Talk:Irish people in Great Britain

This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Ireland High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Ireland, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Ireland on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.IrelandWikipedia:WikiProject IrelandTemplate:WikiProject IrelandIreland articles High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. United Kingdom High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject United KingdomUnited Kingdom articles High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. ethnic groups, nationalities, and other cultural identities on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Ethnic groupsWikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groupsTemplate:WikiProject Ethnic groupsEthnic groups articles Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. WikiProject Ethnic groups open tasks: Here are some open WikiProject Ethnic groups tasks: Meta-tasks: Place the {{ Ethnic groups }} template on the talk page of articles within the scope of this project. Resolve the disparity in importance rankings among different ethnic groups Articles about ethnic groups that currently have issues needing resolution: Category:Unassessed Ethnic groups articles Category:Ethnic groups articles needing merge action Category:Ethnic groups articles needing infoboxes Category:Ethnic groups articles needing reassessment Category:Ethnic groups articles needing attention Iyer Peruvian people Start an article: Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups/Article requests Feel free to edit this list or discuss these tasks.

The fact that various Anglo-Saxon kings spent parts of their lives in Ireland is not uninteresting, but is it really pertinent to an article about Irish migration to Great Britain? Should Prince Charles be discussed in an article on Australian migration to Great Britain? This (along with several other parts of the article) feels like an exercise in trivia-gathering. Shiresman (talk) 00:45, 28 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"It does not seem to reflect the massive second and third generations of people of Irish descent in Britain"

Speaking as a fourth-generation Irish-Briton, yes, it doesn't. That's because the second and third generations pretty much assimilated, interbred and suchforth. Morwen - Talk 07:47, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed this whole section of the article due to POV and, as there are no sources for who might have suggested that people were "confused" by the question,

weasel words. Valiantis 00:28, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply

]

I deleted the (a Roman Catholic) beside Matt Busby I don't think it's relevent as I believe he was mostly of Lithuanian descent there may be some Irish, but I'm sure he's one of the Lithuanian community in Scotland famous sons. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Elitejcx (talk • contribs) 22:36, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Scotland part has a lot of POV banter in it, I'm going to slap on a POV template, sentences like:

with banners deemed to be imflammatory by some, and attended by a minority who are intent on tarnishing the good name of the organisation.

Looks like someone has copied a lot of this straight from the Orange Order website Superdude99 16:17, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've reworked the section to deal with most of the POV stuff, and pulled the NPOV tag. Various facts are flagged as requiring citation. Mtpt 19:49, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The article reads as hagiographic on the Irish, leaves out failure to reform Ireland to prevent famine, poverty, overpopulation, excessive family size, etc., driving immigration the england, and the role of Catholic colonization of Ireland and lack of protest of this by the Irish. The article excludes information about cities with high rates of Irish immigration, such as Birmingham and Manchester, being the places in england where Catholic and other ideology and behavior of Irish immigrants has reinforced poverty. This has been fictionally depicted in current times in the TV series

It also needs to be said, that the census figures have a big drawback - in as much as they only show where people where born, not what kind of people they are. In Wales the largest foreign-born group are those born in Germany. But only a minority are Germans - most of them are born to British service-men while stationed there. Or in the case some parts of London, most are Jews who with a British passport now would not class themselves as German. Agathoclea 14:12, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary; the

2001 Census allowed people to describe their ethnicity as Irish regardless of place of birth, so it shows "what kind of people they are", and not where they were born. Martin 02:57, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply

]

This is all rather confusing. In the article it says that 1.2% (England and Wales) classify themselves as Irish, but 1.4% are Irish born. Bill Tegner 09:16, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is an odd list. Is it supposed to be one of Irish people now in Britain? Or people who (claim to) have Irish ancestry? If the latter, it would go on for page after page, even if one were to include only "famous" people. Bill Tegner 14:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not too sure if Ralph Fiennes should be included. He did live in Ireland for a time, and briefly attended Newtown School in Waterford, but he lives in England and he's English by birth and parentage. Bill Tegner 09:23, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, I've removed his name on grounds of factual inaccuracy.Indisciplined 21:20, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Diana, Princess of Wales had Ango-Irish roots, though her grandfather, E.M. Burke Roche, Lord Fermoy. Burke and Roche are very Irish names and Fermoy is in County Cork.Millbanks 10:24, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Spike Milligan wouldnt be to happy with being a 'notable britan' no matter the purposes of this list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by mike82.45.205.254 (talk) 23:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

::I don't think any literate person would like to be called a 'notable britan'. Ausseagull (talk) 08:17, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's a very interesting article in today's Irish Times. It's by Brian Walker who holds the Chair of Irish Studies at Queen's University, Belfast. It comments on the 2001 census and its surprising results in the context of the Irish in Britain, and goes on to say that Jim Callaghan's father was not Irish as is commonly supposed (he changed his name when he joined the Navy, "to escape his family") but adds that John Major's grandmother was Irish. I won't delete J. Callaghan and his daughter Margaret Jay from the list (or not yet) because it might be contentious, but I'll keep the article to hand. Millbanks 22:33, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In yesterday's Irish Times there's an article by Rosemary Behan. She describes what she calls "a horrible exercise" when joining her local library in Newham, London. "I was forced to fill out a form to declare my ethnic origin. Being half-English, half Irish, this was particularly meaningless. The tickable boxes included "White English" or "White Irish".......Exasperated, I simply wrote, "I don't think of myself in these terms and left it at that"" Millbanks 08:06, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The 2006 census in the Republic of Ireland showed that 2.7% of the population had been born in the UK. That is a substantially higher percentage than the number of people in Britain born in Ireland. But the figure must be approached with caution. For example, 48% of the British born people in Ireland referred to themselves as Roman Catholic: a very much greater percentage than the number of Roman Catholics in Britain. This seems to indicate that a substantial number of British born people in Ireland are themselves of Irish extraction and moved to Ireland because of the improved economic climate. Millbanks 09:55, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From the article "There is little historical connection between Ireland and Wales. In 2001 there were 20,569 people in Wales (0.7% of the population) who had been born in Ireland."

Nonsense! Saint Patrick was Welsh for God sake! Irish pirates took many Welsh people as slaves so there was contact.

The Norman settlers in Ireland came from their Welsh baronies.

So although there may not be many Irish people living there now, there are plenty of historical connections. 213.162.125.117 (talk) 11:37, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You are quite correct. There was extensive Irish settlemeny in Wales in the Dark Ages; the ruling dynasty of Dyfed was of Irish origin and Ogham inscriptions are probably more common there than anywhere else outside Ireland. There was also extensive Irish immigration into Wales in the 19th century. The 0.7% figure simply reflects the fact that there was little Irish immigration into Wales in the 20th century. The statement "There is little historical connection between Ireland and Wales" is entirely wrong. Cantiorix (talk) 13:42, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I modified the piece on Liverpool slightly, since it contained some rather sweeping statements. Also, while the "Irish Catholic" roots of the Beatles were stressed, none of the Beatles were in fact brought up or educated as Roman Catholics (although Paul McCartney was baptised in that faith); indeed, John Lennon was brought up Anglican. Millbanks (talk) 22:57, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The figures on the page often refer to UK statistics, e.g. UK cities with largest Irish populations. This in theory will therefore include Belfast and Derry, which themselves are UK cities within Ireland. Should these statements be changed to British/Britain to therfore exclude Northern Ireland from inclusion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.4.46.135 (talk) 15:12, 3 October 2008 (UTC) May I also say that Liverpool have had a number of catholic players down the years. Ronnie Whelan being the fisrt it complete rubbish. Matt Busby, 1912 Bill Lacey from Wexford, Kevin Keegan, Ian Callaghan, Tommy Smith, Gerry Byrne to mention a few. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.86.35.161 (talk) 14:57, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of this just seems to be about sports and stuff like that. Also in the England part there is mention of sectarianism to do with Liverpool/Everton... this is so obscure that it doesn't really warrant a mention. Irish immigrants in England have intergrated almost entirely whether or not they come from a Catholic family. Everybody thinks of people like Kevin Keegan, John Lennon and Liam Gallagher as just English and British. The sectarianism idiocy is a strictly Scots Presbytarianism-v-Irish Catholic issue. - True as Blue (talk) 08:30, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First that is incredible wrong second it is not a scots presbytarianism v catholicism it is protestantism vs catholicism, why cant someone both be Irish and english? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.25.183.52 (talk) 16:19, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And write literate English too, perhaps? Ausseagull (talk) 08:19, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have taken a picture of a commemorative plaque in Manchester that states: Site of Little Ireland Large numbers of immigrant Irish workers lived here in appalling housing conditions Built c.1827 Vacated c.1847 Demolished c.1877

Is this of any use to this article, as it appears to be quite relevant? I am an amateur at this editing lark, so will have to be told how to upload it etc. 217.205.110.52 (talk) 15:19, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That would be great. The best thing to do would be to upload it to Wikimedia Commons at Commons:Upload and then to notify us here that you've done so so it can be added to the article. Cordless Larry (talk) 23:20, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What about British in Ireland, I'm quite sure its a bigger affect on the Irish population in terms of percentage, after all they had been a colony for Scotland and England for over 800 years, why is this one sided. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.154.4.2 (talk) 08:33, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article is about Irish migration to Great Britain, so including material on British migration to Ireland would be off-topic. A new British migration to Ireland article might be welcome though. Cordless Larry (talk) 08:38, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This article is absolutely atrocious when it comes to scoures. Hardly anything is cited leaving it wide open to possible original research amongst other things. This article needs a serious revamp otherwise some information may have to be deleted if it can't be backed up. Mabuska ^(talk) 12:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree. Sources should be found as soon as possible or else the article will need a severe trim. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:57, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It does include some great information, its just a pity almost all of it is unsourced. Mabuska ^(talk) 16:47, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"The British imperial class, long time purveyors of the tactic of 'divide and rule', looked on as ethno-religious conflict developed in the urban cities of England and Scotland." Not a totally unfair picture, but I think it might benefit from some sort of citation... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.90.96.241 (talk) 15:04, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Are you serious? You can surely find a more noble person of Irish blood. Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Oscar Wilde, Morrissey, Terry Wogan, even Jimmy Carr! The list could be quite extensive if one had the energy to look it up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.220.195.146 (talk) 04:31, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

George Harrison? I'm sure Harrison isn't just a name of Irish origin. Mabuska ^(talk) 00:12, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed all of the unsourced entries from the notable people section of the article, in light of this discussion. The deleted entries are listed below, as they appeared in the article, so as to facilitate their restoration if and when references can be found. Cordless Larry (talk) 23:18, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Deceased

You don't have to look hard for references to some of these. Wellington was born in Ireland, Spike Milligan had Irish citizenship, and Elvis Costello and Johnny Rotten's backgrounds are hardly a secret.--MacRusgail (talk) 17:15, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and Tony Blair's mother was from County Donegal. So I've added him.Poshseagull (talk) 09:37, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know why Montgomery appears in the list more than once. --194.74.0.10 (talk) 14:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Can we please rewrite this article so that it discusses Protestant migration as well, because they're Irish too...--MacRusgail (talk) 17:10, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can we have something to substantiate the claim that AVFC represents the Irish community? In my experience the Irish in Birmingham tend to support Birmingham City, as do most immigrant groups, while the English support AVFC.

Dudley25 (talk) 10:31, 20 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Most of the section on English football teams representing Irish support is rubbish. --194.74.0.10 (talk) 14:09, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The "Sports teams" section confuses Irish migrants with English people of Irish extraction, and religion with nationality. It appears to be the work of a keen football fan but it is almost entirely without merit. It does little more than list Irish players who have played for various prominent English football clubs. Again, this is not uninteresting, but it is unclear exactly what it is doing here. Many of the players listed were Irish migrants to Great Britain (although not all of them - Steve McManaman and Jamie Carragher were born, raised in and represented England), but the clubs themselves were not founded either by or for Irish migrants so there seems to be no point in focusing on them - they signed players of all nationalities purely on a commercial/meritocratic basis. There is no greater significance than that to the fact that both George Best and John O'Shea played for Manchester United, for example. Shiresman (talk) 01:01, 28 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The new montage contains 15 images. Of those, just four show migrants from Ireland to Britain. The remainder show the descendants of Irish migrants to Britain. At the very least, the caption should make this clear. My own view is that a more appropriate image would show only people who were themselves migrants from Ireland to Britain. Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:14, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Update: there are now 30 images. I've removed it so as to try and start a sensible discussion here. What encyclopedic value does such a gallery have? I would say, none at all. I don't know the precise proportion of the British population who have Irish ancestry but I would guess it to be very substantial. Such a gallery is meaningless. If we restricted the gallery to those who themselves migrated from Ireland to Britain, I could see some merit in it - but not an almost random collection of faces who have some Irish ancestry. Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:52, 6 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The infobox mirrors the one on

Irish American. I'm guessing that since there is no "Irish-British" term, or article, the editor decided that this article is the appropriate place to put such a gallery. However, the two articles are very different, so no, it is not appropriate. The Irish American infobox previously had a different format (which I prefer TBH), but it was changed with this edit by User:Jontts on 21 April 2014. Interestingly, User:Faisakeel first edited on 14 May this year while User:Jontts has only made two edits since that date. That may be only co-incidence. Anyway, those images do not belong in this article, so I'm reverting them again. Scolaire (talk) 13:32, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply

]

Why isn't this article titled Irish people in Great Britain? The whole category is inconsistent with some titled 'x in the United Kingdom' while others 'x migration to the United Kingdom'. What's the difference? Rob (talk | contribs) 14:46, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi User:Scolaire! I just wanted to clarify that I'm not sure if you were suggesting that I and User:Faisakeel would be same user (?), but I can assure that I have nothing to do with him. I only changed the images on the article about Irish Americans, since I changed many other Immigrant-American images as well (Norwegian-Americans and Finnish-Americans for instance). I have nothing to say about this article about Irish migration to Great Britain, since I don't know much about the history or facts about this issue. And I'm sure that some Irish-American, and not a Finn like myself, also has a better idea of what people to have on the Irish-American gallery, but I just tried to make it bit better. :) Oh, and btw I have only made two edits since I have mostly worked on Wikivoyage and Finnish Wikipedia. BR Jontts (talk) 11:10, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, Jontts. Thanks for clarifying. And sorry if I made it sound like a conspiracy theory. Scolaire (talk) 15:44, 19 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I just thought Id mention that there doesn't seem to be much about the Middlesbrough area within this article! Why would there be anything about Middlesbrough I hear people ask? Well apart from just simply having a significant amount of Irish migrants that settled in the area, Middlesbrough actually had the second highest percentage of Irish born people in England after Liverpool^[1][2]. This equated to 1 in 5 adult males being Irish born and 9.2% of the entire resident popluation^[3][4] of the Municipal Borough of Middlesbrough. Now Im not saying that there were more Irish people in total numbers than say London or wherever, but out the entire population of Middlesbrough during the latter half of the 19th century, Middlesbrough and its environs (Eston & Grangetown) was second in England only to Liverpool in terms of percentage of Irish born inhabitants. The 1871 census showed Liverpool to have 15.6% Irish born population with Middlesbrough having 9.2%. This in my belief has had a great affect on the way Middlesbrough grew and developed and I certainly believe that the high influx of Irish to Middlesbrough is the reason the accent is so similar to that of the scouse accent.^[5] (it is also worth noting that Middlesbrough, like Liverpool, had a high percentage of welsh born inhabitants during the same period to contibute to the similarities in accent). Acklamite (talk) 18:38, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello everyone! My name is Anna, I'm a student from a class of History of English Culture at Ca' Foscari University of Venice. As a part of my exam, I chose to try and help improve the "Early modern times" section. For the moment, I have these sources to work on:

- Tim Hitchcock & Robert Shoemaker, Tales from the Hanging Court, Hodder Education 2007

- The Old Bailey Online

Let me know if you have any suggestions or advice, I would really appreciate it, since I've never worked on Wikipedia before.

Annaannieann (talk) 08:45, 17 October 2015 (UTC)Annaannieann[reply]

-- well, your part of the article looks overall solid to me, so I am being quite picky now with this criticism. Maybe you could add more examples of real criminality in Irish community (I am assuming, also from what you wrote, some kind of ghetto context and crime for the Irish community of London)? Maybe something related to Catholic benefit of clergy (if any)? I guess you already did some research, and this stuff is quite hard to hunt down, but that is what I could come up with. Good luck with polishing your article.Franberg5 (talk) 22:46, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to one external link on

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090105205137/http://originsinfo.com.au/pdf/Sunday_Times_Scot_Barra_the_most_Scottish_place_060910.pdf to http://originsinfo.com.au/pdf/Sunday_Times_Scot_Barra_the_most_Scottish_place_060910.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

This message was posted before February 2018.

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers. —

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080501051546/http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=463 to http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=463

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018.

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 21:48, 14 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It might be informative and interesting if there were a section about people born in Ireland who lived in the UK that emigrated back to Ireland, or Britons of Irish descent that migrated to Ireland.

Given how politically and economically oppressed Ireland has been throughout the decades and centuries, it would be reassuring to hear about Irish people making a better life for themselves back home, even if they had to bring themselves up elsewhere first.

Wiscipidier (talk) 02:44, 21 July 2020 (UTC)Wiscipidier[reply]

I don't know who the editor(s) are who added a huge swathe of content to the "Football" section over the last few days, but the quality of the writing is really sub-standard and almost totally unsourced. Unless it's fixed in the next day or two, I'm going to delete the whole lot and restore the article to the way it was at New Year. – PeeJay 00:45, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]