“God knows what my parents were thinking to move to England at the height of IRA [Troubles]. It was a very difficult time to be Irish,” says Mayo native Eimear Maguire, who moved to England with her parents in 1987.
Her father, George, took early retirement following a 40-year career with the ESB and, at her mother’s urging, moved the family from Ballina to England.
Maguire went from attending the “fairly strict but fairly simple” Convent of Mercy in Ballina to being “thrust into a comprehensive, 1,200-student school” in West Yorkshire. With a “weird name and a strange accent” combined with “all the Irish cultural, political stuff going on behind the scenes”, Maguire says, “I was asked if I was a terrorist every day, asked if we were in the IRA. All of that type of stuff.”
The youngest of eight children, Maguire says she felt very separated from the “2.1-child families” typical of the time. Having eight children was “unheard of” in England. “It was a lot. I didn’t realise how different I was. Even in six years of school, I never really felt like I belonged there.”
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England didn’t start to feel like home until she moved to Nottingham in 1994 to become a nurse. By that time, “things had changed” with the emergence of popular Irish bands in the UK such as the Cranberries, U2 and Aslan making it “trendy to be Irish”.
With the peace process in Northern Ireland under way and the Republic of Ireland team at the 1994 World Cup led by well-known names from the newly formed Premier League, Maguire says people began to see the Irish “less as something to worry about, and just as part of the landscape”.
In her early career, Maguire retained her connection to Ireland. After her father’s death, her mother returned to her native Roscommon, and Maguire spent most of her holidays in Ireland where she felt a sense of “true belonging”.
“There is always that sadness with the Irish abroad. You always think: ‘I’ll go back. One day, I’ll go back.’ And then, the more and more entrenched you become in your life here in the UK with marriage, jobs or kids, that dream just gets further and further away.
“Eventually you realise that you cannot just think about yourself, and then it just becomes the impossible dream.”
She met her future husband and business partner, James Maguire, while working as a nurse in Nottingham, and they moved to Manchester in 2000 following the birth of their first child.
In 2010, they jointly founded Maguire Family Law, with Eimear looking to fulfil a lifelong dream of training as a lawyer. Initially funded by a loan against the family home, the firm now has four offices and 17 employees. As the firm took off, Maguire never found the time to train in law, instead taking up the role of head of finance and operations.
The business is built around practising family law and its founders had their own intimate experience with the system.
“I was married to James and we set the practice up together, and then our marriage failed. So we got divorced but we continued to work together and to keep the business going. We are still working together, we are still the best of friends.”
Their own experience with divorce, Maguire says, has allowed them to help other families navigate the uncertainty.
“A lot of people call me saying: ‘Unfortunately, I’m gonna have to get divorced, and I would really like it to go down like your divorce did. I would like to remain friends. How do you do that?’
“So, in a way, we are the poster people for divorce,” she laughs.
Growing the business in the north of England, Maguire got involved with the Women of Irish Heritage network, recently taking the position as the inaugural chairwoman of the not-for-profit initiative.
She wants to make sure there is a soft landing for Irish women who make the “brave decision” to move to the UK. “The Irish, we are known the world over for our warmth,” she said, noting that the same warmth and welcoming culture isn’t replicated as much in England.
She says that Irish people who make the move often note the difference between the two cultures. “I think British people are quite formal, they’re quite reserved. They don’t really speak their minds all that much.
“I know people have certainly found me to be a bit direct, but I just think I’m quite open in a way they are not used to.”
Even now, after 35 years living in England, Maguire has never applied for British citizenship. “I felt it a betrayal of my heritage for most of the time I’ve been here,” she says, noting that feeling was a result of the anti-Irish sentiment she has experienced at times in the UK.
“The lack of acceptance of us here drives [people] more towards rejecting any Britishness and more embracing your own heritage,” she says.
In recent years, however, she feels she is entering her “belonging era” and points to new laws which will simplify the process for Irish people living in the UK to apply for citizenship. “I may get my dual nationality after all,” she laughs.
