The experience of generations of Irish people in England has been well documented throughout the years \u2013 from 18th-century navvies to the modern creatives of today. It was also a common theme across this month\u2019s Abroad section.<\/p>\n
Mayo native Eimear Maguire<\/a> went from attending the \u201cfairly strict but fairly simple\u201d Convent of Mercy in Ballina to being \u201cthrust into a comprehensive, 1,200-student school\u201d in West Yorkshire when her parents chose to make the move over in the 1980s. With a \u201cweird name and a strange accent\u201d combined with \u201call the Irish cultural, political stuff going on behind the scenes\u201d, she says, \u201cI was asked if I was a terrorist every day, asked if we were in the IRA. All of that type of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n England didn\u2019t start to feel like home until she moved to Nottingham in 1994 to become a nurse. By that time, \u201cthings had changed\u201d with the emergence of popular Irish bands in the UK such as the Cranberries, U2 and Aslan making it \u201ctrendy to be Irish\u201d.<\/p>\n Kevin Rowland, of Dexys Midnight Runners<\/a>, speaks to Peter Murphy about having Irish parents and what that meant in a time when Irish people were the punchline of jokes. \u201cI just thought, \u2018This is f**king ridiculous.\u2019 The people telling those jokes were not the f**king brightest tools in the box by any means, and they would be laughing at the Irish. And they weren\u2019t just Irish jokes; they were anti-Irish jokes.\u201d<\/p>\n He says he has bonded with other second-generation Irish musicians in Britain in the post-punk years over this too, such as Johnny Marr of the Smiths and Siobh\u00e1n Fahey of Bananarama and Shakespears Sister.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing about those second-generation musicians, from John Lydon right through to Oasis<\/a>, with most of our fathers working on building sites, there\u2019s not an also-ran among them. They\u2019re all at the cutting edge of their culture.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s incredible, really. Look at the population of Ireland and the population of England: a disproportionate amount of significant players were second-generation Irish,\u201d says Rowland.<\/p>\n Author Kate Kerrigan\u2019s show Am I Irish Yet?<\/a> explores the experiences of a London-Irish person trying to fit in in small-town Ireland and says: \u201cWe were separated from the idea of Englishness, although I\u2019d say my other siblings identify as Londoners. Their affinity is with London. But I never felt that. I always felt that affinity to Mayo. Because Mayo to me was Ireland. That was where I went on my summer holidays. We never went to Dublin, and we had no real awareness of the city. I am very much a Mayo girl.\u201d<\/p>\n Columnist Laura Kennedy<\/a> spent some time living in London before she moved to the Australian capital of Canberra and says: \u201cEach place we live in marks us indelibly. London gave me significantly more notions. Australia certainly hasn\u2019t \u2013 the Australian tolerance for notions is extremely low.\u201d <\/p>\n She has also made two grim discoveries<\/a> in recent weeks: first, Australia actually has a winter and, second, Australians apparently decline to insulate homes. Her thermal long johns might be here to stay for another while. <\/p>\n Elsewhere, Daragh Brehony<\/a>, a arbitrator from Rathfarnam now based in Madrid, finds Spanish people warm and says it\u2019s been easy getting to know them. One hiccup, however, is his name. <\/p>\n He says: \u201cDaragh is common and known at home, but in Spain it always causes confusion. Spanish speakers pronounce every letter, so the silent gh really throws them. Every new introduction turns into a mini-phonetics lesson, with me repeating my name four or five times. In the end, most people just settle on `Darag\u2019 with a hard g, and I\u2019ve learnt to roll with it. After 10 years, it\u2019s just part of the routine of living abroad with an Irish name.\u201d<\/p>\n Sin\u00e9ad Harrington swapped RT\u00c9 for Bordeaux<\/a> with her husband, leading rugby coach Noel McNamara. Living abroad has enhanced her sense of pride in being Irish. \u201cI\u2019ve spoken more Irish since we\u2019ve moved \u2013 it\u2019s like a wonderful secret language because nobody here knows it or knows what you are saying,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n