1961: Should IRISH IMMIGRATION to BRITAIN be Restricted? | Panorama | World of Work | BBC Archive

Gad what a turnaround... over 300K Brits in the Republic now, and millions more trying to wangle an Irish passport so they can stay in Spain, or travel in Europe.

Well, no Smiths, no Elvis Costello, no Sex Pistols, no Oasis, no Shane McGowan, no Caroline Aherne, or Frankie Boyle, or Steve Coogan, Paul Merton, or Jack Grealush fir that matter. Most of the Beatles were the grandsons of Irish immigrants too. England would have missed out on a lot, dont you all think.

Imagine interrupting a fella when he's in the middle of a tune on his harmonica.

As an Englishman, I have noticed we get terribly jealous about "Our" accomplishments, but we are very slow to acknowledge that all the nations of the Union, and a great many more of our Imperial dominions and holdings, always pulled their own weight and more besides. So yeah, beyond our moral debt to the Irish for the cruelty and incompetence of our past Imperial governance of their nation, we do also owe them greatly for the difficult and dangerous labour they provided building most of our "very english" monuments and institutions.

My nan and Grandad came over to West London from Co. Mayo in the 60's. She was a nurse he was foreman on the roads, Irish did the majority of rebuilding post war, we owe them a debt.

Just imagine the trouble construction workers have to wear tie in the 60’s yet hard hat wasn’t yet a pre-requisite

Here we are 62 years later and the people who employ these individuals are using the same lines about how British people don't like to do these sort of jobs. 😆

They need not have worried. Irish migration has gone way into reverse in Britain now. Numbers are gone into decline year on year and immigration in Britain is now from all over the world. The same in Ireland too. People are here from far flung places. The economics have transformed and all of this in this video seems a world away now.

My grandfather Vital Gustave Arnhem fled to Great Britain from France during World War I in order to join the Belgian frontline (Flanders fields), where he fought until the Armistice. He was born in 1899 but altered his birthdate to 1889. After the war, he recounted to my father that his time in England was far from pleasant and that he experienced racism, despite being only about 16 or 17 years old. Greetings from Belgium, EU.

I don’t care what nationality a man is, as long as he is Irish. Actual quote from 1930’s Dr. Kildare movie. My parents both left Ireland in 1949 for America after spending a lot of time in England. I used to have a lot of cousins in England but most moved back to Ireland during the economic boom and when they retired. The world is a very different place now.

My Irish parents came to England for work they met and married in London then moved to Essex where I was born in 1961

As an Irish person, the Irish accent was so different than today. I wonder how accents change so much.

If my Irish grandfather didn’t come over in the 50s then I wouldn’t be alive.

The buildings Portland House in London Victoria. Now covered in scaffolding and being totally stripped out, refurbished and reclad. Nice to see a 60 year old building survive and updated after all those fellas work.

They weren't complaining during the Napoleonic wars, when 30% of the British army and 25% of the Royal Navy were Irish....

Being half Irish my self Irish had a very hard time in the late 60s and 70s in England as they had to go back some of them because they where hated because of the bombings by the IRA

Thanks for posting it, BBC. As a foreigner living for more than 17 years in London, it was fascinating.

Nothing But the Same Old Story by Paul Brady is a great Irish folk song depicting this era of Irish people emigrating to the UK for work. They built roads, rail lines and houses and were mocked by the British as 'thick Paddy's' in the pubs at the weekends. My uncle died in his early 80's and still got angry when he described the treatment he and his friends were subjected to when they were young men fresh off the boat. He was lucky and made it back home & had a family. A lot of his friends ended up old and penniless in bedsits around outer London and Birmingham and died alone. I'd imagine it was the same for Asian, Afro Carribean and Eastern European immigrants to the UK over the years. Always feel solidarity with new immigrants trying to make better lives for themselves & contributing to their new home.

My father worked in London subjected to disgusting prejudice as a child I heard all their stories- my father lived out of hellholes 😢

Like many Londoners I have Irish ancestry. They came over at the turn of the last century to dig out the docks. The Irish also don’t get the credit(along with indigenous Brits) for rebuilding London after WW2..