As previous instalments in this series have conveyed, the Irish in Manchester especially, and the Irish in Britain generally, were responsive to the struggle for independence. But once the treaty was signed in London in December 1921, with subsequently Michael Collins going one way and Eamon de Valera going the other, the Irish in Britain opted out.

STRUGGLE
Over the long difficult years, they could identify with Ireland in its struggle against Britain. But the Civil War in Ireland (even though Britain was backing the Free State) was something else.

SACRIFICES
Anyway, the Irish in Britain had suffered enough. Their stand and their sacrifices from the 1860s to 1921 had been made in the coldest of climates - 'enemy territory'.

So it was that the Treaty, for better or worse, brought forth a great sigh of relief. It was now up to those at home to sort things out.

BACK DOOR

"We came in through the back door and we never demanded anything" was how one senior member of Manchester’s Irish community put it to me. They never demanded anything from Ireland or from Britain. But when needs be they served.
 

So it has been that the Irish in Manchester, as elsewhere in Britain, have down the generations shrugged off instances of anti-Irish prejudice and discrimination. Survival and social progress for their children became the priority. For this, they depended on hard work and self help.

THRIVING
Catholic churches were the focal point for the Irish community. In Manchester, the parishes of the inner city had overwhelmingly Irish congregations. As in the 19th century, the Irish in Manchester in this century derived much from the Church. But there was also a negative element. There was a reluctance to recognise the Irish contribution - to admit that thriving and ever-growing Catholicism in Britain owed everything to the Irish influx. So it was that the Church acted as an agent of assimilation.

I recently spoke to some older members of Manchester's Irish community who were raised in parishes like St Patrick's in Livesey Street, St Wilfred's in Hulme and the Holy Name in Oxford Road. They recall that they were given little encouragement to develop a sense of Irish identity. The contrary, in fact. One elderly lady remembers how she used to help her mother decorate a statue of St Patrick for each March 17. She recalled the opposition of the parish priest who thought such should be a thing of the past.

Many others, and some not too old, recall the clerical opposition to the playing of Irish traditional music in parish clubs and centres.

CELEBRITY
So it was that the Irish in Manchester had to turn to their own intuitions for a full expression of their Irishness. Pride of place in that regard goes to the Craobh Oisin branch of the Gaelic league, which was established in 1905 - only 12 years after the League's founding in Ireland. It was the standard-bearer of Irish culture in Manchester for many years. The language, the music and the dance of Ireland were pursued with great vigour. The branch had its own premises in Cheapside, close to the city centre, and it staged a very extensive range of events, as well as organising an annual Irish celebrity concert at a major venue.

Craobh Oisin had its own GAA teams. They continue to thrive. The Oisin Club remains a foremost unit of the GAA in Lancashire - though the Gaelic League branch did not survive the Fifties.

IRISH POST
Joe Cahill, for four decades a stalwart of the GAA in Manchester and a stalwart of the GAA in Manchester and in 1984 honoured with an Irish Post - B&I Award, is a link between the old and the new Oisin's. He came to Manchester in 1948 and recalls: "There were only four GAA clubs in Manchester then - Oisin's and Eire Og in Manchester, as well as St Patrick's and John Mitchel's in Liverpool".

But, reverting a generation, there was also another Gaelic league branch in Manchester - Craoh na Laimhe Deirge which had premises in Dickinson Street, St Peter's Square. That branch too played a huge part in the preservation of a sense of Irishness in Manchester.

Among their cultural activities, the Manchester Gaelic League branches placed a considerable emphasis on ceili dancing. But there was also the emergence of Irish dancing schools. In 1939, for example, Harry McCaffrey established his dancing school. World War II intervened to disrupt all community activities in Britain. But soon after its end, Harry had 400 pupils at his Manchester classes.

MacSWINEY
Then there were the Irish pipe bands. In the early Twenties, the Terence MacSwiney Pipe Band was formed in Manchester - the name, of course, deriving from the Lord Mayor of Cork who died on hunger strike in Brixton Prison in 1920.

For many years, that band played at every major Irish occasion in Manchester - carnivals, galas, processions, GAA games and rallies. In its early days, the band used to practise in the Shamrock Hall in Rochdale Road. Most admirably, the band still exists - though less vigorously than in former times. Its base now is St Clare's in Blackley.

WYTHENSHAWE
The MacSwiney Pipe Band inspired the formation in 1946 of the now famed Fianna Phadraig Pipe Band, based in Wythenshawe. When the inner city was redeveloped, a huge number of Irish families were moved out to the suburb of Wythenshawe. From them came Fianna Phadraig led by Terry Dowling. Interestingly, William Allen, one of the Manchester Martyrs, was the nephew of Terry Dowling's great-grandfather. So roots do go deep in Manchester.

TERRY DOWLING
Terry is also the driving force behind the Wythenshawe Irish Society which, together with the band, received an Irish Post Award in the mid-Seventies. Most appropriately, the Mayo Association in Manchester, has honoured Terry with its annual award.

During the periods in Manchester when the Irish had no clubs, they still had their pubs. They may have been drinking places, but they were also where contact was maintained, information exchanged, sentiments rallied and, generally, a sense of Ireland maintained.

CLUB KILLARNEY
But for much of the time there were clubs. For example, Club Killarney, which was known under a variety of names, survived many vicissitudes. It was at 32A Stretford Road, over a Burton's shop. It closed its doors in the early Fifties. On the other side of the town there was The Shamrock in Collyhurst, the Banba Blarney on Rochdale Road and the Tara on Oldham Road.

HORNIMAN
By now, our story has entered the 1960s. The Irish community in Manchester is still proudly nationalistic and, despite hard times, has kept Irish culture alive in its adopted city. But this fourth and penultimate instalment should not conclude without paying tribute to a Manchester lady who years earlier made a contribution to Ireland in this century. She was Annie Fredericka Horniman, an heiress who largely funded the founding of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.

In 1904, she bought for £1500 (not an inconsiderable sum in those days) the Mechanics Institute in Dublin as a home for the Irish National Theatre Company. It became the Abbey Theatre - opening on December 27 of that year.

Thereafter, Miss Horniman provided an annual subsidy of £850 to Lady Gregory and W B Yeats. She maintained her subsidy until 1924, when the new Dublin government took over the responsibility.

In the meantime, the Abbey Theatre had played its part in the rebirth of the Irish nation.
 

Read Part Five of Manchester's Irish Story here...