Leaving Home

By 1951 there were just over 6,000 people born on the island of Ireland living in Leeds. So why did so many Irish people leave Ireland and choose to go to Leeds?

In the mid-1930s the population of the island of Ireland was 4.25 million. In the Irish Free State (south) the total population was just under 3 million, of which the vast majority were living in the countryside, or in country towns and villages. At this time Ireland was a poor country, and the levels of poverty in many isolated rural areas were exceptional by western standards.

By the 1940s the conditions of rural life in Ireland had become unacceptable to many country people; few rural houses had electricity, running water, or lavatories. A lack of public transport and recreational facilities were also causes for complaint. Through newspapers, radio and travel, Irish people were becoming more aware of the contrast in their way of life and that in other countries, including Britain, especially in urban areas.

The widespread availability of work in wartime Britain, and in reconstruction of Britain in the decades that followed, was a great incentive for emigration and allowed Irish emigrants to earn relatively good wages quickly. Many men followed the well-trodden path of the seasonal agricultural migrant to the farms and fields of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Lincolnshire, and eventually opted more regular and better-paid work in the nearby cities. 

As a result of emigration, Ireland’s rural population was decimated, with huge numbers leaving the western seaboard counties (Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Cork & Kerry) and the boarder counties of Leitrim, Cavan and Monaghan. Emigration peaked during the 1950s. In 1956 the population of the Irish Republic fell to a mere 2.9 million (its lowest since reliable enumeration began in 1841). The following year it is estimated that 58,000 people left the country: an average of 1,115 people a week!

The City of Leeds with its numerous shopping arcades, cinemas, parks, libraries, and extensive transport system was an attractive destination for Irish emigrants. More importantly, work was plentiful in and around the City, and a number of large-scale engineering projects (such as the construction of Quarry Hill flats, building of Council Estates, the redevelopment of St James’s University Hospital, and motorway construction throughout Yorkshire) attracted Irish labour. Later Irishmen in Leeds would establish their own construction firms and hire predominantly Irish labour. Irish women also found work plentiful in the city’s factories, hospitals, shops, and restaurants, and on the buses. Many Irish women, and often their children, worked in the city’s "silver service" industry.

Up to the 1960s the new Irish state remained a mainly rural, Catholic and conservative society with high levels of emigration. The numbers of Irish in Leeds swelled from around 6,200 in 1951 to 10,300 in 1971. An economic boom in Ireland in the late 60s and early 70s slowed the flow, and many returned to live in Ireland with their young children born in England. This was short-lived however and was followed by economic crisis in the 1980s and another tide of emigration flowed eastwards to Britain.

The Journey

Although for many young Irish men and women the move to Britain was inevitable, those who left had mixed feelings. Nervousness and a sense of excitement were accompanied by a sense of loneliness for family and home. Goodbyes were said, tears shed and then the journey began. The following poem sums up some of the migrant’s concerns and worries: 

I go without the heart to go,
To kindred that I hardly know.
Drink, neighbour, drink a health with me
Farewell to barn and stack and tree

Five hours will see me stowed aboard,
The gang-plank up, the ship unmoored.
Christ grant no tempest shakes the sea
Farewell to barn and stack and tree

The Emigrant by Joseph Campbell, 1913 

Today the journey from Ireland to England can be made in under an hour by air, or under two hours by sea, but in the past the journey took a day or more to complete. Emigrants made their way to the nearest large town, took the bus or train to Dublin, from where they boarded a boat to Holyhead or Liverpool; from here trains and buses connected to urban centres across Britain. The sea-crossing could be tracherous in bad weather. The Princess Maud, which operated between Dun Laoghaire and Holyhead from 1947 to 1965, was well-known to Irish emigrants; having no stabilisers the ship had a bad reputation for rough crossings.

First Impressions

Irish people were well informed about life in urban Britain from newspaper accounts, emigrant letters and stories. Nonetheless for many new emigrants life in urban Britain came as a culture shock, particularly to those from a rural background. After the long journey from Ireland the train made its way through the Pennines and then slowly through the suburbs of Leeds and into the city centre. For many Irish emigrants Leeds City train station would be their first experience of urban Britain, and first impressions of Leeds do not always paint a pretty picture, often recalling a dirty, smoky and smelly city. The Industrial Revolution had blackened the city and its buildings greatly contrasted with the whitewashed farmsteads of rural Ireland. The hustle and bustle of the city greatly contrasted to the pace of rural life. The sense of enclosure made those used to wide open spaces feel uneasy. Others recall the wonder of first seeing people of different skin colour. 

RECOMMENDED READING: 

LIFE IN IRELAND
C. Clear, Women of the House: Women’s Household Work in Ireland 1922–1961, Dublin, 2000.
J. Healy, No–one Shouted Stop!, Achill, 1988.
D. Keogh, et al, The Lost Decade: Ireland in the 1950s, Dublin, 2004.  

IRISH EMIGRATION TO BRITAIN
E. Delaney, Demography, State and Society: Irish Migration to Britain, 1921–71, Liverpool, 2000.
D. MacAmhlaigh, An Irish Navvy: Diary of an Exile, Cork, 2003.
D. MacRaild, The Great Famine & Beyond, Dublin 2002.

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