D
Dave
Guest
From Morrissey to Tony Blair: How Ireland's children are at the heart of English culture
By Ian Herbert
Published: 21 April 2007
Noel Gallagher might be a Mancunian with football blood coursing through his veins but when Oasis were asked to record the "Three Lions" English football anthem seven years ago, he was unequivocal. "When push comes to shove, I'm in the Ireland end," he said. "If I'd done the England song and gone on at Wembley my uncles would have killed me."
Gallagher is not the only "Englishman" to feel more of the spiritual pull towards Ireland. When Morrissey returned to perform in his beloved Manchester a few years back he declared himself "nine parts Crumlin and nine parts Old Trafford" before launching into his hit, "Irish Blood, English Heart", while Johnny Rotten named his autobiography, No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs - a reference to the signs which were once common at English boarding houses where labourers might stay.
These affinities and those of many others - from Coleen McLoughlin to Judy Finnegan, Kate Bush to Kevin Keegan - have persuaded the Irish economist and writer David McWilliams to analyse their impact. McWilliams is well known in Ireland for his best-selling book, The Pope's Children, which analysed the new generation of Irish who were born after the 1979 papal visit and grew up with the Celtic Tiger (the period of rapid 1990s economic growth that transformed Ireland from one of Europe's poorer countries into one of its wealthiest).
His new analysis is a British version of that book, which looks at the extraordinary and disproportionate impact that second and third-generation Irish - "Hi-Brits" or "Hiberno-Brits" as he calls them - have had on English popular culture. The conclusions are persuasive. "When you look at English popular culture - not high culture - comedy, music, that sort of stuff, the Irish impact really is phenomenal," McWilliams said. "The effect second and third-generation Irish have had on English popular culture has been extraordinary."
That those of Irish parentage should be influential in England is not entirely surprising, based on the fact that 500,000 Irish migrated in the 1950s in search of the greater wealth they thought England offered. "Although these people are Brits, they are not true Brits," said McWilliams, who believes that the sense of "being foreign, though white" - and during the IRA bombing campaign being persona non grata - might have fuelled their creativity.
His search for the "Hi-Brits" has taken him to the Croxteth district of Liverpool, where the Rooney family lives, and an evening with the footballer's grandmother, Patricia Fitzsimmons, told him more than he expected about the England centre-forward's dual loyalties. "His biography has revealed an awareness of his Irish roots but he has said Coleen has been far more interested in the issue, heading back to Ireland to look for them."
John Lennon's Irishness is also examined. Lennon's own biographer, Jon Wiener, concluded that Lennon "thought of himself as Irish" and McWilliams points to the 1974 Walls and Bridges album, in which Lennon included a booklet containing a history of the Lennon name (essentially, an anglicised form of "O Leannain", which historically has been common in the counties of Fermanagh and Galway.)
One book on the subject concluded that: "No person of the name Lennon has distinguished himself in the political, military or cultural life of Ireland (or England for that matter)", under which Lennon wrote: "Oh yeh? John Lennon!"
The more improbable "Hi-Brits" include David Bowie, who has never demonstrated pride in the fact that his Irish mother was one Mary Margaret Burns; Dusty Springfield - who was christened Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien; Dec (Ant's partner) christened Declan Joseph Oliver Donnelly), whose parents ran the Tyneside Irish Club. And various English football captains.
"Kevin Keegan, Tony Adams, Stev MacMahon and Martin Keown, who was briefly captain, are all Irish," said McWilliams.
But the writer - whose book on the subject, The Generation Game, is published by MacMillan on 18 May, is not just describing Britain's debt to Ireland.
"We have to remember that if many of them had grown up in what was then culturally conservative Ireland, the cultural output might not have been the same," he said.
He added: "England, with its tolerance and multiculturalism gave them the platform.
"It has helped that Irishness has now become something romantic, which people want to know about."
Irish blood, English heart
Morrissey
The Smiths singer's Irish Catholic parents emigrated from County Kildare to Manchester in the Fifties and he attended an RC grammar school.
Noel Gallagher
Deeply Irish. Has appeared on the cover of magazines wearing a Claddagh ring and once professed his wish to record a song for the Republic of Ireland football team
Steve Coogan
Born to devout Irish Catholic parents, his Irishness has always been important to him.
Tony Blair
His mother was a Catholic from Donegal who moved to Glasgow after her father died. Blair spent "virtually every childhood summer holiday" in Donegal. It was there that "I learned to swim, there that my father took me to my first pub."
By Ian Herbert
Published: 21 April 2007
Noel Gallagher might be a Mancunian with football blood coursing through his veins but when Oasis were asked to record the "Three Lions" English football anthem seven years ago, he was unequivocal. "When push comes to shove, I'm in the Ireland end," he said. "If I'd done the England song and gone on at Wembley my uncles would have killed me."
Gallagher is not the only "Englishman" to feel more of the spiritual pull towards Ireland. When Morrissey returned to perform in his beloved Manchester a few years back he declared himself "nine parts Crumlin and nine parts Old Trafford" before launching into his hit, "Irish Blood, English Heart", while Johnny Rotten named his autobiography, No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs - a reference to the signs which were once common at English boarding houses where labourers might stay.
These affinities and those of many others - from Coleen McLoughlin to Judy Finnegan, Kate Bush to Kevin Keegan - have persuaded the Irish economist and writer David McWilliams to analyse their impact. McWilliams is well known in Ireland for his best-selling book, The Pope's Children, which analysed the new generation of Irish who were born after the 1979 papal visit and grew up with the Celtic Tiger (the period of rapid 1990s economic growth that transformed Ireland from one of Europe's poorer countries into one of its wealthiest).
His new analysis is a British version of that book, which looks at the extraordinary and disproportionate impact that second and third-generation Irish - "Hi-Brits" or "Hiberno-Brits" as he calls them - have had on English popular culture. The conclusions are persuasive. "When you look at English popular culture - not high culture - comedy, music, that sort of stuff, the Irish impact really is phenomenal," McWilliams said. "The effect second and third-generation Irish have had on English popular culture has been extraordinary."
That those of Irish parentage should be influential in England is not entirely surprising, based on the fact that 500,000 Irish migrated in the 1950s in search of the greater wealth they thought England offered. "Although these people are Brits, they are not true Brits," said McWilliams, who believes that the sense of "being foreign, though white" - and during the IRA bombing campaign being persona non grata - might have fuelled their creativity.
His search for the "Hi-Brits" has taken him to the Croxteth district of Liverpool, where the Rooney family lives, and an evening with the footballer's grandmother, Patricia Fitzsimmons, told him more than he expected about the England centre-forward's dual loyalties. "His biography has revealed an awareness of his Irish roots but he has said Coleen has been far more interested in the issue, heading back to Ireland to look for them."
John Lennon's Irishness is also examined. Lennon's own biographer, Jon Wiener, concluded that Lennon "thought of himself as Irish" and McWilliams points to the 1974 Walls and Bridges album, in which Lennon included a booklet containing a history of the Lennon name (essentially, an anglicised form of "O Leannain", which historically has been common in the counties of Fermanagh and Galway.)
One book on the subject concluded that: "No person of the name Lennon has distinguished himself in the political, military or cultural life of Ireland (or England for that matter)", under which Lennon wrote: "Oh yeh? John Lennon!"
The more improbable "Hi-Brits" include David Bowie, who has never demonstrated pride in the fact that his Irish mother was one Mary Margaret Burns; Dusty Springfield - who was christened Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien; Dec (Ant's partner) christened Declan Joseph Oliver Donnelly), whose parents ran the Tyneside Irish Club. And various English football captains.
"Kevin Keegan, Tony Adams, Stev MacMahon and Martin Keown, who was briefly captain, are all Irish," said McWilliams.
But the writer - whose book on the subject, The Generation Game, is published by MacMillan on 18 May, is not just describing Britain's debt to Ireland.
"We have to remember that if many of them had grown up in what was then culturally conservative Ireland, the cultural output might not have been the same," he said.
He added: "England, with its tolerance and multiculturalism gave them the platform.
"It has helped that Irishness has now become something romantic, which people want to know about."
Irish blood, English heart
Morrissey
The Smiths singer's Irish Catholic parents emigrated from County Kildare to Manchester in the Fifties and he attended an RC grammar school.
Noel Gallagher
Deeply Irish. Has appeared on the cover of magazines wearing a Claddagh ring and once professed his wish to record a song for the Republic of Ireland football team
Steve Coogan
Born to devout Irish Catholic parents, his Irishness has always been important to him.
Tony Blair
His mother was a Catholic from Donegal who moved to Glasgow after her father died. Blair spent "virtually every childhood summer holiday" in Donegal. It was there that "I learned to swim, there that my father took me to my first pub."