In the aftermath of the horrific terrorist attack at Westminster on March 22nd, I have been asked by some in Ireland if I feel less safe in Britain.
The answer is no, for a number of reasons. Firstly, I am in Liverpool rather than London, so the question is a little like asking someone in Offaly or Laois if they felt threatened by events in Belfast or Derry during the Troubles. Scousers are getting on with their lives and while there does seem to be a greater police presence at key locations, nobody feels any less safe.
Liverpool is a very safe city where the Irish are very welcome, given the city’s historic ties. A friend in Tullamore who regularly comes here to see LFC play remarked he felt safer than in Dublin.
Secondly, having worked in London before (in the boroughs of Havering and Camden and in the City) and having many friends there, I know they are also getting on with their lives as usual, reflecting the ‘Blitz spirit’ for which London is famous.
Thirdly, as an Irishman in Britain, I am acutely conscious that compatriots brought terror in the past to English cities, not only London but Birmingham, Manchester, Brighton, Guildford, Warrington, etc. While most of the English distinguished between those involved and the ordinary Irish, I know from older people who lived through the bombings that a minority did tar all Irish with the one brush.
The parallel with the Muslim community today is obvious, and I recall that after the 2005 London bombings, when I interviewed people from the Offaly Association in London for the now-closed Offaly Express, they were very keen to stress how they understood what it was like to be blamed for terrorism.
Ironically, on the day before the Westminster terror attacks, I was at an event hosted by Liverpool Homeless Football Club designed to stress the diversity of the city. Groups from the Irish community were joined by women from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who prepared the food, while a group of Scandinavians who attend a local Lutheran church provided music, reflecting the tradition of Scandinavian seafarers in the port city.
Merseyside Police had a stand, and a policeman told me of his work in giving talks to schoolchildren about the history of the various groups in Liverpool. A councillor who addressed the gathering stressed that, unlike some other areas of England, Liverpool did not see a rise in hate crime after the Brexit vote (Liverpool and the adjacent areas of Sefton and Wirral voted to remain).
The parallel between the Irish experience and those of the West Indians, Chinese and others who settled in the city down the years was also stressed by speakers at a St Patrick's Day event I attended last week, at which Councillor Roz Gladden, the Lord Mayor, recalled how her own great-great-grandfather, Patrick Dermody, had come to Liverpool during the Great Famine and lived in the Brownlow workhouse on the site of what is now the Catholic cathedral.
Stressing the level of typhoid in the city at the time, she said it had been the poor of Liverpool, rather than the rich, who had welcomed the Irish, and this pattern had also been shown with later immigrants.
Overall, there is little sign of the London terror attack having any major effect on Liverpool. The following day, it was noticeable that a policeman was on duty at Central Station, and there do seem to be a few more officers on the beat, but not to any striking degree.
The presence of cameras all over the city is taken for granted, not to counter terrorism, but rather ‘ordinary’ crime. By and large, terrorism is not a key issue here, and there is little history of radicalisation in the local Muslim community, in contrast to, say, Birmingham or Leeds.
Indeed, Adam Kelwick, a local Muslim chaplain, has put on record that while he has had one negative message, with a device intended to cause a small explosion, he received 'message after message' of a positive nature from non-Muslims, including one from local Rabbi Dan Lieberman.
Declan McSweeney is an Irish journalist living in Liverpool.
