Salon for the City is London's longest running cultural event. Every month we take a look at the City through a different lens with two amazing speakers in the historic location of London's only surviving 18th century Horse Hospital.
Doors 7pm
People from the island of Ireland have been living in, working in and contributing to the capital for centuries, making them the city’s oldest and, until the late nineteenth century, largest ‘foreign’ presence.
Join Irish historian Breda Corish on a journey through London from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, finding traces of Ireland and Irish culture in places, people and things along the way.
What did it mean to be “Irish” in London when Britain and Ireland's entangled politics were in constant flux? And how might class, religion, gender, ethnicity, and language have influenced how a ‘person out of Ireland’ experienced London life? Just as there is more than one way of being Irish today, there was more than one way of being Irish in London then.
Dr. Rosa Gilbert will delve into the history of the Irish in postwar London. Migration to Britain reached record numbers in the 1960s, and again in the 1980s when recession hit Ireland. The majority of emigrants in this period moved to London, with Kilburn dubbed Ireland’s 33rd county
Focusing on some of the lesser-known stories that emerged from sites like the London Irish Women’s Centre (Hackney) and Arlington House (Camden), Rosa will use oral testimony to give voice to the Irish women at the forefront of political and social change, and the Irish men who rebuilt London after the Blitz.
Breda Corish left Ireland in 1987 to embrace London life. After a long career in the scientific information industry, she changed course to become a public historian focused on the long history of Ireland in London. As an independent researcher, she provides perspectives on this often under-researched aspect of London’s history through talks, articles, and more. Visit www.IrishLondonHistory.com to find out more.
Rosa Gilbert is Policy and Research Manager for Irish in Britain. She undertook a heritage project in 2023 to mark the organisation’s 50th anniversary, recording the life stories of the Irish in Britain, creating an exhibition based on these oral histories and touring it around England and Ireland.