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Kate Whittaker checks out one of our city's significant ethnic groups
If you're looking forward to a Saint Patrick's Day of colourful music and black and white pints, frankly, you're wasting your time. The fact of the matter is this: Brighton plays host to arguably the most vibrant and accessible blend of Irish culture this side of Dublin. You'll never need to wait more than a couple of days for the next music or comedy night, much less count down to the seventeenth of this month.
Irishman Roger Leach has lived in Brighton since 1986. He's a familiar talent amongst those who enjoy the infectiously ad hoc sound of live Irish music, some of which you'll find on a Friday night session at The Royal Oak on St James's Street, or on a Saturday at The Black Horse in Kemptown, or on a Sunday at The Bugle, or - but hang on. Does this excess of cultural interest really mirror Brighton's Irish community at large? Roger Leach seems to think so. "Many Irish people are naturally very creative," he tells me. "So they're naturally going to get involved in playing music or performing." And naturally in Brighton. Writer and comedian Gerry Thompson, who hails from Tipperary, is in complete agreement. "The Irish are a culturally alive people and there's a growing taste for Irish culture here... it's something that's treasured," he says.
Thompson is a well-qualified observer: he left Ireland when he was 18 and has lived here on the South coast for the past 13 years. He returns to the land of his birth regularly for cultural refreshment, "to remember how to use the English language in a more creative way." Like everyone I speak to, he's a keen and engaging orator; it's hard to get a word in…. "If you say you're Irish, people automatically assume you've got the gift of the gab," he tells me… But when I ask about specific Brighton Irish clubs or organisations, the response begins to dwindle. "I think there used to be an Irish club on the seafront," he eventually tells me through a frown. It turns out it has long since gone. According to Roger Leach, Irish Catholic group the Knights of Saint Columbus used to congregate in Kemptown, but they disbanded years ago.
Who meets now? "The fact is that the Irish see themselves more independently," Thompson says. "There's no threat to Irish culture; people have moved away from the need to band together. Brighton is at the forefront as a place of tolerance... it's cosmopolitan and people are simply less fearful." It's a credible response. Our city is after all, divided along lines of social and cultural interest, rather more than by the artifice of nationality or race.
So, while you won't find all the Brighton Irish in any one corner of town, a community of sorts is thriving in our midst. Bizarrely, this only becomes evident to me through the more offhand comments of the people I interview. The same characters and anecdotes crop up time after time; everyone seems to be on first-name terms, and, on replying to the question "Who're you interviewing next?" I'm invariably greeted with a smile and a "Ah, he's a good man." I am offered numerous leads with the assurance, "just tell him you've spoken to me," which then would guarantee me a warm greeting, of course. The whole manner in which the people I speak to try to help me confirms the presence of a strong cultural network.
I am advised to visit The Black Horse in Kemptown. Entering the pub is like stepping back into the Fifties; it must be the only place in Brighton where you can see people drinking Guinness at 10.30am. "There is a community, but it's mainly elderly, first generation Irish," says landlord and second generation Irishman Pat Murtagh, with a glance at his domino playing clientele. Having lived in Brighton for two years, Murtagh, 47, sees himself as something of an outsider. Most of his regulars would have come to England in the Fifties and Sixties, a move made out of economic necessity. "They're a different bunch to the singers," he tells me, "a more tight knit group. These people have been here for forty years. Their solidarity has been moulded by their experience of the reactions to them."
There is a strong wish among the Brighton Irish to retain their cultural legacy. Both Murtagh and Leach tell me about Patrick 'Patsy' Sweeney, a well known figure in Irish circles, who organises dances at the Saint John the Baptist Church hall. "It's as if he feels an obligation to the community to organise these events," is how Murtagh puts it. Sweeney, 58 is from Donegal in Southern Ireland and has been in Brighton since 1972. He's a quiet man, and is only really comfortable talking about the events that he puts on. In a strong brogue softly spoken he is keen to reiterate that his Irish nights are "for all nationalities," and confirms that his desire is "to keep the culture going the best I can, and to recognise that we're still here." He too goes back to Ireland a lot, and although his daughter is also based in Brighton, "she's well-Irish," he tells me.
Gerry Thompson feels that the traditions are kept alive in part by "the English desire to be more Irish. The single phrase 'the craic' sums up that which the Irish have and the English want: high energy interaction, comedy, laughter and music." Apparently we want it so much because traditional folk culture has been suppressed here: "TV is king and you don't need to entertain yourself anymore," he reasons.
While non Irish locals are now more than ever likely to attend or even take part in Irish music sessions, Roger Leach adds that they exist "as an expression of cultural identity. It's about who we are and where we're from." He continues: "The church is absolutely focal to the Brighton Irish community. It's not necessarily about going to Mass every week, more knowing that if anything happened to you, everyone would turn out to support you. Like at a funeral, or a wake. It's an adoptive community and everyone looks out for each other."
Leach gives me Father Foley's number. He's priest at Saint John the Baptist Church, just five minutes walk from The Black Horse in Kemptown. He has been a resident here for six years and attracts a large congregation of more than five hundred. He is initially reticent, unsure of the motives for my questions. Once he relaxes though he is happy to talk and be photographed, and shows me inside the church. It is beautiful and decorative, with huge renaissance-style murals and statues of the saints adorning the walls. He is particularly proud of the epitaph to Mrs Fitzherbert who is buried here. Unlike Leach, he feels that Brighton no longer has a cohesive Irish community, despite hosting one thousand Irish natives and innumerable 'plastic paddies', second or third generation Irish. "Those who came over in the 19th century would have come over to work together on the railway, in the fishing industry or the hotel industry," he tells me.
"There were two lots of Irish: the poor who lived in what's now Kemptown and the rich who lived on the other side of Brighton." Economics inevitably shaped this community. Pat Murtagh explains. "The Irish who come over now are better educated and have more money. Their priority is their careers, or to travel. Those that have been here forty years had no choice."
But the Irish experience has been determined by politics as well as the Pound. How has the turbulence of Northern Ireland affected stability for the British Irish? I asked Gerry Thompson how he felt the bombing of the Grand Hotel in 1984 had affected Irish locals. "The treatment of Irish people over here often stems from what's happening in Northern Ireland, so it can't have been easy." Roger Leach was careful about the music he played and the pubs he went into.
Pat Murtagh felt the bombing created a "solidifying effect on the community" which has yet to be dispelled. With the prospect of a lasting peace now in sight, Leach believes that: "the Irish are being taken seriously rather than being seen as something mythical." So are prejudice and scapegoating things of the past? Not entirely. Although none of my interviewees had encountered any racism directly, Murtagh is aware of some ill feeling towards The Black Horse from neighbours. "If an Irish person complains, there will always be someone who thinks they're only doing it because they're Irish," he tells me.
This turbulent history has obviously helped forge stronger links of the Brighton Irish community. When I began my research I was surprised that there were no official Irish evenings outside of the session nights and dances. What I found exists instead is a genuinely supportive community that is more a network than a clique.
Ours is a city that draws breathe from diversity and tolerance. Brighton may be good to the Irish, but they are equally an asset to our local culture. All things Irish are now in vogue as never before: they're a cool and popular people in a cool and popular city. Irish poets and performers make special trips solely to perform in Brighton: there's a unique quality to the relationship.
But can it really all be good news? An anonymous source told me that many of the first generation here still harbour strong feelings about the situation in Northern Ireland, a mood that's unlikely to be exclusive to Brighton. I put it to Roger Leach that there may be subversive elements within the community at large, at which he starts laughing and says "there is a musician I know who has eleven brothers. I think that's the nearest you'll get to a mafia. Take a trip to The Bugle come St Patrick's and you can ask them yourself."
copyright New Insight
2001
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