The jazz singer George Melly once said Camden Town is as far from Euston Station “as an Irishman with two suitcases can walk on a rainy night”. There were many Irish emigrants who took this route in the 1950s, clutching a note given to them by the Legion of Mary at the docks in Ireland with an address for the Irish Centre, their first port of call as emigrants in London.
Later on, as flights took over from ferries as the most convenient way to travel, young builders would be given exact instructions on what bus to get when they left Heathrow Airport, along with the pub to get off at where they could source their “start”.
Now, some 400,000 people who were born in Ireland live across the UK, many of them based in London. And although getting a cheap flight to Stansted has made emigration easier than a ferry and train to Euston, there are some things they should know before they move to the British capital.
The basics
Britain is no longer in the European Union, but that does not mean that Irish emigrants have to jump through the same bureaucratic hoops when moving as citizens from France, Germany or Spain among others. In UK law, Irish nationals have a special status which originates from the 1920s, well in advance of the formation of the EU. This means that the Republic of Ireland is not considered a foreign country, nor are the citizens “aliens” in UK law and have the right to stay.
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So, in short, you don’t need a visa, even since Brexit. Even aside from that, Irish citizens enjoy a number of other rights. They can vote in elections and they can stand to be elected, as well as being eligible for certain welfare benefits.
First steps
Moving to any new country means registering with the state and the UK is no different. First stop is to get a National Insurance number, which administers your tax and national insurance contributions with employers, the tax authorities and welfare departments, in a similar way to the PPS number in Ireland. It is also needed to vote, for pensions and when investments are bought and sold. Everyone who wants to work in the UK must have one; it is unique and will stay with you for life. You can apply for one online with your passport.
Aim to register with the NHS early. Find out the local GP surgeries near where you are settling and see if they are taking in new patients. You do not need proof of address or an NHS number in order to register. The GP is typically the first point of contact when you have a health problem, after which they can refer you to other services, such as consultants or A&E, within the vast NHS operation.
A bank account should be sorted early so that you can get paid promptly and without bureaucratic stress. To do so, you will usually need two things – something to prove your identity such as a passport or driving licence and something which proves your address, such as a tenancy agreement, gas bill or a council tax bill.
But what if you don’t have an address as yet?
Banks have become more flexible in what they will take. Some will take a letter from an employer or a letter from a Jobcentre Plus confirming a National Insurance number. You can, of course, use Irish bank accounts and credit cards until you get set up but this is likely in incur avoidable fees. Some UK banks have international accounts which can be opened up from abroad, but often these involve a substantial initial sum to be lodged and a minimum monthly deposit.
Getting settled
With the vast variety and prices of houses and flats, people will usually turn to a few factors when deciding where they want to live – proximity to work; where existing friends are; cost and transport links.
New arrivals to London should get used to being asked where they are living, which tube or train line they are on, and how long it takes to get somewhere. South of the river, areas such as Clapham and Balham are connected via the Northern line, while areas such as Islington, Finsbury Park and Walthamstow are easily traversed via the Victoria line. Many will try to avoid changing lines in order to get to work in the most straightforward manner possible and where you live will dictate that. That said, getting from one side of the vast city to the other is possible quickly with a journey across the length of the Victoria line from Walthamstow to Brixton taking about half an hour. Some Irish emigrants will also want proximity to an airport – Heathrow and Gatwick are located to the south while Stansted and Luton are to the north of the city. London City Airport offers another alternative way home in the east.
It goes without saying that renting in one of the world’s financial centres does not come cheap. And for those moving from a situation of high rents in Ireland, many of the same frustrations abound. People desperate to find lodgings in London report long, and often pointless, queues to view houses and apartments. Estate agents Foxtons said in August that rents had risen across the city by 23 per cent in 12 months, while trade organisation Propertymark says availability in London has halved since 2019, due in part to an exodus of private landlords.
One benefit of the proximity of the two countries is that it is relatively straightforward to go over for a few days to view properties. Bring references from a landlord in Ireland, and a job offer, if you have one. Property listing websites that cover London include Rightmove, Zoopla, Gumtree, OpenRent and OnTheMarket.
For those who want to buy from the off, the property market is in a state of flux at the moment as a result of the chaos surrounding sterling following the recent mini-budget. Mortgage providers have been pulling deals and raising interest payments across the board and it is predicted that prices are to go down 10 per cent next year as a result.
Prospective buyers may want to hold tight until the market becomes more stable.
Finding a job
Times gone past saw Irish labourers relying on family and community connections to get themselves started once they had travelled. Now many professionals are more likely to have sorted their employment before they have left Ireland, or at least have been able to start the process, via employment sites such as Indeed, Monster and LinkedIn. The NHS continues to employ a large number of Irish staff, maintaining a tradition which goes back to its inception in the 1940s. The NHS Jobs website provides a portal for all types of positions across the service. Teachers are much in demand with difficulties in recruitment and retention across the sector.
The jobs market across the UK appears buoyant at the moment with two million vacancies advertised last month. There is a particular shortfall in nurses and HGV drivers, as well as workers in the social care sector. However, wage growth is failing to keep in line with inflation which means that workers have less in their pockets. In the three months to June, wages were up 5.5 per cent on the previous year, long before the soaring rate of inflation which is well into the double digits. The biggest beneficiaries of these rises have been workers in the private sector.
London is an expensive place to live and wages tend to be higher, although this varies widely by sector. Glassdoor, the site which lets employees rate their workplace, puts the average base salary at just over £44,000. But there is a huge variance depending on the job you do – average wages in banking and financial services are far higher, unsurprisingly, while the media are less, according to the site.
Moving a family
Moving to London as a single person, or even as part of a couple, can be achieved with relatively few complications. But that situation changes when children are involved. Where a family wants to live will be dictated by a different set of criteria – schools being the principle one. When couples have children, they often shift location in the capital to areas more attuned to their lifestyle and to where they can afford to buy a bigger property, for example, areas such as Walthamstow in the northeast have seen a huge rise in young families coming from areas like Hackney and Finsbury Park.
If you have to choose a school for young children, primary starts at age four with reception class and entry is usually based on whether you fall into the catchment area for the school as well as other factors such as religion or whether a sibling is also in the school. Depending on the popularity of the primary school, the catchment area can be very small – a couple of hundred metres in some cases. It follows that the prices for houses in areas where there is a highly in-demand school are often also higher. The application process is typically within a window of time and is done via the local authority. Applicants put down a preference list of where they want the child to go. The Common Travel Area between the UK and Ireland means there are no impediments to Irish children attending school in the UK.
Help from home
The cornerstone for those who want to maintain a link with the Irish community in London is the London Irish Centre, which offers advice on housing, benefits and opening a bank account as well as other services. The cavernous building in Camden is also home to a thriving and diverse events diary – nights with drag acts sit alongside weekly trad sessions. Lunch clubs with capped food prices are offered for local members of the community and serve as a meeting point for many of the elderly in the area.
Other areas also have their own versions of meeting spaces for members of the Irish community – the Southwark Irish Pensioners Project supports older people in the south of the city while the Lewisham Irish Community Centre offers advice on housing, welfare and disability and Irish language classes for children, among other services.
Some large firms have their own, formal and informal, Irish groups, for example, Morgan Stanley has Net Eire, which holds networking and speaker events. Business groups include the London Irish Business Society (LIBS), which runs regular events, and the Irish International Business Network, which aims to connect businesspeople across the world, has its headquarters in London. The London Irish Lawyers Association is for lawyers, students and academics in the legal profession.
A few more things
- Getting a pint in a London pub can be a painful experience as staff often take orders one at a time (and sometimes one drink at a time). And the twitter account @shitlondonguinn has been highlighting the sorry state of pints of Guinness across the capital for some years. For a good pint, head to The Toucan in Soho or The Auld Shillelagh in Stoke Newington.
- The GAA’s headquarters is in McGovern Park in Ruislip, the home of London GAA, which participates in the Connacht Senior Football Championship.
- Irish citizens can register to vote online with a National Insurance number [although you can register without one].
