Like all Members, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) for securing this debate, which is possibly the first Backbench Business debate in this Chamber to focus specifically on the Irish in Britain. I have known him for more than 25 years and am acutely aware of his political skills, but to secure this debate on St Patrick’s Day, in the middle of the Cheltenham festival, which is promising another greenwash of wins for Irish trainers, and following the biggest Irish victory in Twickenham history says something about his tacit political skills of timing; it is an extraordinary gift and we appreciate it today, with this debate. On acknowledgments, I should also stress the role of my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), whom I know will be immensely proud to be replying for our party this afternoon. He performs incalculable work on behalf of the Irish in Britain today and wider UK-Irish relations. He does a great job, and long may it continue.
This is undoubtedly an important debate, allowing us to demonstrate our support for the Irish in Britain, and how the Irish are recognised and valued as a core part of British society, fundamental to its economic and cultural life. As has been said, that cannot be expressed simply in a numbers game of Irish nationals in the UK, given the countless millions of second and third-generation Irish who have shaped the character of this country, informed by their family identity, culture and heritage. Yet the importance of this debate goes beyond general statements of support, partly because it is more personal for those children of Irish immigrants, brought up within Irish families in this country, who have become Members of this Parliament. Let me give full disclosure: my family come from Donegal. My wife sits in the other place, and her family come from Mayo and Galway. They all came over in the 1950s, for reasons of work. Many of us also represent communities with very strong Irish traditions and cultures.
Much debate of this debate might well focus in on the needs of the Irish community in this country. Undoubtedly that is correct, given that, as my hon. Friend has mentioned, an estimated 10,000 Irish in England may be suffering from dementia and that death by suicide is disproportionately high in this community, as are some of the effects of cancer-related diseases. Those are all vital issues, but today is also an opportunity to highlight not just the community’s needs, but the fundamental contribution of the Irish in creating and shaping Britain’s economy and society over many decades. That extends throughout Britain and throughout this city—it is not confined to Brent, Camden and Islington. Dagenham, 13 miles from our debate, is a good example of that. For it is impossible to understand Dagenham without an intimate appreciation of patterns of Irish migration in the creation of community, which is a story played out over many decades and one that is still strong today.
I am fortunate to be writing a history of my community, and 7 November 2021 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of modern Dagenham. Exactly 100 years earlier, the first house was completed on the Becontree estate; 27,000 new homes, containing over 100,000 residents and spread over 4 square miles of marshland, would follow by 1935; this was the largest council estate in the world. In 1931, the Ford Motor Company relocated from Manchester’s Trafford Park to Dagenham. The site offered deep-water port access, allowing for bulk coal and steel shipments on a much larger scale than the Manchester Ship Canal did. The 475 acre riverside site became Europe’s largest car plant, with 4 million square feet of floor space. By 1953, it employed 40,000 direct workers, and 11 million vehicles and over 40 million engines have rolled off the line.
I raise that because when the plant first opened in 1931 so many men from Leeside in Cork got work there that some oral histories suggest that the county accent predominated on the factory floor. Later in the ‘30s, when tractor manufacturing in Cork was terminated and transferred to Dagenham, thousands more followed. When these Cork migrants returned for a holiday, with their trendy clothes and money, they were affectionately known as “Dagenham Yanks”. It was the beginning of a link between the two places that remains as strong today—it is an industrial link that uprooted Irish villages and planted them into what was then Europe’s largest
factory and on to its largest estate. That pattern of migration continued throughout the whole of the last century; estimates suggest that well over 10,000 Irish migrants have worked for Ford in Dagenham over the years, laying down strong local roots and family connections.
One of the few private estates in Dagenham, the Rylands estate, just opposite the factory gates, was literally built to house thousands of Cork Ford workers. In the 1940s and 1950s, thousands more Dagenham Yanks were attracted to the expanding assembly plants. When the engine plant that Ford retained with Dunlop in Cork closed in 1983, many thousands more came across the water throughout the ‘80s. The social impact of this migration has been immense not least in the promotion of Irish culture and heritage. In the local pubs and drinking clubs, such as O’Gradys, the Casa and, right outside the plant gates, the Mill House Social Club, Dagenham was known as Little Cork, a place of tripe and drisheen, spiced beef, Beamish and Murphy’s. The term “Murfia” was coined to describe the Corkonian-controlled network of work and political connections, patterns of family and kinship, and extensive cultural, sporting and faith-based communities.
Local Gaelic Athletic Association clubs flourished, and there was a deep-rooted connection between the Ford paint shop and Tomas McCurtain’s GAA club. This was partly the product of an Offaly man named Bill Flanagan, who supervised paint contractors and was always eager to hire good hurlers and footballers for McCurtain’s. Many of them originated from Dromina in County Cork, through the influence of the legendary Timmy O’Sullivan, a main contractor who relocated half the village. Sadly, he died in 2014, but he is still a legendary figure. He even convinced the Cork hurling team, including Christy Ring, to travel over to play McCurtain’s in the ’60s, and Bertie Ahern regularly came down to present jerseys.
The wider character of Dagenham was informed by the GAA, the pipe bands, the Irish language classes, the music and the dancing, and they have remained enduring features of the Dagenham culture for decades. I make these points not out of some sense of romantic nostalgia but to acknowledge the extraordinary economic, social and cultural contribution of the Irish community in Dagenham and its wider role in powering manufacturing across this city and the manufacturing economy of the country over many decades. The Irish were indispensable in the creation of our community in Dagenham, which has helped to define the industrial history of this country and this city.
Locally, things have changed—car assembly finished in the early 2000s—but this debate speaks to what is being made in Dagenham today, with new industries emerging that promise once again to strengthen the economic links between the two countries. For instance, Hackman Capital Partners—the owner of what will be the largest film and TV studio in London when it opens in Dagenham in a few years—has just acquired two Irish film studios, in Wicklow and Limerick.
In recent years, Irish migration has slowed, yet the community retains a strong Irish identity, with extraordinary numbers of second and third-generation Irish alongside a healthy number of older Irish residents, who are well represented in the churches, the union branches and groups such as the Irish Pensioners Forum of East London, a social and cultural group for older Irish people partly funded by the Emigrant Support Programme,
which does some fantastic work for communities up and down this country. Such networks of support, advice and kinship—in the local clubs, societies and groups—have been critical in the response to covid. The sense of fraternity that is the hallmark of the Irish in Dagenham has really been a blessing for us.
Today’s debate gives me the opportunity to acknowledge, in Dagenham’s 100th year, the role of the Irish in the creation and sustaining of Dagenham. They remain a cornerstone of the local community. I have told just one story to illustrate the indispensable quality of the Irish community in this country, which we can honour and treasure today.
2.22 pm