| The Forgotten Irish Project
Please Donate €1 = $1.5 = £1 Recently, TV3, an Irish television channel broadcast a series of documentaries, titled The Forgotten Irish about the unfortunate plight of the now elderly Irish people who emigrated from Ireland to the UK in the 1940's and 1950's and who are now living out their lives in terrible conditions.
The programme struck a cord with John who was born in the UK, because his father was one of those forced to emigrate to find work there. John's father married and lived in Liverpool before returning to Ireland in 1975 with his wife and six of their nine children, including John.
The impact of the programme on John made him contact TV3 and he appeared on follow-up programmes to discuss the subject. The highlighting of the issue gave him the idea to start an online campaign to help charities involved with offering services. Although the TV3 documentary, The Forgotten Irish, focused on Britain, there are many similar stories in the USA as well, particularly in New York and Boston. Here again you have people who slipped through the monitoring processes of the welfare agencies and lived out lives of self-neglect, victims of alcohol and drugs abuse who lost all contact with their home country and relations.
Thus, the Look Around Ireland Irish Trust was born.
The aim is to make €1 million by March 17th 2010 from Donations and Sponsors.
The selected charities are Safe-Home Ireland and Ireland Fund of Great Britain.
Safe-Home Ireland, is a charity run by Dr. Jerry Cowley and is located at the St Brendan’s Village Centre in Mulranny, Co. Mayo. They organize the return of older Irish people to live out their lives in their assisted living centre. We want to help them add an extension to cater for the demand there is from people using the facilities. At present, the organization has 1,037 people on a waiting list to return home to Ireland. Click here to visit their website
The Ireland Fund of Great Britain, which is running the Forgotten Irish Campaign in Great Britain, launched by Peter Sutherland 2007 and offers places of sanctuary and help for the old and lonely Irish people across the UK. Click here to visit their website
More Info
Many, many young people left Ireland to work in the UK and USA in the 40's and 50's because of the desperate economic times in Ireland. The men worked mainly as labourers on building sites and motorway construction projects. The women worked in hospitals, factories and offices, mostly in menial positions, The majority of them settled into a normal life, some returning home to Ireland and some remaining in the UK, where they raised their families.
However, for a considerable amount of those emigrants, life was far from normal. Many of the men lived nomadic lives following the building and construction work around England. They usually lived in bed sits and to prevent loneliness spent their evenings in the pub to chat and talk with their fellow Irish men.
Some of the people who emmigrated to the UK had been residents of Irish institutions where they had been abused and mistreated. They effectively used the United Kingdom as a refugee bolt-hole to escape from the horrors of the orphanages and schools in which they were incarcerated. They were very young and emotionally ill equipped to settle down and establish a life in a new unwelcoming environment. Many never married and most had relationships that failed for reasons of constant relocation, as they followed the work opportunities from one end of the country to the other. Many ended up homeless, sleeping on the streets and dying lonely deaths in back alleys and doorways. Those who survived are now in their twilight years, impoverished and invisible to the system of care. They live lonely lives, in atrocious conditions brought about by their inability to make some provision for their old age when working. They are the polar opposite to the many noted successful Irish emigrants who made it big in the UK and the USA.
Donations can be securely made through the site via Paypal to Wren Innovations Ltd (the websites registered business name) or to AIB Bank Drogheda Branch, Account No: 46579059, Sort Code 93-20-94.
or Donate Online - Remember every € Euro counts and thanks in advance.
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