When half of Cov’s Irish population headed “home” for their holidays
August 12, 2023
Learn more about the history of Irish emigrant holidays from John Feury.
My paternal Grandmother, dated c. 1950/60's
With temptations like Cheltenham, Glastonbury and, closer to home, the Galway Races and All Tomorrow’s Parties studding the calendar, Irish people nowadays have no end of choices via which to recharge their batteries.
The holiday options facing the huge diaspora of ‘poor paddies’ who left Ireland to seek their fortunes in the Luftwaffe-ravaged industrial heartlands of post-WW2 England was somewhat sparser. They could either like their home city’s one-size-fits-all two-week holiday fortnight or lump it.
Like thousands of other Irish emigrants of that era, my Mum and Dad settled on Coventry as the repository for their future dreams. A once-beautiful medieval city rich with half-timbered buildings (a few of them still standing) Cov was, like Hull, Liverpool and Dresden, amongst the most heavily bombed cities of WW2. Killing 568 people and obliterating 4,300 homes, the November 1940 blitz here proved so devastating, a new word “coventrated” (literally “to bomb flat”) was coined.
While the dates of local workers’ 14-day annual escapes from their toils were carved in stone, the city’s employers’ setting of dates was rather more fluid. So one Friday July or August from the mid-50s onwards, my Mum, Dad, sister Mary and I would man-, woman- and child-handle heavy suitcases to Coventry Station for the ‘boat train’ to Holyhead.
When the youthful me finally become alert to my surroundings on these trips, the penny finally dropped that, far from effortlessly navigating both land and water, such trains were simply moribund pre-war rolling stock. Nostril-deep with noxious, tar-laden cigarette smoke, their corridors and passenger compartments should have been slapped with government health warnings. Murder British Rail trains back then might have been, the Orient Express they most certainly were not.
Rail services on what my Mum called “our” side of the Irish Sea were much, much cleaner, comfier and less crowded – they still are all these years later. Alarmingly, despite CIE having whisked us painlessly to the homes of my first set of Irish aunties and uncles, an even more dramatic discovery lay in wait. Brought up to believe my parents never walked to school in less than sub-arctic conditions, I twigged that Ireland’s climate was exactly the same as that in grey, rainy England.
Happily, coming “home” (another of my Mum’s words) was not without its compensations. An endless parade of plates laden down with Kimberly biscuits accompanied by bottle-after-bottle of diabetes-inducing fizzy minerals at every home you were welcomed into was one. Elderly relatives’ habit of discreetly squeezing silver coins and, if you were very, very lucky, a crumpled ten-bob note into your tiny sugar-sticky mitts was another. And while your folks relentlessly drummed it into your young brain that you were always to decline such offerings, those pesky old timers just wouldn’t take no for an answer.
The first of our two precious weeks were spent with Mum’s family at Corramore near Athlone’s Hodson Bay Hotel. With just one cousin of my age to play with and only an endless expanse of fields to play in, my time there was tedium incarnate. Marking off the days like a death row inmate, I couldn’t wait until taximan Fred Flanagan’s ginormous Ford Zephyr came to take us to my Uncle Jimmy’s farm at Mount Plunkett about 10 miles outside Roscommon.
While kids nowadays would be horrified if asked to stay somewhere lacking satellite TV or WiFi, my Dad’s boyhood home was devoid of not only electricity, but also a bathroom, toilet and running water. Its total absence of such creature comforts merely made me love it all the more. Further adding to Mount Plunkett’s allure was my Uncle’s dog, Brownie, an amazing Irish Water Spaniel who was to be this boy’s best friend throughout every one of those magical childhood summers.
Irish food was a hit and miss affair. Days usually began with a breakfast of succulent eels. Freshly caught in the Shannon by Jimmy and his fellow fisherman, Paddy Kelly, their flesh was then grilled to perfection over a turf fire by my grandmother. Lunch/Dinner invariably consisted of boiled bacon, cabbage and spuds – an unholy trinity of tastes I still find hard to swallow all these years later.
Suitably fed and watered, Brownie and I would spend hours exploring the banks of the Shannon before dropping into various neighbours for a mid-afternoon top-up of Roscommon’s dentally detrimental double whammy. In those days, Mount Plunkett was home to an extraordinary array of eccentric one-offs whose homes your folks would be happy for you to visit without worrying whether you’d be found chained up in a cellar several months or years later.
When the time came for Dad and Mum to return to work, they practically had to drag me kicking and screaming aboard the train to Dublin, Dun Laoghaire and the dreaded boat home. Many times, we brought packs of Kimberley biscuits back to Coventry with us. While apparently identical to the brown and white feasts that fuelled so many of my and Brownie’s adventures, those shop-bought Kimbos somehow never did taste anywhere near as sweet.
John Fuery
Meet new people, connect with other individuals and organisations in the community, or host your own exhibition stand! Join us on Wednesday 4 June 2025 from 3.00 – 6.00 pm. This is a drop-in event; feel free to stay for three hours or just pop-in for ten minutes any time between 3.00 – 6.00 pm. Location: Coventry Irish Society, 2nd Floor, Eaton House, 1 Eaton Road, Coventry CV1 2FJ Entry: All welcome! - No admission fee If you are interested, please book a free stand in advance by emailing caroline.brogan@covirishsoc.org.uk or by speaking to a member of staff in the office. For anyone wishing to have an exhibition stand, please arrive by 2.30 pm to set-up.
There are over 13,000 survivors of Ireland’s mother & baby homes living in Britain. “Philomena’s Law” seeks to remove a barrier to many survivors seeking the redress that they are entitled to by protecting redress scheme payments from being calculated within means-tested benefits & social care arrangements. Our Midlands Irish Survivors Service supports former residents of institutional abuse in Ireland. As part of this work, we are involved with Philomena’s Law, which will hopefully be passed in the coming months. Many of you may be familiar with Philomena Lee, who this law is named after. The story of Philomena’s search for her son Anthony (who she gave birth to in a Mother and Baby Home in County Tipperary) was the basis of the Oscar-nominated film Philomena, which stars Judi Dench and Steve Coogan. Labour MP Liam Conlon has introduced this draft legislation in the House of Commons in an effort to get a fairer deal for Survivors of institutions. The current redress scheme for Survivors enables former residents to receive financial compensation from the Irish government for the time they spent in Mother and Baby Homes. As it stands, any Survivor who is receiving means-tested benefits when they receive a compensation payment from the scheme is in danger of losing these benefits. This has a huge impact on Survivors who are yet again being denied the justice and kindness they deserve. If this legislation is passed, it will stop these benefits from being affected, and some cases, ceased altogether. Getting this law passed would change the lives of so many. As a charity, we are aware of many Survivors who have prolonged accepting the redress payment, or who have simply felt unable to accept it at all due to a fear of being penalised for using these funds. We have been working with Liam Conlon, and with other organisations supporting Survivors to try to raise awareness and to promote support for this law, so that it has the best possible chance of being implemented. The most effective and important way to support this law is to write to your local MP and ask them to publicly back Philomena’s Law. We would urge you to use the below email addresses to contact your local MP in Coventry: Zarah Sultana, Labour MP for Coventry South: zarah.sultana.mp@parliament.uk Mary Creagh, Labour MP for Coventry East: mary@marycreagh.co.uk Taiwo Owatemi, Labour MP for Coventry North West: taiwo.owatemi.mp@parliament.uk To get the best chance of your MP seeing your email, you should add ‘Constitutent Request’ in the subject of this email. We hope you will lend us the support we need to get justice for Irish Survivors. If you have any questions, do get in touch with Manisha O’Malley (Survivors Co-ordinator) at manisha.omalley@covirishsoc.org.uk or call us on 02476256629. You can follow the link below to download a free letter template, which you can send to your local MP in support of Philomena's Law.
Mental Health Support Worker (Post is for a one year contract - further funding might be available after one year subject to additional grant aid). Salary: £10,000 per year – 15 hours per-week 10-4pm Monday, Wednesday and Thursday (excluding lunch). Location: Eaton House, 1, Eaton Road Near Coventry City Centre. Established in 1993, Coventry Irish Society (CIS) is a Charity providing a wide range of community health and support services to the Irish community in Coventry. The Coventry Irish Society requires a Mental Health Support Worker to set up, organise and run a half day per-week Dementia Support Group and a half day per- week Walking Group for the local Irish Community. The role includes working with Carers and increasing mental health awareness to support the local Irish community. The charity predominantly supports older Irish but also supports Second and Third Generation Irish, Irish Survivors and Irish Travellers. . Please email your up to date CV with a cover letter clearly detailing your relevant experience in line with requirements of the role. A CV without an accompanying cover letter will not be accepted. simon.mccarthy@covirishsoc.org.uk or email Simon for further information. Actively interviewing. We reserve the right to close this vacancy early. We are obliged to ask all successful applicants to complete a DBS Disclosure form
