It is a Saturday afternoon at the London Irish Centre (LIC) in Camden, in UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s constituency. Strains of The Fields of Athenry fill the autumn air.
The Irish Pensioners Choir sings on stage as part of community day celebrations for the centre’s 70th birthday. Many in the room are a lot older than that – the Irish are among the most aged ethnic communities in Britain, twice as likely to be pensioners as the rest of the population, UK census data show.
Many older Irish were drawn to this part of north London when they moved to Britain decades ago. The LIC was a gathering point for many, a sanctuary for some. The Ireland they left could be a harsh place.
Now the centre is looking to the future with a near-£35 million (€40 million) redevelopment in the works.
RM Block
The other big Irish centre in London, the Irish Cultural Centre (ICC) in Hammersmith, has just celebrated its 30th anniversary and is planning to expand, too.
Between them, the two centres have clocked up a century serving the needs of the Irish in London. As older Irish emigrants now settle into their dotage and beyond, these hubs are trying also to meet the needs of a younger Irish influx, who, compared to those who came before, have arrived in London on their own terms.
As well as the Pensioners Choir at the LIC, there have been traditional Irish music and dancing as well as face-painting for children – the second and third generation Irish, children and grandchildren of the older ones. The youngest present is baby Finlay, two weeks old and fast asleep in his pram as his father Harry plays the fiddle onstage.
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One woman in particular is feted by LIC staff, including chief executive Séamus MacCormaic, at the back of the room on Saturday. She enjoys the music from her chair, wearing her best green jacket and a gleaming smile that would stop traffic. Sadie Molloy (93), originally from Loughgall, Co Armagh, has inadvertently become the belle of the ball.
MacCormaic says that she has been brought along to the LIC from her nursing home by her granddaughter. She hasn’t been at the centre in more than 40 years. For MacCormaic, her presence at the party embodies a poignant physical link to tougher times of the past.
“Oh, it’s been a lovely afternoon,” Molloy says of the party. Her voice is lower than it once must have been, but her eyes still sparkle at the revelry all around her.
Molloy’s story is typical of the older cohort. She moved to London, worked as a nurse, raised a family and eventually lost her husband. His mention is the only moment the smile leaves her face. But it returns.
“And that girl there, she lost her father, a Kerry man, 30 years ago,” she says, gesturing towards her granddaughter, Chloe Edwards.
London-born Edwards has a tribute to her father’s love tattooed on her forearm. It turns out she is not Molloy’s biological granddaughter. “My nan died 25 years ago and Sadie took us in as her extra grandchildren – treated us like her own,” she says.
Tom McAsey moved from his Wicklow home to London in 1961 to work as a carpenter. He is 82, but looks a decade younger. He has been closely involved with the Irish community for decades through the London-based Council of Irish Counties.
“I never lost my Irishness,” he says. “Good luck to the person who does well over here. But never forget where you came from.” LIC was his first stop when he arrived.
McAsey regularly travels home but not always for happy occasions, something the aged must deal with. “I’ve had seven deaths in the family in the last four years, including siblings and in-laws. But I was over two weeks ago for my sister’s 90th birthday, and that was fantastic – the first trip home I’ve enjoyed in four years,” he says.
The LIC is an events and meeting space for the Irish as well as a provider of outreach services, including education and welfare programmes.
It also runs services for survivors of Irish institutions such as mother-and-baby homes and industrial schools. It was to London that many traumatised victims fled after they left such places. Emigration provided an escape from Ireland, but not from their pain.
Dublin-born Katie Doyle manages the LIC’s survivors integrated service. A survivor herself, she was born into a dysfunctional background in Ballyfermot, Dublin, and aged four was taken into care with a younger sibling.
‘Survivors may have trauma, but many also came here and had success and thrived in life’
— Katie Doyle, London Irish Centre
Having spent most of her childhood in institutions, she came to London as a young adult to search for her sibling. After years in Denmark, she returned to London.
“For a long time we [survivors] were completely ignored. But now that the Irish [State] has made apologies – that really helped,” she says.
Her early memories of Dublin are of a place hostile to her.
“But that eased. Survivors who came here still have strong connections to home. They want to belong. That never dies in you. Also, they may have trauma, but many also came here and had success and thrived in life,” she says.
The LIC, owned by a charity, is on the cusp of a big rebuild of its crumbling site, which it owns. MacCormaic says it is part of a “reimagining” of the charity.
Construction is planned to end in mid-2028. The new build will include large meeting and performance spaces and an archive room. This will help “future-proof” its income and services, MacCormaic says. “It’s a big redevelopment, a big statement,” he says.
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He expects a contractor to be appointed by January or February, with construction scheduled to begin next summer. Of the near-€40 million required, MacCormaic says LIC already has about a third and is in talks for the rest with the Irish Government, donors and, potentially, the UK government.
“My personal ambition is for one-third to come from the Irish state,” he says. Future capital projects aside, the Irish Government through its emigrant support programme gave £6.6 million to Irish community groups in 2024/25, including £2.8 million in London.
Over in west London, the ICC in Hammersmith also gets some Irish state funding.
A busy performance space, the centre focuses heavily on cultural and heritage activities, including extensive programmes for older Irish emigrants.
Three days after the LIC’s 70th, the ICC hosts a community fashion show and bridal auction. “The whole effort is mind-blowing,” Carrick-on-Suir man Peter Power-Hynes, the chairman of the ICC, says.
The models include local Irish elders, as well as third-generation Irish teenagers from the Sacred Heart high school in Hammersmith, regular collaborators with the ICC on intergenerational projects – the young learning from the old, and vice versa.
Some designs at the fashion show came from the ICC’s knitting group, including an upcycled collection by Katia Mazzucato, one of the members. “It’s the best night of my life – I waited 58 years to model,” she says.
The teenagers also model dresses from Lara’s Fashion in Dublin, as well as bridal designs donated to the ICC for auction by Margaret Curran (80), who moved to London from Crumlin in Dublin 63 years ago as a dressmaker and ended up dressing superstar Jerry Hall.
As the fashion show ends, Power-Hynes eyes the ICC’s future. It recently struck a deal with a developer planning an adjacent block of student flats.
The ICC owns the freehold of its site. In return for ending a restrictive covenant in a lease that would have stymied the flats, the developer has agreed to build the Irish centre a 2,100sq ft library for free, incorporated into its existing site.
Like the LIC’s project, the ICC’s new library should be ready in 2028. As part of the agreement, it will get almost four decades of rent at peppercorn or low rates.
“It’s the deal of the century for us,” Power-Hynes says.
After 100 years between them, the two big Irish centres in London are planning many more.
Meanwhile, many older Irish emigrants are just happy the younger ones arriving today have it better than they did.
