I was showing my dad around my corner of east London, which is a largely Bangladeshi part of the capital city.
As we walked through the surrounding council estates, I thought I was bringing him around a place for which we had no reference, in a community we were not a part of.
I had felt as though my own generation was the first to live here. But then we turned a corner, and my dad pointed out a name on the side of a block: O’Leary Square. We laughed at the oddity of that familiar name, and kept walking.
We then started paying attention to the names: Wexford House, Donegal House, Sligo House, Mayo House. They were everywhere.
London’s deep Irishness reveals itself in the most unexpected places
Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Galway exit packages, and SMEs and AI
Irishman in Canada: We no longer cross the river to shop in Michigan because of Trump
The Irish emigrant journey now: Graduate from college, spend 10 years abroad, move home
I had only just moved to London, thinking I was a newcomer, but, as I walked that area, which I had assumed had nothing to do with my own history, I realised it had been built by a generation of Irish labourers who had since moved on elsewhere, or returned home, or faded into the fabric of British society.
They were gone, but their names remained, with a regularity that suggested it was more than coincidence.
I found out, on that same walk with my dad, that his father had, in fact, been raised around London by London-Irish parents, and he only returned to Ireland as a young man when he went to qualify as a doctor.
I once thought I was breaking the mould living abroad, as my family was Irish as far back as it could be traced.
But on my mother’s side too, we had a hand in building this city. Her father came over from Limerick in the 1950s to help dig out the Underground. He used the work to build himself up physically, because his goal was to return to Ireland strong enough to join the Garda. He then spent most of his working life in the force.
When my sister graduated from a London university, my grandfather returned to London, now no longer able to manage stairs without a handrail. The only thing he really wanted to do was ride the Tube, and the Victoria line specifically, since it was the one he worked on. He was usually a quiet man whose face rarely gave much away. But, as we boarded together, I watched his face brighten. I could see his pride at travelling through the very tunnel he had participated in digging out.
Around us, busy commuters had no idea they were sitting next to one of the men who had helped to build the line.
My grandmother came over with him a little later when my mother was a small child. She worked at the Plessey electronics company’s factory. She still laughs about being told to slow down at the work, since she was apparently putting all her British colleagues to shame.
This sense that London was already Irish before I arrived keeps asserting itself in unexpected places.
Earlier this year, I attended a march against the far right, and was struck by how many Irish flags rippled above the crowd. At most marches I have gone to since, there is reliably a tricolour woven into the throng.
The Irish seem to feel an ownership over British streets that other diaspora groups do not quite share. You would not expect to see a German flag at a French march, for instance.
At the march I spoke to Eddie Dempsey, general secretary of Britain’s powerful National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, whose parents are both Irish. He told me that two generations of his family had preceded him in that union, and that the Irish in Britain had always been the backbone of the trade union movement.
This Irish London I keep happening upon is not a fossil record, but a community that renews itself with every generation that comes over and takes its turn contributing here.
The city we arrive in today is one the Irish have helped to make – from the grandparents who dug the tunnels, who worked the factory floors and built the estates, to the trade unionists who marched for our rights.
As I make my way through my London life, the contribution of the Irish who have gone before makes me feel this city belongs as much to the Irish as to anyone else.
Hugo Harvey is a writer and presenter from Cork who has lived across France and the UK. He has interviewed figures like Jeremy Corbyn, Zack Polanski and Joy Crookes for his own social media. In 2026, he won the Young Journalist Award from the Orwell Society and National Union of Journalists.
- Are you Irish and living in another country? Would you like to share your experience in writing or by interview? You can use the form below, or email abroad@irishtimes.com. Irish Times Abroad submission guidelines here.
- Follow us on Instagram to keep up with the latest
- Sign up to The Irish Times Abroad newsletter for Irish-connected people around the world.
