Life in Cricklewood, 2003
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- Опубликовано: 25 июл 2023
- An extract from a ‘Prime Time Investigates’ programme looking at the neglect of generations of economic migrants. These Irish people are forgotten by the country of their birth and often ignored by their adopted home.
In this extract Frank and Seamus two Irish men who emigrated over thirty years ago talk about their circumstances now living in London.
Seamus and Frank walking from their house in the Cricklewood area of London. Reporter Paul Rouse explains that for years Seamus and Frank worked on building sites all across London but their generation are now replaced by migrants from Eastern Europe.
A house is shown in Cricklewood, London that’s shared by eight Irishmen. Seamus’ rent of £85 per week is paid by the local council to his Irish landlord. Seamus and Frank drink cider in Seamus’ squalid bed-sit. Another Irishman called Billy talks to them from door. Seamus has lived here for 8 years, there is now no light, heat, or running water.
Seamus, says there was electricity and gas but the landlady pulled the gas out. He says he is not receiving welfare. He says the lads are good to me, between that and the skips I’m surviving, they know I’ll bounce back.
Seamus shows the camera a wind up radio which he describes, as his best friend. Asked about his future he says, “I’m bang on 50. I don’t really know you know? I’m livin day to day, if Celtic win I’m happy, if they lose I’m depressed. That is about the size of it. I’d love to get out of this room, please God.”
Frank who is from, County Longford describes his flat consisting of a double-bed, a cooker and sink which doesn’t work, and no hot water. He says his landlady wants £95 per week. He says there was a rat here recently, but the landlady says if you get the rat catcher out you pay him. I’m not paying him, I worked all my life, paid all my taxes, now look where I’m stuck, after all my work. Says when he was mugged and fell on hard times and he had an awful struggle getting few pound out of this government.
Frank’s room is decorated with Irish flags, maps and trinkets.
“There is lot of paraphernalia here belonging to Ireland. I had to leave it but my heart is still there. My heart is still there that is why all the paraphernalia is up there. Why wouldn’t it? I don't no how to say it..I had to leave it but I want to die in it.” 
Развлечения
There’s a plaque in the famed Sacred Heart Church in Kilburn. It reads “To the memory of the forgotten Irish of this city”. I used to see all these poor old fellas around Kilburn High Road and it broke your heart to see the state some of them lived in. My mother used to invite them round to dinner every Sunday- men who had nobody and nothing, and for that couple of hours they could enjoy warmth and a clean home and a good meal surrounded by all the fun of family life. My mother was a true living saint and her generosity has shaped all our lives.
Godbless your dear Mother 💚🇮🇪
Your dear Mother was a saint!
💚🤍🧡
God bless your Mother.
Never forget the Irish Subbies ruined these men.
Worked them to the bone, hoodwinked them and dumped them when they were too old and ill.
Good bless her! We need more people like that
The two gentlemen have actually brought me to tears. The Irish landlord 'one of their own ' £95 for no water, electricity or gas. Respect for the forgotten men, women and children x
It’s happening to our own at home in Ireland now 😢
$pending all their money on Alcohol.
Booze & cigarettes are expensive.
Young men these days have no idea the strength and bravery these
2 men (seamus, frank) Men had!!
I will always be grateful to our older generation of drunken Irish
Men and the others who joined us in these
'Bed$it cider' wars.
'Bed$it Bandits'
@@benlotus2703sure they should be eating in local restaurants and drinking at the country clubs, you absolute 🤡
@@benlotus2703😂
The Irish Men that came to England and were treated really badly while they Worked very hard for there wages and Never claimed any Benifits They Built Britain God bless the Irish Men 💚🇮🇪
Drank their wages.
Cider & ciggies!
!
Treated badly by their own.. Most Irishmen are ignorant pigs to work for!!
They were feckless layabouts - now financed by the the likes of me - built Britain my arse
That’s strange,people keep telling me it was the “black people built Britain”
@@mjh5437Not the blacks at all. The Irish did it all. When do you see black men on building sites? They have no interest in hard work for little money.
My dad was Irish and really he should have moved back to Ireland, he'd have been at peace if he did but he got zero help, makes me sick to go to Ireland and see the people they help
Asians and Africans and Arabs are the only ones to get help in Ireland now.
It amazes me how the boat migrants are housed immediately and these blokes struggled in terrible conditions and on top of it the hardest working blokes you can meet
This was a hard watch. I really feel for them as they needed help in better housing and for addiction. I hope they found help. God Bless them.
You'd think at their age theyd have gotten over leaving Ireland. I've been in the UK 16 years and I'm more at home here than in Dublin. I have a medical condition, just to show as an example, and some of the people in the village I live in bring me dinner and soup.take me shopping etc. because I struggle to physically look after myself. Leaving the local shop tonight the woman behind the counter said if I needed anything tonight she was heading into lancaster and could pick stuff up for me. Going out of her way to help. I recently spent 3 weeks in hospital and was treated like a king. Salt of the earth folk here, Lancaster, north west. I will die here and have no intention of going back to the green sod. This is home
Some of finest men I ever worked with where true English always looked after a good worker. Paddy the contractor was a bastard and as a younger man I fought many of them just to get my pay. One bastard owed me 3200€ lot of money in 83 he had me arrested as a IRA man and held in custody for six weeks before charges were dropped. And I tell you now I paid him his brother his house car and even took his dog back in treble I even trebled what I was owed. He left for Berlin because his name became shite to this day. That’s the life we lived.
@@janet4021 Yes it’s terrible and I know many personally and there build in endless sadness in them, stuck in different time maybe you could like I send a few euro’s to the countless Irish charities in the U.K then your comment would be more than wasteful words.
@@patkearney9320 They are the same the world over. The Englishman is the best to work with and work for.
They never took the irish out of their heads. Played the role of the "mad Paddy" etc. The downfall of many Irish who leave Ireland.
@@greatest7391 exactly. The mad paddy...ie the fuckin idiot.
I suspect that Seamus is the same lad who was interviewed by Brian O’Connell in his book about alcoholism, “Wasted: A Sober Journey through Drunken Ireland”. In it, Seamus, also from Co. Mayo, describes how he was engaged to a Kerrywoman, who would only marry him if he would give up the drink, but he couldn’t do it. The same squalid conditions are described, with Seamus adding that most of his friends, also Irish labourers, were dead. Drink dependency is a terrible thing.
This reminds me of the 2007 movie “Kings” starring Colm Meaney and Brendan Conroy. It’s in Irish, with subtitles, and takes place in London. A group of young lads had come over together from Connemara in the 70’s, some do well for themselves financially, but most have lives like the men in this video clip. Tugs at the heartstrings.
Yes the problem lies in the boredom of renting a room and looking at the same 4 walls. People seek sanctuary and company in pubs and then the slippery slide 🛝 begins
I’m truly saddened thinking of the one’s life left behind
Kings of the high road a true story for many a paddy.
Literally moved to London the same year myself in my early 20's. I'll be these guys age in a few years now but life has been better to me over here thankfully.
Hope both these boys eventually found there way home 🏡
I hope so too x☘
God bless all who struggle with economic conditions rich men construct.
From people who empathize and have compassion.
Western NC sends you good wishes
Lived and worked in London, only people who ever tried shafting me ( pay) was Irishmen.. No English contractor didn't pay. Also avoided Cricklewood/Kilburn, in fact never set foot in it..Met plenty of Irishmen like this on sites, unfortunately their stories were similar, always shafted by their own. Irish pubs cashing cheques (for a fee) and of course credit until Friday..
Good point mate ,been in the same situation myself,not saying all Irish in the building trade were like that,however a large minority was.Got shafted by a Irish run driveway firm in Neasdon a few years ago.
I was often told: the worst person you'll meet there is an Irish man who thinks he's English
@pmacc3557 nice say of turning it around mate ,I got told there is nothing worse than a Pikey claiming to be Irish.
@pmacc3557 my Grandad told me this very same thing when I was a kid when we moved over here in the early 80s
@@itdontmeannothingnotathing3385 I can well believe it
I worked in London from83 then moved on to Berlin now back home I was lucky. Kilburn was the soul of the Irish and we would drink are wages over the weekend. Was fine time in my life but being young is always fine I feel so sorry for the odd paddy still there.
Went to London for a year worked 5 jobs & never seemed to have a penny to spare after paying rent etc one year was enough for me 🙏🏼
Its the same for everyone why didnt you buy a house and rent it to your own shit on them to get on thats the irish sucess story in london big shit bellied sub contractors shited on thier own for a car a tart and a doss houses to rent back to the people who broke thier holed working cor them they still are about today just the lables have changed ie . Contracts manager work facillataor scocail worker doss house manager the people at yhe bottom always get short changed by thier own who want lifestyles they se they want they have to have wanting bastards
Heartbreaking 💔
I’m so sad for these poor people
No harm in these men,not rough men
If it hadn't been for the squalor in cricklewood in the the 1990s I probably would still be there, thank God I came home after 2 years
It's not two late for them to come home,an start a new life,Im sure they would be more than welcome in there home town🙏God love them🙏
No way would they be better here , look at how much its changed for the worse , kip & corrupt as a muddy pool . None of my friends will come back to live . It's a contradiction this country. I was born in the 60s . Seen how nasty the powers that be can lower themselves to . Ah sure its where they came from.
Only welcome if they are young Muslim men. Unfortunately that's what's happening all over Ireland. One got life yesterday for beheading 2 Irish men.
I think they are better off with the memory of Ireland than the heartbreak 💔 of seeing the reality of what it has become
The traitor irish government doesn't want them here they are white irish!
The video is 20 years old probably pushing up daisies at this stage
One of their own 😔 how depressing.
The Irish treated their own like dogs!
And did so with glee
And still are bullshit experts how much they care caring shareing cunts dont fall for their old rubber what they ll do for you its what they sqeeze out of you as good as take your life im irish and i cant look at the irish with any trust enslave thier own for fucking money
hope they are doing better now.
Hope they made it home
I hope so too but I fear they haven't x
And the situation has become 10 times worse today
It's not fair really. These men would be in their 70's now. They should be brought home to Ireland and resettled, before all and sundry coming in. They love Ireland 😢
@@finolaomurchu8217 Bad nutrition,smoking and drinking hard to say if they're still around 20 years later.
@@finolaomurchu8217 it appears Ireland would prefer to settle the newcomers rather than look after their own. Second richest country in the European Union!! What a shame!
@@maryfox7440 The Irish never fared well with London run plantations....now we have a Brussels one.
not all Irishmen Drink Or live in bedsits!or. Keep their accomodation in a mess attracting rats !My father worked in london and Took care of himself !was respected and lived in a boarding house in Willesdon green ! Where the owner looked after their meals They would do their own cleaning and laundry on a Saturday we lived in Dublin and My father sent any money earned home by postal order ! He was a painter and decorater a carpenter and builder and a jack of all trades an amazing singer and artist , he worked for Irish and English the English were more racist towards the Irish !but he earned respect with his hard work ! He died in Australia after being attacked by racist painters and Dockers workers, He suffered a major heart attack !We are a strong and proud people and not aways represented in a proper way These men show a down trodden side to the Irish worker ,The lonely drinker in a squalid place lonely and homesick and there were plenty of squalid high priced rentals in Britain ! Not all It was cracked up to be! nor was Australia may people failed after coming here !
and a lot of us done well also!
Exactly im here fifty years and most of the Irish bought their own property some of them are the biggest contractors in London and are doing well these people portray Irish in a bad way they are gust into the drink and think that the world owes them a living
@@paddyman2796some are alcoholic and that's a disease, never be too quick to judge
load of bollocks
The drink has these lads pickled. The question is did the serious drinking come before losing the job or did losing job come before spiralling into alcoholism?
The lads worked hard and drank hard and as soon as the work dried up the drinking continued but now you have no work to go to.
@@tonemc6047 But the work didn't dry up did it? I've family and friends in London and there has always been work. I suppose depends on the contacts you have, how good you are at your work and most importantly how reliable you are at turning up on time and every day. Unfortunately heavy drinking has ruined many an Irish man at home and abroad.
@@dublinsfaircity u are one hundred percent right it's up yourself to make it but the drink controls them they should control the drink gust looking for excuses
Hopelessness. These lads are lost. Poor men. Irish landlords. Unbelievably sad.
@dublinsfaircity But as the presenter says an influx of Eastern Europeans who worked longer hours for less pay put a lot of fellas out of work,and alot of the time it's not what you know but who you know.
Finding work on construction sites is a young and fit mans game,and when drink gets a hould of you till surely make u lame.
And when a man can't earn his pay he's just passed and left aside,
But come home they don't for the shame they won't swallow with their pride 🙏🙏🙏🙏to all the men & Women who lost their way round the streets of England 💔🙏☘️🇮🇪
So sad the landlords should be ashamed of themselves. To all those Brave men who built England and have been forgotten Blessings of Peace & love to ye. Our Government should be helping these Irish men to return home if they wish to.
Your own are always the worst ! Poor lads …I remember as a 18 year old in London as a bar man , I was struck by the drink problem of so many of my fellow countrymen. I would see the older generation on pension/ welfare day and not again until next one. I left for Australia at 20 ! I never looked back but I often think of them.
Wise lad
Thank you love..it's heartbreaking..our men built London, now it's sad they're still there with no work. It's hard being in London it's a shame our government doesn't help their people instead of strangers. xxx
Is there no rights for tenants in London?
@@maryfox7440 did you watch it?
No shame in helping strangers. These men were strangers once.
@@eod1675 it's shameful how these men are been treated. Charity begins at home.
@@eibhlinnichrualoai no
Jesus I'm a fully grown man and that broke me.. rarely cry but jesus christ almighty he said it from the bottom of his soul didn't he
Ah poor Frank and seamus your heart ♥ would go out to them
Its hard to look at these fellas, They should go back home for sure! I would be in the same situation myself if I had not met the strong woman who made me cop on!
Hear ya
Geez, those Irish land Lords don't treat their own too well, very sad
How heartbreaking god love them 😢😢😢🙏🙏🙏💔💔💔❤️❤️❤️
We're all foreign somewhere and we all have issues, Irish or not
Based
A whole generation who were butchered and damned.
Hope there still alive
So very sad. Men, we're thrown on the trash heap as soon as the world is done with us.
Bet it stinks in there ?
Actually in 2003 the economy in the UK and particularly in London was strong. The commentator in this video wrongly asserts that the eastern Europeans had arrived to take the jobs of Seamus and his pals. This is factually incorrect as it would be several years before the Poles and Romanians arrived. The point being, Seamus and his buddies should have been out working instead of drinking in their bedsits and collecting benefits of the UK taxpayer.
A bit harsh that. What has happened (and in many industries) is that past a certain age (50?) you're not going to get work. Modern society.
@@londonEnglishVideos Actually thought it was quite a telling video generally. When you scrape away the usual anti English biases what did you actually have? Other immigrants (Eastern Europeans) being cited as responsible for the lack of job opportunities. Irish people exploiting other Irish people by stripping them of basic amenities and letting them live in squalor. And of course at the bottom of it all very real alcoholism.
It's too easy to blame the English for everything, that's why it's such a common pastime. England could never provide work for the whole of Europe at the end of the day and nobody was any more entitled to it than then next man once the borders were flung completely open. What once benefited the Irish labourer couldn't be denied the Pole or the Romanian.
Whoever the landlords were here ought to be ashamed of themselves. It just shows that exploitation is deep in the human psyche and doesn't have a nationality. Uncomfortable but true.
These lads had clearly had an extremely hard life and found refuge in the drink. Without knowing their whole story, you can understand why. Amidst that suffering they still found some common comforts from those of them who had the least. Other Irish lads with nothing, sharing a drink with them here and there.
It kind of had it all and said a lot about humanity in the process.
No money fir gas but money fir cider cmin i know what ud rayher get wuth my few bob
to think who we are housing now in ireland would make you cry for these men.
It's criminal
Shameful! I left England many years ago thank God
That's the sort of attitude that resulted in signs like 'no blacks, no dogs, no Irish' in England. The fucked up system we live in now depends on gobshites like you who are willing to attack people who are very little different to ourselves. Grow the fuck up.
I know it's desperate.
Why cry for them when they spend their money on fags and drink, they are wasters.
Them boys would lie on the floor if there was work in the bed there was always plenty work in London why don't they do a programme on the men that made it
These boys got fond of the drink and between missing days and sick from the booze employer's got rid of them eventually nobody wanted them.
Fed up of these programmes based on a small number of people that let drink get the better of them, do programmes on the people that worked their way in life to make their life better, I've come across same kind of people as in the video nothing but a nightmare,you get them a job they won't turn up ,if they do turn up all they want is money for drink ,you won't see them the next day, all ways looking for the sympathy factor, nothing but a pain in the head when you have to deal with them ,stay well clear.
@@proudman6598 you are one hundred percent right it shows the Irish in a bad light these people think the world owns them a living
Should come home, claim to be Ukrainian or north african. Theyd have a modular home,medical card and every other benefit you can think of inside 24 hours.
idiot
@@slaneysidewhy call him an idiot, he's telling the truth
@@jackthelad15 jog tf on jack
civil war coming soon
Abused by there own shame on ye irish who taught they were better then someone else
Damn, Gendalf what the hell happened to you?!
They spent it all on booze, and at the end of the day thats the price they pay,the clever one is the Irish land lord,who invested in property 😂😂😂
Shame on you
I hope you never fall on hard times yourself. ☹️
Landlady should be jailed for mistreatment of her tenants. This is third world Behavior!
You ignorant pig . The land lord probably drinks too . Only he drinks the best Bushmills . The money grabber.
There but for fortune go you or I.
Maybe if Seamus and Frank didn't squander all their money they wouldn't have been looking for the sympathy card.
Where's your compassion? Nasty comment!
Disgusting comment!
Saw the same in New York and drink was a massive factor.
@@Scotia6261 well yeah you'd expect shit treatment of lowly working class men in "the land of the free"
@@slaneysideAll self inflicted lad.
God bless ye lad ❤
What year is this?
The video title has 2003 (possibly updated since your comment).