Heritage Week event to reflect on Irish who emigrated to UK

Our people emigrating to the UK has been a part of life in Mayo for generations.

Renowned historian and author Ultan Cowley has written extensively about the Irish in the UK in two very popular books, The Men Who Built Britain and McAlpine’s Men.

For National Heritage Week, Ultan will be giving a performance of his one-man show, Memories of the Men who Built Britain, in Castlebar Library tomorrow (August 17).   

He strongly believes that, given the long history of labour migration from the west of Ireland, it is important in National Heritage Week that our heritage should embrace the achievements of the Irish abroad as well as of those at home. He says Mayo has ‘been one of the great epicentres of labour migration and has much to show for it’.

The talk has been facilitated by Mayo Heritage Officer Deirdre Cunningham.

His book The Men Who Built Britain is a hardback copy classic, which chronicles the lives of Irish men who worked in the UK on the building sites and roads.

“The contribution of the Irish ‘navvy’ to the British construction industry has been immeasurable. For over two centuries, for hundreds of thousands of rural Irish male immigrants to Britain, the best chance of a start was in construction. While the men themselves have been largely forgotten or ignored, the canals, the railways, the roads, tunnels, dams and public utilities of Britain stand as lasting monuments to their sacrifices and achievements,” said Ultan Cowley.

It was researched over decades and he quotes extensively from numerous interviews with genuine Irish navvies and subcontractors, senior English management and relatives of those involved.

Mc Alpine’s Men is a unique collection of stories from some of the 200,000 Irishmen who laboured on civil engineering sites, pulled cable, drove tunnels and drank their pay in pubs such as The Crown, The Spotted Dog, The Archway Tavern and many more during the building of post-war Britain and beyond.

Both books have been republished by Mayo Books Press in Castlebar and are available in all good book shops and online on mayobooks.ie.

Ultan Cowley’s performance at Castlebar Library takes place at at 7pm tomorrow (Thursday)