As I gather stories from The Irish in Leicester the conversation inevitabley turns to the clubs and pubs that we would gather in for the drink, the music, the camaraderie and the craic. I hear about lots: The Jolly Miller, The Hare and Hounds, The JFK, The Corn Exchange, The Highfields Working Men's club and so many more buy unfortunately I have very few photos of any of them apart from the ones here of St. Pat's club, The Palais and The Secular Hall. I'd really like to begin to gather more stories and photos about the clubs and pubs so please do get in touch if you have any.
St. Pat's.
Jimmy and Benny McEneaney
Upstairs Bar. Jim Stretton wearing the St.Patrick's tug of war shirt.
Doug McCarthy with the pool cue, Mick Shearer in the background,right, with the dark shirt and Patsy Feeney in the foreground, white shirt.
The Palais
Etta and Patrick at The Palais.
The Secular Hall
Humberstone Gate.
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.
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As part of Leicester's Heritage Open Days yesterday I visited The Secular Hall on Humberstone Gate. It's the kind of building that we walk past everyday, forgetting to look up at and appreciate. It's drenched in a history of radicalism and free thinkers but I must admit my main motivation was to get inside the place where some of you said you drank, dance and for John and Annie Moran, even met your wives and husbands to be. The Hall was actually a key part of the dancing scene in the 1950's and 60's
In you go...
Up the stairs...
Nearly there...
and dance!
You may have popped in here to touch up your hair and lipstick...
...or even sat on one of these Gimson benches to rest your feet in between dances.
I don't know if my own parents ever went dancing at The Secular Hall but I got a lump in my throat walking up those steps thinking that they might have done.
Did you or your parents ever dance here?
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This account of a St Patrick's day procession and the good times to be had around the Royal East St/Abbey Steet area comes from a lovely member of the Irish community in Leicester.
The day was March 17th 1935 and a St. Patrick’s flag waved proudly over the mean, close pack of streets surrounding St. Patrick’s Church, Royal East St. Oh, the magic in the air as the crowd swirled around before entering church for the special St. Patrick’s day mass. Carr’s button factory, on the opposite side of Royal East St, had allowed any Irish the day off and the rest of the workforce peeped out of the doorways and available windows, interested and excited by the patriotic fervour across the way.
I was seven at the time and had been diligently practicing the Kyrie, the Agnus Die and the Sanctus in Latin. I was a proud member of the choir; dressed in a green velvet dress and matching green beret made by my aunt. I definitely still remember the magic of it all: the whole day was filled with feasting, drinking, of course, and music that lives with me forever.
My mother was a fine singer and “Kathleen Mavorneen” was her special song. My Dad’s cousin Martin was steward at the club: his special song was “Irish Manufacture” the story of a salesman going around promoting Irish goods. Granny had two special songs: “The hat my father wore” and “If I had the wings of a swallow”. At St Patrick's club, Paul’s regular was “County Armagh”: Peggy’s: “The Croppy Boy.”
We lived and breathed Irish culture as children and knew every song from “Mistral Boy” to “The Old Bog Road.”
Though a mixture of nationalities inhabited the surrounding area, the Irish and the feel of Ireland were predominant. One priest, a Father Parle, was beloved by the whole population in that area. A big strapping Irishman in his prime, and a rugby player, he organised the May and June processions through the streets of Leicester carrying the Blessed Sacrament under a canopy up to the Town Hall square where he would conduct Benediction. Sadly he died suddenly, only in his thirties. The whole area went into mourning regardless of religion; the crowds surrounded the area weeping.
This area around Royal East St./Abbey St. was peopled first by a trickle of Irish immigrants fleeing the famine and then onwards through the lean times in Ireland in the 20s, 30s and 40s.
At this time Leicester was a prosperous city, renowned for its cleanliness and its variety of manufacturing, particularly hosiery and shoes. Even in those days, Corahs and Wolsey were known world wide so Irish immigrants had no trouble finding work and were diligent and prized by their employers.
St Patrick's school, Royal East St.
On the social side, a parish hall was added to the side of the school and church in Royal East St. which was eventually licensed and became the St. Patrick’s club.
The club became the mecca of the newly arrived immigrants over the years. Here they felt at home and everyone knew everyone so the area retained and embellished its Irishness.
As the years rolled by new Catholic churches were built and the social life of the Irish in Leicester widened out. St. Joseph’s had its parish priest, Father Leahy, who organised the building of a huge church on the site of a stable on the corner of Goodwood/Uppingham Rd: he always drew great crowds to his dances.
Mr. Joseph Willis ran an Irish dance on Saturday or Sunday nights at the Secular Hall, Humberstone Gate. Sacred Heart Hall was also a popular venue.
Meanwhile, when the old St. Patrick’s church school was closed the old club was replaced by a new one facing the, now widened Abbey St. and St Margaret’s bus station. The new bus station replaced all those terraced houses and mean streets that once bustled with life that today’s citizens could never compete with. There was faith, love, loyalty, neighbourliness and tolerance that today’s Leicester would never understand. Irish humour lay over all.
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.
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