ULTAN COWLEY is collecting the untold stories of Irish emigrants to Britain
Ultan Cowley, acclaimed historian and author of The Men Who Built Britain — and someone who has been described as the world authority on the labourers who helped rebuild Britain from the mid-1940s onwards — is now working on a related project, a new book entitled: Taking the Boat: Irish Emigrants Tell It As It Was.
Cowley is now putting out an appeal for as many people as possible to get in touch with him with their memories and experiences, so that these can be preserved for posterity. In the appeal, he outlines his own experience: “Do you remember when you first took The Boat? I do – the year was 1961, and I was just fifteen. Today parents would be asked hard questions, as to how they could allow a child to do that, but back then it was nothing unusual.
“So while these memories remain, whether amongst first-generation emigrants or amongst their children, I want to gather them together in a book which puts them into their true contexts.
“Those contexts are the world from which they left – some willingly, others perhaps not so, and the one they made their way in afterwards. Often neither, it has to be said, treated them kindly but having lived through both I think I can understand how it was for them.
“I explored some aspects of this in earlier books, mostly about the Irish in British construction – The Men Who Built Britain, and McAlpine’s Men, but I strongly believe that much yet remains unsaid, especially by women.
“Not least of the things still unsaid is that, in the words of President Michael D. Higgins, modern Ireland prefers to hide, rather than to understand, the Irish who went to Britain. For some Boston, not Birmingham, was the only place that counted. Why was that?
“I welcome any recollections, reminiscences, reflections or family accounts about those lives and times which readers may wish to share, while there is yet time, with those to whom it still matters.”
If you would like to take part in the project call Ultan Cowley on (+353 (0)87 9060020), email [email protected], or write to The Potter’s Yard, Duncormick, Y35WC63, Co. Wexford.