St Patrick’s Day: Irish Diaspora in the UK

Debate between Mark Logan and Andrew Rosindell

Thursday 14th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mark Logan]

I could do Ulster Scots, but—[Interruption.] Same thing! I am glad to see my hon. Friend the Minister here. A year ago I tried to put him on the spot by asking him to speak a bit of Ulster Scots, and he went a bit red during that APPG event on Northern Ireland. I also asked his very good civil servants—not to put them on the spot—who the most famous Irish people in Britain right now are. I was thinking of people from the past, like Terry Wogan, Graham Norton, or Dara Ó Briain, but they said two or three names that I had never heard of before, so I must be getting old—they were for the younger, more fashionable people these days. It is obvious that the contribution the Irish have made to Great Britain has been absolutely massive.

[Andrew Rosindell]

My hon. Friend mentioned the incredible contribution that Irish people have made to Great Britain and the United Kingdom and all of the islands that we share. Would he agree that the Irish people have contributed an enormous amount of support to the Commonwealth? The Irish ancestry is all around the Commonwealth. St Patrick’s day, which we celebrate, will also be celebrated on Sunday in Montserrat—a British overseas territory—as he is their patron saint. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be wonderful to see Ireland become the next member of the Commonwealth of Nations?

[Mark Logan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. Indeed, he has been hiding his Irish ancestry over the last four-and-a-half years; I had no idea that there were Dempseys in the family going back. I know he is very passionate when it comes to the issue of the Commonwealth, but I might get slippery shoulders on this and divert that question to the Minister, if he fancies taking it up, although it is an incredibly interesting idea.

We can see the Irish influence across the whole of these islands, the Commonwealth and the world. We see it especially when it comes to the United States, with the number of US presidents who have Irish or Ulster Scots heritage. I think of my own neck of the woods in north Antrim. I was born in the townland of Moneydollog, halfway between Ahoghill and Cullybackey. President Chester A. Arthur was the first “birther” President—that is, people at the time did not think he was born in the United States. His parents were both born approximately three fields across from where I grew up. Then there were other presidents, such as Andrew Jackson and Buchanan from over in the Donegal direction. The impact and influence have been massive.

I was also drawn to what the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley), said. I am not sure about the impact of the Irish diaspora in her constituency, but Irish in Britain has a wonderful website where people can hover over every constituency in the UK and find out the number of Irish passport holders or those who identify as Irish. In my constituency of Bolton North East—next door to Salford and Eccles, give or take a constituency—there are roughly a thousand constituents with an Irish passport. One might not think that to be significant, but my majority is 378—that could make a big difference for me in the election, come November-time or later in the year. Obviously, I am not doing this for votes at the ballot box; that is not why we are here. Their contribution has been massive.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands mentioned the construction industry. There is a gentleman by the name of Dr John Kennedy who lives just outside Greater Manchester in Cheshire. He was born in Mayo.

When he told me this story, it felt a bit like “Angela’s Ashes”. He spoke about how he, one of his siblings and his mother travelled to the United States, but his sibling sadly passed away during that time of hardship. He said that when he returned to Mayo in the 1950s and 1960s, there were no jobs, so he had to make his way to London. When he got there, he had no skills but, on day one, he got up and said, “I’m going to work harder than every single person around me. I’m going to put my head down and make something of myself.”

He started off cleaning and, after a year or two, he set up his own cleaning company. It all snowballed, and he eventually ended up with a construction company that he sold around 20 years ago for roughly £100 million—give or take £20 million; I might be a bit off there, but it was a colossal sum. He was involved in the Good Friday/Belfast agreement in 1998, because his construction company produced a commemorative article for it. I pay testament to him and the hundreds of thousands of others who have contributed so much to British society. For full disclosure, I declare a financial interest: he gave me a couple of hundred pounds for my political campaign, either last year or the year before.

I thought it was interesting that the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) referred to the discrimination of the past. I was just reading through The Bolton News, which mentioned how, when a plague or disease of sorts hit the town of Bolton in the mid- 19th century, the Irish community were blamed for bringing it across. There was a lot of taboo and scare about the “other” at the time.

I came to my constituency to represent Bolton North East as MP in 2019, and I am very proud, as the Minister of State is, also to represent one of the largest Muslim communities—predominantly Gujarati Indian Muslims—of any Conservative MP in the country. To this day, nearly every time I go to my mosques in Bolton North East, they will tell me about how, when their fathers or grandfathers first came to this country, they felt a deep affinity with the Irish because they also suffered from those feelings of discrimination. During Ramadan, I pay tribute to that community in Bolton North East.

On UK-Ireland relations, a great point was made about how the Irish consulate in Manchester has opened up in the past three years and is serving the whole north of England. That is great to see, because the bilateral relationship between the United Kingdom and Ireland hit many bumps during the Brexit years. It was a very difficult time, and there was a huge decrease in trust between the two sides. We saw that a couple of years ago at a British-Irish Association event in Oxford, where there was a real asymmetry—this is a call more to colleagues on this side of the Irish sea—in the understanding of one another. In the Republic of Ireland, everyone is very well schooled in who is in our Cabinet and what our policies are, but it is sometimes felt that, on this side, we could be doing a lot more homework on what is one of the closest nations, peoples and cultures to the United Kingdom on this planet.

I finish on that and by again thanking all the Irish-lovers—whoever loves the Irish people across the whole United Kingdom. Have a wonderful St Patrick’s day, from someone originally from Ballymena, where obviously the great St Patrick spent many a year. We had an argument in the all-party parliamentary group on Ireland and the Irish in Britain, because I said that he spent more time in Ballymena than any other part. A Welsh colleague said, “No, he was in Wales longer,” and someone said that he was in Downpatrick longer. However, I can assure hon. Members that he spent most of his life in Slemish, looking over the sea.

[Andrew Rosindell]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mark Logan]

Not Romford! It could not possibly also be Romford.

[Andrew Rosindell]

My hon. Friend mentioned Wales. It was wonderful to see the flag of Wales flying from the flagpoles in New Palace Yard, and Westminster Abbey will fly the flag of St Patrick this weekend for St Patrick’s day. I hope that my hon. Friend will urge the Minister to ensure that Government buildings fly the cross of St Patrick to represent all Irish people, north and south, on the day of their patron saint on 17 March.

[Mark Logan]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I absolutely agree; what a great way to finish.