EPIC: The Irish Emigration Museum, Custom House Quay (www.epicchq.com)
By Donal Fallon
Forty-eight hours before visiting this exhibition exploring the experience of Irish migrants in Britain, I had been sitting in a room in Hackney interviewing Spider Stacy and James Fearnley of the Pogues. Marking the 40th anniversary of the Pogues’ début album, Red Roses For Me, the experience of the inaugural Féile MOTH in Hackney proved to me that Irish London remains, albeit a smaller and aging community, supplemented by a younger generation who have made the move in recent years, more often artists or tech workers than McAlpine’s Fusiliers.
This exhibition in EPIC marks the homecoming of an exhibition that has toured the United Kingdom, visiting many cities with strong historic connections to Irish migration, such as Manchester and Leeds. In Dublin it finds a natural home in a historical setting that seeks to explore not only well-known Irish exports but also the broader stories of a people in exile.
At home in the CHQ (Custom House Quay) building, EPIC exists in what were the vaults of an industrial building formerly known as Stack A. The sense of darkness as one enters the museum space lends itself well to the nature of the historical exhibitions, which rely first and foremost on audiovisual displays. EPIC is flash and as modern as a museum setting can be. Physical artefacts are rare, but the use of archival audio and video throughout reminds us that there are other kinds of collections that explore the past. Moving through the labyrinth of cellars, a room hosts temporary exhibitions, which are connected to the theme of the Irish Diaspora.
The subtitle of the exhibition, ‘Fifty Years of the Irish in Britain’, may confuse some who step into this space having just learned of the Irish contributions to places as diverse as Buenos Aires and Barbados, and the centuries of movement from the island of Ireland. The starting-point of this exhibition is the foundation of ‘Irish in Britain’, a charity and community group which emerged from the Federation of Irish Societies in 1973.
Training more than 50 volunteers in how to conduct oral history interviews, Irish in Britain set out to capture as many personal narratives as possible, ranging from labourers in the 1970s to young Irish artists living in Britain today. As we move around the space, we are invited to listen to snippets of these interviews on headsets. The diversity of these experiences is well captured in the placement of two interviews side by side. Born in Connemara, labourer Bartley Duggan spoke only Irish when he first arrived in London, finding it difficult to integrate into construction work there. Dame Elizbaeth Anionwu, born in Birmingham of Irish–Nigerian heritage, speaks of becoming the UK’s first sickle-cell nurse specialist, and of the importance of the Irish community to British health care more broadly. Amidst familiar names like Siobhán McSweeney, Adrian Dunbar and Aisling Bea, there are also contributions to the exhibition from some we meet only by a first name. ‘If it wasn’t for the Irish’, Peter from Arlington House hostel tells us, ‘there wouldn’t be any tunnels and not many roads either’.
In a museum with such emphasis on modern technology, there is something beautifully simple about this exhibition in places. Display cases line the centre of the room, containing artefacts like a historic fiddle, discovered in a partition wall during the refurbishment of the Brian Boru Irish Club in Wigan, the longest-running Irish social club in Britain. There are letters sent home by Irish migrants, and guidebooks like The problems of Irish youth in London, published in the 1970s. A traditional Irish dancing costume is displayed, while records from That Petrol Emotion and the Pogues demonstrate how popular music and politics met for some of the Irish living in Britain. Other items on display are newer still, like the ‘More Blacks, More Dogs, More Irish’ T-shirt launched in recent years by Richy O’Gorman and Taurayne McKen, an Irish–Jamaican couple in South London. For all the brilliance of cutting-edge technology, it’s nice to see a display case in EPIC.
On the subject of the ‘No Blacks, no Irish, no dogs’ slogan, a recent article in the Irish Times by Joe Humphreys raised interesting questions around just how common anti-Irish signage was in Britain, leading to a follow-up piece in which many readers shared their own recollections of encountering such things. Gerry McQuillan, working in a factory in Norwich in the early 1960s, told the paper that ‘after our shift we walked into town to the pubs for a beer and on the first occasion I was shocked to see notices outside the pubs reading “No Irish, No Blacks, and No Van Dwellers”’.
Archival footage from the BBC, RTÉ and the archives of Irish organisations in Britain lends a great soundscape to the exhibition, with voices ranging from Frank Murray (the Dubliner who became manager of the Pogues before the release of their 1985 album Rum, Sodomy and the Lash) to representatives of County Associations, who were such a visible component of every St Patrick’s Day in Britain.
In a relatively small space, this exhibition succeeds in touching on subjects as diverse as the importance of dancehall culture to Irish migrants, the Troops Out Movement and the impact of the Northern Irish conflict. While the exhibition itself is relatively small, great credit is due to EPIC for constructing an excellent programme of events that run concurrently with the exhibition, including a recent panel discussion on the theme of ‘Irish Nurses in the NHS’.
A walk through EPIC reveals the surprising Irish connections of people as diverse as pop singer Rihanna and the revolutionary Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. For tens of thousands of us, with relations in places like Salford and Birkenhead, this is a story much closer to home.
Donal Fallon is a historian and the presenter of the ‘Three Castles Burning’ podcast.