As King Charles followed the queen’s casket on its slow procession through the streets of Edinburgh, the Monday afternoon regulars began to trickle into the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith. Those distinct worlds collided on a memorable day last March.
The bright, modern building, just around the corner from the Underground, has been a beacon for Irish culture for 25 years and the invitation was issued to then Prince and Duchess more in hope than expectation. But the timing was serendipitous. The acceptance via Clarence House was prompt: the visit suited as a prelude to their official tour in Ireland. A short film made by staff captures the Irish genius for loosening even the strictures of royal protocols.
“Nothing went wrong,” laughs William Foote, the director of the centre.
“They had a great time.”
[ Irish in London meet royalty: ‘They were all right. They’re the same as us’Opens in new window ]
They appeared to. Charles and Camilla were persuaded to try out the bodhrán as they listened to a terrific group of local musicians. The then-prince took little persuasion to try his hand at pouring a stout from the bar. He sang, in chorus, a few bars of the Mountains of Mourne. They met the knitting group. The scheduled visit was for 45 minutes. They stayed twice as long. It’s less easy to imagine Charles tugging gamely on a Guinness pump now that he is king.
Paddy Hartnett wandered into the same bar area at lunchtime on Monday. He sometimes travels down to Hammersmith for the afternoon tea dances but complained, unconvincingly, that his legs are not what they used to be. He is 83 and speaks still in a Cork accent that is clear as spring water. He has lived in London since 1959. For most of that time, he worked as a minicab driver. “Until they took my insurance away,” he explained.
Naturally, he is more intimately acquainted with London’s thoroughfares and shortcuts than any of the occupants of Buckingham Palace and he retains a cartographer’s memory of the vanished enclaves of Irish London and the few outposts that still remain. He has lived in sheltered accommodation since 2005, in a place off Willesden Lane.
“But I am there too long and most of the old boys I knew are all dead,” he said evenly.
“So I’ll have to go to the one of the organisations in Kilburn or Camden. There is a place in Cricklewood, Ashton Place. Have you been there? You might look into it... you get a lovely lunch for a fiver between one and two. Soup, dessert, cup of tea. You could find out who is in charge of it — I think it is all done from Camden Town.”
The London Irish Centre, located in Camden town, is a long-established resource for the thinning numbers of 1950s and 1960s emigrants whose vitality transformed certain enclaves of the city into make believe versions of the left-behind country. But the Irish thoroughfares have vanished over the last 30 years. The city roars on remorselessly. So where is the Irish London story now?
“Well, I think Irish London is in a very interesting place,” says William Foote.
“I think we are seeing, especially since Brexit, more of the diaspora in second and third generation coming to us to discover Irish roots and culture and to feel more connected. But people moving over from Ireland... a lot of them don’t come here [to the Irish Cultural Centre]. They are standoffish in that there is that thing of you move to London to be involved with the city.
“What we find is a lot of people come in and think we are like the Galtymore from the 1970s. We are an arts and culture centre and we are modern in outlook. And that is the grey area we are experiencing and trying to break through. People ring up and ask how to join the club. And it is not an ‘Irish club’ in that sense. This is here 28 years and we have always been open-door. Come in and learn about history and heritage.”
Foote, who grew up in Bangor, sensed that day in the royals a genuine interest in the Irish experience. It’s odd for him to this week see the couple suddenly at the centre of a mass mobilisation of the trappings and pomp of imperial ceremony.
“I’m sort of in the middle in that I recognise the state figureheads and the role they play,” he says.
“It has been a weird week because some of the procession stuff you watch on television is quite amazing. I do think the queen was a great person as a force of nature. But then I’m also aware of the history.”
The Irish centre balances an ambitious arts programme with diversions — and endless cups of tea — aimed at the older diaspora. The atmosphere is easy-going and welcoming. Paddy Hartnett navigates London by bus these days. It’s a bit of a trek across the city. As far as he is concerned the big death last week was of Paddy Minogue, the accordion player from Kilburn. He laughs when asked if Minogue was a friend of his.
“Paddy was a friend of everybody. But he was a good age.”
Hartnett has borne witness to the decimation of the small army of Irish workers who made the best of London in limited times. He is among their last. It was news to him that the new king of England had stood just behind the bar counter a few months back. “Were they?” he asked, looking across at the bar. “I didn’t know. I never had any interest,” he admits with a broad smile before heading back into his city.
