ‘whiteness’. (Mac an Ghaill, 1999) In stark contrast to the ethnic ‘blindness’ of British academic and official discourse, the statistics cited by Harvey (1999) illustrate that older Irish emigrants who arrived in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s are now the single most in deprived London.17 ethnic Irish community community in Britain, but due to the predominance of negative Irish male stereotypes in the media and British culture in general, [relative] ‘invisibility does not protect Irish women in Britain from racism. Indeed, they are often more exposed since their productive and reproductive roles connect more firmly to British society’ (Hickman & Walter, 1997: 5). During periods of net immigration into Ireland less women return home. Many factors contribute to this, including enhanced personal freedom, better job prospects and close connections with children, family and friends in Britain. Mary and Kate’s narratives below give personal insights into some of these motivating forces. Most ICH elderly Irish tenants, whether women or men, have spent the greater part of their lives working –16– and contributing to the development of Britain’s and Ireland’s respective economies and exchequers through their labour, tax payments and remittances to families back in Ireland. In a recent address reported in The Western People (14 June 1999) Dr. Seamus Caulfield suggested that the Irish government in its present affluence should consider ‘repaying a small part of the interest-free debt we have had for almost half a century. The 1959 to 1963 amounts, which I suggest should be now repaid, are: £12.3; £13; £13.5; £13.4; £12.8 million.’18 Dr. Caulfield suggests that the money be divided between voluntary groups working with Irish emigrant elders who ‘found themselves beyond in Camden Town before the track of the schoolbag was gone off their backs’. ICH have rehoused all their resident elders in permanent specifically adapted emigrants have poor health, die early, and experience high rates of unemployment compared to the British average. They also suffer high levels of discrimination, alcoholism, suicide be gleaned and from that inadequate the elders’ These accommodation. Many examples can narratives follow. problems are particularly prevalent amongst middle-aged and elderly Irish male emigrants (Bracken, 1998; Harrison et al, 1992; Hickman & Walter, 1997). Irish women form the largest section of the Irish accommodation since 1998, by ICH without any external subsidy. Dunne Mews in Kentish Town is another developed ICH in elders 1995. projects The Irish environment, finding housing, of retaining our links while trying to make a future for ourselves and our children while of dealing coping with with stereotypes, developing a community spirit, while maintaining individual residents’ privacy and comfort. An element of support is now provided in all ICH’s schemes for elders. ICH’s latest major development is a block of onebedroom self-contained flats for predominantly Irish elders at St. Eugene Court situated in Queen’s Park. The development has a resident caretaker. This project was financed Ambassador to the UK, Edward Barrington (cited in Irish Housing Forum et al, 19 November 1998: 2), succinctly sets the socio-cultural context for most of the following ‘mini-biographies’ based on interviews with some of ICH’s residents: ‘Finding work in a strange disadvantage - we all know the face of discrimination, we know about coming to terms with the past, finding a sense of place that gives coherence to our lives and we know, also, of what the poet Seamus Heaney described as “two mindedness”, that ability to live two lives without damage to either. These are the human issues behind the six million people of Irish descent in Britain.’ MALE IRISH Dennis ELDERS SPEAK Many years ago in south-west Ireland Dennis’s father urged him to keep going to school though his teacher had beat him, but he says ‘I wouldn’t go another day after it. None of that caning now - it’s a good job and all - sure it was silly. That turned scholars against school. I was the greenest man ever came out of Ireland, I’ll tell you. I was never in a toilet, never in a bus, never in a train.’ Now eighty-four years old, Dennis arrived in London in 1935 while still in his late teens. He had no idea how to find a job so he asked strangers on the City’s streets. ‘Well I met a policeman and asked him where I’d –17– get a job. “Oh,” he said, “go to Patrick Street.” Dennis laughs at the jibe, adding ‘he had an answer for me, he thought I was taking the piss’, and continues: ‘I was going up Oxford Street and I met this Englishmen. I asked him where I’d get a job. “Paddy” he says, “go to the hotels.” I got a job as a kitchen porter washing the hotplates, but I flooded them once. The manageress sacked me the next morning, just for that. Got a job the next day with Alfred Marks’. Dennis then travelled around England doing a variety of jobs including working in a holiday camp in Somerset and was paid ‘a pound a week, full board and ten cigarettes a day’. He worked in Manchester in 1939 with a big construction firm building air raid shelters and ‘the biggest airfield in Europe.’ He describes blanket bombing by the Luftwaffe as ‘like the end of the world - 1,000 bombers for During his army career he couldn’t keep the [in] step.’ Dennis returned to Ireland in 1947 working on a variety of jobs and living in various parts of the country, but the work dried up in the early 1950s. He returned to London permanently in 1954. ‘I was too fond of drink - d’owl bottle’. Dennis met ‘a lovely girl’ and went out with her for a while, but a combination of heavy alcohol consumption and other big city attractions put paid to romance. ‘You know what got me too, d’owl prostitutes - quare ones. Ten bob for a short time. I used to be out all night after them - I’d have around three of a night - up around Piccadilly, around Marble Arch, everywhere. They were around every corner before and during the War. After the War they put them off the streets. When the War started I went on construction subbies were only exploiting their own countrymen. I don’t think he stamped my cards for me. I went looking for redundancy pay to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau. He [the subbie] told them: “He can go to court with me if he likes.” Wouldn’t I get a lot of satisfaction going to court with a millionaire like him. I was three years with him in an owl dirty filthy job. I should never have stayed in it - not even time for a cup of tea’. Dennis loved digging work: ‘the trouble with me is I used to be always rushing - and that’s what they wanted. When the hard work was done they’d transfer me away to some other job. I was silly - in too much of a rush. Working hard when I should have taken my ease - still never done me no harm.’ Since 1954 he has lived around north-west and north London, always in digs. Dennis believes landladies exploited him all his life. He was charged good money for a bed and often fed food ‘hardly fit for humans. Full board and digs - a dead loss! Starve the lodger to get rich quick - that’s what they used do. A Donegal woman [landlady] - I had a bed to myself from her. I wasn’t in a fortnight but she had a man in the bed with me - sharing the one bed, and cheap auld grub!’ The last bed-sit he had before moving into ICH’s ‘An Caislean’ often had windows broken, and his television was stolen while he was away on holiday. A neighbour informed him that the landlord was “It’s the best food and accommodation he has ever had in his life and he loves living there” six hours. This country got an awful doing during the War’. He got three months detention for ignoring his call-up papers in 1944, because a Mayo man advised him: “I’m going to Yorkshire haymaking - come on away with me. They’d never find you up there.” But they [the Army] did.’ work. I was on it ‘till I got my pension.’ He worked with all the big construction companies in Britain. ‘I finished up with the subbies, but the big firms were the best.19 I was on it ‘till I got my pension. Ended up with a subbie from Dollis Hill - he’s a multi-millionaire - a dead loss. The –18– responsible for the theft. Dennis commented: ‘the landlord had twenty houses between Cricklewood and Harlesden, [he] sold the lot and went back to Castlebar [Ireland]’. He heard about ICH by word of mouth about ten years ago and was housed in ‘An Caislean’ for retired men immediately after applying for a place. It’s the best food and accommodation he has ever had in his life and he loves living there. He ‘gets out for a few pints nearly every day’, travels around Britain and over to his brother in Ireland regularly. Dennis recounts his many falls, often due to excessive drinking, during his contemporary trips around London. ‘Never broke a bone with all the falling! “You must have rubber bones”, the doctor told me. [He laughs heartily] There’s still life in the old dog!’ wish I could do it all again - next time I’d join the Navy. Left in 1946 after the War, then went driving [lorries]. I worked on the Docks then, in Tooley Street, between London and Tower Tom At seventy-eight years of age Tom is one of the longest ICH residents and has lived in various parts of the Quex Road complex since it opened in 1974. I’m here over twenty years. It’s a handy place for me ‘cause I never lived any other place but Kilburn.’ He came to London from the north midlands of Ireland in 1938 and ended up joining the British army when the Second World War broke out. Tom recalls: ‘Went to Germany, India and abroad. I enjoyed it all Bridges near HMS Belfast. That was twenty-eight years ago. You could walk all hours of the night nobody would interfere with you. It’s not like that now. A lot of the blokes that I’d know are either dead or gone back [to Ireland]. It would be nice to go back ah… it’s too late now. I could have had me father’s place just outside Dublin. Of course the drink - I didn’t go back, sure he knew well I’d flog it. Well I was hittin’ beer by the big time in them years. A few sociable drinks is one of the nicest things, you can’t beat it; but when you go over the top –19– of it, well that’s it. I’m lucky enough to cut it down a bit.’ ‘I got mugged and got me leg broken, so someone said go down to Quex Road and they’d look after me well. I started off over the other side [Conway House hostel] and had to share. That was no good. Once you get to a certain age, you want to be on your own.’ He moved into ‘An Caislean’ when it opened. Tom still smokes. ‘the chest is bad and I’m diabetic. I’m out most of the time - I do like to get around. Once you start lying up - that’s it!’ When asked about his drinking habits, what support workers refer to as his chronic alcohol problem, Tom replied: ‘No, not now, though I’ve had me all gone - dead. You lived in a room, went out to work, and all you had to do was drink beer. You’d come into a room, there might be no electric, no hot water. Digs are no good. Stayed out in Grays with a sister of the Krays. It was a roughhouse. Fishfingers and powdered potatoes all she wanted was money. If I’d stayed any longer I could have got out through the keyhole. You’d get the breakfast from the subbies [then] pay for it at the end of the week. They [subbies] used to go into the routing houses, [and offer] £2 share of it in the past. They’re very good here - they give you a lot of help. Advice is all they can do here, but I did take the advice - really - not for a long time though. If one bloke [in ‘An Caislean’] didn’t go down for his dinner, that happened to me yesterday, and a bloke was up to check on me afterwards.’ Gesturing around his neat room, Tom declares: ‘If you were a millionaire, what else could you get?’ told me. I used to go to Edgware for housing advice. I applied and got it in a few weeks. I was in a bed-sit before for seven years.’ Eddie often worked with subbies. ‘You must have a card to work on a site now - it’s right to. The subbie got away with robbery, lots of [legal] loopholes. I remember [a large construction firm] in Hammersmith in 1974. You could go in there and get the start, then cross the road and get a set of cards [national insurance number]. It was easy to get work then. [In Ireland] I used to work [with a turf cutting Eddie Eddie is aged sixty-three, hails originally from the west of Ireland, and lives in a one bedroom self contained ground floor flat in ICH’s new development for elders, St. Eugene Court. He was enjoying the summer sunshine in the Court’s garden when interviewed. [How did you hear about ICH?] ‘My landlord company] for £10 a week. I left school at twelve. There was plenty of work in Ireland at that time [1940s] - then the work disappeared.20 I came over [to England] in 1950. You’d be around Camden Town and Kilburn. You’d see the finest of men and women, everyone of them well dressed. Some of them never made it - well they wouldn’t go to work for a start. I enquire about them now and they’re –20– and ten shillings a day for pulling the cable. [That’s what you did] if you wanted thirty or forty men in the 1950s and 60s. Did small tunnelling for sewers. Lovely down there - nice and cool and no one looking over your shoulder.’ He returned to Ireland in the 1970s and worked mainly around Dublin, but also did a stint in Holland. He returned to London when the work ran out in Ireland. Eddie also ‘worked with farmers around Peterborough picking potatoes and harvesting. It went out twenty years ago - all machinery now. Get on the buildings for the winter, then off to Peterborough in May. It was lovely out the country in summertime. [You were] hired by the month locally. We were well fed you’d eat at the table with them [farmers].’ Eddie could go back at any time to Ireland - his wife lives back there, but his daughters are close to him in London. He has three daughters and four sons (one in Ireland). I’m quite happy here. At home I’d have six miles to go for a paper. ‘One thing I’ve noticed, there’s not many Irish people around here anymore. Camden Town used to be all Irish - not anymore - it’s all students now. I haven’t drank in nine years. I couldn’t see meself giving £2 for a pint.’ He’s had two pacemakers fitted for a heart condition and believes neither one works properly. He’s consulting a solicitor with a view to a negligence claim against the particular hospital. IRISHWOMEN Kate21 ELDERS SPEAK she did experience anti-Irish prejudice and what she termed with a dismissive shrug, ‘the usual comments’. Kate met a local Londoner Kate, who is in her sixties, has lived in the Queen’s Park area for thirty-eight and they were married for thirty-one years until her husband’s sudden “Since moving in, Kate has decorated her flat and takes great pride in her new home” years having immigrated from the south-west of Ireland. She worked hard and got on with her life, though –21– death seven years ago. They had no children and were a very close couple. They maintained the same privately rented flat since their marriage. The couple had been on the local Council’s housing waiting list for many years, due to Kate’s arthritis and mobility problems. Kate liked and stayed on in the second floor flat after her husbands’ demise, ‘but it was now very lonely’. She was eventually offered an upper floor Council flat. She declined this offer due to her lack of mobility as stairs would have to be negotiated, so losing her place on the Council waiting list. By this stage she desperately needed a ground floor flat due to her worsening physical disability. A new landlord brought added anxiety for her as he only rented to short stay tenants. Having to share some communal facilities, Kate felt ‘increasingly threatened and frightened by the constant stream of strangers who passed through the house’. The first time she heard of ICH was when her local Council referred her to them due to her obvious need for appropriate accommodation. That was just over a year ago. Following an introductory letter from ICH, she was interviewed by a housing association representative who carried out a needs assessment. This visit was followed quickly by an offer from ICH of a one-bedroom ground floor flat in the then uncompleted St. Eugene Court residential complex. Though the area has changed radically over the years, Kate was delighted, especially as it was ‘just around the corner from where she had lived for over thirty years. I often had a walk around to see it as it was being built - I was so excited.’ Since moving in, Kate has decorated her flat and takes great pride in her new home - she showed me around every room. She feels that all ICH staff are approachable, while the onsite caretaker is ‘friendly, helpful and very good’. The other resident’s in St. Eugene Court are fine, but Kate is ‘busy in her own way and has her own routine’. She still works three days a week part-time in the job she has held for thirty years.22 Kate regularly visits Ireland, and also her sister in the north of England who supported her emotionally through the worst period of her bereavement. One of her proudest moments was meeting and being photographed with the President of Ireland Mary McAleese at the official opening of her home, St. Eugene Court, in 1998. was no work for me either.23 I wasn’t getting much help from here [her husband in London], so when my youngest son came over, I followed him over [in 1966]. My eldest son sent me the money. He said, “come over for a holiday”. My husband had a council flat, so we moved in too. Then we got a bigger flat, but we couldn’t cope with him [her husband] at all. We had to get out. My husband was too fond of himself - his own way of life. You have to see the funny side of life. I had a husband and he was so popular among everyone - for telling yarns, jokes, sayings etc. That’s what attracted me in the first place - it doesn’t last always. He was fond of the drink as well. I still laugh at the things he said. I was forty-five [in 1966], I had no confidence, so I got a cleaning job. Friends of mine got me on to the Co-op in Kilburn. It was too good a life here. I was able to get jobs, walk from one job into another. All my children were working. They weren’t rich by any means - they left school when they were fourteen or Mary Mary is now a great-grandmother of seventy-eight years and lives in an ICH one bedroom self-contained flat in Camden. Her two sons and daughter emigrated from south-west Ireland to London in the 1950s and 1960s. ‘My husband was already over, so there was nobody back there only my [married] daughter. There wasn’t jobs for them back there. Married women just stayed at home - there –22– fifteen, but they got on all right. I was going to school ‘till about nineteen in Ireland. Well, they kept me in school because there was a big family. I was the second youngest so they saw no future for me - we only had a farm of land, so you had to take whatever jobs were going.24 They [her parents] did their best for us - they worked hard.’ [It must have been tough in Ireland then?] ‘Oh! My God t’was tough. You couldn’t get any jobs. I got no help whatsoever from anyone, priests, nothing at all, not at all. Priests or religious didn’t want to know at all they’d be only looking for a handout. Then I went to Lyons doing invoices and things. I went from there after a year to Selfridges, I was in the office [there] as well. The staff and the bosses were all English, they were all lovely. They loved the Irish because we used to create fun for them - they loved our attitude. I spent twelve months there and went from there into Telephone House [BT]. I had no problem getting into those places, but that time you see it didn’t matter canteen. They were hopping balls at me all the time. They’d say “If the Irish don’t like it over here, why don’t they go back to their own country?” We’ll go back, I said, when the British get out of the north of Ireland - it’s all propaganda! Anyway, I stopped sitting with them and sat on my own. It was the wrong thing to discuss in a situation like that. It was very aggravating you know. I fought like mad over it - they wouldn’t even know the south from the north of Ireland. When we went to school it [history] was nothing else only antiBritish. But, mind you, they should appreciate the Irish - who’d have whole long day and a whole long night all to myself and nothing at all to do! As soon as I get up in the morning I get washed and dressed and then I can do what I like after that, but I miss the routine of work. I moved out to Reading for two years to live with my granddaughter who was married there. I liked it a lot visiting there, but I couldn’t settle. It’s a different environment - very quiet didn’t know anybody there. That’s why I was anxious to get back to here [north London]. A woman needs her own kitchen, if nothing else. Then I spent six months in Ireland last year [1998] thinking I might settle there. I go back to Ireland often, but I miss my own family here. Tralee is a goahead town, but it’s really for the young people all the time. They have the money and they spend, while there’s nothing socially for older people back there. There isn’t any older people there, and the few that are, are dying anyway. I have only one sister and one brother there now. In the end I came back again and stayed with her [granddaughter in Reading] until I got the place from ICH. I applied to a women’s housing place, but they weren’t a bit helpful. So my son went into Salusbury Road [ICH] and they advised him to go to Conway House. I was very happy to get the place. It’s very, very quiet here - a lovely flat and not a sound.’ “I was very happy to get the place. It’s very, very quiet here - a lovely flat and not a sound” about qualifications as long as you could do the tests and the exams they knew you had intelligence. I was in Telephone House for eighteen years. Oh, I used to fight my corner there like mad of course. The situation in the north of Ireland broke out [1970s].25 They used to be rising me, nagging me and I was fighting back. I was really hotheaded, but they were stopped in the end.’ A new boss of Irish descent made a rule forbidding discussion of Irish affairs in the office. ‘I had to go to lunch with three of them in the After all her children had married she was on her own. ‘I was fine, I didn’t notice. I worked up to sixty-five and t’was then it hit me that I had a –23– built up the country after the War, who’d have dug the roads and buildings? They worked damn hard, the Irish, and some of them didn’t even save. They went and spent it in the pub - that was their social life really. They had no homes here really. And now they still are [building], you know. You see them in all sorts of weather.’ THE UNDER BELLY OF THE TIGER: CONTEMPORARY IRISH EMIGRANTS IN LONDON Despite press coverage and official PR about Ireland as an economic ‘Celtic Tiger’, large numbers of people continued to emigrate from Ireland (north and south) to Britain during the 1990s. Harvey’s (1999) report found that emigration from Ireland is still significant and that emigrants still face serious problems when they go abroad. The IECE and ICPO26 are worried that recent economic success in Ireland has caused complacency about emigration in Ireland. Commenting recently on contemporary immigration trends from Ireland to Britain, IECE Director Fr. Paul Byrne insisted that: ‘the vast majority of them are young and unqualified - still. These are the vulnerable ones. The complexity of emigration to London, for instance, is shown by the fact that we are the most successful ethnic minority in one sense with the graduates going into very good jobs, and we’re the most unsuccessful ethnic minority in London [overall] - [Irish] people don’t like to hear that’ (RTÉ Radio, 19 May 1999; Harvey, 1999). A recent United Nations report (cited on RTÉ Radio, 5 August 1999) found that 23% of Irish adults suffered from functional illiteracy.27 A major education conference in Limerick (cited on RTÉ Radio, 21 July 1999) has recently urged the Irish Government to target increased resources to the 3,500 annual early school leavers. Only 3% of the Irish education budget targets disadvantaged groups. Almost all of the 3,500 early school leavers in Ireland are from poor backgrounds.28 This lack of access to adequate educational support is central to the continuing trend of generational family poverty that fuels Irish emigration to Britain. Young emigrants are still coming to Britain from the traditional sources in the west of Ireland, but also from unemployment ‘pockets’ and the poor inner city areas. Many are low achievers and dropouts from school and/or FÁS courses. Fr. Byrne continued: ‘With the lack of advice and counselling centres, kids are walking through the gaps. 97% of those who approached the Irish Centre in London were unemployed… it’s an horrific figure.’ In the first six months of 1999 ICH’s Job Powerhouse vocational guidance service gave support and advice to seventy-nine people in the sixteen to twenty-five age bracket, out of a total of one hundred and seventy three clients. All these clients were unemployed and had a definite housing need. Though the ‘new Irish’ are portrayed as ambitious ‘global village people’, even many young Irish university graduates fail to flourish in London, under-achieving at work and suffering stress related to their immigrant status in the host community. Fr. Byrne emphasises that: ‘For the vast majority, emmigration proves to be a very painful experience, and the Irish on the whole deteriorate when they go abroad - the very opposite to the infamous Lenihan thesis.’ He urges 29 immigrants.32 (Harvey, 1999) Billy, a former resident in the early 1990s following a period of homelessness in London and now a full-time support worker at ICH’s Conway House, stated: ‘the culture in the West of Ireland is, if you can get a job, any job - OK! If not, go to America or London. You’ll get a job there. Heavy drinking and living in digs and bed-sits was still the dominant immigrant culture for many Irish in the late 1980s - either the club or pub at the weekend. There isn’t the same network of local people and groups… Kilburn is changing - it has a different Irish profile now.’ Many successful and economically secure Irish people moved to the suburban periphery of London during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Latterly, many have returned to Ireland lured by the Irish economic upturn. Consequently, the Irish population left behind in London is poorer and has a more unbalanced age profile, dominated increasingly by elders and young people. sectors. ICH concentrates its that a ‘Task Force’ to be set up by the Irish government to deal with these acute problems: ‘Less that one million pounds in this ‘Tiger’ economy is given to our emigrants we have 1.2 million people living abroad and that’s all they’re getting. There will always be emmigration. There will always be people who leave our inner cities because of abuse or drugs’30 (cited on RTÉ Radio, 21 July 1999; see also Harvey, 1999). In London 40% of the Irish workforce are engaged in mainly ‘unskilled’ manual work compared with 30% of the general population (Gaffney & O’Hara, 1999). This type of work is usually poorly paid, less safe and more insecure compared to skilled or professional employment. Thirty thousand people emigrated from Ireland in 1998, divided roughly equally between men and women.31 Britain is still the major destination, receiving about 40% of all Irish –25– resources in both these vulnerable SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PUSH FACTORS: IRISH RESIDENTS’ EXPERIENCES33 The lessening of conservative Catholic influence in Ireland is related to the modernising (and globalising) process in general and membership of the European Union (EU) in particular. The Republic of Ireland has in the last decade adopted socially liberal legislation related to gender, sexuality, birth control and marriage. Legal divorce is now a reality in the Irish Republic for the first time since 1925. Much of this legislation has been influenced by the EU’s gradual harmonisation process, and its pluralistic ideological foundations. This social legislation may be liberal in nature, but the social reality often betrays a more deeply rooted social and cultural conservatism and prejudice that stigmatises those who transgress particular social boundaries. ICH’s staff have recorded a marked increase in the arrival of Irish immigrant men between the ages of thirty and fifty to their hostels, whose marriages have recently broken down. Rapid socio-economic and political change is putting a severe strain on traditional social and family networks. Job Powerhouse’s own statistics show that although the sixteen to twenty-five age group is the most represented at ICH’s Job Powerhouse and its outreach sites, the client age group twenty-six to forty-five is now growing at a similar rate. A Job Powerhouse (1999) internal report claims that: ‘This [older] group is not as advanced in social skills and independent living, and we have found that there is not the same provision available to them as to the 16 - 25 year olds.’ Many men, as the predominant locus of power in traditional social networks, are particularly challenged by the social impact of legalised gender equality. Marriage break-ups have now become a juridical issue, and as such have entered the public domain. However, conservative social taboos are still very effective in many Irish communities, so ‘temporary’ emigration to the anonymity of London is often grasped at as an expeditious ‘way out’ from the embarrassment of perceived personal failure. 1999. He had no contacts in Britain when he came over with a younger acquaintance to Croydon who purported to know the area from previous visits. ‘I was in a pub at home and met this young fella and he had been here twice so we decided to go the next day. Arrived in Croydon next morning. He knew some Irish pubs - the owner had connections with my home town. He had rooms for rent… for £50 a week. I was in Croydon three days and the young fella fecked off back home. Never told me, just went. I knew nobody - I was going to go home but about a week passed and I got a job there. I done the trams in Croydon - I Brendan Brendan is thirty-five and has been in London for thirteen months. He is abroad for the first time in his life. His marriage broke up about four years ago and his five children live in Ireland with his ex-wife and her new partner. He has been living in ICH’s Conway House hostel since March got the last six months groundwork. I phoned up ICH, but they had no rooms. I heard about it [ICH] from other guys I worked with. Then I started work with another subbie in Paddington station - got the last three months out of that. I kept phoning up ICH continuously every three or four days. I was giving up, then they told me to come down at –26– “It’s OK here; your food is good here; washing machines are down there; it’s cheap - everything’s OK” 2pm. They gave me a room the same day and I’ve been here since that, sharing a room with another man. ICH give you help towards getting work. Subbies come looking in here for sometimes home for the August Bank holiday to take the kids to Stradbally [a local steam engine festival], but I’m a bit short [of money]. It’s OK here; your food is good here; washing machines are down there; it’s cheap everything’s OK here like. Where else would you get a breakfast and dinner so cheap. There’s plenty of work for me in Ireland. She [his estranged wife] has a boyfriend now. That’s her business, like - we don’t talk. I can get the kids anytime I want them. I phone a neighbour of mine - she gets the kids over to her place, and I talk to them then. It’s terrible here - rows coming out of the pubs every night. I’d only go to the pubs with three or four others. I’ll go back [to Ireland] on 20th December and stay with my sister - no problem getting a flat, deposit is very little there, not like here - £600 or £700. [Is there much competition for work with refugees resulting in lower wages?] There’s a couple of Irish subbies are doing that, not them all. Some of them [refugees/asylum seekers] are working for £15 a day. They’re living in here - I see them going down Kilburn and Cricklewood [for work], Bosnians, Kosovans, and English, working for Irish subbies rather than Irish fellas. I have no transport or groundworkers [labourers], maybe every five or six weeks. I have a job now, but it’s only £35 a day after tax, ten hours a day 7.30am to 5.30pm sure that’s useless. These agencies you work five and a half days and you only clear £210 - that’s a big fuckin’ drop - ten hours a day, like. I’m going back next Christmas for good. I’ve missed me kids - know what I mean. I phone me kids up every weekend. I’ll go back home to my trade - painting and decorating.’ [Did you leave to get the marriage break-up out of your system?] ‘Yea, sort of. It was and it wasn’t. I was never abroad before in my life. I was married at seventeen - my oldest is now seventeen. Every week I ring I tell them I’ll be home in two weeks time - then they expect me home. Then when I phone they start crying - I start crying. People say “you’re an eejit” to start crying. There’s no man here that hasn’t seen his kids for a while that wouldn’t cry. I was goin’ PHOTO: ICH –27– tools for to do me trade - I sold them when me marriage broke up. I lost interest - nearly two years on the tear [heavy drinking]. Sold everything, drank the lot. When I go back now it’ll be a different story I’m getting me act together. I just hate it here. I can’t wait to get out of it. Home in Ireland you’d have great craic in the pubs. Even Irish fellas here wouldn’t look at you in the pubs.’ out by paramilitaries to suspected drug dealers, joyriders, informers and other ‘social miscreants’ in Northern Ireland ranging encompasses from sanctions to kneecapping that’s it. I had nowhere to go, simple as that. Obviously, ye know yourself, ye go to another country, ye don’t know what to expect. I get a plane over here and a tube to God knows where… A twenty year old, first time abroad. It was a shock being alone [had] a fear of all the strange people, all the [foreign] people. Just headed towards Kilburn. I got this address [ICH] from some people back home who was here before - so I just come here. I came here the Saturday night, but they didn’t take people at weekends, so I went to [another local expulsion. It is estimated that over eight hundred people have been ordered to leave the North by Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries since the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998 (RTÉ Radio, 29 August. 1999). ICH often receives these ‘deportees’. The ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland34 The ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland have impacted on ICH in many ways and continue to do so. ICH has, on a few occasions in the past thirty years, become the target of anti-Irish demonstrations and attacks by militant British nationalists. Two of the ‘Guildford Four’ accused wrongly of IRA bombings and jailed due to a miscarriage of justice in the 1970s lodged at Conway House shortly hostel in] Cricklewood and stayed Malachy Malachy has been in London for eight years having been ordered to leave Northern Ireland by paramilitaries in 1991. Were you in trouble with the IRA? ‘Yea, ‘cause I done a robbery. It [the proceeds] was meant to be for somebody else. I took it back [the money] because they [the IRA] weren’t happy about it. They told me ‘twenty-four hours to get out’. I was surprised for what it was for. There’s I stayed here for about six months moved in with me girlfriend then. I’ve got two kids now. I went back a few times, but as ye know yerself, when you leave a place it’s not the same going back. There’s no problem whatsoever now at home. It happened - it’s all in the past tense. I live here now, so…’ [How did you get work in London?] ‘Some blokes come in the morning for workers, so you get to know a few blokes. Some bloke there. I didn’t like it one bit. I got there about twelve at night - it was all drunks and that lying about. Down here [Conway House] Monday morning, put me up straight away no problems. I was told to go back six weeks after. Basically it was a mistake, so obviously when they [paramilitaries etc.] started talking they realised the mistake. My mother phoned me here one night and said I could come home. “It was a shock being alone” before their arrest. Former ICH Director Fr. Carolan (Interview, August 1999) was briefly detained by police apropos this affair at the time: ‘they [police] could tell me everything - they always had someone living in the hostel.’ The ‘rough justice’ meted two sides - the robbery was done for the other people [ordinary criminals]. They [IRA] weren’t happy about it, so I gave it [the money] back. The RUC weren’t involved. I’m not saying what it was, but the two sides weren’t speaking to the other people - so –28– I knew in jail back home - met him here. Just did bits and bobs, then started off on the cable - [I] did everything twenty-six work-wise men fixing in that faults, business. Now I’m a supervisor over company car, £400 a week. My mother says it’s probably the best thing that ever happened to me! Spent two years in jail in Northern Ireland from sixteen years of age for hi-jacking a bus. I was encouraged to do it during elections. [I did] no joyriding - none in that area. I hear it is a bit bad now though.’ [Did you enjoy your time at ICH’s Conway House?] ‘Ya, I love this place. Aidan [the manager] and the staff are great - I got on well with them. If you’re bad they give it [discipline] to you, and that’s it! It’s not your home like… No, it was a great place, it really was.’ expensive regions in the European Union adequate for housing of leads and the to accommodation prices.36 Lack of knowledge often and career guidance available to students in his school. He managed to secure a European funded job locally with the Fisheries Board, but that scheme ended after two years due to policy changes initiated by a new government. He decided to emigrate a few weeks later as his hometown had ‘become very small and boring to me.’ James also said his James Now in his mid-twenties, James came to London in the middle 1990s having dropped out from school a few years earlier in a small town in Southwest Ireland. He was disillusioned and ‘had enough of teachers’, believing that there was totally inadequate welfare support –29– ANONYMITY AND HOMELESSNESS IN LONDON: JAMES The customary disillusion of youth with family, school, religion and community can lead in many cases to flight through emigration.35 London is the most convenient non-Irish ‘Big City’ to escape into and find anonymity. The inexpensive and accessible nature of transport to London belies the cost of living and accommodation in the city. A recent survey (cited on RTÉ Radio, 8 June 1999) indicates that both Ireland and London are now among the most destination, and poor preparation for emigration, homelessness among Irish in London. family was riven by internal feuds, so ‘I decided to get away from everybody - family and friends.’ He quickly found a job as a security guard in London,37 and stayed with some relatives for a short period. He became homeless when quarrels began to occur with these relatives and he was thrown out. He spent two to three months sleeping on the “It gives you time to get on your feet… think about things” streets of central London, while still managing to retain his job.38 He insists that there ‘are still people in small towns in rural Ireland who will come over and get stuck in the same situation I got stuck in.’ James first heard of Camden Irish Centre from other street people: ‘Street people will look after you. Nine out of ten people on the street were Irish - all young girls and guys. ’39 contacts from the top right down to the street people. I’ve got great friends down there, round Charing Cross, who still live on the streets… they’ve all basically given up. They’ve been here [London] three or four years… I feel great despair. They’re all healthy guys or girls... There is no reason why they couldn’t be leading a normal life, getting their own flat… They have no information about where to go and what to do. No starting point into “Our World” - to me it’s a crime.’ On the issue of antiIrish racism James, whose work mates are all English, comments: ‘that’s something all the Irish have to live with over here. There is still a major thing over here - despite what they say’. He finds respite in Forde House as it provides a culturally sensitive and secure home environment. sees the Forde House project as ‘the perfect half-way house’ between short-term hostel accommodation and the quantum leap involved in entering and surviving the extremely expensive private sector. James still keeps in touch with some of the street people, but decries the lack of a comprehensive networking and referral system for the homeless in London: ‘Organisations that help the homeless collect food from restaurants and feed the street people for ten years until they eventually fade away and die… you need more [support and advice]. There should be a network of He had a ‘great welcome’ in the Irish Centre including a good meal and was referred to the ICH’s Conway House male hostel where he was immediately accepted and shared a room for about ten months. James explained that: ‘It gives you time to get on your feet… think about things. The staff are fantastic, but they need to make people more aware of opportunities.’ He feels that ICH are doing him ‘a big favour’ by providing secure accommodation.40 41 James moved from Conway House to the more independent atmosphere of Forde House42 about a year ago and immensely enjoys the ‘privacy, but you’ve also got friends in the house with shared experience. Here [Forde] has given me the perfect base.’ He intends to progress into security management and will move into the private rented sector as soon as he attains a reasonable salary. James –30– ECONOMIC AND EDUCATIONAL PULL FACTORS London remains a paramount centre for education and training in diverse and specialist fields not available elsewhere. Many young Irish people come to London to study and train in these areas. ICH hostels like St. Louise for women, Conway House for men, and mixed low-income and shared housing such a Forde House offer suitable sustainable accommodation costs for young people working and training in central London. Some of the Clare Similar issues (highlighted previously by James) related to security are paramount for Clare in her early twenties, another resident spending her second year at Forde House. She emigrated from the south-west of Ireland in order to pursue her chosen career as a specialist chef, as the requisite training was unavailable in Ireland. She earns a very low wage and studies part-time. Clare feels vulnerable as a single young woman in London. She has been harassed by a naked male ‘flasher’ in the past when returning from her work at the hotel late at night. ‘If I miss the last PHOTO: ICH following narratives discuss in a personal manner the ‘poverty trap’ that ensnares low-income earners in an extremely high rent, high cost housing and accommodation region such as London. It’s very difficult for some hostel residents to make the quantum financial leap into the expensive private sector, while the paucity of public sector housing virtually excludes single people as families are invariably prioritised. ICH Director Antonia Watson comments: ‘we looking into developing more of our own move-on accommodation, both at St. Louise and Conway House, ideally linked in with the regeneration schemes in the area.’ tube I get a taxi - and I pay for it. My first priority is to get home safely.’43 She appreciates the low cost culturally sensitive accommodation ICH provides for her adding that there are ‘some great advantages to living here. Rent is cheaper and there is never any hassle here. I feel safe when I come home at night and it’s very accessible to where I work. Nothing goes missing in the house... it’s safe!’ Clare heard about ICH from a friend who had lived in ICH’s St. Louise hostel but felt that ‘you not fixed there, settled, it’s not like a home’. She moved later to Forde House recommending it to Clare, who was so enthused as to offer ICH the ultimate accolade: ‘My mother was delighted when she saw Forde.’ Clare then expounded on the difficulties that beset low-pay workers in relation to housing: I’m working with plenty of people who “Rent is cheaper and there is never any hassle here… I feel safe” –31– Dee: ‘You have to be two years in the Borough before you can put your name down for a flat. I’m just eligible now. I have absolutely no intention of returning to Ireland, my home is London now. I want to set up a home in London now and I don’t want to picture myself five years down the line still in a room in St. Louise’s hostel. I want to do a degree in law and better myself.’ Wendy: ‘I want to go to Australia when I qualify. It is bleak if you want to settle down here, it is so costly. I know a guy and he would kill to move in here. Any establishment where you work as a trainee or extended apprentice and the wages are less than £8,000 a year. How are they expected to pay their rent in the first place, and travel on top of that, and eating? You have to have some sort of social life as well. You’d crack up if you had to put up with that for a couple of years.’ a receptionist/secretary. A lot of housing associations won’t accept me because my salary goes over the borderline and that way it’s difficult for me to get out of here, but it’s not big enough for me to pay a huge deposit [on a flat]’ Wendy: I’m going to do nursing in September at St. George’s hospital and Kingston University, so I’ll live-in at St. George’s.’ Dee: I’m not criticising the hostel, it’s a well kept place, really clean, but the fact is I’m nearly thirty Dee and Wendy Dee is twenty-nine and comes from Dublin, while Wendy is in her midtwenties and emigrated from the east of Ireland. Both live in the ICH St. Louise women’s hostel in Victoria. Wendy: it’s very central - that’s a great advantage.’ Dee: ‘the longer you are here and the older you get, the more you want independence. Hopefully these changes will be for the better. I was temping [temporary clerical work] for a while, but now I’m years of age and you do need a bit of independence. They’ve lifted the curfew,44 you can come and go now as you please. You don’t feel you can invite friends home for a meal in shared kitchens. It’s quite hard to get a single room, so in that way we are privileged. I don’t mix a lot here. People stick to groups of two and three. I don’t be here a lot of the time.’ Both women feel they are trapped in low paid jobs and could not afford to move out of the hostel into private accommodation. –32– pays £100 a week on a mortgage, in Kingston! I think I was delighted to get a place to stay, because at the time I was living in a house in Bounds Green and I got into difficulty with paying the rent, because I was just working with an agency at the time. I hadn’t a great deal of work. The landlady was on my back and she asked me to leave. It was only through a friend, she gave me this number. I rang on Tuesday and I was in on Thursday. So I was so happy to get a place, even though I give out about it sometimes. I’ve been here once before, then I came back. When I was leaving I asked if it was possible to get back in. I was lucky I suppose, they did take me back. I was ringing for about nine weeks from Ireland, twice a week, and every time it was “no room”. But they took me back in the end, which was fair enough. It is an ideal place, financially wise, until you get on your feet - very central, low travel fares... I’m grateful for it. I’ve been in a lot worse situations.’ LOOKING FOR A FRESH START: RODDY, NED AND DES The next three autobiographies illustrate on a negative plane the diverse dysfunctional social pressures loaded on many (primarily poor) young Irish people both north and south who fall through or are failed by inadequate, unresponsive or insensitive educational, social services, state policing and penal systems. Recent Irish government criminal justice policies have been heavily influenced by the concept of ‘zero tolerance’ towards offenders. This policy continues despite recommendations by Irish probation and welfare services that the number of people in prison should be greatly reduced. The ‘Pull’ factor comes from the perceived possibility of a ‘fresh start’ to life in London. Roddy Roddy is twenty one years old and had been living with ICH’s Conway House hostel for just a few weeks when interviewed. ‘Myself and my girlfriend came over three months ago. She is pregnant. We went to a Homeless Person’s Unit (HPU) in Euston. I was in a wee bit of trouble. There was no hope of me getting a job over there [Ireland]. I’ve been out of school since I was twelve years old. I’ve been pissing about for a long, long time. We were going to have a child! Gone from Waterford to Cork and all the places in between. I left Belfast when I was twelve - got thrown out of school. Spent about the last two years in Cork. I was living with my girlfriend for about ten months, so we decided to come over here. We came over out of the blue, just to get a job. She’s going to have the baby in six weeks time. I was sort of promised a job on the Millennium Dome sweeping floors, but when I came over the job was gone, so we went down to the HPU with no money and nowhere to stay. They put us on the [housing] list and got in touch with our landlady back in Cork. They decided that because we’d fallen out with the landlady, we’d made ourselves intentionally homeless. We were squatting in a couple of different places for a few months - you can get thrown out in twenty-four hours with a court order. We were robbed and thrown out, so we came up here to ICH. I got an interview, so they put me in here then sharing. I’ve been looking for a job.’ Roddy’s girlfriend now stays in a single mother’s hostel nearby. The Council tried to evict her from the hostel, but eventually recanted. He says he’s got a good chance of building work next week: ‘If that turns up we’ll be able to get a flat and stuff for the baby. It’s boring and lonely for her down there - she’s just in a little box room. 45 grand for a while, but if I got in trouble he’d start hopping my head off the wall. When I hit eleven I started running away from home. He made me a ward of court to stop her taking me out of Northern Ireland into the south. He wasn’t that bad to me until I was about eleven or twelve. If my mother tried to take me, my father would run her down with the car or something, give her a few digs and take me back.’ ‘You had us who were running around and messing about. Then you had the lads who were kicking the heads off Catholics, and each other. But I never got involved with that lot - that’s all they’re into, being tough and stuff and that’s a load of rubbish. Some of my friends have stolen hundreds of cars and got shot in the knees for it and stuff, but I didn’t. A dolly mixture46 - that’s what they called me in Belfast. Most of my friends in Belfast - we used to take the piss out of each other for being Catholics and Protestants, ya know. What gets me down is, I’ve been all over Belfast and I’ve been all around the south living all over the place. The Prods in Belfast don’t realise actually how Irish they are! If they came over here they might see the differences between themselves and the English people. When you come over here you become Irish.’ Roddy went through a series of progressively ‘tougher’ children’s homes in Northern Ireland, though he never mentioned his father’s violence to There’s no common room. The people don’t really mix so t’would be good for her to get out.’ Roddy discussed the differences in policing ideology and practice between Ireland and England: ‘Over here, they [the police] see what crimes are happening and where they are happening - how do we stop them? Over in Ireland the way they [the police] see it is: What scumbags are about? Who’s likely to do a crime? Let’s go and hassle them. It’s very easy get portrayed as a scumbag over there - they don’t listen very much to ya. I couldn’t get a job in my mother’s town. I’m from Belfast originally. I started having trouble in school and my dad used to give me hidings and things over very little.’ Roddy attended the prestigious Methody secondary school until he was expelled after a year. ‘they were all toffs there and I didn’t get on with them. I passed me Eleven Plus [state exam] with flying colours - 98% or something.’ Roddy’s mother had left home when he was about ten due to ‘the mental and physical torture’ meted out to her by his father. She was a southern Catholic and he was a working-class Belfast Protestant his father died recently. ‘he was –34– the authorities. He eventually ended up in a special secure school. On a visit to the secure school, his father told his mother that: ‘he wanted to are wild.’ educational He has no formal or training would eventually - well my family and stuff are over there. It’s not going to be great being away from them.’47 qualifications. ICH’s Job Powerhouse advised him to take up training, but “It’s better than being out squatting. Grand oul warm rooms” break my spirit. So she gave me her aunt’s number in the south to ring next time I escaped.’ Roddy ran away to his mother’s town in the southeast, living with her on and off. He got into trouble there for petty stealing and had a bad reputation with the local police. ‘I was in court all the time I was going out and robbing places - no hope of me staying in school.’ Eventually he was given thirteen months in prison by a judge [known locally as Padlock Padwell] who delayed the trial until he had turned sixteen, so he could be sent to jail. ‘Ended up in and out of prison and stuff. Been in jail three times - for stupid stuff. The cops in my mother’s hometown don’t like me at all, and the last time they gave me three months for being asleep in a stolen tent. Sounds unbelievable - I thought it was unbelievable until I was locked up for it.’ Roddy’s jail sentence ended a FÁS [government-funded] training course he had started. There was no training available in the prison on Spike Island. it’s boring,’ he said ‘all the kids the baby’s his priority now. ‘Down the line I’d like to get a degree or something. I got accepted in the Open University before, but the move south finished that.’ [On the hostel]: It’s good, it’s great. It’s better than being out squatting. Grand oul warm rooms - you get a couple of meals.’ [How do you feel about your child’s imminent arrival?] it’s exciting. I can’t wait for the child to come along. I’m sorta half worried as well that we’ll be in a good place and everything. A nice clean warm flat - have to worry about nappies and things then.’ His own mother is looking forward to the birth also. [Would you go home?] ‘I Ned and Des Ned and Des are in their late twenties and come from twin towns either side of the Irish border. Communities on both sides of the border in Ireland have been blighted economically as a side effect of the ‘Troubles’ over the last thirty years. They were close friends before emigrating to London together in mid 1990s due to lack of employment prospects at home. They stayed at ICH’s Conway House hostel. They are now rekindling that friendship, though under rather different circumstances following a break of nearly two years. In the past Des tended to have the confidence and take the initiative in relation to jobs and survival, but Ned is now building a career for himself as a PHOTO: ICH –35– “People know Conway House, it has a very good reputation” hostel care-worker, while Des has just emigrated to London again for economic reasons and is still engaged in casual labouring. After this interview Ned told me he intended to encourage Des, who had given him much needed support in the past, and help him find a more satisfying and stable career. Ned: ‘I came over here when I was twenty-five, along with this fella [Des] here. We used to work together in Newry. He says we’ll come to London because our work finished it was only an auld [government] scheme, lasted for twelve months.’ Des: ‘I had no more work. We were mates for a couple of years, since 1993.’ Ned: ‘Came to London in 1994. Very gullible me - green behind the ears. I didn’t know where I was going, did I Des? I had relatives in Peckham who were OK, but I had to leave. I love this hostel. It’s very strict. There’s no corruption here - they’re very straight with you. If they caught you with a joint you were out. So, me and him [Des] never done it!’ Did you need that discipline Ned? Ned: ‘Yes. When you’re coming to London - it’s a big city. People know Conway House where I come from - it has a very good reputation. It was tough at the start here for me. You’d need to take me by the hand to the tube station. We made good friends in Ned came back to London and worked in a pub in Brixton after the end of the IRA cease-fire in 1996 and the Canary Wharf bomb. He stayed in another hostel in Elephant and Castle. ‘It’s much stricter - they discipline you a lot: lots of rules.’ He moved to a shared house and from there says ‘I got my own flat and I’m working for them [another homeless hostel]. I’m three and a half years here now. I’ve got to do this - what else have I got. I’m building something, creating something. I’m careful and wary now.’ [How long are you back in London, Des?] ‘Just a couple of weeks. It’s very hard to get your own place in London. I’m doing some labouring.’ Competition for jobs is keen and he has to vie with immigrants from outside the European Union. This drives down wages. ‘I work with agencies. To survive you’d need £300 to £350 a week - it’s hard to get a place’. [Any long term plans Des, or do you live day-to-day?] ‘I do I suppose [live day-to-day], but whatever happens? I’ve just the Group Cert [GCSE equivalent], I was never one for –36– school - often out in a spud field.’ Ned adds: ‘As we used to say - we met the scholars coming out. I have no problem now with the courses.’ here… I didn’t mind sharing - I wanted to get in and get a roof over my head. We stayed a few months.’ Ned went home to Ireland first, followed by Des a little later. They lost contact for a few years. Terry In his early twenties, Terry is an Irish Traveller - an extremely marginalised ethnic minority that are subject to intolerance and racism by the State and settled communities in both Ireland and Britain. Terry began the interview defensively: ‘What is this, what kind of questions are you asking me? Is it going to help me get a room - who are you speaking to about this?’ The purpose of the interview is explained. ‘Are you going to help me get a place?’ [Well, no actually - why did you come to ICH?] ‘I come here to get a place to live. This hostel is nice. I knew England would be hard enough to live in - I’ve experienced that bit already. A few years ago I moved over here - two years. It’s different than I expected you need to work for what you want - it won’t be handed to you.’ When Terry first arrived he ‘spent about three weeks in this country on the streets. All I want to be given is a fair chance like anyone else and I can show what I can do. I work for whatever I have to get. If I had a choice I’d live in a caravan - I think it’s the best life ever.’ He worked as a AN IRISH TRAVELLER: reputation. ‘Never in trouble before, had enough of this so [went] back to England. I want to settle down, have a nice job, nice family, nice kids - I just want a normal life like anyone else - I want no trouble. I reckon I could have it if I really want.’ Terry then asked me if I could replay the tape so that he could hear his own voice - so I did. Terry commented: ‘More of a grown up accent really - I never had the chance to have any proper education because my family petrol pump attendant for over a year - a small flat was also provided as part payment. His landlord/ employer then forced him to move to a small single room, and he eventually lost his job and accommodation. He then moved to ICH’s Conway House hostel. ‘If I got a one bedroom flat I’d be off. In a place like this you can’t really think of anything like that. You need about a £1,000 to cover you in a proper flat. ‘I went to primary school - my reading is good, writing not so good. always on time, polite etc.48 I worked in the Irish Centre for six months as a voluntary worker. I got a good reference from them for this job.’ Terry intends to build up a bank of positive references. ICH’s Job Powerhouse has helped Terry enrol in an English language writing skills course recently and he is progressing well. moved about. I was up from a Travelling community, so I’ve never really had the chance to settle down. Maybe I should stay at school and learn what I want to do for my future. I travelled most of my life. I’ve been too different schools. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t travel - that I don’t like my own social life - of course I love it! I don’t get dole because I work part-time. I’ve got to think now about what will happen later on in life. Some people think there’s no hope, but I will always think there’s light at the end of the tunnel.’ Terry and his siblings were put into care in Ireland when he was in his teens. He stayed in numerous homes and the children were separated. He heard from a social worker that his sister was going to be married in Italy later in the year, but has no way of contacting her. This I’m looking very hard for a full-time job. I have a part-time job at the moment. I work as a kitchen assistant in a Jewish home, so when I leave that I’ll have a good reference… I worked in a garden centre and restaurants [in Ireland]. I went back last year for Christmas, but got arrested.’ He says that he was tarnished with his older brother’s bad –37– “I just want a normal life like anyone else - I want no trouble… I’ve got to think now about what will happen later on in life” saddens him. He can’t return to Ireland until he can pay back a ‘few hundred pounds’ he owes there. ‘I never plan things - then you don’t get upset.’ REFUGEES & OTHER ETHNIC GROUPS HOUSED BY ICH About 30% of Conway House hostel’s residents are nonIrish born. Some are from Britain itself, but most are asylum seekers and refugees from places as diverse as Bosnia, Serbia, Kosova, Somalia and Afghanistan. Refugee numbers in Conway House from particular countries and ethnic groups tend to diminish as these ethnic groups set up their own support networks as they become firmly established in Britain over time. The global upheavals of the 1990s have generated flows of refugees and asylum seekers into Britain. In 1998 Britain had 57,700 asylum applications accounting for 19.3% of all applications in the European Union. (Begley et al, 1999: 8) ‘Refugees had particular difficulties. They were likely to have physical and mental health conditions yet they usually had little access to information and were rarely understood by health professionals’ (Irish Housing Forum et al, 19 November 1998). ICH helps refugees to access education and training and community networks. Ahmed Ahmed is twenty years old and lives in ICH’s Conway House hostel. [How long have you been here?] ‘Five or six months - I am coming here because my country is at war.’ He came one room.’ He says that the hostel is OK, ‘but I must think about future life - marriage - normal life. My father is killed, I’ve got mother and two brothers. While they were in Albania, I hear from [them] on telephone, you know? They’re OK.’ It is now difficult decisions for myself, especially such important decisions. It was my parents’ idea originally to send me here, because I was a British citizen anyway. I came over to carry on my higher education here. I had lived here for a couple of years, then I lived in India ‘till I was sixteen, then I came here in April 1994. I wasn’t with the accommodation - to put it mildly, it was disgusting. I moved here [Conway House hostel] in June 1994. She was charging me £50 a week even though she knew I wasn’t employed. I didn’t have a proper room. It was really crap. It was just a sofa basically.’ Prakesh contacted a housing advice agency. ‘they suggested I should apply here [ICH]. [Have you lived here since?] ‘Yes, it is quite a long time but you have to take into consideration that I hadn’t studied in a school here. I hadn’t any qualifications, so I didn’t have a catin-hell’s chance of getting any kind of proper work. So I had to stay here at Conway House because I would need support for the next few years, because I did my youth training for one year, then I did my college for the next two years. I did my work experience for a few months. I had “To me it is very important to finish my study” directly to England. [Where did you hear about ICH?] ‘a friend told me, who was living here. I’ve got a letter saying I can stay here [England] forever.’ [Do you work?] ‘No. In my country I am studying the technology of beer. Then when the war started in my country - I stop it. It is impossible to go and finish studying. I am going to go to language school here in September, and then I will finish my study at university. I have only two exams to finish my technology of beer. I’ve been in Jobcentre and told them I want to work in my job, but they say it’s impossible “you don’t know good English”. I studied in the Serbo-Croatian language in Vodvodina in Serbia, near Hungary. But when the war started, I go home to Kosovo, but big trouble there, so I go in Montenegro to my cousin - and then to here. To me it is very important to finish my study.’ [Will you go home?] ‘My family were in Albania, but now they come back in Kosovo. In Kosovo I cannot study the technology of food. I am here with my cousin and a [Kosovar] friend in Prakesh is a British born citizen in his early twenties who lived in India with his family practically all his life until he was dispatched to London by his parents when he was sixteen years old. ‘I was only sixteen at the time and I was incapable of taking such –39– to contact his family in Kosovo due to poor telecommunications connections with the region. [How do you find living in London?] ‘I was learning [English] in school, but it’s difficult shopping. Very, very nice people [in London], very beautiful [place]. I like football - I’ve been to Arsenal, ya, good team. Not for everybody the same you know - for me it’s good. Everybody knows [Kosovo] at the moment. I come from a country, not enough food to eat hungry. For me every religion is good. My culture is Catholic and Muslim my grandfather’s father was Catholic.’ Prakesh my proper job from March 1998 to 1999. [So you worked then?] ‘I had a proper job but I didn’t move out at the time because it was a sales environment. Although the target market is Central and Eastern Europe, the problems in that area forced my employer to make the position redundant. So now I am looking for a more secure job, so I have to make sure that it will last for a least two or three years, and once I have such a job I can move out immediately. I have the education and experience to affords him. [Did you have a problem studying or job searching in Conway House?] ‘Ah! I shared for the first three or four [experience], but not enough to be competitive. Most employers go for people in their late twenties and they have three or four years experience at least. I’m at a disadvantage in that, but I have to keep working on it. I have had interviews for office assistant etc., but I’ve turned them down because I have to make sure that they are the right kind of job for me, that there’s a chance for promotion to a high level job.’ [Have you used Job Powerhouse?] ‘I first visited last year to use the resources the CV preparation advice was excellent and with that I got my first job. Since I was made redundant in March 1999, I’ve been using the resource centre for making applications. In June I did voluntary work for them as an administrator.’ “the CV preparation advice was excellent and with that I got my first job” earn enough money to move out.’ [Is it difficult without your family?] ‘There’s no one here [in Britain] at all. Actually, it isn’t! I don’t know if you’ve been to India? If you stayed for a few weeks in a family you would know what it’s like and you would be glad that you don’t have such strong family connections here. It’s a very socially integrated society, unlike Britain where neighbours might not know each other. They all do [in India] - it’s like Big Brother.’ Prakesh visited India last Easter for one week to see his family. He likes London due to the anonymity it months or so - no problem. Living here is alright. You have to take into account that this is a hostel - you can’t really expect the standards of a hotel. There are some strange people, but you have to put up with these. You have to expect that these people are going to be here. I keep my distance. I’m really quite reserved. I don’t get involved. I go for administration work. Not administrative assistant, I’ve been through that, I’m looking for administrator. I have a year’s experience and have also done three voluntary jobs. I have enough JOB POWERHOUSE INITIATIVES49 ICH already has a distinct ‘housing plus’ approach built into its structure. Established in 1994 to deal initially with the high number of unemployed residents, Job Powerhouse now provides vocational guidance and training to over three hundred homeless people each year. The service is based in Camden Irish Centre, but provides satellite outreach services in Lewisham, Newham, Barnet, Haringey and Harrow - and all ICH hostels. This ‘housing plus’ branch of ICH provides PHOTO: ICH –40– job training courses lasting three to four weeks for groups of up to six people. Specific ‘skills workshops’ are also run regularly for four day periods. Participants in these courses are drawn mainly, but not exclusively, from ICH hostels. An informal dropin centre also operates daily and to 50 providing employment general access training, all Job information communications homeless people in London. Powerhouse provides employment training for unemployed single homeless people sixteen years and above throughout London. This has increased demand for Job Powerhouse’s vocational guidance service. In the six months between January and July 1999 Job Powerhouse facilitated one hundred and seventy-three people.51 The following is a breakdown of the percentages of people from individual London ten Boroughs accessing Job Powerhouse in the first six months of 1999: Camden 48.6%; Lewisham 14.8%; Brent 7.5%; Haringey 7.5%; Westminster 6.3%; Islington 5.8%; Hackney 4.6%; Ealing 2.8%; Hammersmith 2.3%; Newham 1.2%. Each client is given a ‘vocational followed guidance’ by an interview individually sensitive training and development programmes for Irish Travellers in London. ICH Director Antonia Watson is impressed with the initial results of this scheme, as all nine young male Travellers obtained National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) and ‘have now got full time employment. We got additional funding through –41– the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) and the Prince’s Trust to get them tools and equipment. [Job Powerhouse is] hugely successful for a small scheme - we’re looking to expand with government funding’ (Interview, August 1999). customised action plan. All these clients were unemployed, had a housing need, and were over sixteen. It has attracted funding from the London Borough Grants Committee since 1997. providing 52 A new co-operative culturally venture with BIAS Irish Travellers is dedicated, ICH: PRESENT AND FUTURE STRATEGIES The Irish community in London and the Church have played a major role in ICH’s development. ICH still has a strong connection with the Oblate Fathers who were the founding members.53 ICH currently has no loans, a good financial reserve, and has freehold ownership of all its properties. It is looking to obtain revenue support for its schemes to increase support staff in the future. Properties consist of the following accommodation units: short term hostel accommodation comprising 224 bed spaces;54 shared housing amounting to twenty beds; RSI selfcontained flats equalling thirty-eight units;55 elders self-contained housing of thirty-four units; and elders cluster housing of eighteen units.56 The shift from voluntary and vocational workers to a professionalised staff is complete. ICH is developing policies that intend to de-institutionalise ICH hostels and introduce resident empowerment programmes where appropriate. Jerry Kivlehan OMI worries that ‘the voluntary sector may well become the bureaucracy that the local authority was years ago. On the other hand running a service and leaving the resident or client out of it is not the way forward’ (Interview, August 1999). In pursuance of a holistic approach to care, ICH has recently adopted a ‘keyworker’ system: each resident has a dedicated support worker with whom they meet regularly. These meetings are on a one-to-one basis, thus providing opportunities for the development of more supportive relationships with residents. ICH is committed to providing training and development for its staff, thus ensuring excellent service delivery for residents. 57 suffer worse health than the rest of the population and often have inadequate access to health care. They had higher rates of coronary heart disease, cancer, depression, schizophrenia, and higher accident rates than the UK average. They were more likely to live in poor housing or become rough sleepers and that exacerbated their health needs’ (cited in Irish Housing Forum, 1998: 1). Indeed, much informed opinion now identifies specialist housing associations such as ICH as crucial to combating social exclusion and related societal health and welfare disparities. Rabbi Neuberger believes necessary to work with housing agencies who know the communities, are far better at accessing them, and being responsive to their needs’ (Irish Housing Forum, 1998: 1). Specialist housing associations allied to other appropriate agencies can contribute substantially to the regeneration of deprived areas through a ‘housing plus’ approach. ICH (Business Plan, April 1999) intends to enter partnerships with other relevant organisations where this will enhance services to clients, while maintaining its unique Irish identity and independence: ‘We also intend to work closely with large The bulk of state funding for housing is absorbed by the major housing associations. The Black and Minority 58 Ethnic (BME) strategy operated by the Housing Corporation is designed to help redress this resourcing imbalance in favour of smaller specialist housing organisations. The Irish are now ‘recognised’ as part of the BME strategy, but as Jerry Kivlehan OMI stresses the BME legislation only states that ‘some consideration should be given to the Irish as a sub-group.’ About 837,000 people, approximately 1.5% of Britain’s population, were originally born in Ireland.59 The distinct and extensive disadvantage and discrimination suffered by Irish communities in Britain is being very slowly, and sometimes reluctantly, recognised at major institutional and government levels (Hickman & Walter, 1997: 18). Rabbi Julia Neuberger, Director of the King’s Fund, declares that: ‘There is ample evidence that Irish people in Britain “The distinct and extensive disadvantage suffered by Irish communities in Britain is being very slowly, and sometimes reluctantly, recognised at major institutional and government levels” that: ‘It used to be thought that funding for health needs had to be directed at organisations looking only at health, but increasingly it is being acknowledged that in order to target some of the health needs it is –43– hostel providers, specialist support agencies and members of the Irish Housing Forum to develop culturally sensitive services for those who require our support.’ ICH has devoted much of its efforts historically to “In the six months between January and July 1999 Job Powerhouse facilitated one hundred and seventy three people ” helping newly arrived Irish community have expressed a wish to return home. ICH intends to immigrants settle in London. In the last fifteen years, though this work has developed apace, the lack of appropriate housing for many single Irish elders has become a major concern for voluntary groups, and ICH has responded accordingly. ICH’s mission statement commits it to providing accommodation and support to the Irish community in London: ‘to provide quality housing, support and related services to Irish and other disadvantaged people in housing need.’ Director Antonia Watson and the Management Committee 60 with local authorities - as an organisation we’re represented at all the boroughs in which we operate. We’re working more with other voluntary organisations, both Irish and mainstream. We’re in a financially strong position to develop - so the future’s really about building on all that.’ PHOTO: ICH investigate the opportunities for partnership working in the Republic of Ireland to respond to this need. The association has started working with the Travelling community and asylum seekers. The association intends to develop services to these clients in the first instance through Job Powerhouse.’ Jerry Kivlehan OMI states that in the past: ‘Most of its [ICH’s] development has been from its own resources, [as an Irish housing association] we have to work ICH Director: Antonia Watson (ICH Business Plan, April 1999) have reviewed ICH’s mission, to go beyond providing housing and associated support to newly arrived and elders: ‘ICH aims to be responsive to the needs of all its residents and potential residents. The association expects to develop accommodation and support services for Irish people with alcohol and/or mental health difficulties as well as extend its work with rough sleepers. A number of our older residents and elders in the “I think the organisation has a lot of potential” three times as hard than anybody else to get [statutory and local authority] support for developments. Antonia Watson (Interview, Aug. 1999) develops this theme: ‘I think the organisation [ICH] has a lot of potential. In a recent ICH resident’s survey, 92% of people said they were satisfied with their accommodation. It’s well known by the Irish community. It’s now working more –44– Interviews Except where indicated, all interviews were carried out with residents, staff, or former residents of ICH between May and August 1999. Aliases are used in the cases of those residents and staff who wished to protect their anonymity. Sister Catherine is a former manager of St. Louise’s women’s hostel; Father Carolan OMI, is a former ICH Director; Antonia Watson is the current Director and Jerry Kivlehan, OMI, is an ICH Management Committee Member and Director of the Camden Irish Centre. Bibliography Begley M. et al. (1999), Asylum in Ireland: A public health perspective, UCD. BAIS (February 1992),Report on social services and Irish elderly, Brent Irish Advisory Service. Bracken, J. et al. (1998), ‘Mental health and ethnicity: An Irish dimension’, Journal of Psychiatry, 172: 103-5. Brent and Harrow Health Authority (n.d.), Irish health profile: An investigation into the health needs of the Irish communities in Brent and Harrow Health Authority. Equal Access & BIAS report. Camden Council (21 January 1988), Report on key issues facing the Irish community in Camden. Camden Council (5 February 1990), Migrant youth training and the development of migrant support services. Conway House (1988), Internal Report. Conway House (1990), Housing/ Homelessness: A report. Cricklewood Homeless Concern (1992), Annual Report 1991-92: ‘Big enough to cope, small enough to care’. Egan, K., et al. (1994), Monitoring of Irish applicants for housing. Cara report. Farrell, E. (1996), The hidden minority: Mental health and the Irish experience in Brent. BIAS and Equal Access report. Federation of Irish societies (1998), The health of the Irish in Britain: The report of a community conference, FIS. Gaffney, M. & O’Hara, C. (January 1999), Employment and training needs: A report on the vocational guidance, training and employment needs of the Irish population of London. FAS and FIS. Gaffney, M. (14 February 1997), Employment community services: Meeting diverse needs. AGIY and FIS. Harrison, L. et al. (October 1992), Alcohol and disadvantage amongst the Irish in England. FIS. Harvey, B. (1999), Emigration and services for Irish emigrants: Towards a new strategic plan. Irish Episcopal Commission for Emigrants (IECE) and Irish Commission for Prisoners Overseas (ICPO). Hickman, M. and Walter, B. (1997), Discrimination and the Irish community in Britain. Commission for Racial Equality (CRE). Hillyard, P. (1993), Suspect Community: Peoples’ experience of the Prevention of Terrorism Acts in Britain. Pluto Press. Hutton. W. (1996), The State We’re In. Vintage. ICPO (November. 1995), Submission to national anti-poverty strategy by ICPO. ICPO report. Innisfree Housing Association (n.d.), The mental health experience of Irish people in Britain. Report. Irish Centre (1975), 21st Annual Welfare. Report. Irish Centre (1975), Helping Hands: Outlines of the origins and development of the Irish Centre over 21 years. Irish Centre Hostels Ltd. (1993), Working with people: Annual review 1993. Report. Irish Centre Hostels Ltd. (1995), Working with people: Annual review 1995. Report. Irish Centre Housing (April 1999), Business plan: A three year plan,1999 to 2002. Unpublished. Irish Centre Housing Ltd. (1997), Working with people: Annual review 1997. Report. Irish Chaplaincy in Britain (n.d.), Caring for our immigrants. Report. Irish Housing Forum/Federation of Black Housing Organisations (19 November 1998), Community Futures: How Black and Irish people become more involved in the future of Britain? Edited proceedings of a conference organised by the Federation of Black Housing Organisations and the Irish Housing Forum. The Irish Post. Job Powerhouse (1999), Internal Report. Kowarzik, U. (October 1997), Camden Irish welfare needs conference: Preliminary examination of service provisions to the Irish community. Report. Lee, J. J. (1989), Ireland: 1912-1985, Politics and Society. Cambridge University Press. London Irish Centre (1996), The Vision and the reality: Forty two years of frontline service to the Irish community. Annual Report. London Irish Centre (n.d.), A report on education and training opportunities and access for the Irish immigrant in London. Mac an Ghaill, M. (1999), Contemporary Ethnicities and Racisms: Social and cultural transformations. Open University Press. MacLaughlin, J. (1994), Ireland: The emigrant nursery and the world economy. Cork University Press. O’Farrell, T. (November 1993), The Irish elderly in London. Camden Irish Elders Support Network. Owen, D. (February 1995), Irish-born people in Great Britain: Settlement patterns and socio-economic circumstances. University of Warwick. Patterson, C. (July 1993), Who cares for the Irish community? BIAS Report. Pearson, M. et al. (1991), Generations of an invisible minority: The health and well being of the Irish in Britain. Institute of Irish studies report, University of Liverpool. Reynolds, P. (4 December 1995), Health needs of the Irish community. Southwark Council. Quex Road Yearbook (1974), [Annual magazine]. RTE Radio, Morning Ireland. The Western People [An Irish provincial newspaper]. Walter, B. (1988), Irish women in London. London Strategic Policy Unit. Whooley, F. (1997), Irish Londoners: Photographs from the Paddy Fahy collection. Sutton Publishing. Young Homelessness Group (1992), Young homelessness: A national scandal. Report. Notes The inspiration for the ‘mini-biographies’ comes from the work of the great Chicago writer and broadcaster Studs Terkel. 2 Jerry Kivlehan, Interview, August 1999. 3 The Camden Square hostel closed as Conway House opened in 1974. The social and cultural facilities that characterise Camden Irish Centre presently were developed during the 1960s and beyond. See Greg and Michael’s stories for insights into the original men’s hostel and anti-Irish prejudice at the time. 4 Irish gender emigration patterns are unique in Europe in that on average slightly over 50% are women. 5 This is a government related body or ‘Quango’ set up in 1974 that regulates housing associations and finances housing projects in the voluntary and charitable sector. 6 This money was raised by public subscription in 1972 when ‘there was a national collection [outside churches] in Ireland organised by Bishop Casey’ (Fr. Carolan Interview, August 1999). 7 The Housing Corporation provided £195,000 and £875,000 for purchasing and renovation respectively, The Irish Post, 16 May 1981. The old ICH Hornsey Lane Women’s hostel was closed when the St. Louise hostel was opened. 8 St. Louise’s hostel has always been managed by members of the Daughters of Charity religious order since 1934, but the first lay manager has recently been appointed and the Order’s connection with the hostel has ceased (Sr. Catherine Interview, June 1999). 1 9 All names mentioned in this booklet are pseudonyms to protect the anonymity of ICH interviewees and employees, unless they are identified in the bibliography. Colm Power’s questions are absent except in instances where [in square brackets] they help to contextualise the intervieweeís own narrative. 10 Rough Sleepers Initiative (second phase). This is a government initiative to combat chronic homelessness in London. 11 Greg is on medication: five tablets per day, for a number of medical problems including angina, severe swelling and weeping of the lower legs - oedema, and asthma. He still smokes, but only binges on alcohol occasionally. 12 The interview questions are included only where they add to the comprehension of the piece as are editorial additions to clarify the sense of what has been said. Otherwise the interviewee’s narrative is allowed its ‘natural’ flow. 13 Greg worked on a tax exemption, a legal tax loophole that saved both himself and the subbie money. 14 London County Council, a precursor of the GLC. 15 See Eddie’s story. He returned to Ireland in the 1970s, but had to re-emigrate when the short economic boom ended. 16 This interview was conducted by e-mail between the UK and the USA. 17 The report also concedes that a significant –45– number of Irish exiles do well economically. 18 These amounts are calculated from the postal orders cashed in Ireland. In reality the sums were far larger as much of the money would have been transferred during personal visits. 19 ‘Subbie’ is a slang term for building subcontractor and a by-word for exploitation in London’s Irish community. Most of these firms were small and many were Irish-owned. Their heyday came under the Thatcher government when construction and safety regulations were largely de-regulated. The big traditional civil engineering firms shed their direct labour forces and employed subcontractors instead. Many subbies made fortunes and grew into major firms during the 1980s - some by dubious means including tax evasion and employee exploitation. 20 De Valera’s experiment with economic independence (based essentially on import substitution) in Ireland from the 1930s began to fail catastrophically just as Britain was beginning its post-1945 reconstruction. Ireland saw its highest rates of emigration in the twentieth century during the 1950s, most of it to supply Britain with male construction and female service workers. 21 Kate declined to have her conversation taped because the recorder unsettled her. 22 The company relocated to the outskirts of London about ten years ago, but Kate still gets a lift with another employee. 23 In all government jobs such as teachers, civil servants etc, women were forced to resign when they married. The Irish Constitution of 1937 might have recognised the special position of women in the home, but they were largely limited to poorly paid jobs when single, and excluded from the workplace when married. This legal situation pertained until the early 1970s in Ireland. 24 Primogeniture, inheritance of the family land by the eldest son, left little hope for the younger siblings of small farmers beyond emigration. See Hugh Brody’s book Inishkillane (1973) for details on rural poverty and emigration in Ireland. 25 Unlike Mary, some Irish people in Britain were cowed by the constant barrage of antiIrish racism and prejudice that permeated from large sections of the British media and sometimes manifested itself in verbal and physical attacks on Irish people. Some were psychologically damaged by this abuse. See Paddy Hillyard’s book, Suspect Community (1993), for more detail on the subject of the Irish in Britain during the recent ‘Troubles’. 26 Irish Episcopal Commission for Immigrants and the Irish Commission for Prisoners Overseas. 27 This means that they have difficulty reading instructions, bills or official forms. 28 Some 75% of poor families in Ireland are headed by an adult with no educational qualifications. Such adults are nine times more likely to experience poverty than someone with Third Level education. 29 Brian Lenihan was a former Irish government minister who maintained that a stint of emigration would do people good shades of 1980s Britain and ‘get on your bicycle’ Tebbitry. 30 Harvey (1999) states that Irish government funding for agencies working with emigrants in Britain is only one million pounds a year he calls for more pre-emigration advice for young people particularly. 31 This breaks down into 21,000 from the south and 9,000 from the north of Ireland. (Figures come from the Irish Central Statistics Office and the Northern Ireland Office.) 32 Britain’s share of Irish immigration has fallen from about 70% to 65.7% over the last decade (Harvey, 1999). 33 I use the concept of ‘Push/Pull’ emigration factors to illustrate the primary reason (as far as I can ascertain) for an individual’s leaving Ireland. The reality of emigration as a conscious act is a complex nexus of factors for most people, often involving subconscious elements. 34 This is a common euphemism for the lowintensity war in Northern Ireland since the late-1960s. 35 My eldest brother ‘ran away’ to London at eighteen and didn’t resume regular contact with his family for about two years. 36 The report suggests that it now costs eighteen times the average yearly disposable income to purchase a typical urban home in Ireland. This is well above the EU average and contributes to the rising homlessness problem there. 37 He received no emigration advice on leaving Ireland 38 This job required no training. It was badly paid and James believed it exploited immigrant labour. He washed and shaved on the job while sleeping rough at night. 39 James spent most of his time sleeping around Euston but also in Charing Cross and Victoria. 40 This attitude is reiterated by many other Irish ICH residents interviewed during the research. 41 He described it as: ‘a massive cell block with near total freedom’. 42 This mixed accommodation offers individual rooms with communal kitchens and sitting rooms to people unable to compete in the private rented sector due to low pay. 43 The only concession to women workers’ personal security provided by her hotel (one of London’s most celebrated) was to provide ‘rape alarms’ for employees. It refused to pay for late night taxis when public transport was unavailable. 44 Many of the strict, archaic rules in the hostel have been discontinued recently. The curfew referred to meant the doors were locked at midnight. Currently, there is a twenty-four hour access policy in the hostel. 45 Roddy and his girlfriend seem to spend a good deal of time around Conway House together. 46 This denotes a mixed marriage between a Protestant and Catholic. 47 Roddy is close to both sides of his family, south and north. Terry has since had his employment ’terminated’ because his employers said he could not work in a team. He is currently doing an English literacy course and applying for lots of jobs. 49 The last census in 1991 indicated that 20,711 Irish people were unemployed in the Greater London area. About 38% of Irish born people have no formal work qualifications compared with a figure of 26% for the general population (cited in Gaffney and O’Hara, January 1999). 50 Though formerly an appointment-based service, Job Powerhouse became an ‘open resource’ centre in 1999. 51 The following is an ethnic breakdown of the 173 people given vocational guidance by Job Powerhouse in the first 6 months of 1999: Irish 66; White European 59; Black African 9; Black Caribbean 7; Black Other 3; Bangladeshi 1; Indian 1; Chinese 2; Traveller 9; Other groups 9; and those who preferred not to say 7. Of these 173, 114 were male and 59 female. 52 70 people facilitated by this scheme gained regular employment in 1997. (Irish Centre Housing, 1997) 53 Jerry Kivlehan OMI is currently the only Oblate Father on the Committee of Management. Former Directors of ICH include: Rev. Patrick Carolan OMI (19741979); Rev. Chris Dunne OMI (1979); Rev. Frank Ryan OMI (1979-1989); Rev. Patrick Carolan OMI (1989-1997). Other Oblate staff at ICH included Brother Charles, Brother Aidan, Brother Paddy, Brother Gerry, Brother Kevin, Brother Ronan, and Brother Ray. 54 This includes Conway House male hostel and St. Louise’s women’s hostel. 55 ICH has five additional units of accommodation for residential staff. 56 ICH services are now performance benchmarked against local organisations to ensure that quality and costs are appropriate and favourable. 57 However, large housing associations have economies of scale and access to large reserves giving them great competitive advantages. 58 Of these 72.7% were born in the Republic and 27.3% in the north of Ireland (Hickman and Walter, 1997: 18). 59 Committee Members approximate to a board of directors, but donate their time and expertise voluntarily. The Management Committee governs Irish Centre Housing, planning and monitoring ICH’s progress. 48 –46– IRISH CENTRE HOUSING 50-52 Camden Square, London NW1 9XB Telephone: 020 7485 8889