In 1986 I was out of work for nine months in Dublin with no hope. There was thousands of us leaving. I arrived in Finsbury Park in August 1986 and I got work the next day. I slept on a pal's sofa for four months before finding a bed. Once I had a few quid I didn’t look back. When you’re young you feel bullet proof and that nothing bad can happen, that’s how we were. It was tough and lonely sometimes for about a year but then I started to get more stable and had a steady job and a decent bed, and London became my new home. London was a lot of fun in Maggie's Britain of the 1980s and there was plenty of work. Eventually we all got married and had kids. Lived in Ireland for 22 years, and England for 39 years. London has changed a lot, not for the better in my opinion. We were lucky to land in the good times.

@greatest7391

3 ай бұрын

London in the 80's was great, Maggies Britain was good

Got here in January 89, broken marriage at home, didnt know anyone but had loads of advantages. 33 years old, good work ethic, didnt drink or smoke and could drive and maintain anything that was put in front of me. A busy time here in London and not enough skilled operators. I took full advantage of it and managed to pay of the mortgage on the house at home in 10 months. Im 33 years here now still driving cranes, got my own gaf and a few pound behind me. Still in good health and doing good. Sorry I didnt leave ireland a lot sooner, I'd have had a great life.

@salubrious

2 жыл бұрын

Fair fucks, if you don't mind my language.

@adriangeraghty6626

Жыл бұрын

Shamus were the English people nice to the Irish workers. In all the videos iv watched nobody really spoke about this . Well done to you for making a good go of it . Good luck. Adrian

@thecultofjohnnydelr.soulsw7010

8 ай бұрын

Still no better than anyone else.

@patrickwalsh6873

8 ай бұрын

@@adriangeraghty6626 They were, in my experience. An English foreman on the sites was fairer than an Irish man. Plenty others thought so too.

@liamkeane9159

7 ай бұрын

Did u come across Keane's demolition

Landed in London 1986. Old school friends put me up for 3 months in Acton, worked in construction. All these stories so familiar. Went to Birmingham and been here since. I have had some great experiences and some bad ones

Great this was documented in film. So many Irish who travelled over before this generation their stories are lost in time.

I arrived in london in 1989 aged 17 from meath. I took a bus from dublin to Victoria station. I had never wittnesd so many people rushing around in all directions. I stayed in woodgreen. I had no qualifications. Over the years i delivered pizzas. Did security. Was a white van man. Then my russian friend noticed i was quite mechanically minded and he got me a job doing building services maintenance. My wage was about 400 a week. I was loaded. Then my Russian mate got me another job maintaining tube trains in the northern line. 1100 a week. I hit the jackpot. I moved jobs quite often over the years. London has lots of opportunities but sometimes it's not what you know but who you know. London gave me the money to allow me to travel the world being that flights are nuch cheaper than flying from other airports. Todays london is a different place. Iv seen 1 room in a shared house in north london go for 300 a week. There are too many people on benefits sitting about all day in accommodation that the workforce need. Prices are rising by the minute. A single person needs to take home 1000 a week in london to make it worth it. And out of that if you cant save 400 there is no point.

87 to,97...not an easy start, but went to College and things went really well after that. Worked for some excellent companies, if you were prepared to work, great opportunities back then. However, Ireland and family is where the heart was..made my money and came home. Things had picked up, and with my experience from London, I could pick and choose my jobs, and pay..not bad for a girl from a cottage...oh...and the craic was truly brilliant there...great times

I'm living in Ireland 20 years, and that's the first time I've heard Don't forget your shovel all the way through.

@Packyboy

2 жыл бұрын

On your way through.☘️👍

RIP Cathal Coughlan

This is a find so brilliant it reaffirms the reasons why, but for all the trouble it may cause, decades on the internet is still flippin' fantastic! This film is so dead on EXACTLY what I was looking for, I nearly struggle to believe it. Great massive mounds of thanks for sharing it.

@johncooney9332

3 жыл бұрын

It captures the mood and the atmosphere brilliantly. It was a rite of passage for many young Irish people. It certainly could 'knock the Irishness out of you' but never totally.

@dannypower1319

2 жыл бұрын

Tell me more .trying to picture the picture

It was exactly what I thought about it in the 80s, I could not find a job that could pay for a room, had to share with 6 in hotel, met some incredible friends there though, lost broke but who cares, heard people with some trades saying they were better off labouring. I. R. A. Bombs and all that, most of the original English were OK, some of them bitter, not surprised. Irish people were absolutely everywhere. I am older now, even drinking a whole pint of water makes me sick now. How can Irish people maintain thier mental health drinking even a fraction of what they drank. It's was a mad destructive culture. Irish people these days are different I think.

@mikewatte4478

2 жыл бұрын

Nope We still drinking

@MattPearman-qr4sq

8 ай бұрын

Speak for yourself 😂😂

Brilliant, atmospheric film. How empty London looks compared to today.

The man in the Merc is my Uncle, William Toland, great to see this video... Thanks for sharing

@FlemingDublin

4 жыл бұрын

Wow. The details of that day and the building site are a bit blurred in my mind by time but that's great he's your uncle. If I recall correctly, it is also his voice saying "You forget your change" to the lads at the bar at 23 mins 2 secs, for he poured the pint. And what a fine car!

@johnmurphy4601

4 жыл бұрын

Where is he now , did he come back to Ireland or is he still in London

@jessiejoemurkin659

3 жыл бұрын

What part is he from

@carolineainenibhreithimh7652

3 жыл бұрын

@@johnmurphy4601 he passed away 20 years ago sadly

@carolineainenibhreithimh7652

3 жыл бұрын

He moved home with his kids x

Thanks John.

.IFound myself in London in the 80s,looking back all the lazy gits ran home.But if u were willing 2 work u got on fine. London was my ground zero 4 travelling

@patglennon9671

2 жыл бұрын

Where did you travel to ?

@robcallaghan738

2 жыл бұрын

It was a playground and if ya wanted to stop playing there was a future in it!! But try putting a 45 year old head on a 22 year old!!! Ha ha we did exactly what we were meant to do at 22 !! Still go back but my o my it’s changed awful compared to the happy go lucky conversations with people 1990s !!

Lots of irish made fortunes in UK and sadly thousands drank themselves into and early grave

@keh.32

5 ай бұрын

And what's the difference?

Wouldn’t it be interesting to do a follow up film on these individuals.

Inredible film.. Thank you so much for sharing

@FlemingDublin

4 жыл бұрын

Thanks Emmet. It has aged into a strange old time piece...

@jimcoleman6095

3 жыл бұрын

Capture that time.brutal grim

Great piece of film. I know a few of those good Buncrana heads! Eve Roe

I went over to London in January 1989 aged 17, worked on the building sites £25 a day and one job paid £30 a day - 7 days work and £210 pay I felt like a millionaire compared to what my buddies back home were earning stacking beans in Quinnsworth…..but I missed home and I’m glad I came home. Great video.

@salubrious

2 жыл бұрын

Actually the hourly wage working as a labourer around that time in London wasn't much higher really than what you'd get in Dunnes or Quinnsworth. The difference was the hours: nobody talked about zero hour contracts back in the late 80s but that's essentially what you had working in D. or Q. As a part-timer you'd be lucky to get anything over 10 hours a week. Working on the sites in London as you talk about you could work 7 days a week, 10/12 hours days so I definitely hear you about feeling like a millionaire! Still though, we worked for it.

@roadwarrior8560

Жыл бұрын

You were on bad money, I was making a 100 day that time shuttering, shift and a half on Sat and Sundays, it would still be good money today even. Never understood the fellas living in squats, we had a nice house rented between 4 of us, good craic but the English were racist towards us but we didn't care, took all the money we could of them, we didn't like them either, moved on to America and loved it there, London was really a dump compared to the States.

@Oscartherescuedog

Жыл бұрын

@@roadwarrior8560 I forgot to say I was a labourer, unskilled - that was great money for a Labourer compared to what I’d have been on at home (for 17 year old me it felt great anyways!) 👍🏻

@simonyip5978

Жыл бұрын

​@@roadwarrior8560 do you think that the IRA and the Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 70's to the 90's had a lot to do with the attitude of the English towards the Irish?

@greatest7391

10 ай бұрын

@@simonyip5978 Very much so and hard to blame them.

My uncles William Toland. Very proud he made it on this footage xo

@johnjudge6601

3 жыл бұрын

And you are my sister 😁

@carolineainenibhreithimh7652

3 жыл бұрын

@@johnjudge6601 would of never knowen 🤣💜

"It will become very inhospitable" it certainly did, I lived 15 years in London, I left already, although I miss it, the quality of life is truly shite

@Packyboy

2 жыл бұрын

I lived in London for over 25 years. It’s never the place it’s always the people” long live the London Irish”.👍☘️🕺

@hernan5940

2 жыл бұрын

@@Packyboy So, are you taking the blame?

@Packyboy

2 жыл бұрын

@@hernan5940 if that makes you feel better.

@hernan5940

2 жыл бұрын

@@Packyboy haha, if it's never the place and you still live there....

In the 19th century, the biggest immigrant community in the UK was Irish. In London, it wouldn't surprise me if the majority of the white English population has some Irish ancestry (or if not the majority, a large minority will have an Irish grandparent or great grandparent or great great grandparent, at least).

good doc

If you can't make it in London you won't make it anywhere else. Those who want to go home should never have left the farm.

Do you know i came to London in the 1970s but now in 2016 it's makes so sad to walk around the old places in use to go to Hammersmith!! shepherds bush!! kilburn!! & cricklewood!! But i find that they only Irish area left in London is Hanwell in west London it's still got a good few Irish pubs there. And you can have the craci Plus a good pint of Guinness to boot Slán

@MrFootballfu

3 жыл бұрын

I came in 82, same thing, everything is gone now, its mind blowing to walk around the old places and see them gone and everybody gone.

Time to emigrate again

14:44 Cathal Coughlan of Microdisney (band from Cork)

@ambientfairchild

2 жыл бұрын

He just died yesterday sadly

Would be interesting to find out what the participants are doing now

@LiamPorterFilms

3 жыл бұрын

Moaning about England? Just a hunch.

@johnmccarron3479

3 жыл бұрын

@@LiamPorterFilms Clown.

I spent 28 years in London. Great fucking base to earn lots of fast cash and head to the airports

man how london has changed...30 years on you got the children of these Cockenys talking like Jamaicans and prolly some of the irish in this film/their children are saying there's too many albanians and Muslims lol....funny old world

@irishboer7124

8 жыл бұрын

+QUEENSNYCKID The "Irish" are indigenous to these islands.We were here 9000 years before the sausage boats came over from Saxony.

@morganolfursson2560

6 жыл бұрын

Funny old human behaviour . First you take over a land then you complain about the new arrival . Look at the US .

@cambs0181

4 жыл бұрын

@@irishboer7124 Saxony is in the South East of Germany, Saxons came from the North West, along with Jutes, angles, Danes etc. Common misconception.

@AmyAmy-sb6yl

4 жыл бұрын

SBakerNYC

@Blinan68

3 жыл бұрын

"the Black's stick together, the Irish stick together, the whites stick together"... 🤔🤗

1980s craic epidemic....

The car reg QPR

.

I don't know how this came onto my YT feed, but - the last voice, as soon as I heard it I thought that's Eamonn Igoe ! And there he is in the credits ! 'Igoe from Sligo' - if you ever read this, I knew you in Oxford, around '95 ish. Hope you're keeping well ! All the best !

What year ?

@Ste2023

8 ай бұрын

2001 before 9/11 shit . Rotten corrupt city. Biggest money laundering city on earth

@FlemingDublin

8 ай бұрын

Dec 1987

Ireland is still very backward place 2023 compared to UK an Europe, shitty infrastructure, no metro, most young people still want out of it.

Can u still make money in the sites in London, are the Irish community gone from North London

We only wear one jacket at a time these days.