It was just past noon at the Leeds Irish Centre and the lunch tables were full, the bar was open and the first waltzing couples were on the floor. This was the Tuesday Club, which draws in 200 people every week, most of them elderly and either first- or second-generation Irish.
The Irish community in Leeds, which numbered more than 30,000 less than half a century ago, is much reduced, with perhaps as few as 8,000 people born in Ireland now living in the city. Most emigrants came from the western seaboard, particularly from Mayo and Donegal, a fact reflected at the Irish Centre in the stack of copies of the Western People and the name of the Tir Connaill bar.
Minister for Jobs and Innovation Mary Mitchell O’Connor was visiting the Tuesday Club to urge the Irish community in Leeds to think about their origins when the vote in the EU referendum on June 23.
“I’d ask you, I guess, to remember Ireland, maybe put on the green jersey on the day. We know that as a community you’ve worked really hard. You’ve built the roads, the rail, the cities. You’ve nursed the sick. The Irish people have educated the children and we know the value of hardworking immigrant communities that are often the lifeblood of the economy. But we would ask you to remember Ireland when you go to vote on referendum day,” she said.
While the Minister spoke about the 200,000 jobs in Ireland that depend on trade with Britain, we munched our way through a salad of cooked ham, hard-boiled egg, tomato and new potatoes, washed down with mugs of tea. I was sitting with Betty, Bernadette, Bernice and Margaret and their view of the referendum was mixed.
“I definitely was voting to stay in but now I’m not sure. I think it might be out,” Betty said.
Bernadette was, like Betty, second-generation Irish and she was in no doubt about the outcome she was hoping for.
“I’m voting to leave. There’s no jobs for British people. All the immigrants are coming in and they’re getting houses and the people on the streets, the homeless people, they just forget about them,” she said.
Margaret and Bernice were both voting to remain in the EU and Margaret was sceptical about the Leave campaign's promise that life in Britain would be transformed for the better after Brexit.
“If we come out, it’s going to take an awful long time for it to get going. It won’t be the next day, where everything will be wonderful. It won’t affect me too much but I’m going to vote to stay,” she said.
All of the women were sympathetic to the difficulties Ireland might face if Britain votes to leave and Bernice pointed out that, when they were young, people complained about the Irish taking all the jobs. Bernadette wasn’t having any of it.
“But when they came they weren’t getting what these people are getting. They’re getting the money straightaway. We paid our insurance stamp for years and years, that’s how we get our pension. But they get theirs straight away,” she said.
