Equity Rd

Bridget wasn’t yet 21 when she first came to England from Athy, County Kildare in 1956. In fact she had her 21^st birthday in London. Her father had come over to England after the war and was working on the building.  He was already living in Hammersmith but her Mum was unable to join him. Bridget was the first of a long line of brothers and sisters to come over.

She met her husband-to-be, Martin Fitzgerald in London. She used to work in a supermarket and the Irish lads used to come in and have laugh. She also remembers working in an Irish cafe for half a day: it was full of Irish builders.

Bridget and Martin married in the Holy Trinity church, Brooke Green, London in 1960.  Martin had family up in Leicester so they moved up here shortly afterwards.

Bridget and Martin Fitzgerald

Their first home in Leicester was on Equity Rd. They had the ground floor of a house and she remembers it as being very damp (perhaps because there was a cold storage unit near by!). After a few months they got a council place in the brand new Rowlatt’s Hill flats. Rowlatt’s Hill was built between 1964 and 67. By 1969 they had bought a house in Aylestone, Keenan Close, which cost them £3000.

Like many others, Bridget remembers being able to pick and choose jobs. While living in Equity Rd she worked at Byfords, operating a machine by hand that printed labels and invoices.

She worked at the Co-op offices on Union St (now part of The Shires).

While living at Rowlatts Hill she worked as Watkin’s on Green Lane Rd. This was a wood machinery tool place and she worked in the office.

Coming from London Bridget found Leicester confusing: she was used to using The Tube to get around and Leicester buses would change numbers depending on whether they were going in or out of town.  She used the Clock Tower as a reference point to find her way around. She didn’t like the market as she thought the fruit was often bruised and the stall holders wouldn’t let you pick your own.

When she was first over Bridget remembers going to look at a room. The room only had one bed so it was clear she would have to share a bed with a stranger. When she said she didn’t want to do that the landlady said “You Irish, you’re expecting too much”.

Her 2 sons, Martin Jnr. and Barry were born in Aylestone: Martin Jnr. in 1974 and Barry in 1977. They went to Holy Cross on Stonesby Avenue and later St.Paul’s. Bridget was a dinner lady a Holy Cross school in the 80s when the boys were there, and later The Newry,  which fitted in perfectly with the children. She also worked voluntarily at The General Hospital.

The new Holy Cross School, Stonesby Avenue, opened in 1966.

Once Martin Fitzgerald himself died in 1986, Martin Jnr. dropped the jnr. was THE Martin Fitzgerald.

Thank you to Julia Christy, Head of Holy Cross school for the photgraph.

 If you'd like to be involved contact us on 0116 276 9186 or pop in to:

The Emerald Centre, Gipsy Lane, Leicester. LE5 OTB

We're now also on Twitter: follow me on  @irishleicester or join The Irish in Leicester group on Facebook.

Click here to view a map of The Irish in Leicester.

The General Hospital

Julia Sullivan, known as Shelia, came to Leicester on Sept 13, 1955. She already had two sisters here: one was working as a nanny for an English family and the other, Eileen, was married to an Englishman, Eamon Snee.

Julia was one of eight children and the youngest of six girls. She was educated at the Convent school back home in West Kerry and longed to pursue her interest in horses. However, her father felt it was not a career befitting a convent educated girl and expected her to get something better.

When she first came to Leicester she lived with her married sister on Duxbury Rd, off Uppingham Rd and later moved into nurses’ accommodation at The General Hospital on the outskirts of the city near Evington. 

The General Hospital, Gwendolen Rd.

Coming from the country at home she loved living on the outskirts of town, as it was then, and hearing the animals and horses in the morning. The new Goodwood Estate had been built but not yet around the General Hospital where you could still see working farms.

Shelia earned £7/17/6d a month and the highlight of the month  was going to Brucciani’s on Horsefair St. for coffee and cherry cake. She could also buy a new skirt in M+S for 29/11d and a blouse for £1!

She loved to go dancing at the “Irish venues”: Sacred Heart, The Co-op Belgrave Rd, The Trade Hall  St. James’ St., St. Peter’s parish hall on King Richard’s Rd and the Corn Exchange (which she remembered didn’t have a bar). And of course there was always De Montfort Hall on St. Patrick’s night. She and the other nurses would search the drawers for odd 3d. bits at home to give them the money to get in to the dances. 

Sheila belonged to the Pioneer Association, a Catholic temperance group, and she had taken a pledge not to drink. She kept this till she was 23 when at a nurse’s party she held onto the same drink all night so that the others wouldn’t keep on at her!.

The nurses had an English lady, May, who looked after them in the nurses' home and lived on St. Saviours Rd. She treated them all well and the girls would bring her back presents from Ireland when they went home. Sheila remembers May having a particular present from Ireland with Irish writing on it that said…Made in Japan!

One year there was a polio epidemic back home in the National schools and Shelia’s mother told her not to go home for the annual holiday in September. Sheila was given permission to take her holiday ay Christmas which was unheard of. She travelled back with another nurse, Mona Carey from County Clare, and turned up at Holyhead without a ticket and had to wait two days with no food to get a ferry home. When she arrived in Dublin she was due to stay with another nurse, Marie before carrying on home to Kerry the next day. This arrangement fell through and Marie arranged for Sheila to stay with a blind friend. Sheila spent a long night worrying if the friend would be able to wake her up on time in the morning….. which of course she did!

Sheila says that most people at home in West Kerry were self sufficient and lived a much better life that the city people: city life in Leicester was new to her and she had never had chips or seen a Brussel sprout!

If you'd like to be involved contact us on 0116 276 9186 or pop in to:
The Emerald Centre, Gipsy Lane, Leicester. LE5 OTB

We're now also on Twitter: follow me on  @irishleicester

Click here to view a map of The Irish in Leicester.

Work places

Just a few  places ( where photos allow) that The Irish in Leicester have worked in over the years...
Tommy Holt

Briggs Tannery.
Thanks to Dennis Calow at Vanished Leicester

Biggs Tannery.
Thanks to Dennis Calow at Vanished Leicester

ChrisMaloney

British Shoe Corporation. Thanks to http://www.geograph.org.uk

Kay Maloney

Foxes Glacier Mints

Sheila Sullvan

The General Hospital. Thanks to http://www.renal.org/

Don Nolan

Dunlop building. Thanks to movehut.co.uk

 Jo Cusack 

Northbridge Engineering. Thanks to pankl.com

George Corry  

The Hillcrest hospital. Thanks to http://www.fapgene.com/hillcrest

 Josie Silk

The Towers Hospital. Thanks to http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/

Patricia Morton

Imperial Typewriters. Thanks to http://www.bbc.co.uk/

Chris Conlon

The collieries of Ellistown.

Norren Jones

Cherub's.Thanks to Colin Hyde.

Thanks to Colin Hyde for the photos: East Midlands Oral History Archive

Vanished Leicester is part of a fantastic resource, My Leicestershire , which is part of The East Midlands Oral History archive 

If you'd like to be involved contact us on 0116 276 9186 or pop in to:
The Emerald Centre, Gipsy Lane, Leicester. LE5 OTB

We're now also on Twitter: follow me on  @irishleicester

Click here to view a map of The Irish in Leicester.

Mere Rd

John and Annie Moran lived at 54, and then 52, Mere Rd. Anne Moran (nee King) was from Dublin City and John Moran was from the Kilkelly and Midfield area of County Mayo, north of Knock and Castlebar, south of Charlestown. John had been over here a little while, working his way down the country in various mines. He stayed in St. Helen’s for a while but stopped moving around when he got to Leicester and worked at collieries in the south of Leicester, such as Ellistown.  Annie (nee King) had been looking after her mother back home until her younger sister “took over” which allowed her the freedom to come here. She came to do her nurse training at The General Hospital and lived in the nurse’s accommodation. She would later have to leave there when she got married as it was only for single women.

Humberstone Gate

John and Annie met at a dance at the Secular Hall, Humberstone Gate and later went back to Dublin to marry in 1946. They had 3 sons: Pat, John and Brien. Pat and John were born in a flat at 33 Lincoln St: Brien, at a bigger house at 88 Upper Conduit St. The house on Upper Conduit St. was owned by the butcher next door and they shared a yard with the shop and another family, the Howards and their son Frankie at No. 86. Brien remembers the Callaghans at 104 Upper Conduit St, who they were related to on his mother’s side, and was best friends with one of the Flannery’s, Rob, on Lincoln St.

When the Morans moved to Mere Rd they first lived at no. 54 which they rented from an English lady. The woman at 52 moved out when her husband died and John and Annie moved the family next door! This house was owned by a lady who lived on the South coast. Mr Quinn of Waring Street had worked at a firm of solicitors who managed the rent collection from the Morans at 54 and then 52 Mere Road. Both of these houses were owned by the same person.

The Jolly Miller was a kind of “local Irish embassy” where strangers to Leicester would arrive and find about work, lodgings and to find friends and family.

John remembers going out to the shop but refusing to take Brien with him: Brien went anyway and got lost. Annie had the neighbours and police out looking for him before he was brought home by the police! He also remembers Roger Iceson who lived two doors down. The house was one of those that had a large shop front window and inside he had a great model railway set.

John remembers that Anna Feeney, a neighbour the same age as him, would come to pick him and Pat up in the morning and they would walk down Upper Conduit St, meet Mrs. Veal and other children on the corner of Berner’s St and on to Scared Heart School. Mrs Veal was a formidable and well known teacher there.

Living so close to the railway station gave the boys plenty to do: Pat and John would go train spotting down on the platforms of London Rd station. Everyone would cut through a pedestrian walk way from Hutchinson St to Swain St. bridge: it was called 'The Bird Cage' as there was a pet shop on the corner and the boys would look through the gaps in the wooden slats running along the mesh fence to see the trains and identify the numbers. They would also go down to the Rally Banks at the bottom of Beal St. Rally Banks overlooked the locomotive sheds and was a good location for recording loco numbers.

There was a kind of shed that would hold amateur film shows that local kids would pay to go to see, this was opposite the fish and chip shop and next was a grocers and the Co-op.

If you'd like to be involved contact us on 0116 276 9186 or pop in to: 

The Emerald Centre, Gipsy Lane, Leicester. LE5 OTB

We're now also on Twitter: follow me on  @irishleicester or join The Irish in Leicester group on Facebook.

Click here to view a map of The Irish in Leicester.