St Patrick’s Day: Irish Diaspora in the UK

Debate between Fleur Anderson and Karen Bradley

Thursday 14th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

How pleasurable it is to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain, and how apposite it is that you are the Chair for this wonderful celebration of the Irish diaspora in the UK. Happy St Patrick’s day to everyone contributing and listening to the debate.

St Patrick was himself a traveller between these isles, like the people we are celebrating today. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) and the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) for bringing forward this debate and giving us this opportunity. I thank the many Members who have turned out today and spoken so eloquently. They have demonstrated so much understanding of the vital Irish contribution to life in our constituencies and across the UK.

I echo the many tributes to Tony Lloyd. I sat with him in December for the last speech that he gave in this very Chamber. He sat in the chair just behind me. I think of him every time I am here, as I am sure everybody does.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles for celebrating the many achievements of the Irish diaspora in business, cultural, political, trade union and scientific life. She gave us a great list of Irish champions. She spoke about life in the second generation and about checking her identity all the time, which I absolutely understand, and she praised The Irish Post.

The right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands spoke of the honour of being Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I am also honoured to be a shadow Minister for Northern Ireland, and I receive a fantastically warm welcome every time I visit. She told us so much, and she championed the work of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly.

[Dame Karen Bradley]

I apologise for intervening on the hon. Lady and am grateful to her for giving way. I have just realised that I failed to mention in my speech my co-chair of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, Brendan Smith TD, or Teachta Dála, who is an absolute champion for the British-Irish relationship. It would be remiss of me to allow this debate to finish without putting his name on the record.

[Fleur Anderson]

I am glad that the right hon. Lady has been able to set the record straight. A lot of work by British parliamentarians with Irish politicians goes unnoticed by many people, so I am really glad to have had this opportunity to hear so much about the work of the assembly.

I thank the hon. Member for Belfast South (Claire Hanna) for speaking in Irish and acknowledging the painful parts of our shared past, as well as the strength of the shared lives that we have built together. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) for her celebration of the contribution of the Irish diaspora in Luton. She demonstrated an encyclopaedic knowledge of Luton clubs, making a special mention of the Irish dancers and the Luton Irish Forum.

[Mr Virendra Sharma in the Chair]

Similarly, my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) praised the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith, and highlighted all that the Irish embassy has done to contribute to the role of the Irish diaspora here, and to strengthen our communities living alongside each other.

The rugby last weekend really stretched good relations between England and Ireland to their limit, but I am glad that the Irish contribution to British life is being fully demonstrated at Cheltenham, even as we speak.

In the 2021 census, 362,000 people in England and Wales identified as Irish, either solely or in combination with a UK national identity; 299,500 people identified solely as Irish; and 324,000 people were born in the Republic of Ireland. However, those figures actually diminish the real numbers; as has been said, probably about 5 million people across the country have Irish family connections.

Our two countries share so much history, culture, ideas, politics and people. This story runs like a thread through these isles and the lives of so many families, including my own. My grandmother came from Templemoyle in Northern Ireland and I am married to a proud London Irishman. My father-in-law came to London from Sligo in 1962. He is a carpenter and a builder and has worked hard, as so many Irish people did; that has been alluded to already. My mother-in-law, Nora, came to Doncaster from Donegal, before moving to Glasgow, then London, as a nurse. She came over in 1959. They met at a dance in London and married in a double wedding, with Nora’s sister and her husband, at St Mary’s Church in Clapham.

My parents-in-law brought up their six children in south-west London and their contribution to my life, the life of their church, the life of their whole community and the life of our whole family is immeasurable. They have 20 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. It is their lives, and the lives of so many people like them, that we are celebrating today. They built a bright future, with a truly shared heritage; they are an immigration success story and I am very proud to be part of their London-Irish family.

I pay particular tribute to the Irish Centres across the country, which have been family, welfare support, a place to meet and make friends, to stay, to dance, to celebrate, to organise and just to feel at home. Many of them have closed, as was mentioned earlier. I give a special mention to the Plunkett club in Clapham South, but I also thank and celebrate several London Irish Centres: those in Wimbledon, Camden, Bexleyheath, Haringey, Lewisham and, as has been mentioned, Hammersmith. I thank and celebrate all those who run them and go to them, ensuring their success in our communities.

The Mayor of London has taken that process to the next level with his annual St Patrick’s day festival and parade, which deserves a special mention. It will be enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people this weekend—people proudly going out to be a little bit Irish for one day only, joining in the celebrations and watching or taking part in the parade. We are all happy and thankful to do that, which says a lot about how well the Irish diaspora is integrated within our country.

On her historic visit to Ireland in 2011, Queen Elizabeth II spoke powerfully about

“the ties of family, friendship and affection”,

which were

“the lifeblood of the partnership across these islands.”

How right she was! This tapestry contributes to our civic, cultural, political and social lives, and we would be immeasurably poorer without the strong influence of everything Irish.

However, our history has not always been a benign one. Our relationship over the centuries has seen terrible wrongs, which should be acknowledged, great violence and revolution. Nevertheless, that thread has remained in place and found new expression in recent years in ways that would have seemed unimaginable to us in the past. We have to pay tribute to everyone who has consciously built that peace over time.

Sadly, in recent years UK-Ireland relations have become strained, including over the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which the Government thankfully halted after the Windsor framework was signed; and now over the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023. In Government, Labour will reset our relationship with our closest and most important neighbour. Ireland and the United Kingdom must get on for the sake of both its peoples and we in Labour will work hard toward that end.

I want to take this opportunity to reaffirm Labour’s support for the British Citizenship (Northern Ireland) Bill, tabled by the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), which would establish a separate stand-alone route to British citizenship for Irish nationals born after 1948 who have been resident in Northern Ireland, and hence the UK, for significant periods of time. Across our two countries we share a unique bond, and I believe the Bill honours that.

Lastly, I again want to thank everyone who has taken part in the debate and I wish everyone a very happy St Patrick’s day. I hope all hon. Members celebrate appropriately.